karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) (03/06/89)
Remember the Apple //GS? The "Amiga killer?" Well, those who take a guilty
pleasure in hearing the complaints of the users of competing machines may
enjoy some of the following remarks, excerpted from comp.sys.apple:
From: joseph@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Seymour Joseph)
I get the same moire effect on my Monitor and I checked both my
friends machine and the one at my dealer, they all do it. Grin and
bear it I guess.
From: David I Seah <mailrus!ulowell!m2c!wpi!dseah@AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV>
I'm on AppleLink PE, and there are generally a lot of pissed off GS
owners on the service. They aren't quiet either.
...AppleWorks GS. I have played with it but briefly, and was impressed with
(1) its load time (2) its sluggishness. If programs such as MultiScribe GS are
called "unfit for documents longer than a couple of pages" by Apple magazines
(that usually gush all over the place), then AWGS might share the same
characteristics.
Origin unknown:
Incindentally, the companies killing the machine from the software support
standpoint are as follows (These are the ones I have verified, there were more
at the meeting): Electronic Arts (5 more games and then their though), Epyx (12
games layed out, all killed) and Cinemaware (2 more to come then it dies).
From: SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall)
The Atari-ST and Amiga may hang in for awhile, but I suspect the reported
phenomenon is more a case of the days of a general purpose computer being
the game machine of choice have simply passed.
[Ha!]
From: krazy@claris.com (Jeff Erickson)
The problem with David's statement is that GS/OS occasionally does
some of the stupid things he describes, or at least seems to. During
development of the most recent project I worked on, GS/OS caused the
death of my hard drive on about seven different occasions, over the
space of three months. I have the drivers/FSTs installed correctly.
Other people working on the same project who stuck with P16 did not
have the problems I did.
...
The Mac OS ejects disks; there isn't any reason Apple couldn't do the
same thing with GS/OS. And as far as I know, there is no GS/OS call
to eject the disk. I know the Finder does it; that was a hack that
Dan Oliver (the original author) put in.
...
Apple pushed GS/OS out before it was ready; likewise with the set
of tools (System 4.0) that go with it. The support from within
Apple for the development (if not the survival) of the IIgs has
been, in my personal opinion, abysmal (sp?). The system is buggy.
VERY buggy. After having worked on the machine for two and
a half years (I started with an Apple II Gumby at StyleWare), I
honestly can't say that I expect things to get better.
My personal advice regarding the Apple IIgs is this: if you NEED
an Apple II, by a IIc+. Otherwise, BUY A MAC!!
From: CHEESEBALL%ALBION.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Lord knows that fools come in many shapes and forms, and that there
are many around this land of ours, but I never thought I'd see the
day where I WOULD SAY THIS: Apple made a sucker out of me! I've had
my GS for 2 years and 2 months and I've yet to get much out of it!
...and as a game machine, the thing is a poor man's Amiga.
...GOD IS THIS THING SLOW!
From: AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS.BITNET ("David A. Lyons")
PaintWorks Gold requires nearly all of the memory available under
GS/OS on a 1.25 meg system. It _does_ run for me under System Disk
4.0, but only with the RAMdisk set to 0 and with very few desk
accessories or other utilities installed. If PWG can't allocate the
memory it needs, it just crashes with the title screen showing, which
is stupid.
From: "Jeremy G. Mereness" <jm7e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU>
[...] I still don't consider GS/OS a "real" operating system for the
GS because of many of these issues: it is too volatile, standards are
too new and are all too often ignored, and for some reason (and I can
only assume that this is because the OS doesn't cover its tracks) a
great deal of software crashes under it.
From: joseph@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Seymour Joseph)
I coordinate an apple II users group in NJ and have owned a series of
Apple II computers since 1978. I purchased my IIGS in October 1988
right after the announcement of GS/OS and the darn price increase :-(.
My current system has 1.25 meg of ram, a Sider 10 MB hard disk (ported
over from my old //e) and some other random boards (supersonic...). I
have been hearing lately that Apple //GS software is not selling as
well as it should. I have been buying (and lately returning) a great
deal of it and I think I know some of the reasons.
I waited until after the announcement of GS/OS to by my machine
because I felt the earlier proDOS 16 versions were simply too crude.
Below is a list of some of the products I have purchased since I
bought my GS. NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM works properly when launched
from GS/OS. In addition, the publishers have been unwilling to
comment on proposed dates for updates that fix their compatability
problems.
