[net.micro.amiga] Easy of programming, Mac, Amiga

oster@lapis.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) (09/14/86)

I am not a great amiga expert, but the mac has some definate advantages
for the programmer in certain areas:
  Text handling - when the mac was released, they gave me a one page
  pascal program that implemented a mouse based text editor with cut, 
  copy, and paste.  I sincerely doubt you could do as much on the amiga as
  concisely.

  Sound - recently net.micro.amiga had a note from R.J.Micah, one of the
  designers of the Amiga's software, giving three pages of C code to do
  what a mac programmer does as "SysBeep(1)"  Most amiga programmers use
  the equivalent of MacInTalk to make their machine say "Beep" because it
  is too hard to get a tone out of it.

  Debugging - for $25 you can get an Apple software supplement that
  includes the debugger MacsBug.  MacsBug remains in memory application
  after application, can dissasemble any code, can give a symbolic trace
  of the calling tree, knows the name of each operating system call, and,
  with its ES command, lets you exit back to the Mac's shell from a
  crashed application.  It is not even the best debugger for the Mac.
  Nothing even as good as it exists for the Amiga.  Most amiga programmers
  have to reboot their whole machine if even one task crashes.

  Resources - The Mac has a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor called
  the resource editor that allows you to change menus, fonts, icons, and
  every detail of alerts and dialogs (requestors on the Amiga) without 
  ever recompiling.  An amiga programmer must laborously speel out these
  things in C code that does not look at all like the finished product.

  Fast dynamic linking, the Mac's control definition procedures, menu
  definition procedures, window definition procedures, and packages allow
  programmers to substantially change the behavior of compiled code
  without recompiling it.  I myself have taken Apple's finder, pasted a
  new window definition procedure into it using  the resource editor, and
  made all the windows apple shaped.  Apple replaced the standard file
  interface recently, and all the old programs suddenly became able to
  cope with a hierarchical directory structure,  something no other
  machine has done without requiring all the software developers to come
  out with new releases of their programs.   (Unix recently when through a
  change in its directory structure, and everybody had to recompile.) The
  standard amiga linker is so slow it is known as "Deep Thought"

  High level printing - Since mac applications comminucate with printers
  as if they accepted high level graphics calls, most applications did not
  need to be recompiled to accept laser printers, even though the
  applications had not been designed with laser printers in mind.  Amiga
  applications have to have special code for each kind of printer.


  safety - the amiga crashes if you draw a line that extends outside the
  screen.  (According to a friend who regularly crashes his amiga this
  way.)  The mac graphics system calls, although they aren't very safe,
  are safer than this!

  Disk Operating system interface - The mac's operating system takes a Pascal
  view of the world.  this is not great for a C programmer, but most Mac
  compilers have a pascal keyword that handles the details.  The system
  itself is pretty decent.  The Amiga's operating system is written in
  BCPL.  BCPL is a ancient British language that was directly responsible
  for the birth of C.  The designers of C started out in BCPL and
  concluded that it was not possible to make a BCPL compiler that
  generated decent code for a byte addressable machine. 

  programming environments - LightSpeed C, with its integrated
  compiling, linking, multi-window editor, make, grep, and profiling
  is so good and so fast, that I've known users of 8MegaByte, 16MegaHertz,
  Sun3 68020 systems to prefer to develop on the mac and port their code
  to the sun, because the 1MegaByte 8MegaHertz 68000 mac has a faster
  edit, compile test cycle.

Conclusion - both machines have their strengths and weaknesses as
programming machines.  I would probably choose an amiga if I were going to
write "Pong".  I would certainly choose the mac if I were doing anything
involving fonted text manipulation or object oriented graphics.  Although
the hardware of the Amiga should be faster than a Macintosh, the superior
software of the Mac consistantly makes it easier to use, faster, and more
powerful at the kinds of tasks that I like to do.
--- David Phillip Oster		-- "The goal of Computer Science is to
Arpa: oster@lapis.berkeley.edu  -- build something that will last at
Uucp: ucbvax!ucblapis!oster     -- least until we've finished building it."

dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (09/15/86)

>From: (David Phillip Oster)
>I am not a great amiga expert, but the mac has some definate advantages
>for the programmer in certain areas:
>  Text handling - when the mac was released, they gave me a one page
>  pascal program that implemented a mouse based text editor with cut, 
>  copy, and paste.  I sincerely doubt you could do as much on the amiga as
>  concisely.

	If it's only one page I'd like to see it.

>  Sound - recently net.micro.amiga had a note from R.J.Micah, one of the
>  designers of the Amiga's software, giving three pages of C code to do
>  what a mac programmer does as "SysBeep(1)"  Most amiga programmers use
>  the equivalent of MacInTalk to make their machine say "Beep" because it
>  is too hard to get a tone out of it.

	For simple BEEPS, the MAC wins.  One thing I'd like to see as an 
	addition to one of the run-time libraries for the amiga is a simple
	BEEP call.

	It isn't dificult to make the Amiga BEEP, just long winded because the
	run-time library was set up to utilize the full capability of the
	amiga's sound and you have to set-up a lot of junk.

	Taking another point of view, I can make the amiga say something to me
	with a very simple program (maybe even less than a page).  Try doing 
	that on a MAC.

>  Debugging - for $25 you can get an Apple software supplement that
>  includes the debugger MacsBug.  MacsBug remains in memory application
>  after application, can dissasemble any code, can give a symbolic trace
>  of the calling tree, knows the name of each operating system call, and,
>  with its ES command, lets you exit back to the Mac's shell from a
>  crashed application.  It is not even the best debugger for the Mac.
>  Nothing even as good as it exists for the Amiga.  Most amiga programmers
>  have to reboot their whole machine if even one task crashes.

	Nothing quite as good exists for the amiga, but there is a program
	called 'wack' that does almost as much (everything except the OS call
	names and symbolic trace).  Additionaly, there is a version in ROM 
	that allows you to do post-mortem debugging.  There are several
	versions of Wack.  One allows you to delve into the task-structures,
	system modules, run-time libraries, resource lists, system modules,
	and other things.

	If a single task crashes and doesn't upset the rest of the machine,
	it is frozen (and an alert comes up), but the machine still continues
	to run other tasks.  If a task destroys something very important, the
	machine comes up with a dead-end alert and you must reboot.

	If even one task on the MAC crashes (oh! I'm sorry, there is only one
	task!), you have to reboot your MAC too.  Also, when you reboot the
	amiga you almost never have to reboot from scratch, since the OS is
	in write-protected RAM.

>  Resources - The Mac has a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor called
>  the resource editor that allows you to change menus, fonts, icons, and
>  every detail of alerts and dialogs (requestors on the Amiga) without 
>  ever recompiling.  An amiga programmer must laborously speel out these
>  things in C code that does not look at all like the finished product.

	HA! this is a major difference between the Amiga and the MAC.  On 
	the MAC all your requestes and such form a kind-of 'secondary' file,
	and thus you can easily edit it without recompiling your program.

	I agree that we don't have anything like a resource editor for the
	Amiga yet, but there will be one soon.  Of course, since the Amiga
	has a normal file-system and a completely different method of 
	handling menu's and such, the editor would generate C global
	structures that would then be compiled rather than modify the 
	resource file directory ('cause there ain't to resource file).

>  Fast dynamic linking, the Mac's control definition procedures, menu
>  definition procedures, window definition procedures, and packages allow
>  programmers to substantially change the behavior of compiled code
>  without recompiling it.  I myself have taken Apple's finder, pasted a
>  new window definition procedure into it using  the resource editor, and
>  made all the windows apple shaped.  Apple replaced the standard file
>  interface recently, and all the old programs suddenly became able to
>  cope with a hierarchical directory structure,  something no other
>  machine has done without requiring all the software developers to come
>  out with new releases of their programs.   (Unix recently when through a
>  change in its directory structure, and everybody had to recompile.) The
>  standard amiga linker is so slow it is known as "Deep Thought"

	IBM changed from flat to hierarchical without any problems.  Since
	the Amiga employs run-time libraries, and there are system calls to
	modify library vectors, one could easily modify whichever call he 
	wanted to do something else.  In this case, I think the Amiga is more
	flexible.  It means you can change any call in Exec, Intuition, etc...
	even completely replace system 'rom' modules with your own.  (All
	sounds, window handling, system calls, DOS calls, and most other
	things are accessed through run-time run-modifiable libraries.)

