bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (09/01/87)
A few weeks ago OXXI announced a new Modula-2 development system for the
Amiga and were immediately flamed for the lack of technical content in
their announcement. I flamed them publicly and several other people flamed
them privately.
I was pleased by their response to the flames. They immediately provided
all the technical information I had asked for. AND, they offered to sell
the current beta version of their system plus three optional packages plus
a free upgrade to the first released version for ~$200. That is ~$300 off
of the list price given in the original product announcement.
One of the reasons I bought an Amiga was the full page adds for Turbo
Pascal in AmigaWorld. When Turbo Pascal for the Amiga turned out to be a
fraud I tried using Amiga Basic. Amiga Basic was just too slow and painful
to use. I bought TDI Modula-2 and was very disappointed with it. C on the
Amiga has all the flaws of TDI Modula-2. I bought the Amiga to do home
hacking, not professional software development, I do that 8 to 10 hours a
day already. I want a system that makes programming fun and convenient but
I don't want to put up with interpreters. I want the moon on a silver
platter and I'm picky about the pattern on the platter. :-)
Remembering that my Amiga has been a high tech room decoration for the last
4 months I decided to take OXXI up on their offer. I called OXXI and
ordered their Modula-2 system. They said it would be shipped in about 2
weeks. It was shipped in two weeks. I opened the box, and pulled out two
enormous manuals and an envelope with SIX disks in it.
I spent 4 evenings reading the manuals. Yes, I read the manuals before I
even took the disks into the same room the that computer is in. What can I
say, they are beta manuals and need to be proof read for spelling and
grammar errors. But, they are good manuals. Almost enough examples ( there
are never enough examples ), readable, well organized, and thick. I'd guess
about 800 pages in all. Lots of information organized so that you can find
it.
The six disk include two disks full of source code for the demo programs.
Lots and lots of demo programs. One disk has the compiled demo programs.
There is another full disk of libraries and another full of tools. The last
disk is the complete system configured to run on a single drive 512K Amiga.
Yes, you can use OXXI Modula-2 on a single disk system. I'd recommend two
disks though.
The editor is a derivative of MicroGNUemacs, if you know emacs then
learning the editor is a breeze. If you don't want all the features they
also include a stripped down version that is about 15K smaller.
The compiler is fast. Even when you are compiling to disk it is fast enough
to keep you from going crazy waiting. It claims to implement 3rd edition
Modula-2, and I believe it. You can load the compiler into memory and leave
it there or you can swap it in and out at will. One function key press and
its in, one more and its out.
The linker is also very fast. There is standalone linker on the tools disk
and the linker is built in to the editor so it is always available.
Pressing F2 compiles the current buffer. Pressing F3 links the current main
program. Pressing F4 runs the program. Pressing F1 finds the next
compilation error and puts you in a buffer looking at where the error
occurred. I can't think of anything easier than that.
OXXIs Modula-2 Software Construction Set is designed for programmers who
know emacs, Modula-2, and AmigaDos. I'd recommend it to novices with the
warning that you might be spoiled. Few software development environments
are this nice.
I am very happy with this package. I've gotten more out of my Amiga in the
last three nights than I have in the last six months. At last I can program
the Amiga without having to fight the compiler, the language, and the
machine.
I still have reservations about OXXIs pricing. I agree that the add on
packages are worth quite a bit. Especially the simple interface modules. If
I were looking at this as a software tool for professional software
development, I'd say ~$500 is a reasonable price for the complete package.
But for home hacking? Anything over $200 is pushing it. If you look at the
prices for interactive compilers on the IBM-PC, you see packages like this
selling for ~$100, with add on packages selling for about the same. I know
the Amiga software market is not the same as the IBM-PC software market,
but if you don't think prices in the IBM-PC market affect what people
expect to pay in ALL other software markets, you've gone around the bend.
In the top of the box from OXXI there were a couple of fliers advertising
other packages they sell. One caught my eye, but when I saw the price I had
to laugh. The original price printed on the flier was $299. It was crossed
out, by hand, and there was a sticker showing the new price of $149. At
$149 I read the flier, and have filed it for future reference. I might buy
the package. At $299 the flier would have gone into the garbage right them.
By the way, I have no connection with OXXI. I'm just happy they decided to
publish their Modula-2 development system.