From Activision: Draw Plus (has printing problems)
Paintworks Plus (freaks out)
Paintworks Gold (won't launch)
Writer's Choice Elite (unstable)
Music Studio 2.0 (unstable)
From Claris: Multiscribe GS (Dictionary and Thesaurus don't work)
From Spectrum Holobyte Tetris (won't quit back to GS/OS finder.)
What gives? These are major developers, not yahoos. They were seeded
with GS/OS way before its release and today, almost six months after
the public introduction and shipping of the Apple //GS operating
system, I have been unable to find a single personal productivity
product that works correctly with it.
This week I am returning Multiscribe GS. I like the product design a
lot. I used all the earlier versions of Multiscribe on my //e (they
worked correctly with the OS for the //e), but I am unwilling to pay
Claris for a product that makes me go back to booting from a floppy
every time I wish to run it. This is not the kind of performance I
bought a GS for. (and this is not the kind of lack of support I
expected from Claris either!) I must give them credit for offering to
refund my money.
These products are still on dealer shelves, being sold today with no
notice on the package or documentation to inform the user that they
won't run with GS/OS. Why?
Apple //GS software isn't selling very well because the software
environment is in a state of violent flux and developers are not
keeping up. Often the products you buy are incompatible with the
operating system, common hardware add-ons or each other. Example:
I share an AppleTalk Imagewriter II with my wife's Mac. This is not
unusual and it is a supported configuration. Activision's Music
Studio 2.0 will simply crash if booted while AppleTalk is enabled from
the control panel. No warnings, no mention in the manual, just a 45
second boot that ends with the old familiar <beep> and leaves you
looking at a blank screen. Therefore, every time I run this program,
I have to remember to turn AppleTalk off and of course, I can't print
from Music Studio.
AppleLink Personal Edition comes with a long list of control panel
settings that must be made in order to run it on a GS. These include
changing the PRINTER settings (I asked both Apple and Quantum why I
have to change the printer settings and neither has been able to
supply an adequate answer). Included in the required printer changes
is turning all handshaking with the printer OFF. If you leave
applelink PE and run an old ProDOS 8 application to print something
the printer will screw up because the settings are wrong for anything
else BUT AppleLink PE.
...
Well written Apple //GS software should never ASSUME that the control
panel is set a certain way. It should check the settings and warn a
user if they are inappropriate. Well written Apple //GS software
should NEVER require the user to make a control panel change to run
it. If it needs a change to run properly, it should ask the user
permission to make the change, do it and then restore the original
settings before quitting. In cases where the machine must be
restarted to make the change, the program should store the original
settings, make the changes, instruct the user to resetart, run, and
upon quitting, restore the original settings, and inform the user that
the machine must be restarted again to have them take effect.
This is all very grungy. A really well designed program shouldn't
have to diddle the control panel at all.
From: tsouth@pro-pac.cts.com (System Administrator)
No matter what anyone says, the Amiga concept is primarily promoted
as a game machine/animation work station, IMHO. While it may have
a multi-tasking o/s, the directing commands and interface for the
machine are more cumbersome than running Apple ][ DOS 3.2 and Integer
BASIC (just to allow you non-amiga fans some reference point). I
agree that the Amiga is a better hardware machine than the IIgs, but
the implementation of the system, and support for applications that
I am interested in are little to none. With the introduction of the
Amiga 2500UX, I have had my own interest in the Amiga rekindled. By
September Fest 89, I should have $2000 in cash saved up to purchase
a new computer (along with credit to cover the extra stuff) and I am
seriously looking into purchasing the 2500UX with the Unix operationg
system. If Apple does not come out with a new Apple ][ computer by
September, that's where I will be placing my money. If Apple comes
out with a new IIgs which does not support a decent speed and/or
someone doesn't come out with a decent C compiler for the IIgs, I
will probably purchase the thing anyway, as I am tired of not being
able to write good (read -- compact, fast, non-cumbersome) C code on
my machine.
...
No, he's talking about the graphics which you can seen being drawn to
the screen. One thing that has always amazed me about the Apple ][
family is all of the trouble which the programmers have to go through
to make animation work on these machines. I guess I could live with
this, but you got to admit that it is rather annoying to watch pull-down
menus being drawn.
...
David, you can be so innocent sometimes. Of course, he means that
we want HIGHER resolution modes! Personally, I'll never understand
what the problem was with making a vertical resolution of 400. This
200 stuff is Commodore 64 technology. ...