	As for the file-system, the Amiga has always had a hierarchical
	directory structure.  It's only slow getting directories.  It's speed
	lies in reading/writing/finding. (but here I believe the MAC+ has
	a faster filesystem).

>  High level printing - Since mac applications comminucate with printers
>  as if they accepted high level graphics calls, most applications did not
>  need to be recompiled to accept laser printers, even though the
>  applications had not been designed with laser printers in mind.  Amiga
>  applications have to have special code for each kind of printer.

	Dummy! The code is part of the system.  A particular application 
	program doesn't need to know or care what kind of printer is on
	the other end, it just uses a standard set of escape codes through
	AmigaDos's printer device (just another file).  I think the Amiga's
	printer interface wins here.

>  safety - the amiga crashes if you draw a line that extends outside the
>  screen.  (According to a friend who regularly crashes his amiga this
>  way.)  The mac graphics system calls, although they aren't very safe,
>  are safer than this!

	This only happens if you are not using intuition.  If you are using
	Intuition, OOB lines are clipped properly.  In fact, one uses the
	same graphics calls whether using a custom window or one with
	cliprects.  In fact, anything you do via cliprects is clipped
	properly.  In fact, you can have X processes in overlapping windows
	and completely oblivious to fact as the graphics are clipped properly
	and saved in alternate buffers so when you move the window nothing
	is lost.

	Most people use intuition.

>  Disk Operating system interface - The mac's operating system takes a Pascal
>  view of the world.  this is not great for a C programmer, but most Mac
>  compilers have a pascal keyword that handles the details.  The system
>  itself is pretty decent.  The Amiga's operating system is written in
>  BCPL.  BCPL is a ancient British language that was directly responsible
>  for the birth of C.  The designers of C started out in BCPL and
>  concluded that it was not possible to make a BCPL compiler that
>  generated decent code for a byte addressable machine. 

	Here you are incorrectly assuming that the entire OS is written in
	BCPL.  This is not true.  ONLY AMIGADOS is written in BCPL.  All
	the other stuff (Intuition, layers, graphics, devices, the system
	exec.,...) was written by Amiga in C.

	I hate pascal.

>  programming environments - LightSpeed C, with its integrated
>  compiling, linking, multi-window editor, make, grep, and profiling
>  is so good and so fast, that I've known users of 8MegaByte, 16MegaHertz,
>  Sun3 68020 systems to prefer to develop on the mac and port their code
>  to the sun, because the 1MegaByte 8MegaHertz 68000 mac has a faster
>  edit, compile test cycle.

	Currently, and I know of nobody on a 68020 Sun3 who uses a MAC to
	compile.  Remember that the Amiga is multi-tasking.  You can EDIT
	and COMPILE at the same time, leaving your edit active, etc...

	However, LightSpeedC currently beats the shewabs out of Lattice and
	Manx on a 512K Amiga, which does make a big difference. 

	With a 1Meg Amiga, you could keep the entire compiler and editor
	ram-resident, have the editor running continuously (ala multi-tasking),
	and I think the Amiga just may beat LightSpeedC.

	As for programming ease, the multi-tasking does all the integrations
	you need.  Add a shell and your set.

>Conclusion - both machines have their strengths and weaknesses as
>programming machines.  I would probably choose an amiga if I were going to
>write "Pong".  I would certainly choose the mac if I were doing anything
>involving fonted text manipulation or object oriented graphics.  Although
>the hardware of the Amiga should be faster than a Macintosh, the superior
>software of the Mac consistantly makes it easier to use, faster, and more
>powerful at the kinds of tasks that I like to do.
>--- David Phillip Oster		-- "The goal of Computer Science is to

	And the hardware on the Amiga IS faster than a Mac.  The MAC software
may be superior now, but then again the MAC's been out a couple years longer
than the Amiga.  Lets see what happens in another year, you may be in for
some surprises.

	"It's what you do to the machine that counts, not the machine itself"

					-Matt

phil@sivax.UUCP (Phil Hunt) (09/16/86)

I currently own BOTH machines, a Mac-Plus with AT-20 hard disk and an Amiga
with 512k/ext disk drive.

I have been using both for a couple of weeks now (The mac for 1 1/2 years) and
thought I would give a comparision of sorts from a real users point of view:

1)  The Amiga is full COLOR!  I do not care what anyone says, color is great
...but...For any application, the MAC display is much better.  I even connected
a 9" b/w monitor to the Amiga (There is a video out as well as RF out and RGB
out), the resolution is not at the Mac level.  The display on the Mac 'feels'
better.  This is the best way to put it.

2) The AMIGA has special graphics processing chips as well as custom voice
synthesis and 4 voice circuits requiring very little processor time to use.  It
even comes out of the machine in STEREO (yes, right and left RCA jacks!).  There
is no doubt that this allows the machine to do more.  The graphics and voice
stuff is offloaded from the 68000.  But...Even with all its sophisticated H/W,
I think the Mac Studio Session sounds better than the Amiga stuff (I used
Instant Music for Amiga).

3) The Amiga is better at programmer interface things, such as, cleaning up
windows.  On the Mac, you must redraw sections overlaid by other windows.  This
is automatic (but overridable) on the Amiga.

4) AmigaDOS is very powerful.  You get tired of window environment?, use
AmigaDOS!  The Amiga has the best of both worlds there.  A workbench (Desktop)
as well as a full DOS, complete with batch, MULTITASKING (with priorities,
interjob communication, message mailboxes etc).  You can spawn a job on the 
Amiga, and BOTH keep running.  An example, you run Deluxe Paint (Macpaint-type
program), it loads and is running, you take the mouse and click on the top menu
bar and DRAG the mouse down.  The screen moves down and the Workbench is right
behind it!  (Ala like servant) But the difference is everything can still be
d
running, a DOS window, Deluxe paint etc.

5) Mac disk management is better, keeping track of mounted but unloaded disks
alot cleaner. The Amiga does too, but windows for disk mounts sometimes come
up for disks in the drive.  As well as requests for disks with GREEK names
(Garbage names)

6) Mac disk drives are faster than the Amiga, I do not know why this is.  The
Amiga disks use a DMA xfer technique, so they should be faster.

7) Amiga comes with 1 serial port and 1 parrallel port standard as well as a
memory expansion port and a BUS EXPANSION PORT (ie for Sidecar, a FULL PC
clone complete with IBM PC -type card slots and other devices)

8) When a pgm finishes on the Amiga, the desktop does not have to be rebuilt as
it runs as a process also,  the forward windows are just removed.  This is nice.


I hope this capsule comparision can help with any questions you might have.

Phil Hunt
..calma!sivax!phil
(408)942-1212


running (A DOS window

daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (09/16/86)

> Xref: cbmvax net.micro.mac:2661 net.micro.amiga:2575
> 
> I am not a great amiga expert, 
Obviously...
>   Resources - The Mac has a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor called
>   the resource editor that allows you to change menus, fonts, icons, and
>   every detail of alerts and dialogs (requestors on the Amiga) without 
>   ever recompiling.  An amiga programmer must laborously speel out these
>   things in C code that does not look at all like the finished product.
The Amiga has a Font Editor and an Icon editor shipped with it (the Font 
Editor is officially new for release 1.2).  I've got a public domain
Menu editor which lets me define menus, graphically, then produce C code to 
create them.  And a full featured gadget editor is just around the corner
(can you edit MAC gadgets as easily as all the other stuff?).

