usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (05/14/89)
In article <2954@rti.UUCP> bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright) writes: >In article <2649@ssc-vax.UUCP>, coy@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stephen B Coy) writes: > 4) If they are comparing OS/2 using the Presentation Manager then I > expect it would be slower ... without significant hardware assists > it's hard for a graphics based system to compete with a text based > system. Kind of interesting thing. At work I use a Zenith I*Mclone, 8Mhz 8086. Text output on a two plane screen of the Amiga is very much faster than the clones. Heck, Amiga text output is even faster than the 12Mhz '286 clones in the office. Even with the hardware extras on the Amiga, graphics rendered text is a lot more complex than with a real text display. Makes me wonder, are the Amiga system programmers that much better than MicroSloth's? I think so, and for proof look at how slow in general AmigaBasic is (supposedly written in assembly), and in particular text output! Is there any chance that AmigaBasic could be replaced by some other language in future releases? Perhaps TrueBasic, or a C interpreter/compiler? Hell, A version of LOGO written especially for the Amiga would be a good choice too. One more random note: How about a new feature in the input.device, to support hot-key type programs? A program could request to be called when Left-Amiga-whatever is pressed. Intuition would register a hot-key handler when it puts up yes/no requesters for A-V, A-B; then remove it when the requester goes away. The request msg would have a priority field, and a flag for exclusive or shared access. Intuition would post its a-v, a-b request as shared, with a high priority, covering up any lower priority handlers. Somehow this method seems better than haveing a bunch of little input-handlers, each checking for one particular key-sequence. This is an example of a short .signature jap@frith.cl.msu.edu