rb@ccivax.UUCP (rex ballard) (09/07/85)
Both the Amiga and the ST have delayed putting their operating systems in ROM. LET'S HOPE THEY NEVER DO!!! Would you want to void your warranty to upgrade from ms-dos 1.x to 2.x or 3.x? How about CP/M 1.x (there was such a beast back in the days of toggle switches), 2.x 3.x, or do you prefer Unix V6 to V7, 4.2, S3, S5? Once an operating system is put in ROM, the machine that contains the ROM, starts to become obsolete. Besides, When there are no 'Guarenteed ROM Vectors' for developers to go blythly jumping into, you eliminate future 'Compatibility Problems' (Try running 1-2-3 on a sanyo 550) There is no "best way" to write software (bad ways and good ways yes!!). one routine may be faster but requires more memory. That is why lotus and flight-sim... go manipulating the hardware. The could have sold the OS enhancement as a separate products, instead, you have to put up with the slower ROM routines. Maybe wth a little luck, we will see third party operating systems that will provide transparency between the ST and AMIGA. Micro-ware already has OS-9 for the 68000, maybe they'll port it to these machines. (It may not be true UNIX, but it fits in anything). How many people would buy a UNIX-like OS for $95.00 (the price for the COCO version)? Vendors of multi-user systems now have a 'workstation' complete with graphics for the price of a Terminal. If either company "burns-in" their OS, they will have shut the doors to hundreds of new marketing possibilities. Part of the popularity of the 'PC' (IBM style) is that, one disk can run on more than one machine. There are few stores in my area that carry a good selection of BOTH atari and commodore software, maybe some third party effort could make selection easier. Both machines appear to be well designed, AMIGA seems to be a little too proprietary for my tastes, but in markets which IBM and APPLE seem to have all but abandoned (high performance <$1500), this may be just the "fire" we all need. OS in ROM is great for cassette based machines (YEACH,GAG,ECK!!!) where downloading the operating system from tape could take several hours. Both ATARI and AMIGA were smart, they didn't try to get you to buy the system with a cassete and "Upgrade to DISK" when your frustration level got so high that you were ready to start from scratch. Speaking of ROM upgrades, remember the COCO (TRS-80 Color Computer)? There are bugs in 1.0 rom but the better ROMS are not available to earlier COCO users. At $39, you can start all over again with the new one. If you have "Extended basic", (makes the machine just usable), double the above price. If you want your dealer to install them, he'll charge for that. In fact, If you bring in a 16K machine that has been upgraded to 64K, they will pull your chips out and put theirs in (for an additional fee of course). The best trick of all is that you have to upgrade the ROM to extended basic to get the Disk drive loaded so that you can boot OS-9, which immediately throws away BASIC. Now that Could have happened with these new machines. They want to be able to have CD-ROM's, but as of yet, there is no "Universal Standard" for such things. Suppose the Standard you buy is not the most popular? I hope they dowload the drive controller. How about networking? If anybody comes up with a "Universal Standard" and your ROM can't handle it... Either of these machines would make a nice workstation for a UN*X host, but you can bet that if "POPPING THE ROM's' is required, that even OEM's would rather "Pass it by" or "Start from scratch". Suppose that next week, you were able to get a digital phone line (50KB) an an X.25 modem. If your operating system didn't support that protocol, Too bad, pop out another $100+. Maybe someone will come up with a new media that will allow you to buy one disk for ALL of the major machines. Ram is like an automobile, you can go almost anywhere. Rom is like a railroad, you go where it takes you. Can anybody clarify the disk formats on these two machines? AMIGA seems to be using 11 secs/track 512 bytes/sec ATARI seems to be using 9 secs/track 512 bytes/sec Are these figures right? Any chance of getting them data-format compatible with each other?