>   Fast dynamic linking, the Mac's control definition procedures, menu
>   definition procedures, window definition procedures, and packages allow
>   programmers to substantially change the behavior of compiled code
>   without recompiling it ... 
Amiga resident/disk libraries and device handlers do the same thing.  All 
previously compiled programs on the Amiga immediately take advantage of
any modified libraries.  For instance, the various math libraries could
be modified to support the 68881 coprocessor.  Once done, every program
run on the machine that does floating point math will use the 68881 for
its floating point.  Also, no matter how many tasks use it, a library 
exists only once in memory, loaded as needed, discarded if unnecessary.

> The standard amiga linker is so slow it is known as "Deep Thought"
True.  I use BLink, a free, ALink compatible linker that MUCH faster.

>   High level printing - Since mac applications comminucate with printers
>   as if they accepted high level graphics calls, most applications did not
>   need to be recompiled to accept laser printers, even though the
>   applications had not been designed with laser printers in mind.  Amiga
>   applications have to have special code for each kind of printer.
FALSE, LIES, UNTRUE!  For each different style of printer, there is a 
configuration file, run by the printer device, that translates all printer
specific functions into generic Amiga functions.  This is more powerful 
that the MAC's printer interface.  The Amiga can support any printer via
any I/O port in a program transparent fashion.  This includes graphic 
dumps (which may be scaled in various ways) as well as a generic text
interface that the MAC doesn't have.  I can switch from Epson printer to
HP Laserjet or Apple ImageWriter just by selecting the printer option
through the Amiga's Preferences program.  How many type of printers will
the MAC support, anyway (other than Apple, of course).

>   Disk Operating system interface - The mac's operating system takes a Pascal
>   view of the world.  this is not great for a C programmer, but most Mac
>   compilers have a pascal keyword that handles the details.  The system
>   itself is pretty decent.  The Amiga's operating system is written in
>   BCPL [etc.]
The Amiga's disk interface is far faster than the MAC's.  That should say it 
all.  There's very little in the DOS that requires byte boundary access anyway.

> ... Although
> the hardware of the Amiga should be faster than a Macintosh, the superior
> software of the Mac consistantly makes it easier to use, faster, and more
> powerful at the kinds of tasks that I like to do.
Can't comment on ease of use, that's a personal preference, though I like the
option of not having to use a mouse all the time, only when I want to.  With
a few minor exceptions (circle/ellipse drawing, I believe), BYTE found the
Amiga to be consistantly faster than the MAC, in graphics, disk, sound, etc.
I like to do my tasks a few at a time, thank you.

> --- David Phillip Oster		-- "The goal of Computer Science is to
> Arpa: oster@lapis.berkeley.edu  -- build something that will last at
> Uucp: ucbvax!ucblapis!oster     -- least until we've finished building it."
-- 
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Dave Haynie    {caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh

	"I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and
	 for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment."
							-Gotama Buddha

	These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (09/18/86)

>1)  The Amiga is full COLOR!  I do not care what anyone says, color is great
>..but...For any application, the MAC display is much better.  I even connected
>a 9" b/w monitor to the Amiga (There is a video out as well as RF out and RGB
>out), the resolution is not at the Mac level.  The display on the Mac 'feels'
>better.  This is the best way to put it.

	It would have been nice if the amiga had a larger screen in terms of
bit width, but I think Amiga made a good decision going for NTSC compatibility.
It allows us to use Off The Shelf analog rgb monitors (like Sony's).  I have
found that the video monitor one uses makes all the difference in the world.
Before I got my Sony, I was using a Commodore monitor designed for the C64...
80 column text didn't work so well.  But with the sony, every character in
80-col mode and in every color mode is crisp... it has made a HUGE difference!

	Though the Mac has a greater width/height resolution, the Amiga has
better display, and, when displaying digitized BW photos, it's better than
the MAC (by about 14x).  This is due to the fact that you can grey-scale
individual bits on the Amiga.

>6) Mac disk drives are faster than the Amiga, I do not know why this is.  The
>Amiga disks use a DMA xfer technique, so they should be faster.

	Yah, I wonder why?  Anybody know what the MAC+ is doing?  I think part
of the problem is that the Amiga's buffering was really *badly* done.  A simple
organizational modification to the placement of file header blocks and 
sector allocation blocks would make things a lot faster.  Have you ever tried
writing an 800K file out to a blank disk then reading it back in?  About every
30K or so (~3 tracks) the disk has to make a seek or two to get the sector
allocation information (or something like that).  Fixing that would almost
halve the time it takes to load a large non-fragmented executable.

				-Matt

jat@blnt1.UUCP (09/18/86)

In article <1274@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> oster@lapis.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster) writes:
>I am not a great amiga expert, but the mac has some definate advantages
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I would have never guessed.

>for the programmer in certain areas:
>  Text handling - when the mac was released, they gave me a one page
>  pascal program that implemented a mouse based text editor with cut, 
>  copy, and paste.  I sincerely doubt you could do as much on the amiga as
>  concisely.

Agreed.

>  Sound - recently net.micro.amiga had a note from R.J.Micah, one of the
>  designers of the Amiga's software, giving three pages of C code to do
>  what a mac programmer does as "SysBeep(1)"  Most amiga programmers use
>  the equivalent of MacInTalk to make their machine say "Beep" because it
>  is too hard to get a tone out of it.

Try and get 4 voice stereo sound out of a Mac, in N pages of code!  Then
worry about stopping everything to produce the sound -- the Amiga does the
waveform table in hardware in the background.

>  Debugging - for $25 you can get an Apple software supplement that
>  includes the debugger MacsBug.  MacsBug remains in memory application
>  after application, can dissasemble any code, can give a symbolic trace
>  of the calling tree, knows the name of each operating system call, and,
>  with its ES command, lets you exit back to the Mac's shell from a
>  crashed application.  It is not even the best debugger for the Mac.
>  Nothing even as good as it exists for the Amiga.  Most amiga programmers
>  have to reboot their whole machine if even one task crashes.

MacsBug doesn't use windows and has nowhere near the power of Metascope for
the Amiga.  And it doesn't have to deal with a multitasking machine.

>  Resources - The Mac has a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor called
>  the resource editor that allows you to change menus, fonts, icons, and
>  every detail of alerts and dialogs (requestors on the Amiga) without 
>  ever recompiling.  An amiga programmer must laborously speel out these
>  things in C code that does not look at all like the finished product.

Fonts and Icons have editors available from the operating system.  Sure, you
can change a Mac program's resources without recompiling, but for the most
part only cosmetic changes.  Try swapping the first two entries of a menu
without recompiling.  Besides, there is nothing to keep you from doing the
same thing on the Amiga -- just that the O/S doesn't provide tools to do it.

>  Fast dynamic linking, the Mac's control definition procedures, menu
>  definition procedures, window definition procedures, and packages allow
>  programmers to substantially change the behavior of compiled code
>  without recompiling it.  I myself have taken Apple's finder, pasted a
>  new window definition procedure into it using  the resource editor, and
>  made all the windows apple shaped.  Apple replaced the standard file
>  interface recently, and all the old programs suddenly became able to
>  cope with a hierarchical directory structure,  something no other
>  machine has done without requiring all the software developers to come
>  out with new releases of their programs.   (Unix recently when through a
>  change in its directory structure, and everybody had to recompile.) The
>  standard amiga linker is so slow it is known as "Deep Thought"

I haven't worked on a Mac since the new finder was released, so I don't know
about this one.  The linker is slow, but the Mac was no speed demon, either.

>  High level printing - Since mac applications comminucate with printers
>  as if they accepted high level graphics calls, most applications did not
>  need to be recompiled to accept laser printers, even though the
>  applications had not been designed with laser printers in mind.  Amiga
>  applications have to have special code for each kind of printer.

