jordan@titn.UUCP (08/31/87)
Has abyone played with Softsmarts Smalltalk? How similar is it to ParcPlace's Smalltalk? How does it compare speedwise to say, Digitalk? Does it use extended memory? Are runtime licenses avaialable? Can it use large displays? Jordan -- ============================================================================= Jordan Bortz Higher Level Software 1085 Warfield Ave Piedmont, CA 94611 (415) 268-8948 UUCP: (decvax|ucbvax|ihnp4)!decwrl!sun!plx!titn!jordan =============================================================================
ken@pdn.UUCP (Ken Auer) (09/09/87)
In article <199@titn.TITN>, jordan@titn.TITN (Jordan Bortz) writes: > [I've split up the questions in order to field each one seperately] > Has abyone played with Softsmarts Smalltalk? Yes, sobeone has. :-) > How similar is it to ParcPlace's Smalltalk? It is REAL Smalltalk-80 VI2.0. The only think different from the original 2.0 is it uses DOSFiles instead of AltoFiles. ParcPlace is currently marketing a version 2.1 (or 2.2 ?) which has some additional features which may not be supported by Softsmarts but, in general, the code is completely portable. Softsmarts also has several features (which were all in Beta when I talked to them last) including color support, some form of interface to TSRs (which can be used as a type of user-written primitives), some async communication support, and some other stuff I talk about below. Perhaps Softsmarts will post a followup to this article with more detail (...I understand they have a fairly slow news feed, so it could take a while). > How does it compare speedwise to say, Digitalk? That's a good question... I've used Smalltalk/V only briefly, and it appears to be faster in a few areas. However, much of this is due to the fact that Smalltalk/V is not "Smalltalk-80". Smalltalk/V's standard View/Controllers and fonts are much less complicated (and therefore much less powerful) and therefore seem to get on the screen much faster than the same for Smalltalk-AT. With all due respect to Digitalk, however, that may be a plus (they've had the advantage of learning from the inventor's mistakes) if you don't care about compatibility and some of the more advanced features which Smalltalk-80 uses for text display. I think both companies can claim speed advantages in certain cases which take advantage of primitives that one or the other has/doesn't have. Other than the above mentioned cases, although I can only speak based upon my perception (i.e. I have no benchmarks to back up my claim), running similar code has similar performance on an AT (or clone). By the way, Softsmarts has a paper which is publically available (from Softsmarts, of course) which describes the differences between its product and Digitalk's. Although the paper naturally is bent toward Softsmarts, I found it extremely honest and accurate. > Does it use extended memory? Yes. This could be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on how you look at it. I found the 640K limit of Smalltalk/V extremely limiting, even with the "demand-paging feature". However, in order to even start up Smalltalk-AT, you need at least 512K of expansion memory. Pumping more memory into your machine gives you a bigger RAMDisk to use with Smalltalk/V, while Smalltalk-AT can really put it to use. The famous price/performance trade-off strikes again. > Are runtime licenses avaialable? They supposedly have a version of their virtual machine in Beta which will keep a user from compiling code. They intend to allow their customers to sell images coupled with these virtual machines as run time applications (with some kind of discount for those versions). You'll have to talk to them for more details. > Can it use large displays? It depends on what you call large. It currently supports EGA (640x350). They have a Beta version which runs with a VegaPlus (?) board which allows a display of 640x480 (even in color!). I'm not sure if they have any plans to support anything larger than that at the moment. There seems to be an implementation concern with the size of large Forms (> 64K) due to those loveable 80286 segments. :-( Once again, you'll have to ask them for more details. All in all, Smalltalk-AT is a solid product. I've had nothing but great cooperation when asking for support. As far as I'm concerned its the best Smalltalk product on the market for an AT (or clone), unless you just want to tinker a little, since it is REAL Smalltalk-80. Yes, it used to cost about $1000/copy, but I think that it's come down in price. (The reason for the high price, from what I understand, is due to the Smalltalk-80 licensing agreement -- which Digitalk doesn't have to pay due to its "non-compatibility" -- of course that might not matter to your wallet :-) ). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ken Auer Paradyne Corporation {gatech,codas,ucf-cs}!usfvax2!pdn!ken Mail stop LF-207 Phone: (813) 530-8307 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL 34649-9981 "The views expressed above do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, which by no means makes them incorrect."
colin@pdn.UUCP (Colin Kendall) (09/09/87)
In article <199@titn.TITN>, jordan@titn.TITN (Jordan Bortz) writes:
# Has abyone played with Softsmarts Smalltalk? How similar is it
# to ParcPlace's Smalltalk? How does it compare speedwise to say,
# Digitalk? Does it use extended memory? Are runtime licenses
# avaialable? Can it use large displays?
yes, very, closely, yes, yes, no.
--
Colin Kendall Paradyne Corporation
{gatech,akgua}!usfvax2!pdn!colin Mail stop LF-207
Phone: (813) 530-8697 8550 Ulmerton Road, PO Box 2826
Largo, FL 33294-2826