buzz@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Mahboud Zabetian) (01/26/88)
In article <76000103@uiucdcsp> gillies@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes: > >I sure hope they go with 3.2Mb disks, even though the cost will >probably be much higher. I feel this way because: > I am really impressed at how fast Macs have grown from the good ole 128k days. But there is one thing I am wondering. Will the advent of larger floppies and greater memory prevent people from writing shorter more efficient programs? Will there be an outpour of sloppy algorithms? I am just wondering, and I have nothing against better technology. Oh, by the way we got our AU/X today. Eat your heart out. Will let you know how installation goes. -- Mahboud Zabetian buzz@phoenix.princeton.edu 183 Little Hall (609) 520-1271 Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (609) 734-7760 ****** Anyone need a soon-to-graduate hardware/software engineer? ********
bayes@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Scott Bayes) (01/27/88)
Don Gillies writes: >(c) The cost in software distribution is horrendous. Many companies >today must distribute 2,3,4, or 5 disks with their product. This >costs money because: > (1) The floppies themselves cost money, so does the extra duplication. > (2) developers have to hassle with packing everything tightly on the disks. > The problem there, Don, is the same one I face at HP. The product we ship goes to people with all varieties of storage hardware. Our introduction 2 or 3 years back of 770 K micros didn't alleviate the media-count problem; rather it exacerbated it, as customers with double-sided drives want a convenient package (fewer double-sided discs), while customers with older equipment MUST have single-sided media (same disk count, plus more media for enhancements). We now ship 3 different formats! There are 5-1/4, 3-1/2 SS, and 3-1/2 DS. Total count appx 43 discs, for a product that originally required 4 SS 5-1/4 discs. It's too bad the world isn't simpler... >Are you listening Apple? > >Don Gillies {ihnp4!uiucdcs!gillies} U of Illinois > {gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu} Scott Bayes bayes@hpfclw
jmunkki@santra.UUCP (Juri Munkki) (01/29/88)
In article <1543@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> buzz@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Mahboud Zabetian) writes: >But there is one thing I am wondering. Will the advent of larger floppies and >greater memory prevent people from writing shorter more efficient programs? >Will there be an outpour of sloppy algorithms? A lot of current programs show the lack of good and compact design. If programs were thought out better, the same functionality could be achieved with half the "features", twice the speed and half the size. PixelPaint is amazingly slow and uses a lot more memory than it would. It is also very slow in loading and saving the pictures. I assume it doesn't even do any packing (I get savings of well over 50% with stuffit). Image Studio is very well done: it's fast, has a lot of interesting functions (most of which are due to it's open architecture), and it's half the size of pixel paint. Image Studio also seems to know how to use fast SCSI disks for extra memory. Software designers should start designing "slots" into their applications. HyperCard and SoundWave have software slots. I'm designing a piece of software that's mostly empty space that can be filled by anyone with moderate programming skills. Juri Munkki jmunkki@santra.hut.fi jmunkki@fingate.bitnet
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (02/16/88)
In article ... buzz@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Mahboud Zabetian) writes: > But there is one thing I am wondering. Will the advent of larger floppies and > greater memory prevent people from writing shorter more efficient programs? > Will there be an outpour of sloppy algorithms? Too late. There already has been. How much of today's software won't even try to run in under 200K all to itself? 200K is really quite a big chunk of memory, you know. It's more memory than the original Mac had... ROM and RAM combined. Look how much they did with that with the toolbox, O/S, and system stack in there as well. It's not restricted to the Mac, BTW. I'm dreading the flood of software that requires more than 512K CHIP memory in the Amiga once Obese Agnes gets out. *More than 512K*? How long since 512K was mainframe-class memory and people were talking about programming the world in 64K? You could run Version 7 UNIX in 256K on a PDP-11. Geeze. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.
brian@hpfclm.HP.COM (Brian Rauchfuss) (02/26/88)
The program grows to fit the availible memory. I've seen this problem on single-user workstations, programs which take up a meg or two of memory and they don't do anything!!! I would hate to see Mac software in that state... Smokefoot "There is nothing so ridiculous that some philosopher hasn't already said it" - C.