--
Bob Pendleton @ Evans & Sutherland
UUCP Address: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!bpendlet
Alternate: {ihnp4,seismo}!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
I am solely responsible for what I say.kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) (09/04/87)
Hi, again. Just another update on my new modula 2 package from OXXI. The bad news first: One of the demo source disks had three files (out of a hundred odd), that I couldn't read. The medium was visibly damaged. No biggie, could happen to anybody. The demos, as far as I can tell after a brief look through the docs, had better be self documenting, the only printed doc I saw was a list of the disk directories (the demos spill over onto the IFF source disk). That's OK, too; this is a beta release. After backing up disks, I spent a night executing the demos. I got through most of them OK; a couple I'll have to read the source code to get running; I don't understand what answer is wanted. The demos don't seem to be all written with multitasking in mind, I got real good at recovering from gurus. Of course, I was stress testing them, too. My add on memory is out to lunch, so I was doing ray tracing and such in a 512K system. Raytracing and showilbm could put quite a strain on 512K, and it showed. Then the good news. Bob Pendelton noted that the compiler, editor, etc. work nicely. I'd rather play! I loved the ray tracing demo! Glorious HAM pictures. Not too fancy, but I could get a full screen picture up while I tested a few other demos. There is one vanity piece: "LEON" engraved in a solid sitting on a patterned surface (author is Leon Frenkel). There are two other pictures, one with a sphere on a checkerboard surface, and one with a group of spheres. I think the latter group are random, but I was messing around with the viewpoint and direction so much, it may all have been my doing. Anyway, the one I saw before I started changing parameters was really pretty, with 8 or ten reflecting spheres in the picture. Another winner was Mondrian. This demo builds Mondrian style (colored rectangles separated by black lines) _instantly_. It has a color palette adjustment, a few other features. Very pretty graphics, and if you don't like one, poof, there's another. GravityWars, published earlier here, was included. I played with the one here a lot, so I just tried this one once to make sure it worked. I forgot to test whether the typeahead bug got fixed in converting from TDI to OXXI. There is a doodle program - your basic iconedit colors, but full screen resolution. Cute for a two command package (change color or clear screen). Nice for the kids, 'cause it's not overwhelming. There are a couple of speach demos that work OK. There is a cross reference routine that works on any ASCII file - I fed it the disk directory, the only piece of text I had handy, and it gave me a cross reference. There is a multi-featured file manager (super dir) with a directory window, a dozen or two commands, and such, that seemed to be a pretty nice tool. There is a cute little routine for dumping all the intuition messages it sees, and a window full of gadgets to play with to cause messages. Very impressive, both in terms of showing off Oxxi BENCHMARK's proper interface to the Amiga, and in terms of showing off Intuition. There is a cube, in wireframe, bouncing off the near and far clipping planes, and another cube, in shaded solid model, rtating and moving about a bit. There are lots of test of console input, character sets, and do on. These include warptext and warptext2 - who'd have believed you could do text that fast in a bit map? There are three walking figure demos, good old sparks, one called lines, and a walking, pastel color cycling triangle that is very pretty. One, TAlert, gave me a good scare, when I saw the typical guru red requester, but this one said recoverable, and it was! There is a visual solver for the eight queens problem that lets you watch the board while the recursive solver goes through its paces. I was a bit disappointed that it didn't stop at the end long emnough for me to see the solution. There is a title bar clock, the size of RSLclock. And lots more, 73 in all. A real tour de force (sp? I don't do French) demo of the capabilities of Modula 2, the Amiga, the Oxxi BENCHMARK implementation, and the quality of the interface between BENCHMARK and AmigaDOS+ (how's that for an entry in the "Whatta we call all this stuff, anyway?" sweepstakes?). The kid is still happy about where he spent his $203.50_with_shipping. ;-) Now to catch up with Bob in my Oxxi manual reading. More when I know more. Kent, the man from xanth.
mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) (09/04/87)
In article <466@esunix.UUCP> bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) writes:
<The editor is a derivative of MicroGNUemacs, if you know emacs then
<learning the editor is a breeze. If you don't want all the features they
<also include a stripped down version that is about 15K smaller.
First note: at RMS's request, the name of microGNUemacs has been
changed to mg. Please refer to it by that name, and not by the
original name.
The ability to run a stripped-down version is part of the stock mg
distribution.
On the flip side, parts of the mg distribution carries copyright
notices. The two that I know of are:
/*
* ttymenu.c
*
* Incorporates the browser, for rummaging around on disks,
* and the usual Emacs editing command menu
*
* Copyright (c) 1986, Mike Meyer
* Manxification and Edit menu by Mic Kaczmarczik (no charge :-)
*
* Permission is hereby granted to distribute this program, so long as
* this source file is distributed with it, and this copyright notice
* is not removed from the file.
*
*/
and:
/*
* Simple menu package. Needs lotsa work to handle some cases.