Wrong!  The Amiga has a printer independent control character set.  That is why
all you have to do is select which printer you have in Preferences and all of
the programs use it.  (They can talk directly to the device if they want to
with no control code translation).  Since the Mac treats the printer like it
is a big bit-mapped screen, it is difficult to do anything that can't easily
be represented on a fixed page size.

>  safety - the amiga crashes if you draw a line that extends outside the
>  screen.  (According to a friend who regularly crashes his amiga this
>  way.)  The mac graphics system calls, although they aren't very safe,
>  are safer than this!

I haven't had any exprience with that problem.  I do know that supplying really
wierd parameters to some of the gadget routines will crash the system.

>  Disk Operating system interface - The mac's operating system takes a Pascal
>  view of the world.  this is not great for a C programmer, but most Mac
>  compilers have a pascal keyword that handles the details.  The system
>  itself is pretty decent.  The Amiga's operating system is written in
>  BCPL.  BCPL is a ancient British language that was directly responsible
>  for the birth of C.  The designers of C started out in BCPL and
>  concluded that it was not possible to make a BCPL compiler that
>  generated decent code for a byte addressable machine. 

Gee, last time I checked the 68000 can only access words on a word boundary.
If you are started to compare the technical merits of the two operating
systems, look out.  The Mac has some very tight code in its operating system
that does a lot of nice things, but it does it by putting a lot of the work on
the programmer.  Anytime the O/S requires me to call a function "as often as
possible" so that desk accessories can run, its time to get a real O/S.  The
Amiga's operating system is multitasking from the ground up, with message
passing and event waiting.  On the Mac I would have to continually check to
see if something was selected.  Think of what that wasted CPU time could be
used for.  In the Amiga, I can set up event handlers which will be invoked
only when there is something for them to do.  This lets other programs use the
time which is wasted on the Mac.

>  programming environments - LightSpeed C, with its integrated
>  compiling, linking, multi-window editor, make, grep, and profiling
>  is so good and so fast, that I've known users of 8MegaByte, 16MegaHertz,
>  Sun3 68020 systems to prefer to develop on the mac and port their code
>  to the sun, because the 1MegaByte 8MegaHertz 68000 mac has a faster
>  edit, compile test cycle.

I never used LightSpeed C, but I would be VERY surprised people using a Mac
over a Sun3 (unless there are 50 users on the Sun :-).  The Mac has got to
have the slowest disk drives available on any computer besides the C64.  I
like my development environment on the Amiga running a custom version of emacs
with the Lattice compiler.  Granted, the compiler could produce better code
and the linker could be faster, but it's pretty good anyway.

>Conclusion - both machines have their strengths and weaknesses as
>programming machines.  I would probably choose an amiga if I were going to
>write "Pong".  I would certainly choose the mac if I were doing anything
>involving fonted text manipulation or object oriented graphics.  Although
>the hardware of the Amiga should be faster than a Macintosh, the superior
>software of the Mac consistantly makes it easier to use, faster, and more
>powerful at the kinds of tasks that I like to do.

I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion.  I will stick to my Amiga, even
though I am not writing Pong.  Having the ability to run multiple programs far
outweighs what little advantage the Mac has in rendering text.

Also, I noticed you don't mention the Amiga's custom hardware.  Even if you
aren't writing games, the hardware can be very useful.  The public domain life
program on the fish disks uses the blitter for calculating the next generation
and gets an incredible 19.8 generations/sec for about 32k cells.  Clearing an
area of memory (I bet you don't do that, since you aren't writing Pong) is a
nice way to speed up your programs using the blitter.

John Tamplin					Blount Brothers Corporation
akgua!blnt1!jat					2511 Fairlane Drive
205/244-6231					Montgomery, AL  36116

daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (09/19/86)

> 2) The AMIGA has special graphics processing chips as well as custom voice
> synthesis and 4 voice circuits requiring very little processor time to use.  It
> even comes out of the machine in STEREO (yes, right and left RCA jacks!).  There
> is no doubt that this allows the machine to do more.  The graphics and voice
> stuff is offloaded from the 68000.  But...Even with all its sophisticated H/W,
> I think the Mac Studio Session sounds better than the Amiga stuff (I used
> Instant Music for Amiga).

I think the MAC uses 8 bit  D-A coversion for its sound, too.  The sound
quality depends alot on the program, since at least on the Amiga a programmer
can greatly vary the sampling rate.  The Amiga's advantage in this area is
four D-As to the MACs one, and the fact that a sound waveform is fetched by
the custom chips and played automatically, without processor intervention.
However, to create better sounds, the processor will have to work harder
than just sitting there.  The Amiga is CAPABLE of sounding better; whether
it does or not depends alot on the software.  And make sure you hook it
up to a real stereo; the monitor speaker is lousy.

> 6) Mac disk drives are faster than the Amiga, I do not know why this is.  The
> Amiga disks use a DMA xfer technique, so they should be faster.

I've never timed a MAC drive, but I'd expect the Amiga to LOAD or SAVE a 
program faster than the MAC (floppies, right?).  But the AmigaDOS file 
structure is very bad for anything like directory searching or wildcard
matching, as the file names aren't included in the directory headers, but
in the file headers.  This is the same reason that specific file access is
very fast; the directory headers on disk contain hash tables that find the
files very quickly.  I don't know the internals of the MAC file structure,
but its gotta be faster than this.

> I hope this capsule comparision can help with any questions you might have.
> 
> Phil Hunt
> ..calma!sivax!phil
> (408)942-1212

> running (A DOS window

-- 
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Dave Haynie    {caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh

	"I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and
	 for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment."
							-Gotama Buddha

	These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

higgin@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom) (09/19/86)

In article <8609182006.AA22393@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes:
>	Though the Mac has a greater width/height resolution, the Amiga has
>better display, and, when displaying digitized BW photos, it's better than
>the MAC (by about 14x).  This is due to the fact that you can grey-scale
>individual bits on the Amiga.

Generally I agree with everything you say Matt, but this time I think what
you say is highly subjective, and possibly inaccurate.  I believe the Mac's
screen resolution is something like 512X352(or384) so the horizontal res
is lower than the Amiga, but the vertical is much higher (ignoring flickering
interlaced mode on the Amiga).

The reason it LOOKS like the Mac's resolution is so much higher is because
pretty much ALL text ever shown on a Mac screen is proportionally spaced.
This usually allows 80-90 characters across of average text, since they
can do characters sets which use 1 pixel wide stems due to the clarity of
the monochrome display, and its tiny size (9").  Also, with the higher
vertical resolution, the characters look more fully formed without the
"black lines" in between the scan lines like on the Amiga's 200
line mode with light text on a dark background.

Overall, I would only say that the Amiga can do better B&W PICTURES than the
Mac because of, as you mentioned, grey-scaling.  But B&W pictures are but
one element of a useful display.  Decent looking text is what I want.

	Paul.

Disclaimer: I do not work for Commodore and my opinions are my own.

lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein) (09/19/86)

In article <741@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) wri
es:
>The Amiga has a Font Editor and an Icon editor shipped with it (the Font
>Editor is officially new for release 1.2).  I've got a public domain
>Menu editor which lets me define menus, graphically, then produce C code to
>create them.  And a full featured gadget editor is just around the corner
>(can you edit MAC gadgets as easily as all the other stuff?).
 
For the most part, yes.  The Resource Editor has graphical icon, font, and
dialog editors.  Plus you can write custom graphical editors and plug them
into the Resource Editor.  There are also public domain editors for menus,
etc.
 
A significant point about these editors and resources in general is that
resources can be plugged into an application or document without
recompiling.  You can plug new editors into the Resource Editor framework
and start editing new kinds of data structures.  You can change the command
key equivalents for menus.  You can change the keyboard mapping in
MacTerminal.
 
