mdavis@pro-sol.cts.COM (Morgan Davis) (06/23/88)
Sean Kamath laments at the price of AMACS, while getting it all wrong in the
process. AMACS sells for $75, but it's worth about $279. It is a VERY
accurate implementation of EMACS/Jove/GNU/whatever. It is ProDOS based, fast,
and extremely powerful.
Sean Kamath laments at the speed of the IIGS (which he obviously doesn't
own). Using a standard 20mb hard disk, I can boot into ProDOS 16 in about 9
seconds (that includes booting PRODOS, P16, SYSTEM.SETUP stuff, Guy Rice's
SYSBEEP with a 53-block digitized sampling of the roadrunner, David Lyons's
Nifty-List CDA with the LARGE data file, and my own START program which
invokes APW for me down in a subdirectory). Nine-point-six seconds is all:
from Control-Apple-RESET until my START program runs.
Many wonderful things are in store for GS/OS, which is the official name for
ProDOS 16 v2.0. Apple picked a different name because GS/OS is a whole new
beast, a complete rewrite.
I'll be the first to stand in line for a IIGS speed-up card, but things are a
bizillion times slower, sluggish, harder to work on, and downright painful
back in the IIe and IIc world.
And, by the way, I am less impressed by the hacker types who are so proud of
the fact that they wrote some amazing code using only crufty tools (i.e. the
mini-assembler, or Big Mac), than I am when I see something very complex
performed with both grace and elegance.
--Morgan Davis
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InterNet: mdavis@pro-sol.cts.comkamath@reed.UUCP (Sean Kamath) (06/27/88)
In article <8806222136.AA00356@crash.cts.com> pnet01!pro-sol!mdavis@nosc.mil writes: >Sean Kamath laments at the price of AMACS, while getting it all wrong in the >process. AMACS sells for $75, but it's worth about $279. It is a VERY >accurate implementation of EMACS/Jove/GNU/whatever. It is ProDOS based, fast, >and extremely powerful. I have applogized for that mistake. I missed the 2 when I checked the article. However, I still can't afford $75, since I just got a job two days ago. See, I'm a full time student, and I get ~$200-$250 a month from my parents, where $150 goes to rent, the rest for whatever. Now, where am I going to get $75 for an editor I don't need? I'm sure it's a nice editor, I thirst for Jove, but I *have* applewriter, and it works *very* well, thank you. >Sean Kamath laments at the speed of the IIGS (which he obviously doesn't >own). Using a standard 20mb hard disk, I can boot into ProDOS 16 in about 9 >seconds (that includes booting PRODOS, P16, SYSTEM.SETUP stuff, Guy Rice's >SYSBEEP with a 53-block digitized sampling of the roadrunner, David Lyons's >Nifty-List CDA with the LARGE data file, and my own START program which >invokes APW for me down in a subdirectory). Nine-point-six seconds is all: >from Control-Apple-RESET until my START program runs. Great, no I don't own a GS, and whoopie, you just showed me how fast ProDOS is at loading a bunch of big files off a hard disk. So why does it take so long for windows to open (try it on a mac ][ to see what I mean), or for disk folders to open. Why is it that scrolling in WYSIWYG editors? My main complaint with the GS's speed has *nothing* to do with disk access time, but with I/O from the screen and the user. >Many wonderful things are in store for GS/OS, which is the official name for >ProDOS 16 v2.0. Apple picked a different name because GS/OS is a whole new >beast, a complete rewrite. Whoopie. I don't have enough for a GS, so I don't care. Yeah, I wouldn't toss a GS in the trash can if you wanted to give me one, but I ain't about to hock what I got for something that isn' *significantly better* than what I got. Right now, I wirte code and use my //e as a terminal. I occasionally edit text files, but there isn't anything I don't have for my //e that I would want on a GS. I don't even play games, except Lode Runner and Rescue Raiders, which run just fine on my lowly //e. Thank you very much, I'll buy a UN*X machine for my $1300. >I'll be the first to stand in line for a IIGS speed-up card, but things are a >bizillion times slower, sluggish, harder to work on, and downright painful >back in the IIe and IIc world. Like what? bizillion? Really? My terminal program works just fine at 2400 baud (the original macterm at 2400 really choked), my text editor is acceptable for the size files I use, and my assemble is faster than a compiler. Granted, my compiler is slow, but then, that doesn't really matter. What's so painful? Perhaps you refere to the user interface? Well, I can have fancy-dancy pull down menu's if I want, but I don't. And if I want to compute pi to 47 decimal places, I'll use the vax (though Merlin came with a nice routine to do that up to 100 places (I'm not actually sure how many, but a lot), and it can do it pretty darn fast.). >And, by the way, I am less impressed by the hacker types who are so proud of >the fact that they wrote some amazing code using only crufty tools (i.e. the >mini-assembler, or Big Mac), than I am when I see something very complex >performed with both grace and elegance. I'm less inpressed with someone who writes some really nice file munger on a VAX than I am by someone who did something others said was impossible. Grace and elegance are one thing, but putting an entire device driver for a modem on a 2K rom chip is something else. Frankly, I don't see a lot of elegant and graceful stuff on IBM's,and they got Lot's of Memory (they sure use it), zillions of different graphics interfaces, and they've been around for a *long* time too. I don't use old crufty tools, I use the best I can afford that are avialable. I have what I consider one of the best assemblers for my //e, though I can't afford merlin 8/16. However, I just had a problem. See, I've been getting modem noise a lot just recently, and I wanted it see more about it. So I drop into the monitor, look for all occurence of $c081 (which is the microphone and speaker control byte for the novation AppleCat) and make it so it left the speaker unsquelched. It's a handy debugging tool. If all you know how to do is run the compiler and adb, you are SOL. In anycase, I haven't seen very much on the GS, I admit. I have seen some neat stuff, true, but I've seen a lot of sh*t, too. I'm sure that in a few years, there will be a lot of good stuff for the GS, but then everyone will be asking why I don't own the fourth generation Apple ][! >--Morgan Davis Hi Morgan! Good to flame you again! :-) :-) -- UUCP: {decvax allegra ucbcad ucbvax hplabs ihnp4}!tektronix!reed!kamath CSNET: reed!kamath@Tektronix.CSNET || BITNET: reed!kamath@PSUVAX1.BITNET ARPA: reed!kamath@PSUVAX1.CS.PSU.EDU US Snail: 3934 SE Boise, Portland, OR 97202-3126 (I hate 4 line .sigs!)