--
-- uunet!sugar!karl | "Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is
-- | watching television." -- David Letterman
-- Usenet BBS (713) 438-5018mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) (03/07/89)
karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: [quoting someone else about the Apple //gs] > ...and as a game machine, the thing is a poor man's Amiga. > ...GOD IS THIS THING SLOW! which is really kind of ironic, because the only way you could call it a "poor mans Amiga" is if it genuinely cost less than the Amiga. --M -- Michael Portuesi / Information Technology Center / Carnegie Mellon University INET: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu / BITNET: mp1u+@andrew UUCP: ...harvard!andrew.cmu.edu!mp1u+ "You just don't get off a spaceship and run." --Avon
rap@ardent.UUCP (Rob Peck) (03/07/89)
In article <YY4fLYy00Vsf41J70X@andrew.cmu.edu>, mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) writes: > karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: > [quoting someone else about the Apple //gs] > > ...and as a game machine, the thing is a poor man's Amiga. > > ...GOD IS THIS THING SLOW! Just another tiny tidbit... the San Jose Mercury News did a review of Apple Works //gs and it seems to have gotten very low marks for value and usability. The few remarks that I recall pertained to not supporting bidirectional printing, printing blank lines by moving the head all the way across the page while doing nothing, and taking over 5 minutes of thinking before starting to print any part of the document (I don't know if this was the word processor or the spreadsheet part of it). That combined with a long load time and an absolute requirement for a minimum of 1.25Mbytes of RAM ... reviewer did not seem very happy with it. Rob Peck
richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (03/07/89)
In article <3584@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: > >From: CHEESEBALL%ALBION.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU >Lord knows that fools come in many shapes and forms, and that there >are many around this land of ours, but I never thought I'd see the >day where I WOULD SAY THIS: Apple made a sucker out of me! I've had >my GS for 2 years and 2 months and I've yet to get much out of it! >...and as a game machine, the thing is a poor man's Amiga. Uh, but the GS is more expensive. Does this make it a rich fools Amiga ? -- Memory parity error. Abort, retry or ignore ? richard@gryphon.COM decwrl!gryphon!richard gryphon!richard@elroy.jpl.NASA.GOV
ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (03/07/89)
In article <3584@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: >...AppleWorks GS. I have played with it but briefly, and was impressed with >(1) its load time (2) its sluggishness. [ ... ] This appears to be characteristic of all GS programs I've played with. Instant Music for the GS is truly unbelieveable. When you go to pull down a menu, you can actually *see* the rectangle being filled in, followed by the menu items getting drawn one by one. To its credit, the machine runs old ][ software at a comfortable, even fast, pace. >Incindentally, the companies killing the machine from the software support >standpoint are as follows [ ... ]: >Electronic Arts Trip Hawkins needs help. >The problem with David's statement is that GS/OS occasionally does > ^^^^^ How do those 'into' the GS pronounce this? Geez-OS? >...and as a game machine, the thing is a poor man's Amiga. Define 'poor'. >What gives? These are major developers, not yahoos. [ ... ] >they won't run with GS/OS. [ ... ] >Activision's Music Studio 2.0 will simply crash [ ... ] >Well written Apple //GS software should [ blah blah blah... ] Do these laments sound familiar? I guess we're not alone, and the Broken Software Syndrome is probably more attributable to software companies who have their collective heads wedged than a conspiracy theory. After all, who would deliberately write broken software for an Apple product (besides us, I mean :-) )? _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape INET: well!ewhac@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU \_ -_ Recumbent Bikes: UUCP: pacbell > !{well,unicom}!ewhac O----^o The Only Way To Fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack") "Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctor
andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel) (03/08/89)
In article <YY4fLYy00Vsf41J70X@andrew.cmu.edu> mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) writes: >karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: >[quoting someone else about the Apple //gs] >which is really kind of ironic, because the only way you could call it >a "poor mans Amiga" is if it genuinely cost less than the Amiga. Unless they meant poor after you paid for the GS. -- andy finkel {uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy Commodore-Amiga, Inc. "Question of the Day : When will we get a device independent graphics standard that is fast enough to actually be useful as a window system ?" Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share. I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.
NU140487@NDSUVM1.BITNET (Me) (03/13/89)
All of us Amiga owners can sit back and chuckle to ourselves when we
listen to the woes of GS owners, huh? I gotta tell you, I didn't find myself
lauging. In fact, it just got me even more steamed up at how downright PISS-
POOR the OS for the Amiga actually is!!