>...
>FALSE, LIES, UNTRUE!  For each different style of printer, there is a 
>configuration file, run by the printer device, that translates all printer
>specific functions into generic Amiga functions.  This is more powerful 
>that the MAC's printer interface.  The Amiga can support any printer via
>any I/O port in a program transparent fashion.  This includes graphic 
>dumps (which may be scaled in various ways) as well as a generic text
>interface that the MAC doesn't have.  I can switch from Epson printer to
>HP Laserjet or Apple ImageWriter just by selecting the printer option
>through the Amiga's Preferences program.  How many type of printers will
>the MAC support, anyway (other than Apple, of course).

This was one of the mistakes in the original BYTE article.  The Macintosh
Print Manager supports printers in a device independent way, via printer
resource files.  You can also stream text and bitmaps to printers.  Is is
true that Apple itself does not support anything other than its own
printers, but 3rd parties have developed alternate printer drivers for the
Mac and Apple does license the source code of the ImageWriter driver to
developers.
 
>...
>The Amiga's disk interface is far faster than the MAC's.
>...
>With
>a few minor exceptions (circle/ellipse drawing, I believe), BYTE found the
>Amiga to be consistantly faster than the MAC, in graphics, disk, sound, etc.
 
I think if you go back a couple of months in BYTE you will find Bruce
Webster's column comparing the Mac, Amiga, and Atari ST in a few informal
benchmarks.  I seem to recall that the Macintosh disks were faster than
either the Amiga's or Atari's and that the Amiga graphics were faster for
things that could be done in hardware (lines or rectangles) but that other
things (such as text) were slower.

-- 
Larry Rosenstein

Object Specialist
Apple Computer

AppleLink: Rosenstein1
UUCP:  {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr
CSNET: lsr@Apple.CSNET

daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (09/23/86)

> A significant point about these editors and resources in general is that
> resources can be plugged into an application or document without
> recompiling.  You can plug new editors into the Resource Editor framework
> and start editing new kinds of data structures.  You can change the command
> key equivalents for menus.  You can change the keyboard mapping in
> MacTerminal.

That's a good feature; its more difficult to change some things on the 
Amiga, like menus, etc., after compiling.  There's nothing that does that
automatically, yet.  Of course, I can change the keymaps from the CLI via
the SetMap command; we have several US maps, including Dvoark, along with
various European maps, with support for dead keys.  The mapping is done
automatically from any open console, and that includes ANSI style output
to support more than the normal 256 logical keys.  Or I can instead pass raw 
key codes to the key mapping function, allowing my program to intercept key
combinations that wouldn't otherwise appear in a key map.

> Larry Rosenstein
> 
> Object Specialist
> Apple Computer
> 
> AppleLink: Rosenstein1
> UUCP:  {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr
> CSNET: lsr@Apple.CSNET
-- 
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Dave Haynie    {caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh

	"I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and
	 for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment."
							-Gotama Buddha

	These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

cc1@locus.ucla.edu (Michael Gersten) (09/24/86)

:>   the resource editor that allows you to change menus, fonts, icons, and
:>   every detail of alerts and dialogs (requestors on the Amiga) without
:>   ever recompiling.
>The Amiga has a Font Editor and an Icon editor shipped with it ...
>Menu editor which lets me define menus, graphically, then produce C code to 
>create them.

You missed a point of the original. The mac can do all that without
recompiling. You cannot change topaz fonts (not under 1.1, anyways).
You cannot change the requesters themselves automatically at all.

Also, I don't know about Lettice, but Manx has a m.lib math library that
is compiled in; changing it to use the 68881 would mean re-compiling,
not just changing mathieee.library
		Michael Gersten
      Views expressed here may not be those of the Computer Club, UCLA, or
  anyone in their left OR right mind.  And that's the name o' that tune.

bezanson@gumby.WISC.EDU (Brian Bezanson) (09/24/86)

>> I am not a great amiga expert,
>Obviously...
Obviously you have never used a Mac...

>>   Resources - The Mac has a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor called
>>   the resource editor that allows you to change menus, fonts, icons, and
>>   every detail of alerts and dialogs (requestors on the Amiga) without
>>   ever recompiling.  An amiga programmer must laborously speel out these
>>   things in C code that does not look at all like the finished product.
>The Amiga has a Font Editor and an Icon editor shipped with it (the Font
>Editor is officially new for release 1.2).  I've got a public domain
>Menu editor which lets me define menus, graphically, then produce C code to
>create them.  And a full featured gadget editor is just around the corner
>(can you edit MAC gadgets as easily as all the other stuff?).
You missed the point here, you can graphically edit ALL the Macs resources
(windows, dialogs, menus, icons, strings, etc...) without having to change
any of the original programs code or need for any recompiling.  If I want to
change/modify a Mac Menu, all I have to do is use a resource editor.  You
have to recompile with the new code AND ORIGINAL SOURCE [Flame On: No wonder
you need Multitasking, you have to do many things to make one change: Flame off]

>>   Disk Operating system interface - The mac's operating system takes a Pascal
>>   view of the world.  this is not great for a C programmer, but most Mac
>>   compilers have a pascal keyword that handles the details.  The system
>>   itself is pretty decent.  The Amiga's operating system is written in
>>   BCPL [etc.]
>The Amiga's disk interface is far faster than the MAC's.  That should say it
>all.  There's very little in the DOS that requires byte boundary access anyway.
WRONG!!! Though the Amiga may be faster from a hardware DESIGN point, in 
practical use, I could always go to sleep waiting for it to read in a disk, and
I could watch ROOTS in the time it took to open up it's 'folders'.  The Amiga
OS, at least from Intuition/Finder Section was defintely slower than on the
Mac 512E or Plus.

>> ... Although
>> the hardware of the Amiga should be faster than a Macintosh, the superior
>> software of the Mac consistantly makes it easier to use, faster, and more
>> powerful at the kinds of tasks that I like to do.
>Can't comment on ease of use, that's a personal preference, though I like the
>option of not having to use a mouse all the time, only when I want to.  With
>a few minor exceptions (circle/ellipse drawing, I believe), BYTE found the
>Amiga to be consistantly faster than the MAC, in graphics, disk, sound, etc.
>I like to do my tasks a few at a time, thank you.
The Mac is far easier to use, because Apple created a standard interface that
99% of all Mac programs follow.  You can use nearly any mac program, to some
basic extent, without ever having read the documentation.  I hate the 2 button
mouse on the Amiga.  One minute you use the right button to open a window, the
next you have to use another button.  It has less functionality than the Mac
Mouse.

The Amiga is a great piece of hardware, but it was brought out by an ailing
firm that is still on the edges of financial disaster, and the Amiga is not
helping Commodore out a lot.  The Atari ST for it's price and software has the
Amiga beat out, and the Mac edges out the Atari in the higher end market.
The Amiga has probably seen it's last days as a viable computer, due to price
drops in Atari and Apple lines, and the introduction of Apples //GS.

Time is a telling factor.  Let's have a net re-union next year and see if
the Amiga is still sold by Commodore (or anyone else).  Commodores low-end
market is falling to the big boys.

Brian Bezanson					       bezanson@gumby.wisc.edu

-----------------------------
'Here today, gone tomorrow...'
-----------------------------

-- 
Brian Bezanson {seismo,ihnp4,allegra,topaz,harvard}!uwvax!puff!bezanson
Manta Software Corp.	  "     "     "     "    "       !gumby!bezanson
bezanson@gumby.wisc.edu    bezanson@puff.wisc.edu

chiu@princeton.UUCP (Kenneth Chiu) (09/24/86)

In article <397@gumby.WISC.EDU> bezanson@gumby.WISC.EDU (Brian Bezanson) writes:
>You missed the point here, you can graphically edit ALL the Macs resources
>(windows, dialogs, menus, icons, strings, etc...) without having to change
>any of the original programs code or need for any recompiling.  If I want to
>change/modify a Mac Menu, all I have to do is use a resource editor.  You
>have to recompile with the new code AND ORIGINAL SOURCE

Why is this necessarily a good thing?  I'm sure it makes the system routines more
complex, and it seems that the only changes you can make to a program's menus, etc.,
without recompiling are only cosmetic.  For example, can you add a new menu item
to a terminal emulator that turns handshaking on/off without recompiling?

