HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kdarling@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling)
Subject: Re: 68000 ALU
Organization: North Carolina State University
Distribution: comp
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 22:17:55 GMT

ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata FSO) writes:
>>>>I've asked this question before, and I'll ask it again:  If the 68000
>>>>as a 16 bit ALU, then why is it that I notice no difference in instruction
>>>>timing between:
>>>>      add.w           #1,d5
>>>>      add.l           #1,d5
>>
>>[much deleted, as we find out the following]
>OK, I have got the opcodes that the assembler uses:
>
>add.w #1,d5 = $5245   [which is really addq.w]
>add.l #1,d5 = $5285   [which is really addq.l]
>
>So it appears that it using the addq version, but it is differentiating
>between word and long.  Now the instruction length is the same, so given
>that the ALU only operates in 16 bit increments, would you expect them
to have the same timing? 

Because of the 16-bit ALU, we'd expect that the "add.l" would take longer.
And according to the Motorola manuals, it does... 8 clocks vs 4 for "add.w".

So we're back to wondering why you don't see any difference in timing :-)
What is your test program?  It sounds like something else is causing this.
For instance, running out of chip ram could even out memory access timing.
And (I have to ask, you understand :-), are you running a plain 68000?

>>As someone else mentioned, a better test to try would've been something like
>>"add.w d1,d5" and "add.l d1,d5", since both of those have same-length codes
>>($DA41 and $DA81, respectively), and don't access memory for operands.
>
>I will try this and see what happens.  And thanks for taking the time to
>explain this.  I appreciate it.

Thank YOU.  It kept me from screaming about that silly C= response letter ;)

cheers - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: jerry@connection.prospect.com (Jerry Shekhel)
Subject: Re: I am giving up on the Amiga
Organization: Molecular Simulations, Inc.
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 21:10:14 GMT
X-Posted-From: connection.prospect.com
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes:
>
>The real problem with OS/2 is that it is an orphan product.  It is made
>by IBM, and nobody buys from IBM (well, hardly anyone).  It's main claim
>to fame is its ability to run DOS and Windows apps.  However, the August
>1992 Byte reviewed of OS/2.  The title of the article: "OS/2 2.0: A Mixed
>Blessing".  Specific gripes listed including poor performance on a PS/2
>model 70 25-MHz 386 with 6MB of RAM using HPFS, less than intuitive WPS
>interface, elimination of a more popular shell from 1.3, and lack of
>compatibility with significant Windows 3.1 apps.  The article also
>claims that the WPS is eminently crashable.
>

Although the WPS still has stability problems, I cannot see how they could
call it less than intuitive.  In fact, it's the most intuitive user interface
I've ever seen!

The problem with all the critics is that they're still trying to use OS/2
as a platform for running DOS and Windows applications.  This is
understandable, as 32-bit OS/2 applications haven't arrived in great numbers
yet.  Still, these guys should learn to see the potential in OS/2 -- the
potential to blow away any DOS or DOS+Windows system.

As for the WPS, it makes extensive use of the right mouse button, and
it works nothing like Windows, so they call it "hard to use".  Now *that*
really annoys me.

>
>Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
>
--
+-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
| Jerry J. Shekhel  | Molecular Simulations | Time just fades the pages      |
| Drummers do it... | Inc.  Waltham, MA USA | in my book of memories.        |
|    ... In rhythm! |     (617) 890-2888    |              -- Guns N' Roses  |
+-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
|           ...! [ princeton mit-eddie bu sunne ] !polygen!jerry             |
|                            jerry@polygen.com                               |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: gerald@seas.gwu.edu (Gerald G. Washington)
Subject: Re: Amiga Future?!?
Organization: George Washington University
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 17:09:02 GMT

philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) writes:
>As far as these jouranalists go, most haven't a clue re the computer world.

Most people who use computers are just as clueless.

(Heh--did I just use one of those "clue" expressions...?)

"Hey, I tried to load up Windows 3.0, but my Mac keeps ejecting the disk..."

