silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert) (05/05/89)
In article <102@sdcc10.ucsd.EDU> cs163aeo@sdcc10.ucsd.EDU (Professor I.R. Gumby) writes: >That's why when I bought my first IBM >clone a year ago over an Atari ST. The programming languages and >utilities for an IBM are easier and less expensive than that for the >ST, so rather than take a compatability risk with an ST and PC >Ditto, I chose an IBM XT clone and later upgraded it to an AT >clone. Now that Atari has the software I want (and now at the price >I want with Borland entering the ST market) and eventually the >networking hardware (if it's not out already, I am looking into >buying one. Is this an April Fool's joke, or is this guy serious? I work with both my own two ST's and with PC clones, and I use the ST for developing stuff to run on the PC sometimes. There are a few cheaper PC items, but in general the ST stuff is far cheaper. For example, I have two versions of VIP Professional (one GEM-oriented, one looks like Lotus) for half the cost of Lotus 1-2-3. My AbSoft Fortran compiler for the ST cost 1/3 of Microsoft's compiler, and is a lot more compact. TDI Modula-2 is down to about the same cost as Topspeed, and I believe that there is a cheaper one out. XPRO for $35 beats any MS-DOS Prolog, including Turbo. Word Perfect is cheaper for the ST, although not so well supported. dBMAN is a lot cheaper than dBASE, etc., etc. The only major exception seems to be in the area of C compilers, where Borland, Zortech, and others have a price war going, and C++ hasn't shown its head yet. There aren't any decent expert system shells for the ST that I know about either. There are factors that depend on the size of the market that enter in, of course. From a programming point of view, MS-DOS is hard!!! All that segmentation crap, graphics at the lowest level, and so on. Give me GEM any time! -- Bill Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division. Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, NS, Canada B2Y 4A2 UUCP: ...!{uunet,watmath}!dalcs!biomel!bill Internet: biomel@cs.dal.CA BITNET: bs%dalcs@dalac.BITNET
gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) (05/06/89)
In article <3263@cs.dal.ca> bill@biomel.UUCP, biomel@cs.dal.CA writes: [ discussing software prices ] > >The only major exception seems to be in the area of C compilers, Another item to note is that the ST has 3 working public-domain C compilers. I'd hate to think of writing an MS-DOS C compiler that supported all of the memory models, with libraries. And has anyone priced a development environment for GEM or Windows on the PC recently? Doesn't Microsoft charge an arm and a leg and more for a Windows Development Kit? ------ Greg Lindahl | gl8f@virginia.{edu,bitnet} | Veraj Programistoj ne uzas PASCAL-on
sirkm@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Greg Anderson) (05/06/89)
In article <3263@cs.dal.ca> bill@biomel.UUCP, biomel@cs.dal.CA writes: >From a programming point of view, MS-DOS is hard!!! All that >segmentation crap, graphics at the lowest level, and so on. Give me GEM >any time! MS-DOS versus GEM? I am reminded of the question "When you die, would you rather be eaten by a lion or trampled in a stampede?" The correct answer, of course, is "no". :) ___\ /___ Greg Anderson ___\ /___ \ \ / / Social Sciences Computing \ \ / / \ /\/\ / University of California, Santa Cruz \ /\/\ / \/ \/ sirkm@ssyx.ucsc.edu \/ \/
crewman@bucsb.UUCP (JJS) (05/10/89)
In article <3263@cs.dal.ca> bill@biomel.UUCP, biomel@cs.dal.CA writes: > >From a programming point of view, MS-DOS is hard!!! All that >segmentation crap, graphics at the lowest level, and so on. Give me GEM >any time! > Nothing against the ST (I have one!), but with a decent PC C compiler (Microsoft or Turbo) and a graphics library such as MetaWINDOW, a programmer can virtually forget about Intel/MSDOS difficulties. Most C compilers will give you Unix-like file control under MSDOS, and MetaWINDOW, I must say seems to be more comprehensive than VDI. And if you've got to have windows, GEM is available for the PC, as well as Microsoft Windows, whose applications are truly multitasking. Ooops, I forgot. By the time you shell out for the Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (and the Microsoft C Compiler), ease of programming will be the least of your problems :-) So ST/GEM still remains the best value. But we all knew that. -- JJS