>The Mac is far easier to use, because Apple created a standard interface that
>99% of all Mac programs follow.  You can use nearly any mac program, to some
>basic extent, without ever having read the documentation.

There is a trade-off here between having all programs use the same interface, and
having more flexibility.  Perhaps Apple leaned toward the standardization side,
and perhaps Commodore leaned toward the flexibility side.  Regardless, the issue
is endlessly debatable, and certainly not so simple.

>I hate the 2 button
>mouse on the Amiga.  One minute you use the right button to open a window, the
>next you have to use another button.  It has less functionality than the Mac
>Mouse.

Have you ever used a Xerox Star, a Sun, or an Apollo?  Deciding how many buttons
to put on a mouse is another design issue that involves compromise, and no one
choice is obviously better.  If you have only few buttons, you are limited to what
actions can be initiated with only a button press.  This means that you must
necessarily have more mouse activity to perform a given action.  If you have 
many buttons, it can be difficult to remember what button does what.  BTW, the
right button is almost universal for pulling down, or popping up a menu, and
the left button is almost universal for making some kind of selection.

>Time is a telling factor.  Let's have a net re-union next year and see if
>the Amiga is still sold by Commodore (or anyone else).  Commodores low-end
>market is falling to the big boys.

Taking any bets?  :-)



I have not done any programming on the Mac, so I have refrained from making any
specific comments about Amiga vs. Mac.  I believe that such discussions can be
useful and informative, but not if you are going to just say the Amiga is
better because of blah, blah, blah, or the Mac is better because blah, blah, blah.
The people who designed these things are not stupid, they certainly must have had
a lot of considerations in mind.
-- 
Kenneth Chiu                                              UUCP: princeton!chiu
Princeton University Computer Science Department        BITNET: 6031801@PUCC

dwb@well.UUCP (David W. Berry) (09/25/86)

In article <172@apple.UUCP> lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein) writes:
>I think if you go back a couple of months in BYTE you will find Bruce
>Webster's column comparing the Mac, Amiga, and Atari ST in a few informal
>benchmarks.  I seem to recall that the Macintosh disks were faster than
>either the Amiga's or Atari's and that the Amiga graphics were faster for
>things that could be done in hardware (lines or rectangles) but that other
>things (such as text) were slower.
Or must be done by hand, as is the case with rounded rectangles, ellipses,
arcs, or polylines...  all things which the Mac ROM's handle, but the
Amiga user must figure out for himself.

To me it seems relatively clear that this discussion has degenerated
from a technically informative one into a religious war.  No offense,
Larry, you were getting the thing back onto technical footing, the
general drift has just been downward.  From all indications I would
have to say that both machines have their advantages, both from a
user and a programmer standpoint.  Each machine has features built
into it's primitives that are advantageous and those that are badly
misimplemented or not implemented at all.  Apple certainly should have
done something more about multi-tasking.  Amiga should have more
Graphics primitives.  Apple seems to have thought out the process
of internationalization and customization much more thoroughly than
Amiga did.  Resources can be used to drastically change the appearance
of an application without needing to recompile the program or take
a debugger to it.  At one time their was a set of resources floating
around which would give an application apple shaped windows.  Could
the Amiga do that without patching the operating system?  Amiga
has come up with what seems to be a cleaner interface for the 
programmer to use, primarily because there is much less to learn
to use it.

In short, both machines have their advantages and disadvantages
and further presentation of fact and misfact and arguments til
we're blue in the face aren't really going to change anybody's
minds.  I still think the Mac is a great machine and would rather
be developing software for it than for the Amiga.  I have good
friends that feel the same way about the Amiga.  I respect that.
In the future can we move the discussion from one of "My machine
can do this and yours can't.  So there.  Nyah, Nyah, Nyah."  To
a more constructive one of "Hey, I really like this about the
my machine.  How can I do it on yours too?

Flames to /dev/nsa, they need all the mail they can get...

	David W. Berry
	(701 Menker Ave, #1 ; San Jose, CA.  95128-2876).USNail
	dwb@well.uucp			dwb@Delphi
	dwb@GEnie			293-0752@408.MaBell
-- 
	David W. Berry
	dwb@well.uucp                   dwb@Delphi
	dwb@GEnie                       293-0752@408.MaBell

daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (09/25/86)

> Xref: cbmvax net.micro.mac:2815 net.micro.amiga:2714

> You missed a point of the original. The mac can do all that without
> recompiling. You cannot change topaz fonts (not under 1.1, anyways).
> You cannot change the requesters themselves automatically at all.

Only the Amiga Menu Editor (producing C code) requires it output to be
compiled; everything else happens at any time.  The Topaz fonts in 1.1 and
1.2 are "ROM" fonts, so you can't of course change them.  But you can load
a ROM font into FontEd and save it as a disk font.

> Also, I don't know about Lettice, but Manx has a m.lib math library that
> is compiled in; changing it to use the 68881 would mean re-compiling,
> not just changing mathieee.library

I'm not sure about Manx, but I imagine that the m.lib is merely a shell
into which the math library routines are moved.  The idea being that I
want C convention mathematic calls, not Amiga convention, so that I get
portability.  Of course, any language can open the math libraries directly
and get most of their benefits (these math libs contain a large variety
of floating point routines, including routines that a language can use
for its intrinsic *, /, +, -, ^, etc. operators.  If your language doesn't
support these, blame the language implementors, not the Amiga, when you
add your 68881).

> 		Michael Gersten
>       Views expressed here may not be those of the Computer Club, UCLA, or
>   anyone in their left OR right mind.  And that's the name o' that tune.
-- 
============================================================================
Dave Haynie    {caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh

	These opinions are my own, though if you try them out, and decide
	that you really like them, a small donation would be appreciated.

bezanson@gumby.WISC.EDU (Brian Bezanson) (09/27/86)

In article <1666@princeton.UUCP>, chiu@princeton.UUCP (Kenneth Chiu) writes:
> >You missed the point here, you can graphically edit ALL the Macs resources
> >(windows, dialogs, menus, icons, strings, etc...) without having to change
> >any of the original programs code or need for any recompiling.  If I want to
> >change/modify a Mac Menu, all I have to do is use a resource editor.  You
> >have to recompile with the new code AND ORIGINAL SOURCE
> 
> Why is this necessarily a good thing?  I'm sure it makes the system routines more
> complex, and it seems that the only changes you can make to a program's menus, etc.,
> without recompiling are only cosmetic.  For example, can you add a new menu item
> to a terminal emulator that turns handshaking on/off without recompiling?

No, you can't add menu items (because the program can't respond to them
because it doesn't know what they mean, in this case recompiling would be
needed).  What editing the resources are good for are: 1) Adding command-keys
(Control characters) to menu items to save time, 2) Changing the wording
of menus or strings to other languages or to suit your own personal needs, and
3) modifying window size, cinfiguration, etc...  the resources can be edited
in any way the user sees fit.  Also, there are LAYOout resources that
programmers can use to let you customize how the program handles certain
actions (the finder allows you to grid icons for neater movement, turn off
the warning system for discarding files, and more.)  In summation, the beauty
of Mac resources are that the user can modify the look and feel to suit his/her
needs and if the programmer allows, LAYOut resources can be used to customize
the program.