-- Gerald
From: pdb059@ipl.jpl.nasa.gov (Paul Bartholomew)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amiga Future?!?
Date: 23 Jul 92 12:35:19 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Distribution: world
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Image Processing Lab

In article <1992Jul23.073751.3061@desire.wright.edu>, fheitkamp@desire.wright.edu writes:
> In article <1100@se.alcbel.be>, magu@se.alcbel.be (Mike Aguilar) writes:
>> One of the reason for the PCs dominance was the proliferation of its 
>> compatibles. Why can't the Amiga have a compatible?  Who says it can't,
>> Commodore?  I'm sure most of you will agree that Amiga is not just Commodore.
>
> 	Hey, Think about this: IBM the original "clone" maker is out of
> 	the clone market.  They have there own architecture (MCA).  Their
> 	own OS (OS/2). Why? They weren't making money in the face of the 
> 	clown market.
> 
> 	The companies that are "running" the clone market are Intel and
> 	Microsoft.  The clone makers all follow their guidlines and maybe
> 	add a little twist to distinguish their machine from the rest of the 
> 	pack.
> 
> 	How do you think Commodore would make money and stay in business
> 	by letting the Amiga architecture be cloned?

Yes, well, that brings up a key issue:  which are you more concerned about,
the survival of the Amiga or the survival of Commodore?  If cloning the
Amiga brought lower prices, competing chipsets, new capabilities, etc., and
Commodore lacked the flexibility to compete, then I say let them go under.

People are often willing to pay a higher price if they are convinced that,
one way or another, they are getting their money's worth.  IBM stayed suc-
cessful for years with that strategy, even though their machine cost as
much as twice as much as competing clone manufacturers.  Even now they are
still the largest PC manufacturer, I believe; they just aren't the dominant
factor they once were.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Bartholomew          |   "The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of
                          |    many things..."                  Lewis Carroll
pdb059@ipl.jpl.nasa.gov   |   Disclaimer:  Opinions?  What opinions?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block)
Subject: Re: Games on consoles
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Distribution: comp
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 04:51:02 GMT

foax@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
: Aren't you assuming that all games are arcade-oriented?  If that were
: true then consoles might well dominate.  But any game requiring a lot
: of computing power that isn't being used to move objects around on
: screen would be better done on a computer.  I can't see complex flight
: simulators, where the 3-d calculations dominate the computing time, or
: vastly complex simulations like the latest Ultimas being done on
: consoles.  And if you need to save any information, you're out of luck
: on a console.  If you built a console with these capabilities then
: most people would think it was either too expensive or trying to be a
: cheap computer and would probably buy a real one.

Either that, or they own a CDTV unit (not sure if CD-I has ram-card
capabilities standard or not) and just plug in their card, save it to
the card, and go to work.

I think the CDTV and CD-I units have immense game-system capabilities,
hopefully they'll come clean and show the world what they can do.  The
current lack of great, big, flashy games like one which should be
coming out for CDTV soon, Labyrinth, show off capabilities a bit
better than any current demo.  Lets hope their potential becomes
massively aware.

Greg

--
(: (: (: (: Have you overdosed on smileys today?  Why NOT!?! :) :) :) :) :)
(:"The person who said size doesn't matter was probably a very small man":)
(:	gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu			Gregory R. Block         :)
(: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
From: doiron@starpt.UUCP (Glenn Doiron)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A4000 article
Date: 29 Jul 92 21:59:07 GMT
Organization: 68K Software Development
X-NewsSoftware: Amiga GRn V1.16b 5/26/92 by Mikes Schwartz & Smith

In article <1992Jul29.004922.9252@ccu.umanitoba.ca> umpistun@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Brent Pistun) writes:
>In article <1992Jul28.043842.17143@ultb.isc.rit.edu> kxs5829@ultb.isc.rit.edu (K.X. Saunders ) writes:
>>This is typed from the _AMIGA news_ newspaper, volume 1 no. 7.
>>
>>			The A4000
>>		The Scoop on Commodore's Newest!
>>			 by Anon
>>
>>I've been chomping at the bit to speak out and right now I just don't care
>>about the non-disclosure agreement.  We have been beta-testing the A4000 and
>     Arrrggghhhhh, when is this story going to stop getting circulated!!???
>Brent E. Pistun                       Computer Engineering            \  /|
>umpistun@ccu.UManitoba.ca           University of Manitoba            'o.O`

I hereby nominate Skip Sauls for the "Most Persistent Rumor" award.

