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From: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Programming MS-Windows vs. Amiga (Re: resource tracking)
Message-ID: <1990Mar7.172957.18884@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Date: 7 Mar 90 17:29:57 GMT
References: <1165@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> <5214@sugar.hackercorp.com> <23118@usc.edu> <5219@sugar.hackercorp.com> <23157@usc.edu> <261@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz> <3908@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Sender: usenet@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (The Network News)
Reply-To: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Organization: Columbia University
Lines: 42

In article <3908@nmtsun.nmt.edu> dksnsr@nmtsun.nmt.edu (Dino Khoe) writes:
>
>>>In article <5219@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>>3. 99% of the MS-Windows calls use "internal" data structures that you
>>>  cannot poke at directly. This is compared to the Amiga system in which
>>>  practically everything is "public", even things that shouldn't be (remember
>>>  all those IntuitionBase fields that were supposed to be private?).  This
>>>  results in less run-time crashes than on the Amiga.  I think this was a real
>>>  win for MS-Windows and I wish the Amiga was designed similarly.  We would
>>>  have less "hacks" and more stable and crash-free programs.
>
>If this is the case, I'm sure you would love a Mac...  You'll get your fill
>of "internal".  Much less try to program the thing...   Are you actually
>suggesting that the Amiga Intuition be written like MS-Windows???  If a
>programmer can "hack" the Intuition privates, so can they hack an MS-Windows
>system, even if it is indirect.  Stop crying, if you really love all the
>MS-DOS stuff... go play with it.
>

	Apparently you (you being Peter DaSilva) are missing the
advantage to the lack of protection: speed. Everyone complains about
how slow MS-Windows and OS/2 are. You need a '386 to use them
effectively but you then lose the speed advantages of a 386. Also, I
don't see people flying towards either of those OSes. To take
MS-Windows 386 as an example, unless things were changed in the
leatest version, you cannot multitask if you want to use a 386
program. Normal operations are limited to being 8086 compatible
(Norton called it an 80186?) and you are limited to either 640K or 1MB
of RAM (can't remember which). This makes Windows completely useless
to most businesses. To make things worse some programs have trouble
with the serial port under it.
	AmigaDOS works. It is VERY fast considering that it's a
multitasking OS. Telling you to stop whining is dumb, especially as I
don't think that is what you are doing. The poor reliability of many
Amiga programs is a real issue. However, there are programmers who are
coming out with clean code. Just ask before you buy and you'll do
fine!
	-- Ethan

Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
Compu$erve    : 70137,3271
Anyone giving away Amigas or Sharp Scanners???