From: barham@qut.edu.au
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amiga OS weaknesses and strengths
Date: 5 Jan 93 14:41:31 EST
Organization: Queensland University of Technology

Gasp!  Splutter!  Rarely am I prompted to post to c.s.a.advocacy,
though I've wandered through its squalid pages for a few years, but I
had to respond to this - a first in my memory - a Marc N. Barrett
posting that REAKS OF REASONABLENESS!  Good one, Marc - in my opinion
you can hang around here as long as you like of you continue posting
INCONCEIVABLY REASONABLE posts such as this.  I'm serious.  I don't
care if you bag the Amiga (well, I do just a little %^), but I
appreciate constructive, REASONABLE bagging, not "Woe unto the Amiga,
the end of the world is nigh" bagging.  Anyway...

barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett) writes:
>    My beef with AmigaOS as a whole is that it seems to be crafted oppositely
> to the MacOS.

Thank goodness for that %^)

> The Mac OS is not very pretty under the surface, but is VERY elegant
> on the surface.  The Mac OS on the surface has lots and lots of
> niceties, big and small. AmigaOS is more elegant under the surface,
> but is almost completely devoid of niceties on the surface.

I'll give you that one - The Mac OS (System 7 at least) is very
attractive and has a lot of lovely "surface features" that I would
love to see.  However, as I believe Dan (no relation) Barrett
mentions in another article, the problem is that the ugliness within
is bound to come out (and he quotes some instances where it does).
Personally I much prefer the concept of hidden beauty (ie the Amiga)
over surface beauty (the Mac).  The Mac is just damn well presented
in all external respects - advertising, interface, case design etc
etc, but is not nearly so "elegant" under the bonnet ("hood", for all
you americans) hardware and software wise.  The amiga is pretty
poorly presented in all these areas (well, not so bad on the
interface department, though it even 2.04 is not so hot on my 1081
monitor at 698x292 resolution - when I can afford a decent monitor
plus AGA machine or deinterlacer, I'll have a better comparison), but
has guts where it (IMHO) counts.

>    Let's face it, on the surface AmigaOS needs lots and lots of work.

Well, not THAT much work.  I can think of a few improvements - some
already done in 3.0, some I would like to see still, but not THAT
many.

> The Amiga clipboard is almost completely non-functional compared
> to the Macintosh clipboard.

The Amiga clipboard is ENTIRELY functional, it just isn't used by
very many applications (this reflects poorly on developers, not the
operating system).

> ConClip needs lots of work to be very useful (it needs to support
> more than just console devices, and needs lots of other fine-tuning;
> double-clicking on a word should highlight the whole word, for instance.
> You shouldn't have to drag across the whole word to highlight it).

Ya, it could be improved - but it IS nice to have it - poor old Mac
doesn't even have a CLI (and dont say it doesn't need one because
some primitive people LIKE it, and there are many things to which it
is more suited).  But you have a point - its current implementation
is a little crude.

> The Workbench has so many problems it needs to be thrown away and
> replaced.

NEVER!

> Box-selecting is totally broken.

Since when?  Who broke it?

> When you move one icon in a window, all icons in that window flash
> four times for every icon that is moved,

Ya, this is a problem - did 1.3 do that?  I canna remember.

> the Workbench lacks iconic representations of tasks started by the
> Workbench (both OS/2 and Windows have this, and it is nice);

The reason windows has this is because the screen would get to
cluttered with so many applications openned on it.  The amiga has
multiple screens, which are used to a very full extent by most apps
around, and so you don't tend to get as cluttered screens - you just
need to flick between screens (a very simple actions).

The iconify function that some apps provide (eg DirOpus) is handy for
memory saving, though - that's the only reason I use it.

> except for the rare program that puts an AppIcon on the screen,
> and in this case the AppIcons are mixed with the file and directory
>icons, making everything very confusing to the novice user.

Yes, but how would YOU arrange it?  I don't want my screen starting
to look like Windoze!

> CrossDOS is very poorly implemented in 2.1 and 3.0, with a disk in a drive
> having totally different device names depending on whether that disk is in
> AmigaDOS or IBM format.  Also, with CrossDOS enabled, there are almays two
> 'disk' icons on the screen for every disk in every drive.  Very, very messy.

But VERY VERY handy, thinks you not?

> The 'Edit' menu is similarly always available from any program,
> so that nearly all programs support cutting and pasting with the
> clipboard.

Yes, but this is rather a feature of developers rather than the
operating system.

> The Multifinder menu is also always available from any program,
> allowing easy navigating through the Macintosh's approximate
> equivelent to the Amiga's screens.

"Approximate" is the word!

> The Mac's 3-D Look supports the entire 16-Million-color palette on
> color Macs; the Amiga's 3-D Look still uses a 4096-color palette even on
> AGA Amigas.

This is a REALLY BIG DEAL to me.

> Multiple icon sets are available in the system, so that the Finder
> looks great on monochrome Macs, and even better on color Macs; the
> Amiga's stock Workbench icons look horrible in monochrome, and support only
> four colors even on Amigas that can display a 256-color Workbench; the
> Amiga's stock icons are also drawn from a 4096-color palette, and not from
> a 16-million-color palette.

The point about system icons not being available that look good in
monochrome or in a higher number of colours is good - icons should
work like in Windoze - where they are stored as full 24bit images,
with seperate images for dragging or a monochrome monitor or
whatever.  I like this idea.  BUT WHO CARES if they are drawn with
the 4096 colour palette?  How much detail/colours can you put in a
single icon?

> I could go on and on and on.  The Amiga is still a rather ugly
> child on the surface, and is in dire need of some radical cosmetic
> surgery.

It certainly isn't UGLY, and it certainly isn't a CHILD.  It may need
SOME cosmetic surgery, but not anything radical for sure.

> I am basing all of this on extensive first-hand experience with
> AmigaOS 2.1 on an Amiga 3000.

How long have you had 2.1 that you have extensive experience with it?

> Some of the problems could be solved with only minor modifications
> to the Amiga OS.  For instance, the last of support by the
> Workbench for a visual record of Workbench-launched tasks could be
> solved by integrating the main Commodities Exchange tool with the
> Workbench, and making each CX task show up on the Workbench
> screen's root as an icon instead of as a string in a tool's window
> (as it is now).

Except I want other apps to show up also, but commodities would be a
useful start because they are the ones you would want to pop open and
closed "all" the time.  So we need three areas of icons on the
Workbench?  One for drives/files, one for commodities and one for
other apps that have been "minimised"?

>    But, all in all, Commodore needs to pay *MUCH* more atrention to the
> surface details.  As the Macintosh has shown, what's under the surface does
> not matter as much if the outside looks really good.

For pureply marketing reasons, if nothing else, I agree with you.

> ---
> | Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
> --------------------------------------------------

-- 

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| t.barham@qut.edu.au (Tim Barham) - "Dances with Lemmings"          |
| Applications Programmer for the Computer Based Education Section,  |
| Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Qld, Australia      |
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| "You're so open-minded that your brain leaked out..."              |
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