dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (03/18/87)
I, of course, keep up on the mac and atari newsgroups as well as this group. My tendancy is to correct mistakes made about the Amiga on these newsgroups (or get into general or theoretical discussions, but that's off the subject). Now, being an Amigan, I find it my duty to correct such mistakes by a small posting to the offending newsgroup. Of late, there have been quite a few messages from other Amigan's on the atari newsgroup (mainly in response to some poor atarian's statement about processor compatibility between 680x0's), correcting the atarian's one line mistake with a 4 paragraph paper delving deep into the reasons why the Amiga *does* support multiple processors... etc... Is it possible that we can gain some measure of self control and refrain from such *long* postings when a line or two will do? After all, if we keep on doing this to their newsgroup, we might get our selves into a network-newsgroup war (the worse kind!).... Show some pity fellow Amigans!. -Matt
ali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer) (03/18/87)
--- Well, sometimes the amount of misinformation floating around in the atari.st newsgroup gets a bit too much... In fact, even their Atari support person, Alex L. (who recently appeared on the net, seemingly after the outcry from newsgroup readers about the lack of Atari support), is as misinformed about the Amiga as some of the readers... Just recently someone complained about the Atari "_" bug, and one of Alex's reponses was that the Amiga is the only machine you can crash by following the boot instructions *exactly*. Of course this generated a message or two from fellow Amigans, and it turns out that Alex was referring to a time when he and (the computer critic and expert) Jerry Pournelle tried to boot the Amiga... Sigh, with technical expertise like that, I think they do need to be corrected once in a while... Gosh, even Commodore's George Robbins posts informative messages about the ST on their board. How many times have we had ST people post messages here? I remember one from several months ago when the person posting it was mumbling about how superior the ST was to the Amiga... As long as the messages don't get to be of the religious type, I think such postings to other boards is useful (and even necessary!). And none of the recent (long) messages about '010 and '020 compatibility have been all that religious --- Just informative. On a totally seperate topic, I recently bought Robert Peck's "Programmer's Guide to the Amiga," after reading a recommendation here on comp.sys.amiga. I'm glad I did --- It's a good book. I just read parts of it, but it has thought me a lot about the parts of the Amiga I didn't know about (such as the AmigaDOS Lock stuff, etc)... It presents facts in a clear and concise fashion, and has a lot of examples (which seem to be tested and working, but I haven't verified this). One bug I've found is the misspelling of Tom Rokicki's name as Thomas. And in another page there is mention of "mutual exclusion for gadgets," but just in a paragraph, and without examples... Well, as clearly stated in the Enhancer manual, mutual exclusion hasn't been implemented yet... But, in any case, it's a good book so I second the rec. Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu
grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) (03/19/87)
In article <8703180813.AA29897@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > > Now, being an Amigan, I find it my duty to correct such mistakes by > a small posting to the offending newsgroup. Of late, there have been > quite a few messages from other Amigan's on the atari newsgroup > (mainly in response to some poor atarian's statement about processor > compatibility between 680x0's), correcting the atarian's one line > mistake with a 4 paragraph paper delving deep into the reasons why the > Amiga *does* support multiple processors... etc... > > Is it possible that we can gain some measure of self control and > refrain from such *long* postings when a line or two will do? After > all, if we keep on doing this to their newsgroup, we might get our > selves into a network-newsgroup war (the worse kind!).... Show some > pity fellow Amigans!. > > -Matt Matt, please remember that net response time varies - you will probably get this tomorrow, others won't see it for a week. When there is something that many people feel a need to respond to, many replies will get launched before any other response becomes evident. Personally, I try to let simple mistakes and comparisons in the Atari group slide. In this case, I felt there was considerable potential for confusion since this person was presenting "facts" he had heard from Amiga users. In my responses, I will try to correct the misinformation and present enough background that people can understand the issues and possibly the reason for the confusion. If Dave or I got carried away, it simply because it *hurts* to see one of positive features of the Amiga software so abused... -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
spencer@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer) (03/20/87)
In article <201@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> ali@rocky.UUCP (Ali Ozer) writes: >On a totally seperate topic, I recently bought Robert Peck's "Programmer's >Guide to the Amiga," after reading a recommendation here on comp.sys.amiga. >I'm glad I did --- It's a good book...so I second the rec. > >Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu It is a *itch (I mean bit*h, no I mean bitc*, hmmm... that ain't easy) to find, but well worth it. Most fun I have had reading in a long time. I liked "Inside the Amiga", but this is really fun. Got to get the disk that has the sources. It did take me 4 B. Daltons to find, I got the last one, and I haven't seen them since (all this week). Good luck, and I third the recommendation, or I guess you don't third things, once it has been seconded you put it to a vote. Well, I vote for it! It is required reading on the "C" Sig I am heading up in my users group (well, they don't know that yet, but it will be.) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Randy Spencer P.O. Box 4542 Berkeley CA 94704 (415)284-4740 I N F I N I T Y BBS: (415)283-5469 Now working for |||||||||||::::... . . BUD-LINX But in no way |||||||||||||||::::.. .. . Officially representing ||||||||||||:::::... .. ....ucbvax!mica!spencer s o f t w a r e spencer@mica.berkeley.edu -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
braner@batcomputer.UUCP (03/21/87)
[] As an Atari ST user and comp.sys.atari.st reader I must agree that _short_ _informative_ statements from Amigans are useful. Can I ask you Amigans for info? I'd like to know what are the available 68881 and 68020/68881 add-ons for the Amiga, how much they cost and what software support do they have. Please e-mail responses to: <braner@amvax.tn.cornell.edu> or the address above. Thanks. - Moshe Braner
engst@batcomputer.UUCP (03/24/87)
Tsk, Tsk, Ali - Now we're treading into the waters that tend to start the
religious wars. I agree that George Robbins does post informative messages
about the ST to that newsgroup, but Alex Leavens has been *very* helpful as
of late and there is no reason to slam on him for a problem he personally
had. I'm sure everyone at one time or another has managed to crash some
computer by doing something correct - I crashed the first demo Amigas simply
by running the programs the store had put on them. But I've also crashed my
ST for equally stupid reasons. And we won't even talk about an IBM or a
C-64, both of which need only an evil look to crash. Speaking of IBM,
perhaps we should worry more about"competing" with them than with each other
- after all those three letters sell more computers than the Atari's and
Amiga's excellent features combined. And hey, I doubt most Amigans know
enough about the ST to comment knowledgeably (as George does) about it. In
the same vein, I don't think that most St-users know enough about the Amiga
to say much intelligent about it. So let's all lighten up and talk about
the computers, not any comparisons between them. And if anyone disagrees in
a large way, let them set up comp.sys.religious.war and fight out their "my
daddy's bigger than your daddy" battles somewhere else.
Adam Engst