jpm@BNL44.ARPA (09/07/85)
From: John McNamee <jpm@BNL44.ARPA> From: rex ballard <rb%ccivax.uucp@BRL.ARPA> Subject: Re: AMIGA software in RAM instead of ROM? Date: 7 Sep 85 02:39:22 GMT Both the Amiga and the ST have delayed putting their operating systems in ROM. LET'S HOPE THEY NEVER DO!!! ... Once an operating system is put in ROM, the machine that contains the ROM, starts to become obsolete. I can only comment on the ST since its been a long time since I looked at the technical specs on the Amiga OS. On the ST there is a clear separation between the OS and the windowing interface. I would like to see GEM VDI and AES put in ROM because they are stable and not likely to be upgraded. In addition, they are quite large and even with 512K of RAM there isn't enough space for user programs when all of GEM/GEMDOS is loaded in RAM. GEMDOS still has bugs and will probably be upgraded a few times. GEM Desktop will also be upgraded at least once during the next year, so it shouldn't be put in ROM either. Note that programmers interface to GEM/GEMDOS via two TRAPs, so later releases could patch out ROM code by taking over the appropriate trap vector. Maybe wth a little luck, we will see third party operating systems that will provide transparency between the ST and AMIGA. There is no reason why a third party couldn't licnese GEM/GEMDOS and move it to the Amiga. That will let the Amiga run ST software. Since the Amiga runs its own OS, Amiga software is a dead end just like the Mac. Micro-ware already has OS-9 for the 68000, maybe they'll port it to these machines. (It may not be true UNIX, but it fits in anything). I doubt Microware will port it, but third parties could do it. I know of one company already looking at doing OS9 for the ST.. How many people would buy a UNIX-like OS for $95.00 (the price for the COCO version)? The only way it could be that cheap is if a high volume license was purchased, which is somewhat expensive (I think there is a $100K up-front advance against royalty payment required). $300 is more like what the price would be. Vendors of multi-user systems now have a 'workstation' complete with graphics for the price of a Terminal. If either company "burns-in" their OS, they will have shut the doors to hundreds of new marketing possibilities. I disagree. There is no reason why ROMs prevent alternate operating systems from being loaded. Can anybody clarify the disk formats on these two machines? AMIGA seems to be using 11 secs/track 512 bytes/sec ATARI seems to be using 9 secs/track 512 bytes/sec Are these figures right? Don't know about the Amiga. The ST figure is correct. Also note that if you connect a 5 inch drive to the ST, you can read and write IBM PC disks (GEMDOS uses the same directory structure). -- John McNamee ..!decvax!philabs!sbcs!bnl44!jpm jpm@BNL44.ARPA
knf@druxo.UUCP (FricklasK) (09/08/85)
> Can anybody clarify the disk formats on these two machines? > AMIGA seems to be using 11 secs/track 512 bytes/sec > ATARI seems to be using 9 secs/track 512 bytes/sec > Are these figures right? > >Don't know about the Amiga. The ST figure is correct. Also note that if >you connect a 5 inch drive to the ST, you can read and write IBM PC disks >(GEMDOS uses the same directory structure). Amiga doesn't use sectoring at all, just tracks. It uses pointers to other files to create directories. Each file block has a pointer both to the next and previous file, to aid in reconstruction. This causes somewhat long delays in getting directories on the disk, but allows complete reconstruction of the disc even if you can find only one good block. The file scheme also allows record locking and doesn't damage files left open on power down. See "personal computer world" (British publication) for more discussion. '`'`' Ken '`'`'
indra@utai.UUCP (Indra Laksono) (09/18/85)
> 'Compatibility Problems' (Try running 1-2-3 on a sanyo 550)
Actually, 1-2-3 does run off the shelf on the sanyo 555 with a sanyo
video board that costs about 200. In fact, so does gem if you change
4 bytes in memory. I have run GEM draw on a sanyo 555 vb with 512K.
Other than this tiny point, I think this is a great article.
..{allegra cornell decvax ihnp4 linus utzoo}!utcsri!utai!indra