🚀 go-pugleaf

Peter's comments prefaced by }
Howard's by >

In article <538@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu> (Howard Chu) writes:
}
}Operating	Amiga EXEC	none		none		none
}system
}(kernel)

> You're being somewhat of a bigot here. An operating system manages system
> resources on behalf of a user, as a most basic definition. Since all of these
> machines have, at the very least, code to allocate memory, control access to
> physical devices, etc., then by definition they do have operating systems,
> however limited or primitive.

My advice is not to get going on this subject, you lose. Under an operating
system you ask for something then you use it, one PC's, Mac's and ST's you
just use it. For instance, if you want to write write track 0, sector 10
on "non-OS" machine you call the BIOS entry point with some parameters
like "Disk in Drive A, Track 0, Sector 10, Data." For the Amiga you have
to call OpenDevice() first which will arbitrate your access to the device
among other tasks, and then you send your request to the task that is managing
the disks. There is a big difference in philosophy. Like memory allocation
for instance, you don't have to bother after you know how much is available
because no one else is using it. It isn't "bad" that you don't have an OS
it just is. It is more like running one big program, parts of it are in
ROM and parts of it are in RAM, that is the Mac/ST/PC model.

}Multitasking	Inherent	Third party,	Multifinder	Windows
}				partial.	Switcher	Third party,
}								partial.

>This would follow, given your assertion that the Amiga has an operating system
>and none of the other machines do, since multi-tasking is a feature of an
>operating system. However, your entries here would tend to conflict with the
>previous entry. Too bad.

They don't conflict, you just aren't familiar with the terms. Devices and
Handlers are separate tasks, each piece of hardware has a device driver 
associated with it handlers provide the access method. A filesystem is a
handler, trackdisk is the floppy disk driver. So in your parlance GemDOS
is like the handler and BIOS is like the device driver. The difference
being that these are just tasks on the Amiga, currently there are two
Handlers for filesystems, the original one and a newer one that hasn't
been moved to ROM yet. 

> Sure, it irks me that I can't pop up Uniterm while I'm compiling
> something. Big deal, it doesn't take very long to compile stuff anyway.
> Fast filesystems are nice that way. That's also an interesting point
> you fail to summarize in your table - the ST and PC disk I/O are
> probably the fastest around. 

And this is where is all breaks down. That second sentence is called a 
rationalization. When I program I often start up a paint program to design
icons, start other compiles, and pass data back and forth between my compiler
envrionment and editing environment. Multitasking is a lever that is quite
powerful, if it weren't Bill Gates and John Scully wouldn't be trying so
damned hard to get it on their systems no? Finally, if you get a chance
try the Amiga Fastfilesystem on a Quantum 80S. Try on a freshly formatted
one and one that is 80% full. We'll even let you use 16Meg partitions
and the Amiga will smoke your eyes. We're talking 800 - 900K bytes/sec
transfer rates bud.

>Sorry for the length...

me too, software wise the Amiga is ways out front. You can also buy a
68020 Amiga today at a dealer near you. Faster than a Mac II and cheaper
too. Ask for the 2500.

--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.