Glenn Doiron
--
Amiga UUCP+
Origin:  uunet!starpt!doiron     (Organization:68K Software Development)
         BIX: gdoiron
** Not enough memory to perform requested operation.  Add 4 megs and retry.
From: dano@srl01.usl.edu (Dan Stephenson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Colors VS. Greys
Date: 21 Jul 92 22:14:18 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana

hawk@pnet01.cts.com (John Anderson) writes:


>>If everybody thoght grey was so much more professional,how come all the ads I
>>see for IBM spreadsheets show bright, happy colours??????                    
>                                                                              
>>Skeksis                                                                      
>                                                                              
>  Colors brighten up the mood. When showing your software that you're trying  
>to sell to the people looking at your ad, you use tricks to get them to buy.  
>Bright colors liven up the atmosphere and feeling. People see the nice bright 
>colors and say wow that's neat, that looks easy. Then people buy your software
>and the marketing poeple get to stay on for another month.                    

Well, I don't think i am the only one who likes lotsa colors on the
screen.  Spreadsheets or otherwise, colors are nice to look at.  For
business presentations, they convey ideas much better than greyed
patterns.  The .fli I have zooming on the side of my WPS sure isn't
greyscale. I really don't think that colors are just a marketing trick
to fool customers.
>UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd ucsd nosc}!crash!pnet01!hawk
>ARPA: crash!pnet01!hawk@nosc.mil                 
>INET: hawk@pnet01.cts.com
--
Dan Stephenson|das9674@usl.edu masres10@ucs.usl.edu dano@srl01.cacs.usl.edu
Come all of you you/Who are not satisfied/As rulers in a lone wall/
papered room/Full of mute bird and flowers that /Falsely bloom/And
closets choked with dreams that long ago died,... --Judy Collins
From: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amigas are cool
Date: 27 Jul 92 07:27:51 GMT
Organization: Amiga makes it possible
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16e (7/4/92) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith

In article <1992Jul26.201816.17230@seas.gwu.edu> gerald@seas.gwu.edu (Gerald G. Washington) writes:
> addison@pollux.usc.edu (Richard Addison) writes:
> >barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
> >}   Most such $1000 systems come with 2M of RAM.  To run OS/2 well, you need
> >}only add 6M, which is about $200-$250 at today's prices.  It has also been
> >}mentioned that OS/2 will fit well onto a 60M drive, as long as you aren't
> >}trying to fit 40M of C++ development tools onto it as well.  60M SCSI drives
> >}can be had for $250 these days.
> >
> >What good is VM if you don't have any harddisk space left?
>
> Hah, that is an excellent question.
>

Here's another good question:

What good is VM if you have a battery powered computer (i.e. Mac or PC laptop
or notebook)?  These machines are cleverly designed to power down disk drives
and display to conserve battery life.  Using an OS with VM causes that disk
drive to spin a lot of the time - enough to make you need to charge your
batteries a lot more often.

> I have been looking at various 486 systems, and I have found that it is not
> nearly as inexpensive as one my think to get a "powerhouse" system.  You need
> lots of RAM, lots of disk space, a good video card, sound card, etc.  Although
> these things are fairly cheap individually,

These things can be found in the DELL and ZEOS PC clones on the motherboard at
prices competitive with the A3000.

> 	cheap + cheap + cheap = not_so_cheap.
> I could get a good 486 system for under $2000 if I only wanted to run PD
> software.
>

There really isn't much non-PD or game software for the Amiga anyhow, so it's
a moot point.  Better to spend $3K on a computer that has many apps,
hardware expansion options, and SW development tools with hundreds of man
years of development time in them...

