Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!husc6!sri-unix!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!jade!eris!mwm From: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (No one lives forever.) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga good for hacking?? Message-ID: <2725@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Mon, 9-Mar-87 07:31:59 EST Article-I.D.: jade.2725 Posted: Mon Mar 9 07:31:59 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 10-Mar-87 22:30:06 EST References: <2719@well.UUCP> <2705@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <2729@well.UUCP> Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (No one lives forever.) Meyer) Distribution: world Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 71 In article <2729@well.UUCP> manx@well.UUCP (Jim Goodnow II) writes: >>In article <2719@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: >>>The Exec is the underlying and true core of the Amiga >>>OS, and it's wonderful. The DOS was written in England by MetaComCo, and >>>sucks rocks. ... >> >>Carefull, there - the stuff written in England is what provides all >>the nice message passing, library primitives, resource allocation and >>etc. that people like so much. ... > >NO! NO! NO! The EXEC does the nice stuff. AmigaDOS _only_ handles the file >system and the concept of processes. Let's give credit where credit is due. I've very carefully avoided digging into the guts of AmigaDOS (I spend far to much time in the guts of larger, uglier OS's as it is...). I asked C/A for a description of how AmigaDOS, the EXEC & TRIPOS fit together. The answer that came back was "TRIPOS and AmigaDOS are one and the same (essentially)." Someone from C/A care to correct that? If the EXEC is C/A work, it means they re-created the TRIPOS kernel (after all, the file system expects a specific kind of support; if a re-written EXEC doesn't provide it, then the file system must have been re-written), or are responsible for lots more than just the EXEC. >>Hmm - gee, that sounds like a subjective statement. I'll just point >>out that for porting code from Unix, Lattice is the better compiler to >>have (last time I looked, MANX wouldn't even pass as a v7 C compiler, >>much less anything modern). And that Lattice _does_ come with an >>assembler. From that, you should be able to decide how much trust to >>put in Mr. Schwab's compiler judgement. >> >The Manx compilers have supported structure assignment since the very >first compilers for the 8080 and the 6502 were shipped in 1982. When _was_ >the last time you looked? A couple of months ago. My understanding was that 3.20 didn't have such features, but that 3.40 would (does?). First check was before I had a compiler; I asked at the Commodore show in February of '86, and was told "no." So I "got a better compiler." >Leo may be a bit zealous in his judgement, but on the other hand, he does >spend a _lot_ of time programming the Amiga and has access to both compilers. True, I don't have access to both compilers. I have to base my opinions on what I hear from salespeople and people who use the compiler. From that, it appears that MANX is a slightly better compiler. As usual in such cases, whoever got the most recent release out tends to be slightly ahead, but the MANX releases occur more frequently. Certainly not enough better to justify buying a second C compiler for a hobby. Also not enough to justify slinging mud around on the net (I'll give Leo credit: that was meant to be a personal letter; he should have edited it before posting it to the net). Final comment: for porting code, which compiler will depend on what you're porting from. MANX apparently uses BSD-like libraries; Lattice is working on becoming ANSI standard, which means SysV-like libraries. Many of the problems over and above those are due to bogosity in the Unix code (try porting the v7 pack to _anything_; that was the first thing I tried feeding to a MANX compiler....). If the 32-bit int mode is now fully supported in MANX, then you won't need to fix a lot of them.