*
* Copyright 1985
* Louis A. Mamakos
* Software & Stuff
* 14813 Ashford Place
* Laurel, MD 20707
*
* For non-commerical use only. This program, or any modifications, may not
* be sold or incorporated into any product without prior permission from the
* author.
*
* Modified by mwm to handle "stacking" menus.
* NB - adding item to a menu that's been "popped" back to doesn't work,
* and probably never will.
* Modified again by MPK to allow subitems again (non-stacking), and
* fix bug when visiting files not in last menu.
*/
I'm going to assume that OXXI got in touch with Louis before
incorporating his code into their Modula-II distribution. Someone in
Maryland might want to make sure of that.
I'd appreciate knowing that OXXI obeyed the redistribution
restrictions on my code, also. Is the source to microGNUemacs on the
disk?
Of course, if they rewrote all of mg from scratch in Modula-II, then
there's no problem at all.
<mike
--
The handbrake penetrates your thigh. Mike Meyer
A tear of petrol is in your eye. mwm@berkeley.edu
Quick, let's make love before we die. ucbvax!mwm
On warm leatherette. mwm@ucbjade.BITNETlouie@trantor.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) (09/05/87)
In article <4979@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) writes: > >The ability to run a stripped-down version is part of the stock mg >distribution. > Pardon my editing of Mike's copyright notice; just trying to keep the length of this posting down. >and: > >/* > * Simple menu package. Needs lotsa work to handle some cases. > * > * Copyright 1985 > * Louis A. Mamakos ^ This is me. AKA <louie@trantor.umd.edu> > * Software & Stuff > * 14813 Ashford Place > * Laurel, MD 20707 > * > * For non-commerical use only. This program, or any modifications, may not > * be sold or incorporated into any product without prior permission from the > * author. . . . > >I'm going to assume that OXXI got in touch with Louis before >incorporating his code into their Modula-II distribution. Someone in >Maryland might want to make sure of that. Hey, I'm on the net. Isn't everyone? > >I'd appreciate knowing that OXXI obeyed the redistribution >restrictions on my code, also. Is the source to microGNUemacs on the >disk? Ah, so that's who it was that called me on the phone, one sunny Saturday afternoon. Yes, I did give verbal permission for the use of my code in their product, under the standard set of conditions: If you sell a product using my code, I want a copy of it for free. I figure this is a fair deal. I suppose (I hope) that I'll be received my copy in the mail sometime soon. I might just change my opinion of this quiche-eating language Modula-II. I hope these people live up to their reputation. I'd be a shame to have another EA in the Amiga software market. Louis A. Mamakos WA3YMH Internet: louie@TRANTOR.UMD.EDU University of Maryland, Computer Science Center - Systems Programming
mwm@eris.UUCP (09/06/87)
In article <1919@umd5.umd.edu> louie@trantor.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) writes:
<Pardon my editing of Mike's copyright notice; just trying to keep the length
<of this posting down.
Ack! I didn't mean to copyright the article. Not being a lawyer, I
didn't think that quoting a copyright was....
Oh well.
<Hey, I'm on the net. Isn't everyone?
No; just most everyone :-).
<Ah, so that's who it was that called me on the phone, one sunny Saturday
<afternoon. Yes, I did give verbal permission for the use of my code in
<their product, under the standard set of conditions: If you sell a product
<using my code, I want a copy of it for free. I figure this is a fair
<deal.
I agree, it's a fair deal. Nice to know they got in contact with you.
<And I had asked:
<>I'd appreciate knowing that OXXI obeyed the redistribution
<>restrictions on my code, also. Is the source to microGNUemacs on the
<>disk?
I've got an answer - they didn't use any of my code, so no need to
worry 'bout it.
OXXI gets credits in my book for playing by the rules.
Now, if anybody at OXXI is listening, or anybody has influence, it'd
be nice if their changes got back to the mg support group, so we can
include them in a future version. Which is not to imply that OXXI
will loose credits for not doing so. Just want to give them a pointer
to a way to get more credits.
<mike
--
Tell me how d'you get to be Mike Meyer
As beautiful as that? mwm@berkeley.edu
How did you get your mind ucbvax!mwm
To tilt like your hat? mwm@ucbjade.BITNETpeter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (09/06/87)
> First note: at RMS's request, the name of microGNUemacs has been > changed to mg. Please refer to it by that name, and not by the > original name. I'll keep on referring to it by the original name, thanks, 'till you come up with something better. "mg" sounds like something someone hacked out last weekend (well, really it sounds like an underpowered sports car. Is that the image y'all want it to have?) At least leave "emacs" somewhere in the name, so we can figure out what you're talking about. Or else rename it Navistar :->. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!seismo!soma!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- 'U` <-- Public domain wolf.