🚀 go-pugleaf

Marc N. Barrett (barrett@iastate.edu) wrote:
> In article <CJo0EH.Bz@cs.vu.nl> apwouwe@cs.vu.nl (Wouwe van AP) writes:
> >Hardware isn't everything, as PC producers seem to think ( let's put in
> >a twin-486, with 25 megs of RAM, wel that should improve the capabilities a
> >bit...) The other advantages of the amiga are the easyness in which it is
> >programmed, and the great OS.

>     Here are a few things that the Amiga's OS lacks:

Hey Marc, why don't you counter his actual arguments re: the PC rather than
switch back to Amiga? Not that I mind, but it would make you post rather
more respectable. That way, it might have looked like you had something
constructive to add wrt his PC comments. (And I'm sure you really do.)

Some of what you *quoted* above, is suspect, the Amiga isn't alone in its
style of features of hardware, even on Intel/ISA/PC clones. (Rarely.)
Anyway, back to the Amiga:

>      Memory Protection
>      Virtual Memory

I sorely lament the lack of these two features in Amiga OS, but my needs are
atypical somewhat. 99% of Amiga owners with MMU capabilities I know don't
and certainly wouldn't need this. It would only really be needed if you wanted
to turn AmigaDos into some really Cool Unix-like OS. But ofcourse, if we are
talking about a `wish-list' Marc, well then....

>      Printer drivers (note 1)

The very fact that the OS still supports it just incase some decent driver
are accidentally written & used is still a bonus in this argument.
(Ie: it wouldnt take a change of OS if I decided to write a decent driver.)

>      Device-independent graphics

Isn't this RTG? Isn't this practically a sure thing, effectivly for a later
version of the OS? (No, don't answer that, we just can't rely on C=, we know
this, lets just hope and think of what might be. It would sort of fit in
with your `wish-list' as above.)

Atleast the independant makers of most 3rdParty 24bit cards et-al usually
have effective RTG for their own boards, and this effectively covers the
majority of users who would like a standard RTG. (This is discounting
ofcourse those who would then find RTG usefull if implemented as standard.
But who can really say for sure about that?)

>      Device-independent audio

I don't know if this is really so important, but anyway, if it was, what other
platform has such features? Is it an implementation that would be a good
example? Like, would it make Amiga audio any better, I am of the opinion that
this may not be the case possibly. (atleast, with Amiga programmers in mind.)

>      Resources (note 2)

I've seen and used MUI to agree that it is a nice idea that fails miserably.
This dosent mean the OS is totally lacking, MUI is a bit overboard, as the
OS may be a little `underboard', but its no sure thing. Show me the piece of
software that can't be improved. The basis and possibility are still there.

>    The AmigaOS does multitask very well, but it is incredibly antiquated in
> most respects.  It is so effecient because it has virtually no features.

Good points & bad points, all OS's suffer from these. But you last sentence is
a generalization. Show me a more popular OS with less antiqueties and
redundancies than Amiga OS. (And not in just actual ones, but potential ones,
and ones from lost opportunities, lack of foresight, or just plain ignorance,
just as you would critique AmigaOS.) They may be there, but not many. (For a
simiular pricetag atleast.)

>  ++++      Marc Barrett  -MB-

>    +       Amiga: No excellence, just bullshit

Above Quote: No straight facts, just sensationalism and arbitary
             generalisations.
--
==============================================================================
     //  Gavan A. McCormack.. Amiga1200/4-245  Tetragon@Lisa.apana.org.au
   \X/ ``Aw, there's something fishy about this whole setup.''[THoHIV.1f04]