Dave.Gudjonson@f43.n140.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Dave Gudjonson) (06/11/91)
Although this prg is relatively new to MS-Dos machines, 8bit Commodore machines have had a few years to develop some astounding add-ons and application prgs. As well, literally hundreds of Fonts.. Has anyone seen any similar prgs or files for the MS-Dos version? -- Dave Gudjonson - via FidoNet node 1:140/22 UUCP: ...!herald!weyr!43!Dave.Gudjonson Domain: Dave.Gudjonson@f43.n140.z1.FIDONET.ORG Standard Disclaimers Apply...
dtaylor@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Douglas A Taylor) (06/11/91)
In article <289.285469A9@weyr.FIDONET.ORG> Dave.Gudjonson@f43.n140.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Dave Gudjonson) writes:
%Although this prg is relatively
%new to MS-Dos machines, 8bit
%Commodore machines have had a
%few years to develop some
%astounding add-ons and
%application prgs. As well,
%literally hundreds of Fonts..
%Has anyone seen any similar prgs
%or files for the MS-Dos version?
There haven't been any third-party applications written yet for Geos/PC,
mainly because the Software Development Kit is still in beta-test (or
will soon be in beta-test, or something). I understand that America On-line
has a Geoworks SIG, as does GEnie. The GEnie Geoworks Round Table has the
latest versions of the Ensemble apps (bug fixes, etc.), as well as
user-uploaded clip-art libraries. They also sponser Q & A sessions with
Brian Dougherty, the CEO of Geoworks, with transcripts available for
downloading.
%Dave Gudjonson - via FidoNet node 1:140/22
--
Doug Taylor | Nothing real can be threatened.
The Ohio State University | Nothing unreal exists.
doug_taylor@osu.edu | - A Course in MiraclesAndrew.Merton@actrix.gen.nz (Andrew Merton) (06/12/91)
I've been having much FAX traffic to and from Geoworks re their sdk.
The latest gen I have is that the first release will only need a minor
platform to run on; a SUN SPARCstation or possibly a 386 running UN*X.
They don't expect to have a DOS sdk until the 4th quarter this year.
I think this is a Big Mistake; who can afford to by a SPARCstation?
They won't get any 3rd party s/w to let them compete with Windows 3.0
for a long time, by which time they'll probably have missed the boat.
Pity. I got the Working Model (full Ensemble, except you can't save
any files from anywhere. US$9.95).
I also got the System Software Overview. They've done a Real Nice Job
on the system; like, you can (theoretically) tell Geos whether you want
it to look like Motif, Open Look or CUA (e.g. Windows) and the same code
will run under any windowing model. Very impressive; of course, they
recommend that you code in Object Assembler. Why not C(++)? I guess
for speed and size. It goes like the clappers.
TINAR.
(But I'm a Believer!)
--
andrew.merton@bbs.actrix.gen.nz
"The relevant equation is Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass. A good bookshop
is a genteel Black Hole that can read."
Terry Pratchett, "Guards, Guards!"rhyde@hubbell.ucr.edu (randy hyde) (06/12/91)
>> Why not C++?
If you're willing to live with such inefficiencies, why not stick to
windows 3.0?
GEOWORKS got its speed by code (well) written in assembly. If people starting
writing apps in C or C++ for it, the performance of those apps would be nowhere
near as good as the GEOWORKS apps.Andrew.Merton@actrix.gen.nz (Andrew Merton) (06/13/91)
> willing to live with such inefficiencies, why not stick with Windows > 3.0? That's easy. I've been running W3 on my 12Mhz 286 with 1 Mbyte of RAM for a while now. I can't run W3 in standard mode because HIMEM.SYS seems to do horrible things to my mother board or something; it causes Parity errors and all sorts of stuff. Even in real mode, W3 locks up at least once every four hours; it simply runs out of memory or grunt or somethings and gives up. I ran Geoworks (the working model) for a couple of days playing with it. It Never locked up. It Never complained about not having any memory. It Never gave me the dreaded UAE. It seems that after one version, Geoworks already have a more solid, robust product. Besides, I like to think of myself as a s/w engineer. Geoworks is Object Oriented. At the coding level; the Assembler is an Object Assembler. This means that when I get the SDK (may it happen soon) I can write programs the way I want to, eventually using C++. (I must stop preaching) -- andrew.merton@bbs.actrix.gen.nz "The relevant equation is Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass. A good bookshop is a genteel Black Hole that can read." Terry Pratchett, "Guards, Guards!"
rhyde@hubbell.ucr.edu (randy hyde) (06/13/91)
I sure hope "writing software the way I want to..." implies that you're writing software the way you want to *USE* it rather than writing it the way you want to *write* it. The biggest problem I see with software today is that "software engineers" are much more interested in expending the minimum effort to create the program. While this may be a good thing from the software development $$$ point of view, minimizing software development time is often done at the expense of usability, efficiency, performance, and even other highly touted software engineering goals such as portability and maintainability. True, C++ is a great language and it is possible to write efficient programs in C++. However, as Donald Knuth once said, most programmers get lazy and take the easiest way out that the language at hand offers. Although you *can* write efficient programs in C++ (or any other similar HLL), programmers rarely do. It's so much easier to write inefficient programs. In assembly language it's obvious the price you're paying. HLLs hide too much of this. Of course, if you're writing a program and performance doesn't matter, who cares? Get the job done as fast as possible. But if you are trying to market a product, keep your users in mind. The six months extra it takes a *good* assembly language programmer to develop a product in assembly rather than C gets paid back rather quickly in use if you have 10,000 uses saving only a few minutes each day. If you have no competition, or you have some unique feature no one else has, users may put up with a slower product, for a while. But if you wind up with decent competition and your product is in C and their's is in assembly, you could get slaughtered in the marketplace.