As an Apple // owner as well as an Amiga owner, I have had a bit of ex-
perience in using Dos 3.2, dos 3.3, pronto dos, ProDOS, Prodos 8, and a bit
of prodos 16. I have also used the Macintosh as well. Granted most of the Apple
// dos' are a bit old and a bit slow, using my Amy seems to bring me back to
the good ol' days. The good ol' days of a 'muck-ridden' archaic dos that seems
to crawl with the vim and vigor of a box-turtle.
In fact, I think that loading icons individually from the disk itself was
the greatest idea that CBM (or WHOEVER) could have ever come up with. And i'm
soooo glad that the disk read/write routines are slower than sh** on top of
that! If it weren't for this, I wouldn't have time to cut my fingernails or
do other work while waiting for workbench to load, a window to finish dis-
playing icons, an application to load, or a file requester to finish displaying
it's list of files. THANK YOU COMMODORE!
Ok, ok, ok... let's face it. The drive is trash, no good. It's slow, loud,
and annoying (with it's all-too-familiar 'GRONK', and the god-auful aggrivating
'clicking' noise when its' empty, this drive gets my personal vote for "the
drive with the most personality" award). The price we have to pay for an extra
80K on a 3.5" disk, huh?
And guess what? Everyone who buys an Amiga also buys a new friend. His
name is GURU, and he seemingly has but one purpose in his RAM-dependent (or
ROM-dependent, depending on which model) life, and that's to MEDIDATE! Why, Oh
Commodore, does my friend come to visit me when I run out of memory' or insert
a corrupt disk in the drive? Any other machine would have simply informed me of
the problem and i could have resolved it and continued with what I was doing
before. And my friend also comes to visit me at the most God-unbeknownst and
confusing times. With a friend like the Guru, who needs a Mac?
Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying my Amiga's a pile of junk... in fact,
I believe it is one of the most powerful machines on the market today. But
come on, guys! Aren't you sick of unfounded GURU errors and an OS that has
the efficiency of (as someone from comp.sys.apple put it...) "Dos 3.2 and
integer basic"????
No wonder serious businesses frown upon the Amiga. It's an unstable
machine in it's present state. Let's face it, a slow OS and a visit from the
Guru doesn't impress a lot of businessmen. It's time Commodore's programmers
got off their DEAD A*SES and offered us an OS that we could put our faith and
trust (and important files and documents and programs) in.
Whew!
Jason
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Cress | /// "Macintosh?? OHhhhhhh, you mean that one
Freshman, Comp Sci. | Amiga /// computer, ummm... a couple of years ago, uhh
North Dakota State U | ::: /// black and white?? Yeah, i think my brother
(NU140487@NDSUVM1) | :::/// still has one, sitting in his attic somewhere.
| :XX/ Color? Oh yeah... he sold that one as parts to
disclaim THIS! | pay it off..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------cthulhu@athena.mit.edu (Jim Reich) (03/14/89)
In article <1981NU140487@NDSUVM1> NU140487@NDSUVM1.BITNET (Me) writes: > > All of us Amiga owners can sit back and chuckle to ourselves when we >listen to the woes of GS owners, huh? I gotta tell you, I didn't find myself >lauging. In fact, it just got me even more steamed up at how downright PISS- >POOR the OS for the Amiga actually is!! Whoa -- gotta make a distinction here. The Amiga's FILESYSTEM is piss-poor. The operating system is actually top-rate for a micro -- arguably in the same class with UNIX... > As an Apple // owner as well as an Amiga owner, I have had a bit of ex- >perience in using Dos 3.2, dos 3.3, pronto dos, ProDOS, Prodos 8, and a bit Ever tried to load a long program in Apple DOS? Remember, your "long program" was measured in sectors -- it took as long as a minute to load a decent-sized binary file, and that was only 32K or so! Once the actual data transfer begins the Amiga actually blows most systems away in speed... and you can't be serious about the Mac being fast... it usually takes longer to return to the 100K finder than to start a multi-megabyte Amiga program. > In fact, I think that loading icons individually from the disk itself was >the greatest idea that CBM (or WHOEVER) could have ever come up with. And i'm >soooo glad that the disk read/write routines are slower than sh** on top of >that! No, they are fast. It's just that the way the disks are laid out, it is necessary to read a major portion of the entire disk to find your file. From then on, it's quite quick. And what