jac423@leah.Albany.Edu (Julius A Cisek) (04/26/88)
Does anyone here use the Megamax C or Lazer C development package for the Atari ST? I have just received Megamax and am quite pleased with it, although the manual leaves quite a few things vague. I will be developing software during the summer and will probably need some help. For starters, what do they mean by a workstation? J.A.Cisek jac423@leah.albany.edu
al671@unh.UUCP (Anthony Lapadula) (04/26/88)
In article <710@leah.Albany.Edu>, jac423@leah.Albany.Edu (Julius A Cisek) writes: > > Does anyone here use the Megamax C or Lazer C development package for > the Atari ST? I have just received Megamax and am quite pleased with it, > although the manual leaves quite a few things vague. I will be > developing software during the summer and will probably need some help. > For starters, what do they mean by a workstation? > > J.A.Cisek > jac423@leah.albany.edu Generally, Laser C is an order of magnitude better than 'plain vanilla' Megamax C, especially if you don't have a hard disk (I don't have one, probably never will). The shell and editor are now integrated, and automatically use all avaliable RAM as a cache. File accesses go *much* faster now. They rewrote the editor to handle files >32K, and the scrolling is FAST. The manual is ~600 pages long, well organized, and much more lucid than the original "manual" (and I use that term loosely). In fact, it's generally much better than the books put out by Abacus that run ~$18 per. (But then again, from what I hear, what _isn't_ better?) A respectable 'make' utility makes (re-)compilation trivial, and the UNIX exec() is now supported. You now get examples for the AES, VDI, BIOS, etc., all of which are extremely helpful. In 2 hours I constructed a simple menu-driven windowing application, mostly because the examples were structured as an expandable skeleton to build programs on top of. An no longer will your buggy programs cause a system crash -- the shell catches virtually all exceptions and puts up a dialog: "Error ## occurred. [Shell] [Reboot] or [Dump]?" And there's a simple symbolic debugger that you can use to squash bugs. Breakpoints and parameter value checking are included, and you can expand the debugger to handle your own data types automatically. All in all, if the upgrade to Laser C is only $20 (like it was for me), send in your money NOW! BTW, I am in no way affiliated with Megamax. I just love Laser C. /***********************************************************************/ /* What, you wanted something funny? */ /* --- Anthony Lapadula */ /* (That's ...!unh!al671 to you!) */ /***********************************************************************/
jac423@leah.Albany.Edu (Julius A Cisek) (04/26/88)
You sound like my brother who just bought Lazer C himself :-). However, since right now I'm not gonna be getting the upgrade I have to work with Megamax. So, what is a workstation, anyway? |\ |\ |\ |\ .--------------------. J.A.Cisek | \ | \ |\ |\ | \ | \ |\ \/ | Spectral Fantasies | jac423@leah.albany.edu | \| \|-\|_|| \| \|-\/\ `--------------------' jac423@uacsc1.albany.edu
jeff@polyof.UUCP (A1 jeff giordano ) (04/27/88)
In article <405@unh.UUCP>, al671@unh.UUCP (Anthony Lapadula) writes: > The manual is ~600 pages long, well organized, and much more lucid than ^^^^^^ | !?! manual?, when did you order or upgrade? i'm still waiting for my copy. Has any one else gotten a copy of the manual yet. The letter that came with the upgrade said the manuals would be out in March sometime, if memory serves me correctly. I don't want to flame Megamax, I like Laser C but without the manual its difficult to use all the nice features. One other question, has anyone gotten(sp?) Laser to work with Gulam? I used Setenv blah=c:\megamax\etc. The compiler doesn't complain about the lack of shell variables, but it doesn't work either. I appreciate anything that could help. Geoffrey Giordano Me? What do I know? I'm just a brain dead Poly student. UUCP: ...!iguana!polyof!jeff or ...!trixie!polyof!jeff Internet: 128.238.10.100, I'm not sure of the format but that is our address and my local address is jeff.
wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) (04/28/88)
In article <714@leah.Albany.Edu>, jac423@leah.Albany.Edu (Julius A Cisek) writes: > You sound like my brother who just bought Lazer C himself :-). However, > since right now I'm not gonna be getting the upgrade I have to work with > Megamax. So, what is a workstation, anyway? Sounds like you need a good book on GEM. A `workstation' is GEM terminology for a virutal screen device, which can be placed on any graphics device - the screen, a GEM metafile on disk, a printer, a polaroid palette, etc. Get a copy of the ST Pro GEM articles from one of the file servers - I know lakesys has them. Best intro to HOW TO PROGRAM GEM there is. -- /\ - "Against Stupidity, - {backbones}! /\/\ . /\ - The Gods Themselves - utah-cs!uplherc! / \/ \/\/ \ - Contend in Vain." - sp7040!obie! / U i n T e c h \ - Schiller - wes