Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!rice!phil From: phil@rice.edu (William LeFebvre) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Software queries and comments Message-ID: <1748@kalliope.rice.edu> Date: 5 Aug 88 22:26:23 GMT Sender: usenet@rice.edu Reply-To: phil@rice.edu (William LeFebvre) Organization: Rice University, Houston Lines: 47 Greetings! I just recently got a little bit of extra money and I am looking into purchasing some more software for miAmiga (still haven't found a good name for her). So here are some random "production software" questions. I would greatly appreciate anyone answering them (via mail is sufficient). I remember someone mentioning recently an Amiga version of the old DECUS empire game. I know that EA has a game called "empire", but I'm pretty sure that this was different. Could someone refresh my memory? Big question: does it still let me do other things (or does it take ove the whole machine)? And what about the EA version of empire? Is it any good? Since EA puts it out it probably requires me to reboot to run it (taking over the whole machine). Am I right? I have not yet purchased any sort of paint program. Is DeluxePaint really worth getting? It probably takes over the machine, right? Am I right in my belief that Digi-Paint is more for editing/modifying pictures than it is for creating one from scratch? With 3 meg in my 2000, I give myself 100 disk buffers for the builtin cache. With that setup, and the imminent release of the fast file system for the floppies (doesn't that sound like an oxymron), is FACC still worth buying? Finally, a few comments about programs that take over the whole machine: Electronic Arts is well-known for this atrocity. I looked at Deluxe Music Construction Set at one point. I was really interested in purchasing it. It didn't have everything I wanted, but it would have been sufficient. Then I tried to pull the screen down. No dice. If it won't let me get back to my Workbench, then I don't want it. I feel the same way about my games---especially games that don't require a timed reaction (such as empire and solitare Shanghai). I don't want them. I do things in parallel, and I would primarily get such a game to keep me occupied while some other process churs away in the background (such as a TeX job or a download). Games like that won't let me. What a waste. But (sigh) I did have to make two exceptions: Marble Madness! and Earl Weaver Baseball. Why do commercial developers do that? It's throwing away one of the most useful things about the machine: the user's ability to do many things at once. My never-ending thanks to the people who wrote "Amoeba Invaders". Ya' did it right!!! William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University