about the fastfilesystem? I remember a posting of ffsfloppy that allowed one to use the FFS on a floppy, but have no idea of how fast it was... Anyone out there tried it? Anyway, on hard drives, FFS really screams... >and annoying (with it's all-too-familiar 'GRONK' I *LIKE* the gronk -- it lets you know what the drive is doing! You know if your multitasking programs are thrashing with the drive, etc. >'clicking' noise when its' empty Get NoKlickStart, or a 3rd party drive. Either eliminates the click. > And guess what? Everyone who buys an Amiga also buys a new friend. His >name is GURU, and he seemingly has but one purpose in his RAM-dependent (or >ROM-dependent depending on which model) life, and that's to MEDIDATE! Why, Oh >Commodore, does my friend come to visit me when I run out of memory' or insert >a corrupt disk in the drive? Any other machine would have simply informed meof >the problem and i could have resolved it and continued with what I was doing >before. A reasonable objection -- it's not as robust as it should be, but that is quite often due to BAD SOFTWARE. Macs lock up too, with a cute little system bomb, but at least sometimes the guru lets you rescue other applications when one dies (TASK HELD...) And anyway, why don't you just go buy GOMF, which will intercept the GURU errors. C= really should have bought that and put it in 1.3 > (as someone from comp.sys.apple put it...) "Dos 3.2 and >integer basic"???? Yeah, right. Now before everyone flames this guy (and he probably deserves it), consider a few things. (1) there's no point (2) Some of his objections were valid ones, and should be considered and solved by C= and anyone else who cares... (3) Comp.sys.amiga has too much volume already! -- Jim Reich cthulhu@athena.mit.edu
hans@nlgvax.UUCP (Hans Zuidam) (03/16/89)
In article <1981NU140487@NDSUVM1> NU140487@NDSUVM1.BITNET writes: > > [Lots of rude remarks and foul language regarding the AmigaDOS filesystem > and GURUs deleted --hz] First off, it is not really necessary to use foul and rude language to argue your points. It does not add anything to my understanding of you case. And it certainly doesn't solve your problems. On the file system employed by AmigaDOS. Sure it is slow, sure it is not the most reliable in the world and so on. No one ever mentiones the fact that I can cram upto 31 letters in a file name, that I can put as many files in a directory as I like and. that the filenames is case insensitive so I can make my file names easy readable and still easy typable (is that English?), that I am not bound by some magic number. For me personally these things throw the balance to the right side. Commodore managed to implement a faster one for harddisks which lives besides the slower one and gives you upto fives times (don't know the exact figures) more performance. This shows us two things: Commodore addresses problems and tries to solve them. And somehow the system is designed such that it allows for these changes. Ever wondered what will happen as OS/2 goes to longer filenames? GURUs are indeed bad practice. Moreover, they are bad marketing. The Mac and Atari ST display nice cute not offensive bombs. You hardly notice them on the screen. The reaction (also mine) when a Mac crashes is "oh the machine crashed", but when my Amiga crashes "OH MY AMIGA CRASHED". So, did you ever heard of "trade-offs"? Trade-offs are the decisions one has to make when building something with finite resources. As you might (or might not) know those resources are numbers of people, amounts of money, available time and so on. All in all I must say Commodore (and Amiga before them) did a VERY good job given their constraints. Rereading your message I was a little bit shocked about your language. Once again such wording is not called for and I advice you to read Gene Spafforts monthly articles on good net behaviour. If you cannot find them, I can send you a copy. Hans As always, I speak for myself. -- Hans Zuidam E-Mail: hans@pcg.philips.nl Philips Telecommunications and Data Systems, Tel: +31 40 892288 Project Centre Geldrop, Building XR Willem Alexanderlaan 7B, 5664 AN Geldrop The Netherlands
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (03/16/89)
Amazingly enough, get a hard disk and 1.3. You will find a very decent
system then. I had to go back and use floppies for a while and was really
dissappointed at how slow the system seemed.
Oh, and sorry about Gurus, send an enhancement request to change them to
bombs or something, may a straight reboot. My personal favorite, a little
sad face saying "Sorry, we're hosed I'm going to reboot now."