-- 
Brian Bezanson {seismo,ihnp4,allegra,topaz,harvard}!uwvax!gumby!bezanson
Manta Software Corp.				  bezanson@gumby.wisc.edu 

elg@usl.UUCP (Eric Lee Green) (10/03/86)

In article <397@gumby.WISC.EDU> bezanson@gumby.WISC.EDU (Brian Bezanson) writes:
>
>>>   Resources - The Mac has a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor called
>>The Amiga has a Font Editor and an Icon editor shipped with it (the Font
>>Editor is officially new for release 1.2).  I've got a public domain
>>Menu editor which lets me define menus, graphically, then produce C code to
>>create them.  And a full featured gadget editor is just around the corner
>>(can you edit MAC gadgets as easily as all the other stuff?).
>You missed the point here, you can graphically edit ALL the Macs resources
>(windows, dialogs, menus, icons, strings, etc...) without having to change
>any of the original programs code or need for any recompiling. 

Well whoopeedo to you, too, Mr. Computer Bigot. Just what we need,
another flaming Mactribesman cluttering up the net with his diatribes
about how his computer is better than every other computer in the
world (to hear some of the Mactribesmen speak, their Mac is better
than a Sun!). Frankly, who gives a #$%@#$% about whether you have to
recompile your code after changing the gadgets? Doesn't exactly sound
earth-shattering to me...

>WRONG!!! Though the Amiga may be faster from a hardware DESIGN point, in 
>practical use, I could always go to sleep waiting for it to read in a disk, and
>I could watch ROOTS in the time it took to open up it's 'folders'.  The Amiga
>OS, at least from Intuition/Finder Section was defintely slower than on the
>Mac 512E or Plus.

Oh so true. Intuition has some definite problems with speed in that
area, mainly because it is sitting on top of a real operating system.
The Mac stores disk directory entries with both their corresponding
icons, and the filenames/locations/etc. Tripos/Amigados doesn't, since
if you are operating in the CLI environment, there are no associated
icons.  The Amiga has to go looking for ".info" files due to the
implementation chosen (I personally think they should have stored all
the icons in a single ".info" file in each directory, instead of
having to go chasing around looking for them).

>>> ... Although
>>> the hardware of the Amiga should be faster than a Macintosh, the superior
>>> software of the Mac consistantly makes it easier to use, faster, and more
>>> powerful at the kinds of tasks that I like to do.

You must not be very demanding! I do alot of programming. One thing I
like to do on Unix is to call up a shell window in GNU Emacs, compile
my program, run it, and as the errors pop up, edit my program and do
it all over again. I also suspend the editor alot to pull up dc or go
brouse thru /usr/src/local looking for likely solutions, etc. I can
see where, if you just use your Mac as a terminal or a word processor,
you could prefer the Mac to an Amiga (that tiny monitor shure has nice
looking characters!)... but while I can use my preferred work style on
both Unix and the Amiga, I wouldn't be able to use it on the Mac due
to the lack of multitasking. Programming the Mac sounds an aweful lot
like programming my C-64 -- I HATE single-tasking computers, they're
so awefully limited.

>The Mac is far easier to use, because Apple created a standard interface that
>99% of all Mac programs follow.  You can use nearly any mac program, to some
>basic extent, without ever having read the documentation.  I hate the 2 button
>mouse on the Amiga.  One minute you use the right button to open a window, the
>next you have to use another button.  It has less functionality than the Mac
>Mouse.

Obviously, you've never used an Amiga. The right button is used ONLY
pull down menus, in all the Amiga software that I have used, and the
left button is used ONLY to move windows around, tweak gadgets, etc.

>The Amiga is a great piece of hardware, but it was brought out by an ailing
>firm that is still on the edges of financial disaster, and the Amiga is not
>helping Commodore out a lot.  The Atari ST for it's price and software has the
>Amiga beat out, and the Mac edges out the Atari in the higher end market.
>The Amiga has probably seen it's last days as a viable computer, due to price
>drops in Atari and Apple lines, and the introduction of Apples //GS.
>
>Time is a telling factor.  Let's have a net re-union next year and see if
>the Amiga is still sold by Commodore (or anyone else).  Commodores low-end
>market is falling to the big boys.
>
>Brian Bezanson					       bezanson@gumby.wisc.edu

Talk about your LIES!!!! The Amiga is right now reaching the point of
takeoff. Within the last month, several pieces of hardware have been
release for a suitable price that make the  Amiga competitive with any
computer on the market today. For example, if I had an Amiga (just
lusting after one, thank you), I could add 4 megabytes of RAM to it
for under $1200... try that with your Mac! See ya, Mr. Computer Bigot!

By the way, I think the Mac Plus is a nice machine... the Computing
Center here has several Macs used by the secretaries (the techies
generally have PC-Drones or other such machines, since they enjoy
playing with soldering irons and you need a hacksaw to open a Mac).
-- 

      Eric Green {akgua,ut-sally}!usl!elg
        (Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509)

" In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of
 people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

wetter@tybalt.caltech.edu.Caltech.Edu (Pierce T. Wetter) (10/05/86)

>Well whoopeedo to you, too, Mr. Computer Bigot. Just what we need,
>another flaming Mactribesman cluttering up the net with his diatribes
>about how his computer is better than every other computer in the
>world (to hear some of the Mactribesmen speak, their Mac is better
  Oh great now all we need is another Amigatribesman cluttering up the net
with his diatrabes about how his postings are better than every other then
all ther other postings...
 
signal/noise ratio = - infinity

Pierce Wetter

davec@mhuxl.UUCP (Dave Caswell) (10/06/86)

> world (to hear some of the Mactribesmen speak, their Mac is better
> than a Sun!). Frankly, who gives a #$%@#$% about whether you have to
> recompile your code after changing the gadgets? Doesn't exactly sound
> earth-shattering to me...
> 
>       Eric Green {akgua,ut-sally}!usl!elg
>         (Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509)
> 

Well,  I for one give a "#$%@#$%".  With modifiable resources I can 
significantly modify the behaviour of programs that I don't have source
code for.  The LAYO resource in the Finder comes to mind.
	I figure resources are one of the niftyer ideas that the mac
folks came up with.

Dave Caswell
{allegra|ihnp4|...}!mhuxl!davec

It is only with the heart that one sees rightly, what is essential is
invisible to the eye.
                                Antoine de Saint-Exupery

B5U@PSUVMB.BITNET (10/07/86)

In article <954@usl.UUCP>, elg@usl.UUCP (Eric Lee Green) says:
>You must not be very demanding! I do alot of programming. One thing I
>like to do on Unix is to call up a shell window in GNU Emacs, compile
>my program, run it, and as the errors pop up, edit my program and do
>it all over again. I also suspend the editor alot to pull up dc or go
>brouse thru /usr/src/local looking for likely solutions, etc. I can
>see where, if you just use your Mac as a terminal or a word processor,
>you could prefer the Mac to an Amiga (that tiny monitor shure has nice
>looking characters!)... but while I can use my preferred work style on
>both Unix and the Amiga, I wouldn't be able to use it on the Mac due
>to the lack of multitasking. Programming the Mac sounds an aweful lot
>like programming my C-64 -- I HATE single-tasking computers, they're
>so awefully limited.
>
>
>Talk about your LIES!!!! The Amiga is right now reaching the point of
>takeoff. Within the last month, several pieces of hardware have been
>release for a suitable price that make the  Amiga competitive with any
>computer on the market today. For example, if I had an Amiga (just
>lusting after one, thank you), I could add 4 megabytes of RAM to it
>for under $1200... try that with your Mac! See ya, Mr. Computer Bigot!
>
>By the way, I think the Mac Plus is a nice machine... the Computing
>Center here has several Macs used by the secretaries (the techies
>generally have PC-Drones or other such machines, since they enjoy
>playing with soldering irons and you need a hacksaw to open a Mac).
>--
>
>      Eric Green {akgua,ut-sally}!usl!elg
>        (Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509)
>
>" In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of
> people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

  First of all, learn to spell correctly. No one can respect your opinions if
 your posting looks like crap because of misspelling. Even as an Engineering
 major, I try to spell correctly.
  Second, LET'S CAN THIS @#$% & $ DISCUSSION ALREADY ! The relative merits of
 both machines are high, but the final answer will come down to YOUR OWN
 OPINION ! Let's try to help people out with this newsgroup instead of filling
 it up with garbage (this can also be said of the current 80x86 vs. 680x0
 discussion).
  Third, Mr. Green, you are as big a computer bigot as the person you
 criticized! You are bitching about the Mac's problems even louder than he
 attacked the Amiga's. Let's just say that they are both excellent machines,
 and one might be bought over the other, depending on the person and hi

bezanson@gumby.WISC.EDU (Brian Bezanson) (10/08/86)

In article <954@usl.UUCP>, elg@usl.UUCP (Eric Lee Green) writes:
> >You missed the point here, you can graphically edit ALL the Macs resources
> >(windows, dialogs, menus, icons, strings, etc...) without having to change
> >any of the original programs code or need for any recompiling. 
> 
> Well whoopeedo to you, too, Mr. Computer Bigot. Just what we need,
> another flaming Mactribesman cluttering up the net with his diatribes
> about how his computer is better than every other computer in the
> world 

Just what we need, another flaming Amigatribesman cluttering up the net with
his diatribes about how his computer is better than any other computer in the
world.

