lbg@gitpyr.UUCP (Lee B Grey, Programmer Extraordinaire) (10/03/85)
< eat hot lead, sucker > Since I am fortunate enough to have an Amiga, I am going to try to answer some of the myriad questions that have been asked. I hope I can help some of you. First of all, the Amiga is no toy. I have always considered myself very competent with computers, but the Amiga is, in some ways, virgin territory to me. Being technically knowledgable on the Apple ][+ and IBM PC is not all it takes to be an Amiga whiz. There is a whole lot going on in that machine, and you can expect it to take weeks or months to really become proficient. I have had mine for 6 days and am just getting past the point where everything I do sends me on a forty-minute search through the developer's manuals. <transitional-phrase>, I am really looking forward to the day when I can live up to the potential of the Amiga. While it is having some growing pains (it crashed at least seven times yesterday), it is only a matter of creating software that can live up the hardware. It is a remarkable computer. I must admit that I am not in love with AmigaDOS. It does not quite live up to my expectations. For example, to get a directory of all files that have a ".c" extension, you must type list p=#?.c To me, the "p=" is a nuisance, and #? as a wildcard is a royal pain. Commands such as delete, makedir, etc. cannot be abbreviated. You get used to it, but, if you want to create a new operating system, I think the point is to IMPROVE upon existing syntax, not make it more cumbersome. The bottom line is (1) I am glad to have the WCS and (2) the OS9 discussion has taken on new meaning for me. I have the 1070 monitor, and I am curious about the difference between it and the 1080. Stereo speakers do not matter, since my Amiga and stereo are on speaking terms. I am very pleased with the 1070. All of the interlace issues had me worried, but the monitor looks great. Interlaced and otherwise. The Kickstart disk loads in under a minute and is truly protected. I have never had a crash that destroys the Kickstart memory. ABasiC is a whole lot like IBM PC/Microsoft BASIC. I gave up BASIC a number of years ago, but it is a quick and fun way to see some of what the Amiga can do. It is pretty complete, with graphics support, sound support, and a While/Wend structure. The editting system is the absolute, bottom-of-Hell pits. You have to say "edit <line-number>", and you cannot go from editting one line to another without leaving the first line. I hate it. The best thing about ABasiC is this program: 10 input x$ 20 y$ = translate$(x$) 30 x% = narrate(y$) 40 goto 10 This little baby says whatever you type in!! You can have hours of fun making your Amiga utter obscenities. With slightly more code, you can alter the parameters to change the voice, although I didn't find the results as satisfying as they could have been. The sound system is great, but the speech is rumbly. You really can't complain, and you can understand it, but there's no way to convince people that there's someone in your room with you. (Unless it's someone with terminal phlegm.) (ooh, gross!) As to C programming, well, it's not going too well. I can't seem to get hello world to run. It compiles okay (two pass compiler, not terribly slow or terribly fast, in my experience). It links okay (two pass linker with a couple of libraries and a couple of startup files to be linked with your object code). But when I run it, the system hangs and I have to reset it. I cannot for the life of me figger out what's wrong. IF ANY OF YOU OTHER SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS COULD PLEASE FILL ME IN ON WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO GET A C PROGRAM TO RUN, EVEN SIMPLE OL' HELLO WORLD, I WOULD BE EXTREMELY GRATEFUL!!!! There are an official shitload of include files available. They are used for graphics, exec, standard lattice c, workbench, intuition, etc. The whole system is really fascinating. I can't wait til I know what's going on! As far as distributing files on the disks, I'm not too sure about the best way yet. It's all personal preference, of course, but I'm still shuffling things around, trying to come up with my particular.... "idiom, sir?" IDIOM! Right now, I have all the executable stuff on the workbench disk, including the compiler (both passes) and the linker (two passes in one program), while my C code and all the libraries and include files are on the other disk. Execute files seem to be quite versatile, although I have not investigated them closely. They may be the one thing that saves me from AmigaDOS. The screen editor is a bare-bones editor, with two modes. In screen mode, it is always in insert mode, except when you use control codes for such things as deleting lines or words or characters. In escape/line mode, it is sort of like a line editor, but you must do some screen functions through the escape mode (such as marking blocks (which cannot start or end in the middle of a line), copying blocks, and exiting the editor). All in all the editor is certainly nothing to be excited about, but it gets the job done without too much hassle. There is also a line editor, which I have not investigated at all. I hope that this *LONG* posting has answered some of your questions. I know how it is to ask and not get any answers. I will help all I can. It would also be great (for me, too) to hear some other developers' reactions. Am I a bumbling idiot who doesn't know his way around a keyboard? What are everyone else's opinions of AmigaDOS, ABasiC, the editor, WorkBench, etc.? Has anyone else compiled helloworld (or anything else?)? If so, how? Let's USE THE NET, okay? In summary, let me remind you not to be turned off by my negative comments. My complaints are only with the software, which can always be redone or replaced. I think that the hardware is THE GREATEST! By the way, everyone that I have shown the machine to agrees. I am looking forward to DIGGING into that baby and making her sing! (and dance) Lee