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.bader+@andrew.cmu.edu (Miles Bader) (03/19/89)
hans@nlgvax.UUCP (Hans Zuidam) writes: > GURUs are indeed bad practice. Moreover, they are bad marketing. The > Mac and Atari ST display nice cute not offensive bombs. You hardly > notice them on the screen. The reaction (also mine) when a Mac > crashes is "oh the machine crashed", but when my Amiga crashes "OH > MY AMIGA CRASHED". Bullshit; I get just as pissed when a machine shows "cute little bombs." When a computer gets to this point, slick visual design is pretty irrelevant. How is the phrase "guru meditation" offensive, anyway? -Miles
billc@percival.UUCP (William J. Coldwell) (03/20/89)
In article <MY8gely00Uka04iG8m@andrew.cmu.edu> bader+@andrew.cmu.edu (Miles Bader) writes: >hans@nlgvax.UUCP (Hans Zuidam) writes: > >> GURUs are indeed bad practice. Moreover, they are bad marketing. The >> Mac and Atari ST display nice cute not offensive bombs. You hardly >> notice them on the screen. The reaction (also mine) when a Mac >> crashes is "oh the machine crashed", but when my Amiga crashes "OH >> MY AMIGA CRASHED". > >Bullshit; I get just as pissed when a machine shows "cute little >bombs." When a computer gets to this point, slick visual design is >pretty irrelevant. How is the phrase "guru meditation" offensive, anyway? > >-Miles I have to agree with Miles on this one - ever have a bomb tell you what was the general cause of the problem? What about what address that the error occured at? Sure, you can count: THis little bomb means blah, this little bomb means that blah2 happened.. and so on ad nauseum... I'm not idolizing the Amiga's crashing, in fact I hate the fact that it "crashes" at all (that's why I use GOMF). I would prefer that the OS kill the process, deallocate it's memory (as well as it can), and restore the rest of the system. (hey, maybe in 1.4! Nah, then people would not have anything complain about (especially J. Pournelle... ;-) - BYTE wouldn't be the same.) Since I can;t have an "intelligent" process elimination, I'll settle with nice green recoverable alerts instead (for everything!) ;-) Bill -- William J. Coldwell - Amiga Attitude Adjuster CRYOGENIC SOFTWARE - 3647 W 97th #21B - Denver, CO 80030 - (303) 465-1330 "We the unwilling, led by the unknowing, ...tektronix!reed!percival!billc are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful." \sequent!blowpig/
840445m@aucs.UUCP (Mic Mac) (03/21/89)
In article <MY8gely00Uka04iG8m@andrew.cmu.edu> bader+@andrew.cmu.edu (Miles Bader) writes: >hans@nlgvax.UUCP (Hans Zuidam) writes: > >> GURUs are indeed bad practice. Moreover, they are bad marketing. The >pretty irrelevant. How is the phrase "guru meditation" offensive, anyway? Personally, I really like the way the Amiga crashes. It makes me think of super-mysticism or something. As a matter of fact, I often show it off telling people that I have my own GURU who meditates inside my computer. It gives an air of intelligence to my machine. Not to mention the fact that the GURU numbers can tell you a lot about why your machine crashed. -Alan -- % Alan W. McKay % % % Acadia University % " The world needs more Socrates' % % Wolfville N.S. % walking the streets today " % % CANADA % - S. Corbett %
mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick) (03/25/89)
In article <1477@percival.UUCP> billc@percival.UUCP (William J. Coldwell) writes: >In article <MY8gely00Uka04iG8m@andrew.cmu.edu> bader+@andrew.cmu.edu (Miles Bader) writes: >>hans@nlgvax.UUCP (Hans Zuidam) writes: >> >>> GURUs are indeed bad practice. Moreover, they are bad marketing. The >>> Mac and Atari ST display nice cute not offensive bombs. You hardly >>> notice them on the screen. The reaction (also mine) when a Mac >>> crashes is "oh the machine crashed", but when my Amiga crashes "OH >>> MY AMIGA CRASHED". >> >>Bullshit; I get just as pissed when a machine shows "cute little >>bombs." When a computer gets to this point, slick visual design is >>pretty irrelevant. How is the phrase "guru meditation" offensive, anyway? >> >>-Miles > We discussed the GURU problem some time back. The conclusion was that the GURU should be rephrased "Application Error", since most crashes are due to program bugs. Also, keep in mind that the multitasking environment is somewhat foreign to many programmers and requires alot of care in resource managment. Originally, there was the intent to install some limited recovery code to help the "Software Error" problems but apparently that was too involved for the time the guys had and it was left out. mike ("just call me Crash") *** mike (cerbral GURU, insert M&Ms to restart) smithwick*** "Oh, I'm just a NOP in the instruction set of life, oh, ohhhh, hmmmmm" [disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]