gyuri@cvl.UUCP (Gyorgy Fekete) (10/11/85)
In response to the flame to John Demar's comments,
John Demar (JD):
The ST brings in a 32K file
in less than 4 seconds, including drive start up,
directory search, etc. The Amiga takes almost 20 seconds!!
Gary Girzon (GG):
That is just not true! The BYTE Basic benchmark for reading and
writting a 64k file takes 25 seconds. And this is in basic!
Please check or tell us how you arrived at these figures.
JD: I'm a software/hardware developer and an electronics engineer.
I've seen and used computers from $50 to $5Million and have designed
VLSI chips for 6 years at GE until starting my business last year.
So, the following is said from technical expertise and not
first-impression judgments from marketing "fluff"...
I own (or have owned) both the Atari 520ST and Amiga PC. I've given
them both a good bit of work and inspection, including o/s design and
hardware architecture. Here are some facts and my conclusion:...
I: Under these circumstances I tend to believe Demar more so than BYTE.
Without citing, I have read some of Byte's previous benchmarks, that
were misleading, but this is really irrelevant.
By the way, Is this J. Demar the same J. Demar who wrote some of those
Blackburg series books?
JD(cont):...the amiga has a non-standard disk configuration and does
much of the disk support in software (ie. slow). The drives have
slightly more capacity than the the ST's DS drives (880K to 720K) but
this is at the expense of speed. The Amiga directory format (or
lack of) is done much like a commodore-64. In fact, to get a
directory, the Amiga goes out and finds a program called DIR,
loads it and goes back searching!
I: If that is true, I have lost all respect for AmigaDOS.
GG: ...Unless the ST has some sort of dual-ported RAM, the screen data
must come from the same data bus in the ST as well.
JD: ..First, there are a pair of chips working together to optimize
data bus and screen data access. The memory controller
prefetches 16-bit data directly for the 68000 and also places
screen data onto a separate bus for the screen refresh chip. This
operation only steals 8-18% of the available true CPU time.
GG: If you measure a computer's worth by the number of chips,
you might as well pick an IBM over a Mac. Perhaps the custom chips
in the AMIGA are better integrated to perform several functions in one
chip. Thus you do not need MORE chips if three can do the job.
I: non sequatur (sp?)
JD: In the low res mode, those fantastic graphics chips
steal almost 70% (yes!) of the possible CPU time that the 68000
could be using to do real computer things like calculate,
move/sort data...
GG: How does one arrive at the magic 70% time figure? Also, the 68000
in the Amiga does not draw lines, polygons or fill areas.
It is done by one of the coprocessors. SO the 6800 (???) can
do "real" computer things.
I: I would also like to know how Demar got the 70% figure.
JD: The windows are poorly configured and move with flicker.
GG: They do? Not in my AMIGA.
I: Maybe they do in his AMIGA.
Sorry for the redundancy in the quotes.