preece@ccvaxa.UUCP (10/03/85)
I have the 1070 monitor, and I am curious about the difference between it and the 1080. Stereo speakers do not matter, since my Amiga and stereo are on speaking terms. I am very pleased with the 1070. All of the > I am very pleased with the 1070. All of the interlace issues had me > worried, but the monitor looks great. Interlaced and otherwise. /* > Written 4:00 pm Oct 2, 1985 by lbg@gitpyr.UUCP in > ccvaxa:net.micro.amiga */ ---------- Not having actually seen either an ST or an Amiga, I'm curious about how good that monitor is. Is it really able to deliver clean text performance in 640x400 mode? No flicker problems? -- scott preece gould/csd - urbana ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece
knf@druxo.UUCP (FricklasK) (10/04/85)
>I have the 1070 monitor, and I am curious about the difference between it >and the 1080. Stereo speakers do not matter, since my Amiga and stereo >are on speaking terms. I am very pleased with the 1070. All of the >> I am very pleased with the 1070. All of the interlace issues had me >> worried, but the monitor looks great. Interlaced and otherwise. /* >> Written 4:00 pm Oct 2, 1985 by lbg@gitpyr.UUCP in >> ccvaxa:net.micro.amiga */ >---------- >Not having actually seen either an ST or an Amiga, I'm curious about >how good that monitor is. Is it really able to deliver clean text >performance in 640x400 mode? No flicker problems? > >-- >scott preece >gould/csd - urbana >ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece Yep. '`'` Ken '`'`
TLOW@SRI-KL.ARPA (10/28/85)
From: Thomas P. Low <TLOW@SRI-KL.ARPA>
There has been alot of discussion regarding the readability of text in the
640*200 mode. I've done some experementation with different monitors and the
Amiga, with some interesting results. First, someone asked if there was a
hi-res monochrome monitor with long persistance phosphors which would produce
readable 640*400 text. I"ve been working with an Amdek 300-G, and have been
quite satisfied with the results. To evaluate the 640*400 text readability, I
call up the mandril demo from CLI, and then I pull down the graphics screen to
reveal the text in the CLI window in 640*400. There is no flicker in either
the mandril pic. or in the 640*400 text, and the text characters appear
continuous, with no dark spaces between raster lines. I think the odd scan
lines are simply repeats of the even scan lines, so the font appears more
"stairstepped" If the font was redefined to take advantage of the 400 line
resolution, I think it would be exceptionally good. Interlaced text requires a
very long persistance phosphor, and when the same display was viewed on the
17XX monitor from Commodore, the result was unacceptably high flicker. I have
also been playing with a hi-res analog RGB monitor ( with a price tag higher
than a loaded Amiga) by Hitachi. This has a very long persistance phosphor
and a very fine dot pitch (sorry, don't have numbers). The results were very
readable 640*200 text, with no visible darkness between raster lines. The
vertical size of the screen had been reduced to yield an aspect ratio of 1:1,
and this may account for the continuity of the text font. The mandril demo can
be viewed with no visible flicker, but there was considerable smearing on the
boing demo. I have reduced the vertical size on all my monitors to produce a
more compressed and continuous font. One last suggestion regarding the
preception of text readability. The Mac uses a screen format with black
characters on a white background. At any screen resolution, when text is
displayed in this way, the characters will appear continuous, since the
characters are black, and the spaces between the raster lines are also black.
Try using preferences to set up the screen to display dark characters on a
light background. This should result in more "readable" 640*200 text,
although I can't complain about vertically compressed light on dark text.
I read a plea from an Amiga user with a single drive, and his inability
to do anything with the workbench disk out of the drive. If you have a 512k
machine, you can copy the SYS:c directory into ram, and access all the dos
routines from ram. This not only allows you to put the workbench disk away
after you boot up, but also speeds up all dos operations, since the command
does not need to be loaded from the workbench disk. To do this, type:
makedir ram:c
copy sys:c ram:c all
assign c: ram:
This copies all of the normal Amiga-DOS commands to ram, and reassigns the
commands directory to find them there. This does take up 128k or so, so you
do need the memory expansion. You can copy only selected files to ram if
you are pressed for memory. I hope this is of some help. If any one would
post a comparison of the Sony and Commodore monitors, I'd be very interested.
Tom Low
TLOW@SRI.KL.ARPA
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