Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tektronix!tekig5!wayneck From: wayneck@tekig5.TEK.COM (Wayne Knapp) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: How 'Bout HyperCard! Message-ID: <2768@tekig5.TEK.COM> Date: 16 May 88 19:26:15 GMT References: <15372@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <31411@linus.UUCP> <5324@cup.portal.com> <1997@sugar.UUCP> Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. Lines: 133 In article <1997@sugar.UUCP>, karl@sugar.UUCP (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: > In article <2755@tekig5.TEK.COM>, wayneck@tekig5.TEK.COM (Wayne Knapp) writes: > > 1. Simple is better, specail hardware can give great results but often makes > > programs hard to write/modify/create. I prefer simple hardware that is > > flexible and fast. ... > > ... True power is in ideas not hardware. . > So in the meantime, workstations and Mac IIs are the only machines that > come close to the power to have remotely reasonable windowing performance > without a blitter. Hey, you know, the blitter's not that hard to program, > I mean, you can call C routines that say "move this rectangle in this raster > from here to here" or "move this memory from here to here and perform > this simple masking function on it" or draw a line from here to here. Those > are the kinds of functions you're going to be doing anyway, and when you can't > use the blitter, you can always use the CPU. Therefore, a blitter is an > accelerator of common display (and other) functions. The argument that > it is restrictive to have such an accelerator, when its presence can be made > invisible to the programmer, is facetious. Not true. I think that the common Mac, Atari ST and Amiga have enough power to do a lot, you don't have to have a Mac II, Sun 3/60 or whatever. In fact the Mac, ST and Amiga were the first machines that really oftered a lot power for the price. In my view they are the first machines that one does not have to use hardware tricks to get the job done. What I'm saying don't write code for the machine today write it to last. Make the code easy to port and put effort into the concept of the code. Sometimes one must use hardware to get the job done but if you do that hide it from the bulk of the code. If you can live without the blitter then write some low level routines that hide the blitter and it's data structure from the real code. I can tell you from real experience - code that uses things like a hardware blitter is HARD to port. Instead of taking the easy way out look at the problem, solve it instead of brute forcing it, then you'll have code to be prode of! Often things like bitters are not needed to get great preformance! > > 2. I hate to wait for computers. > > Buy a Cray. The point is, you can only buy as much performance as you can > afford. Also, too bad you dismiss the blitter: A $550 Amiga 500 will > knock the socks off of a Mac II manipulating windows, something most of > us spend a whole lot of time doing. This is my whole point. People who one use one computer have often have blinders on. An Amiga doesn't even keep up with a standard Mac let alone than Mac II. I've used then side by side I know. The Amiga should be better than a wimpy standard Mac but often it isn't. I don't program that much on Mac's, I don't even like Apple but I really respect what Apple has done with the Mac software. The Mac os is as far above the Amiga in richness and robustness as the Amiga os is above the Atari ST os. Of coarse I'm not talking about multi-taking here but the Mac also has good solutions for multi-taking. Even the Atari ST can do reasonable mutli-tasking. Multi- tasking just isn't that hard and there are many ways to do it. Come on the Amiga can be better than a Mac - it is more powerful, more flexible and cheaper, but it just isn't there yet. This is what I mean the power is in ideas not hardware. Good programs with shine without the hardware and soar when given the right hardware. (I'm not a fool - I know the graphics and sound on a standard Amiga kill a standard Mac's. That is why I own an Amiga, still what has been done on a standard Mac is impressive!) Take good Mac software and put it on a Mac II, the results can be breath taking. My chanage is not to give up the Amiga but for people to right the same kind of great code for the Amiga. Good sound code can really out preform hardware. Then the good code on good hardware is a true winner. Don't depend of hardware to get the job done. Soon the Amiga may be replaced with a machine that has twice the power (without specail hardware) for 1/2 the price. (Maybe even in a couple years) Good code will port easy and soar, hardware dependent code will port hard and often just fade away. Use your heads program great code and make the Amiga a winner! > > > 3. I hate to have to guess at why something isn't working. > > Memory protection and an operating system to use it, then? Guru errors, come on. By the by the Atari ST is also awful weak here, but at least it is easy to put is printf's. At least both machines are getting source level debuggers now, but in honestly both are far behind the Mac and IBM pc in tools. > > [Long chart comparing Amiga, Apple Mac, Atari ST & IBM PC deleted] > > Naah, your chart is hosed. You substitute Mac II in everywhere for the > Mac to get A's for the Mac in performance, resolution, expandability, > but not price, which for most of us makes the II "removed from consideration." > If you separated the two, Mac would receive poor or OK marks for speed, > expandability, graphics resolution and number of colors and Mac II would > be F+ on price, not that it's a bad deal, just that it's a lot of money. Probably true, after all the chart was just my viewpoint. > > C+ for price on Amiga? Come on. B- for Amiga speed vs B for Atari ST? > We're not talking absolute CPU cycles here, except in the rarest cases, > we're talking "How fast is it to use the machine?" and if you use the two > machines to actually DO anything, I mean like click open drawers and move > windows around and run real programs, you'll never notice the 11% faster > CPU clock: the Amiga just blows the ST away. (I, too, own both.) > Huh, I own both an Amiga 1000 and Atari ST. I'm porting Amiga code to the Atari right now. I often run then side by side. I know that the are many factors in speed but seldom does the Amiga beat the Atari. I think a lot of the Amiga speed loss is due to memory use. Maybe if I put a couple megs of memory on the Amiga it would inprove a lot but as it is now a 512k Atari kills a 512k Amiga, no doult about it. Also I never seen disk drives as slow as the Amiga's. A the Amiga graphics and sound often beat the ST's thought, but not it's speed. The Amiga should be faster but it isn't. It really fustrates me! So come on lets write better code for the Amiga! > > ... It shows that many Amiga programmers have great telent. > > Yes. The machine has attracted many great programmers. > > > Remember the machine is useless with out > > the programmers. No machine can stand on it's own, it is mainly what people > > other people instead of respecting the machine. > > Sort of... OK, it is mainly what people have done with the machine, but > it's also what the machine can do. HAM was a curiosity when the Amiga first > came out, but thanks to the foresight of its creators, it became very, very > useful when DigiView, and finally HAM paint programs and utilities, came out. HAM can be great and HAM can also be a real pain. I'd like to have 6 real bit planes than HAM. Or how about 8 real bit planes. Sure that would have been a better use of some of that speical hardware. > So it takes both a good machine and good programmers, and you fail to make > note of the part a powerful machine plays in attracting good programmers. After years of buying, programming and using mirco's I don't think there is any logic as to why programmers like one machine and not another. People are different I guess is the only reason. I heard great points for all machines. Wayne Knapp