--
Gyorgy Fekete --- University of MD, Computer Vision Lab, (301) 454-4526
gyuri@cvl.{ARPA,CSNet}
...seismo \
...allegra +-- !umcp-cs!cvl!gyuri.UUCP
...brl-bmd /hsu@eneevax.UUCP (David T. Hsu) (10/13/85)
Well, there was an Amiga at our (somewhat sucessful) computerfest today, sponsored by the University Personal Computing Assoc. (of which I am an officer) as well as 5 or 6 ST's and a lot of demos, so I'd like to expand on some of this discussion. GG: ...Unless the ST has some sort of dual-ported RAM, the screen data must come from the same data bus in the ST as well. JD: ..First, there are a pair of chips working together to optimize data bus and screen data access. The memory controller prefetches 16-bit data directly for the 68000 and also places screen data onto a separate bus for the screen refresh chip. This operation only steals 8-18% of the available true CPU time. GG: If you measure a computer's worth by the number of chips, you might as well pick an IBM over a Mac. Perhaps the custom chips in the AMIGA are better integrated to perform several functions in one chip. Thus you do not need MORE chips if three can do the job. GF: non sequatur (sp?) myself: Regardless of the memory arrangement, I found the ST's graphics to appear intrinsically clearer. Perhaps Atari uses a better monitor, or maybe they tighten up the dot edges, but the amiga's graphics had a fuzzier, blurrier, yet warmer appearance. For data, I would have gone with the Atari's no-nonsense display, but the Amiga DOES do an impressive job on pre-drawn graphics, and the color text display is less objectionable than Atari's. As for the chips, well, maybe the IBM DOES have more chips than a Mac, or than the //e, but remember...all those PALs and semicustom gate arrays DO replace lots of so-called-glue. Remember how Apple's MMU and IOU replace some 140-odd chips? And since when did manufacturers stop bragging about how many gates and transistors they've packed into the latest design? JD: The windows are poorly configured and move with flicker. GG: They do? Not in my AMIGA. GF: Maybe they do in his AMIGA. myself: They sure didn't in the Amiga at the 'fest. In fact, I was very impressed (in terms of graphics power) when, while running the 'robo-city' demo (two characters and a dog walk across the screen behind an animated hydrant) the person at the Amiga 'grabbed' the entire page and slid it off the bottom of the screen while the demo was running. No flicker. No redrawing. In fact, the demo kept running at the same pace while we ran its window all over the place. Very nice, but there was severe flicker on horizontal white lines in 640x400 mode, and while not apparent in solid areas, a violent flicker appeared in heavily colored/dithered spots on some screen captured shots. No, I don't mean slightly grey edges. The dots literally shook. caveats...the salesman tried to explain that the system unit had 512k in it, but he included the ram in the kickstart. Unlike the Atari, when you get your system roms, you'll find yourself back to 256k. Because they won't build the extra in after it's served its usefulness. Also, the much-ballyhooed bouncing ball demo, although fun to look at, was not that impressive. The 'thud' sound probably contributed to 60% of the effect, simply because it sounded massive. But the shadow and ball both moved on the same path, at fixed velocity, and the only surface animation was a set of checkerboard bands rotating constantly on the ball. Reminded me of a Mindset without flicker. The Atari booth, on the other hand, showed some simpler, safer graphics, but then again, what do you use real-time graphics for? I found the Atari to be adequate (and very cheap). overrunning my expected line-limit, -dave -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Hsu hsu @ eneevax.umd.edu Communications & Signal Processing Laboratory hsu @ sphinx.ee.umd.edu Department of Electrical Engineering hsu @ mit-prep.arpa University of Maryland hsu @ umd2.arpa "You see? You SEE???"
peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (10/13/85)
> JD(cont):...the amiga has a non-standard disk configuration and does > much of the disk support in software (ie. slow). The drives have > slightly more capacity than the the ST's DS drives (880K to 720K) but > this is at the expense of speed. The Amiga directory format (or > lack of) is done much like a commodore-64. In fact, to get a > directory, the Amiga goes out and finds a program called DIR, > loads it and goes back searching! > > I: If that is true, I have lost all respect for AmigaDOS. I think what he means to say is that "DIR" is an external program, like UNIX' ls, not a built-in like MS-DOS' "dir". To get a directory in CLI it loads a file called ":/c/Dir" and executes it. Since there are disks without CLI *or* dir on them, and they do have directories, it's pretty obvious that they're not hidden inside a program. Especially not one that's itself 2 levels deep in the directory tree. I would like to suggest that Mr. Demar is less than well acquainted with the machine... And why wasn't net.micro.amiga included in the distribution of this message? Maybe because some people who actually *have* an Amiga and understand it are more likely to respond to it? Anyway... you can regain your respect for AMIGAdos. It's not UNIX by any means, but it is certainly an improvement over Crummy-Dos, Trash-Dos, Messy-Dos, or any of the other little computer "operating systems".
jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura) (10/19/85)
In article <297@graffiti.UUCP> peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >I think what he means to say is that "DIR" is an external program, like UNIX' >ls, not a built-in like MS-DOS' "dir". To get a directory in CLI it loads >a file called ":/c/Dir" and executes it. Since there are disks without CLI *or* >dir on them, and they do have directories, it's pretty obvious that they're >not hidden inside a program. Especially not one that's itself 2 levels deep >in the directory tree. I would like to suggest that Mr. Demar is less than >well acquainted with the machine... In this much I think I agree. I've said before on other systems that memory resident utilities aren't always a good idea. It impinges on user memory, whereas generally it's not critical to maximize their speed (sorry, I meant to say 'they impinge'). Most of my day is taken up using terminal emulators and word processing. On my system directory calls take a fair bit of time. It's really not that important. If you want to razz somebody on this point you can say to them "hey man, don't you ever do any *work* with your computer, what do you do just copy and delete files all day?" -- then duck fast. > >And why wasn't net.micro.amiga included in the distribution of this message? >Maybe because some people who actually *have* an Amiga and understand it are >more likely to respond to it? > >Anyway... you can regain your respect for AMIGAdos. It's not UNIX by any means, >but it is certainly an improvement over Crummy-Dos, Trash-Dos, Messy-Dos, or >any of the other little computer "operating systems". But I have to disagree with this. Have you ever worked on the computers you've just slighted? I don't like Commodore's DOS (I assume that's the first one you meant), but the Shack's DOS is quite good. In fact, probably better than the Amiga DOS from what I've heard so far. I'll reserve judgement. MS-DOS isn't that bad either. It could have been better, but it's development was originally an outgrowth of CP/M. As for other 'little computer "operating systems"', ahem, like Unix maybe? Or OS-9? I have heard *nothing* which indicates *any* superiority of AMIGAdos as such over OS-9 in *any* way. But, mainly remember that even Unix *started* as a small OS. It just grew a lot. -- James Omura, Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto ihnp4!utzoo!lsuc!jimomura Byte Information eXchange: jimomura Compuserve: 72205,541 MTS at WU: GKL6
nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) (10/20/85)
> But, mainly > remember that even Unix *started* as a small OS. It just grew a lot. > James Omura, Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto *sigh* -- I wonder if DMR still has one of the old punched tapes lying around? -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin {allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather nather@astro.UTEXAS.EDU
peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (10/24/85)
> >Anyway... you can regain your respect for AMIGAdos. It's not UNIX by any means, > >but it is certainly an improvement over Crummy-Dos, Trash-Dos, Messy-Dos, or > >any of the other little computer "operating systems". > > But I have to disagree with this. Have you ever worked on the > computers you've just slighted? Yes. All of them. As well as ATARI and APPLE. I just haven't thought of any good slanderous names for theit operating systems yet. > I don't like Commodore's DOS (I assume > that's the first one you meant), but the Shack's DOS is quite good. In > fact, probably better than the Amiga DOS from what I've heard so far. Not if it doesn't multitask it isn't. If it doesn't multitask it doesn't qualify for the name "operating system". An operating system should have a memory manager and a scheduler as well as a file server and device drivers. > I'll reserve judgement. MS-DOS isn't that bad either. It could have > been better, but it's development was originally an outgrowth of CP/M. I rest my case (good thing, too. It was getting pretty heavy). > As for other 'little computer "operating systems"', ahem, like > Unix maybe? Or OS-9? I have heard *nothing* which indicates *any* > superiority of AMIGAdos as such over OS-9 in *any* way. But, mainly > remember that even Unix *started* as a small OS. It just grew a lot. Both of them are real operating systems, instead of "DOS"es. And neither of them are widely available on a home computer. I know you can get OS/9 on a CoCo, but I still have yet to see one in action... and it's severely limited on that little machine. I'd much prefer a 68000 with OS/9 or UNIX, but I'm not likely to afford one on my budget.