pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) (01/07/88)
According to a blurb in the computer section of today's Gruaniad newspaper, Argonaut say they will be producing Starglider II to be 'disk-level compatible' between the Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga. That is, you take the disk, stuff it into whichever of the two machines you prefer, and fire it up. It loads, has a look around, works out which of the two machine types it has been turned loose onto, and does the right thing. They say they hope to interest other software manufacturers in the idea. (And why not? Must offer an incredible savings to the manufacturers and to the retailers, if they can cater for two machine ranges with one box.) The writer goes on to hypothesize that the next obvious step is an object- compatible third-party operating system for both machines. I shall have to stare at my navel for a bit, and wonder whether it could be sensibly done in a manner which would let you get at the stronger points of whichever machine you are on, rather than at a lowest common denominator level -- which I don't think would be doing anyone any favours. Right off, without thinking much about it, I wonder whether we could actually learn to talk together reasonably enough for it to take off. :-) (Note, the smiley applies only to the sentence which it immediately follows. The rest of this posting is serious.) Happy New Year...
koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) (01/10/88)
In article <2063@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk> pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) writes: >The writer goes on to hypothesize that the next obvious step is an object- >compatible third-party operating system for both machines. It's being worked on. By me, and by my roommate (who has an Amiga). We don't expect to have anything worth showing for several months, but I'll post status reports now that the cat's out of the bag, so to speak. >I shall have to >stare at my navel for a bit, and wonder whether it could be sensibly done in >a manner which would let you get at the stronger points of whichever machine >you are on, rather than at a lowest common denominator level -- which I don't >think would be doing anyone any favours. We've worked out some fairly nice (at least, WE think they're nice) solutions to that problem. Naturally, you're going to want to write a program in the machine's native OS (or not use an OS at all) if you need to squeeze every last bit of power from either machine; there are some things which can't be generalized. But our OS (which is still unnamed at this point) will, for instance, allow you to write an arcade-style game with good sound and fast graphics that will work on either system. >Right off, without thinking much >about it, I wonder whether we could actually learn to talk together reasonably >enough for it to take off. :-) I don't know how to do that in assembly language. It must be a hardware problem. :-) +New! Improved! Now 100% Artificial-+-+-----------------------------------+ |# # @@@ **** &&&&& $$$$$ % %| |Steven Grimm | |# # @ @ * * & $ % %+-+ ARPA: koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu | |### @ @ **** &&&& $ %%%%%| | UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ssyx!koreth| |# # @ @ * * & $ % %+-+ ______________________________| |# # @@@ * ** &&&&& $ % %| | |"Let's see what's out there."| +-----with NutraSour(TM)! No natural colors or preservatives!------------+
michael@stb.UUCP (Michael) (01/21/88)
In article <2063@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk> pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) writes: > >fire it up. It loads, has a look around, works out which of the two machine >types it has been turned loose onto, and does the right thing. They say AWK! Consider: The only way the same program can load into both machines is if it is loaded at boot time (file systems are different, so loading by dos is not possible). This means you have to reboot to use it. Thats fine for a single tasking computer like the ST, but a no-no for the Amiga. -- : Michael Gersten ihnp4!hermix!ucla-an!remsit!stb!michael : uunet!scgvaxd!stb!michael : "A hacker lives forever, but not so his free time"