Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!rochester!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!uhnix1!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: BADGE contest suggestions Message-ID: <3009@sugar.uu.net> Date: 21 Nov 88 17:04:15 GMT References: <5299@louie.udel.EDU> <8653@gryphon.COM> <2983@sugar.uu.net> <2312@cadovax.UUCP> Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston, TX Lines: 101 In article <2312@cadovax.UUCP>, keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) writes: > In article <2983@sugar.uu.net> peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: > > "The program must run to completion and either exit cleanly or > >provide an obvious method for exiting cleanly". > 1. I'm mainly talking about people who don't know *how* to do it, not those > who wouldn't bother with it. Well, they're going to need to learn how to do it or write tool based applications. > 2. A lot of commercial games violate these rules, not always for copy > protection, but many times because they want to use the hardware in such a > way that AmigaDOS won't allow. I see no reason to prohibit this. I don't believe this. AmigaOS goes to great lengths to provide ways for people to selectively turn parts of it off and on again. For example, TRACERS grabs the mouse port... but it gives it back to you when the game is over or if you pause the game. It's not that hard to do things the right way. > For example, one of Jim Sach's 20,000 leagues demos boots up *instantly* from a > boot disk which isn't even DOS format. Good thing he didn't enter something > like that in the contest, eh? I understand Electronic Arts did attempt to enter something like that in the contest and were rebuffed. > In other words, instead of the "purest of hackers" we're saying "you must > have access to a compentant developer who has time and interest to help > you". Sounds pretty close to me. Or you can make it a tools based demo. I don't believe that anyone with the skill to write a killer program will lack the skill to write a clean one. > >Certainly the people responsible for the Sculpt and Videoscape driver > >programs should have been competant to make them exit cleanly on demand. > So do they? Nope. > If they don't, then who in the contest is penalized when > demos produced with them aren't obeying the rules? The Amiga fans and dealers who have to apologise for having to reboot the machine all the time while they're showing the demos to friends and potential customers. > Who is penalized when > the reason they don't meet one of the rules is due to an OS or compiler > bug over which they have little control? I wrote an entry in the contest and as far as I know there are no compiler or operating system bugs that would keep you from meeting the rules. > > >are going to spend more time apologising for them then showing them. > > DF1:" and "reboot after running" that shouldn't be too hard for them to figure > out. Rebooting a multitasking machine is evil and rude. That's the domain of PC-ware, and hides one of the biggest advantages the Amiga has over other personal computers. > BTW, again, if ShowANIM leaves the workbench in interlace when done, should > a contestant who used VideoScape 3D be penalized because he didn't know that > Hash Enterprises had a Display program that perhaps runs cleaner? No, but the people at BADGE who packed the disks for shipping should have. I'm not going to quote the rest of the letter... just mention that Interlace is already handled by the Amiga software on a screen-by-screen basis. If a program opens an interlaced custom screen it'll work correctly with any other combination of programs that open interlaced custom screens. It's not that hard to follow the rules. I was certainly not an expert Amiga programmer a year ago. I don't know if I am one now. I have found that in general all you need to do to follow the rules is stick to Intuition. If you need to take over some resource, TELL THE SYSTEM ABOUT IT, and GIVE IT BACK. That's all. Simple enough? > The average Amiga owner doesn't even know how to edit his startup-sequence, > perhaps they should have bought an ST or a Mac? We're not talking about your average Amiga owner... we're talking about programmers. Any non-tool-based entry in the contest was by definition written by a programmer. Try writing a program on a Mac or an ST some time. I have... and it's WAY harder to write a well-behaved program in those environments. MAC programs have to be basically written as device drivers, and on the ST any program that wants to do ordinary I/O and survive a ^C has to reprogram the keyboard controller or write an interrupt handler for the ^C interrupt. -- Peter da Silva `-_-' peter@sugar.uu.net Have you hugged U your wolf today? Disclaimer: My typos are my own damn busines#!rne