> -- Gerald

--
Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
1124 Fremont Ave.
Los Altos, CA 94024
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: bmccnnll@unix1.tcd.ie (Barry McConnell)
Subject: Re: I DID giev up on the Amiga!
Organization: Trinity College, Dublin
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 22:05:32 GMT

In <gromyko.03tg@sputnik.rhein-main.de> gromyko@sputnik.rhein-main.de (Michael Grom) writes:

>Oh Marc, what a silly answer! What about all those little high-priced
>Macintoshes Apple sold in the past, without internal harddisks?

The Mac Quadra is available without a hard drive. Yes, Apple's top-of-the-
range Macintosh, without a HD. Presumably becuase their 400MB drive might not
be enough for some users, so they can have the *choice* of getting, say, a
2 gig drive.

>A computer without a hardddisk/controller gives you the opportunity
>to choose from what suit your needs best.

Precisely. DMA or PIO, memory on the card, price, etc.

>Leave the silly A600 aside!

It is NOT SILLY. Its price has just been reduced by 30% here in Ireland,
making it an unbelieveably competetively-priced home computer. Perhaps
C= will be cutting the price of their other products, or this price drop is
to make way for the future Amigas, with a similarly low price-tag?

Barry.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: AMIGA vs. IBM AUDIO???
From: avogel@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Date: 21 Jul 92 22:34:39 EDT
Organization: Wesleyan University

In article <14id8oINNndj@matt.ksu.ksu.edu>, nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou) writes:
> avogel@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
> 
>>I have a question.  I know of someone that is buying a 16 bit audio board
>>for his IBM 386.  It is PAS (power audio systems or something like that)
> 
> Actually it's the Pro Audio Spectrum 16.  The price sounds about right.
> 
>>Anyway he is getting it mail order for about $219.
>>Now this is a 16 bit audio board.  For the AMIGA 16 bit just came out
>>like Sunrize Industry's Studio 16.  I am an AMIGA user and I always thought 
>>that the AMIGA had the edge in this area - what is the whole story here?
> 
> The story is that the Amiga is slowly being caught up in areas where it
> previously held a commanding lead over the competitors (let's hope that
> last sentence parses).
> 
>>Can this IBM board sample?  How do they compare?
> 
> The PAS-16 sure can sample, 2 channel 16-bit stereo sampling at 44.1 KHz.
> It also has a nice FM chip for 20 synthesized voices.  To compare quality
> you'll have to listen to each of them

No I know a bit about the SunRize product Studio 16 (I had the oportunity to
play around with one) and I am curious if you know how the PAS 16 compares in
some of the following features.  After all the Studio 16 goes for about $600
while the PAS 16 goes for $219, I am hoping that Studio-16 owners are paying
for something.

	Ok, I know that you can take the audio off lets say a video tape -
digitize it and then be able to edit it but synched with the video like when
you playback the audio you see the counter for the video so you can do perfect
synching of your audio to your video (a usually hard and laborious task).
	You can also fade, cross fade, and eliminate sections of audio.  You
can trigger just about as many sounds as you want as Studio 16 works off the
hard drive.
	It has 4 tracks gthat can be mixed and metered with no generation
loss.  You can sample at up to 80,000 samples per second (future versions will
be more) and you can synch SMPTE at 24, 25, 29.97 and 30 fps.
	You can cut copy paste, reverse, zoom, scale audio.  And an ad I have
says that offers CD fequency response and 70db signal to noise ratio.
	How does PAS-16 compare?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata FSO)
Subject: Re: 68000 ALU
Reply-To: ata@hfsi.UUCP (John Ata FSO)
Organization: HFSI, McLean VA.
Distribution: comp
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 17:01:46 GMT

