knnngt@ukma.UUCP (Alan Kennington) (01/13/86)
This is somewhat heterogenous group of comments/questions on the ST. 1: What is exactly the connection between the ST OS and CP/M-68k? A lot of comments on the net seem to be based on the appearance of the references to CP/M-68k in the dev's kit, which has borrowed documentation from what seems to be the previous implementation of GEM. But the documentation also has references to other OSs. Someone once said that the OS is really based on MS-DOS. In one magazine is a comment that the command line looks like a typical CP/M-68k command line. But this doesn't seem like really strong evidence to me. Does anyone out there really KNOW what the history and nature of the present system are, and therefore whether or not the OS is any closer to CP/M68k than any other system? I suppose I should just phone directly to the creaters on this one. 2: On the class implications of the Amiga/ST marketing difference, may I say that there seems to be a lot of snobbery in the computer market that is becoming increasingly well delineated by the Amiga/ST war. There seem to be computers for people with suits, and computers for the common people. The former are associated with pot-plants, high prices, and a certain sophistication of presentation in software and documentation, whereas the latter are associated with cut-throat market competition, kids and workers and fanatical enthusiasts, and rushed documentation (not to mention mail order companies, K-mart and toy shops). All of this imagery is to a great extent reminiscent of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd class train travel of british colonial days. (Not to mention plane travel of nowadays.) The rich were willing to pay extra for the right to not have to company with the hoi-polloi, which is to say, the riff-raff. The high price was designed not to cover extra costs, but rather to dissuade the poor. Rumour once had it that Amigas could have been $400 less except that then the business computer users would not take it seriously. The recent fluster over the change to ST marketing reinforces the belief that many amiga buyers have bought the high price machine in order to have the best on the block, to to be one ahead of the others, which is to say, to maintain their distance from the riff-raff (variously described as users of toys etc.). Please, observant persons on the net, read the Amiga/ST factional rivalries and ask yourself whether you think it is worthy of a modern egalitarian civilisation to foster class rivalry? 3: Could anyone inform me please as to why the net.micro.amiga can have megabytes of source code whereas this seems to be against the rules for net.micro.atari? If I write something of general interest, would I be doing something wrong by posting it? 4: An aspect of ST use that is dawning on me is that the true cost of the mon system is $1400. Reason: the ST is not much use without the dev kit. And the dev kit is not much use without a second drive. Total cost: $800 + $321 + $300 = $1400 (to 2 sig.figs.). 5: A magazine once said that Atari should get a lot of business from those who wanted an Amiga but will settle for an ST (by analogy with the Apple II nad C-64). An impression I have is that the Amiga is for those who wanted (perhaps not consciously) a microvax. One of the big attractions of the Amiga is its OS which has some multitasking in it. But a lot of people don't seem to have noticed that the ST OS has what they call "limited multitasking". In fact, the ST can handle some 7 or so processes of a user nature, in addition to monitoring the mouse when it goes off the upmost window. Programmers are specifically asked to write programs that give themselves up now and then to AES so that they can be repalced by another task. Has anyone had any thoughts on how to modify this "non-preemptive" scheduling to make it preemptive? This would make the ST some what more useful. Incidentally, Robert Frick once said in answer to my question about the lack of an MMU, something like: Why have an MMU, it just slows down the processor? The only real uses I think of for multitasking in a "home environment" (ie at home) are for bacground processes to print jobs and down/upload files. Perhaps also for solving large mathematical problems. But really the main reason for the invention of multitasking was, I believe, for the sake of increasing efficiency for a multiuser system. What are all the Amiga users doing with their multitasking capability? Is it just to give them a sense of power, or is there something I've overlooked. The multitasking seems to be giving them some real problems. Like copy-protection. An application that does not want to be copied has to prevent simultaneous processes from running. Hence it seems that copy-protection implies no multitasking. This makes it difficult for the high-class software establishments to justify an investment in multi-taskable programs. On this point: I've seen a copy-protected ST game program which achieves its purpose by using the boot sector of the disk. This is going to be really easy to get around. The dev kit tells you so much about how the ST works that I belive copy-protection is going to be difficult to achieve on the ST too. 6: I've lost count. Is this really number 6? Anyway, on the subject of monitor screens, I've just had another look at the Amiga with a view to its high-res screen capability. What a joke! Its worse than any description I've ever read. If anyone is going to call a machine a toy, then the amiga is the one to criticise. I got the mono ST screen because serious work requires an informative interface, for which I really wanted a Mac. But I was willing to settle for an ST. (I've since discovered that the ST is better hardware and OS wise.) But really the fact that Commodore have not provided a decent monitor screen shows where their interest lies. Having now seen the high quality of the development tools provided for the ST, I realise that ST is, for my purposes, better than the Amiga, even at the same price. And everything that the ST lacks should be easy to add on. Eg synthesisers, voice etc., which I'd rather choose personally than have built in. 7: On the meta-subject of how net.micro.atari discussion should be conducted, may I suggest that non-productive position-taking, mud-slinging and general defense of one's purchase be accompanied always by at least one serious comment or question about the ST that is relevant to the purpose of writing programs and such for it? If everyone had to do something constructive in each of their contributions, there would be a lot less discussion on net.micro.atari. 8: My apologies for the length of this message. There were a few things I just felt I had to say and ask. So long.......Alan Kennington.