> (to hear some of the Mactribesmen speak, their Mac is better
> than a Sun!). Frankly, who gives a #$%@#$% about whether you have to
> recompile your code after changing the gadgets? Doesn't exactly sound
> earth-shattering to me...

What if you want to modify a commercial program that you don't have the sources
to?  Tonight, I was looking at some modifications that people have made to the
Finder to allow different icon spacing, dating conventions, etc.  Try that
with Intuition.  Also, try to produce a foreign language version of an 
application without the sources.  I think it's a big deal (and obviously you
never even considered these advantages).

> Oh so true. Intuition has some definite problems with speed in that
> area, mainly because it is sitting on top of a real operating system.
> The Mac stores disk directory entries with both their corresponding
> icons, and the filenames/locations/etc. 

This is WRONG!  The Mac operating system does not store icons/folder locations
in the directory entry for that file.  Rather, the Finder creates a file
called the DeskTop, which contains the icons and their locations, comments,
etc...Many people tend to believe that the Finder and the operating system are
one and the same.  They are not; the Finder is merely an application program.

> Tripos/Amigados doesn't, since
> if you are operating in the CLI environment, there are no associated
> icons.  The Amiga has to go looking for ".info" files due to the
> implementation chosen (I personally think they should have stored all
> the icons in a single ".info" file in each directory, instead of
> having to go chasing around looking for them).

Amazing.  This is more or less what the Mac Finder does.  Could Apple have done
something right in the eyes of this person?
My biggest pet peeve about the Amiga is that it is possible to have 
applications that have no icon, because there is no .info file.  This is very
confusing to novices, who, when given a disk that they are told has something
on it, get horribly confused when no icons appear.  They should have had a 
default, generic icon.  Not everyone uses the CLI, you know.

> >>> ... Although
> >>> the hardware of the Amiga should be faster than a Macintosh, the superior
> >>> software of the Mac consistantly makes it easier to use, faster, and more
> >>> powerful at the kinds of tasks that I like to do.

**** The below comments you are about to make, are based on the above text,
which I did not even type!

> You must not be very demanding! I do alot of programming. One thing I
> like to do on Unix is to call up a shell window in GNU Emacs, compile
> my program, run it, and as the errors pop up, edit my program and do
> it all over again. I also suspend the editor alot to pull up dc or go
> brouse thru /usr/src/local looking for likely solutions, etc. I can
> see where, if you just use your Mac as a terminal or a word processor,
> you could prefer the Mac to an Amiga (that tiny monitor shure has nice
> looking characters!)...

My mac that I am typing this on has a 12" (720x364) screen, it's called a
MacXL (Lisa for the diehards).  If you want to really see true multitasking,
see a Lisa running Lisa 7/7 software, still the best multi-tasking micro
to date.

> but while I can use my preferred work style on
> both Unix and the Amiga, I wouldn't be able to use it on the Mac due
> to the lack of multitasking. Programming the Mac sounds an aweful lot
> like programming my C-64 -- I HATE single-tasking computers, they're
> so awefully limited.

I have used multi-tasking in program design on a Burroughs B25, it was nice
but there was no super advantage in it.  With design systems like Lightspeed
C & Pascal, where compile times are less than 10 seconds, I'll be done and
in my application before you have switched over to your compiler.  The
biggest fault in Amiga multitasking (at least on the ones I used at the 
local amiga dealer), is that they kept on crashing at regular intervals.  I'd
rather have a one task system that works, than a multitasking that bombs.
If you really want nice multi-tasking (and since you have made the jump to
the amiga), why not wait and look at the new open mac, it will have what
you want and more.

> >The Mac is far easier to use, because Apple created a standard interface that
> >99% of all Mac programs follow.  You can use nearly any mac program, to some
> >basic extent, without ever having read the documentation.  I hate the 2 button
> >mouse on the Amiga.  One minute you use the right button to open a window, the
> >next you have to use another button.  It has less functionality than the Mac
> >Mouse.
 
> Obviously, you've never used an Amiga. The right button is used ONLY
> pull down menus, in all the Amiga software that I have used, and the
> left button is used ONLY to move windows around, tweak gadgets, etc.

Yes, I have used the amiga, but the two-button mouse is not straight forward
as to it's meaning.  I can take a complete computer novice (like
yourself?) and have them working faster & better on a mac than an Amiga.
Also, I hate the word 'gadget', makes me think of a cheap toy construction
kit where you slap together gadgets to make something.  

> >Time is a telling factor.  Let's have a net re-union next year and see if
> >the Amiga is still sold by Commodore (or anyone else).  Commodores low-end
> >market is falling to the big boys.
 
> Talk about your LIES!!!! The Amiga is right now reaching the point of
> takeoff. Within the last month, several pieces of hardware have been
> release for a suitable price that make the  Amiga competitive with any
> computer on the market today.

Just try to add a cheap 20 meg hard disk.  I can get 20 meg SCSI drives
for $595 LIST.

> For example, if I had an Amiga (just
> lusting after one, thank you), I could add 4 megabytes of RAM to it
> for under $1200... try that with your Mac! See ya, Mr. Computer Bigot!

Yeah I can add 2 megabytes now for $220, that's only a tad more expensive than
Amiga 256K upgrades isn't it (retail price?)  When the 1 megabit chips are out,
I'll be able to have 4 megs internally w/o an expansion box (that is twice as
big as the Amiga.)

> By the way, I think the Mac Plus is a nice machine... the Computing
> Center here has several Macs used by the secretaries (the techies
> generally have PC-Drones or other such machines, since they enjoy
> playing with soldering irons and you need a hacksaw to open a Mac).

A Hacksaw?  I have seen internal hard drives, fans, 4 meg memory upgrades
w/ 68020 & 68881 boards.  How is it so hard to open, don't you know how to
use a screw driver (w/star tip)?
-- 
Brian Bezanson {seismo,ihnp4,allegra,topaz,harvard}!uwvax!gumby!bezanson
Manta Software Corp.				  bezanson@gumby.wisc.edu 

mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike Meyer) (10/10/86)

In article <7761B5U@PSUVMB> B5U@PSUVMB.BITNET writes:
> the $1200 figure quoted; but for what purpose other than perhaps a BBS can I
> find a reason, unless you want a virtual micro :-) ), available software,

Because I want the LISP program I'm working on, the visual editor
(written in LISP, of course), the LISP help system, the LISP compiler,
and the LISP debugging/windowing system in memory. Of course, a
terminal emulator so I can monitor mail on the mainframe at work would
be nice, also. I'm just afraid that 4Meg won't be enough....

On the more serious side, Sun 3's with less than 4Meg are slow (but
they're running Unix), and a Slime running release 7 needs 4MegaWords
(36 bit words) to get good response out of it. And these systems
*HAVE* virtual memory.

	"Given the choice between more memory and faster disk,
		always take more memory."
	<mike