In article <kdarling.712314242@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu> kdarling@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes:
>John Ata FSO writes:
>>kdarling@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes:
>>>ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata FSO) writes:
>>>>I've asked this question before, and I'll ask it again:  If the 68000
>>>>as a 16 bit ALU, then why is it that I notice no difference in instruction
>>>>timing between:
>>>>      add.w           #1,d5
>>>>              and
>>>>      add.l           #1,d5
>>>
>>>Hi.  That's not a good test of the ALU size, as an add.l must inherently
>>>take longer to execute on a 68000 because it has to fetch another word
>>>from memory.  
>>
>>Why does it have to fetch another word from memory?  I thought it would
>>add 1 to register d5...Am I missing something?
>
>Yes, I think you might be thinking that "add #1" is an "increment" command.
>It's not... it's a general "add" command.  So the cpu must get from memory
>whatever the number is that you're wanting to add to d5.  
>
>Now since the 68000 has a 16-bit data path, it'll get a word if you're
>adding bytes or words, and get two separate words if you're adding a long.
>Therefore adding a long value requires an extra memory access:
>
> COMMAND        68K OPCODE
> add.w #1,d5  = $DA7C 0001      = 1 word opcode + 1 word operand
> add.l #1,d5  = $DABC 0000 0001 = 1 word opcode + 2 word operand
>
>So in theory (and in fact), "add.l" from memory should take more time than
>"add.w" from memory, on a 68000.  It sounds like your compiler is taking
>the "add.l" and notices that the operand is less than or equal to 8, which
>means a faster version (a specialized increment command) can be substituted:
>
> addq.l #1,d5 = $5285 = special 1 word opcode with embedded operand of "#1"
>
OK, I have got the opcodes that the assembler uses:

add.w #1,d5 = $5245
add.l #1,d5 = $5285

So it appears that it using the addq version, but it is differentiating
between word and long.  Now the instruction length is the same, so given that
the ALU only operates in 16 bit increments, would you expect them
to have the same timing? 

>Which should be extra fast because the whole code is contained in one word,
>but the 16-bit ALU of the 68000 slows it back down to add.w speed.
>
>As someone else mentioned, a better test to try would've been something like
>"add.w d1,d5" and "add.l d1,d5", since both of those have same-length codes
>($DA41 and $DA81, respectively), and don't access memory for operands.
I will try this and see what happens.  And thanks for taking the time to
explain this.  I appreciate it.

>
>best - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>


-- 
John G. Ata - Technical Consultant | Internet:     hfsi!ata@UUNET.UU.NET
HFS, Inc.		  VA20     |     UUCP:     uunet.uu.net!hfsi!ata
7900 Westpark Drive	 MS:601	   |    Voice:	(703) 827-6810
McLean, VA  22102	           |      FAX:	(703) 827-3729
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: leavitt@cheshire.oxy.edu (Thomas VanNess Leavitt)
Subject: Re: I DID giev up on the Amiga!
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 20:24:31 GMT

The Quadra's NuBus-90 implementation is only preliminary... the technology
is still unfinished, as compared to the Zorro III which has been around
since 1990 and available.

thom
From: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re:  I am giving up on the Amiga
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16e (7/4/92) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith
Date: 26 Jul 92 13:56:02 PST
Organization: Amiga makes it possible

In article <root.0265@rkamiga.UUCP> root@rkamiga.UUCP (Rick Kelly) writes:
> In article <62681@cup.portal.com> TomK@cup.portal.com (Tom R Krotchko) writes:
> >Before you throw rocks at Dell, keep in mind they spend about
> >3% on This from an interview with Michael Dell in a
> >recent Upside magazine.
> >
> >I thought I'd read CBM spends 2.2% on R&D.
> >
> >Its definitely volume that keeps the price of these things low.
> >
> >And... never mind. I could write a book on the whole thing...
>
> Yup.  Dell designs their own motherboards.  On a Dell PC running Dell UNIX,
> pushing the reset button will cause an orderly UNIX shutdown.  Some models
> also have an LCD display on the front of the box that displays POST codes
> and the run level of the OS.
>

Given the constraints of MS-DOG compatibility, and even ignoring compatibility
issues, the Dell systems I have looked at resemble a cross between the A3000
and GVP combo boards - in terms of design.  The LCD display is perfect for
scrolling text demos, too :)

> --
> Rick Kelly		Rick's Amiga		Framingham, Mass.
>
> 		think!unixland!rmkhome!rkamiga!root
>

--
Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
1124 Fremont Ave.
Los Altos, CA 94024

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy