From: ucacmsu@ucl.ac.uk (Mr Stephen R Usher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: GEM.. what needs to be fixed, and soon!
Date: 7 Sep 92 10:06:14 GMT
Organization: Bloomsbury Computing Consortium, London

In article <1992Sep04.121952.133363@rrz.uni-koeln.de> aeg03@rrz.uni-koeln.de (Jan T. Kim) writes:
>In <1992Sep04.085511.23890@bas-a.bcc.ac.uk> ucacmsu@ucl.ac.uk (Mr Stephen R Usher) writes:
>
>>Secondly, for the Atari non-intel based machines to be taken seriously at
>>all they have to run a set of de facto standard software. It doesn't really
>>matter if the Atari specific software is more powerful or even cheaper, it's
>>just a fact of life.
>
>If it doesn't really matter, then why should anyone  have  an  ST
>instead  of  a  PC  or  Mac?  The  software  for the 680x0 Ataris
>generally has a much  better  performance/price  ratio  than  the
>software  for  any other platform. Some pieces of ST software are
>without counterparts on any other  system,  and  the  best  thing
>about  it  is  that  some of that stuff is even free! To me, that
>makes a big difference.
>If you want to use "de facto standard software", get  yourself  a
>"de  facto  standard machine". If you want something better, have
>an Atari. But don't expect that  to  be  100%  problem  free.  As
>someone  has once stated: "Many who have been ahead of their time
>had to wait for it in uncomfortable shelters."

This is all very well, but for all non-mainstream micros (ie anything which
isn't a Mac or Intel based PC compatable) the problem is image. Before
(business) people will buy a machine they want to know that they can use
software which is an industry standard, and thus well maintained. The reason
for buying a non-mac or non-intel machine are the fringe benefits, ie Midi
support built in, DSP (in the case of the Falcon) better memory management
(yes, Atari and other 680x0 machines are far better than PC clones for this
because of the architecture) etc...

Later on, as sales of machines have gone critical, and there's a full
support network,the companies currently in Atari software will be able to
get enough revenue to compete with the big boys and maybe, just maybe, the
flow of ideas will start flowing the other direction.

>
>>The only way I can see for this to happen is to produce
>>and release to developers an interface library which will allow them to just
>>compile and sell their code from another machine. Maybe the interface
>>library could emulate the MAC-OS system calls (though I guess Apple would
>>have something to say about that).
>
>Creating libraries is usually something  the  developers  do  for
>themselves.  If they program in a too system-specific, unportable
>way, this is their problem.

True, but the low-level routines have to be re-written for every platform!

Also, many platforms cannot have programs translated between them so easily
as the basic program concept has to be changed, eg Microsoft Word for the PC
(both Windows and Non-Windows) and the Mac version, they have to be
different.

This costs time and money for the developer. Developers established in other
markets won't even look at the low-sales Atari field unless it costs them
minimal effort.

>Atari for developing  their  own  OS, not for emulating others.

The OS in the ST is not particularly good (in some respects it is dire).
This is being worked on by Atari, I must admit, but they are starting from a
pretty low base. (TOS was effectively a minimal reimplementation of
MSDOS-type calls to allow GEM to be ported at the least cost. It was
compiled using a VERY poor C compiler (DRI-C) too). GEM itself isn't that
hot.

>
> +- Jan Kim -- X.400:    S=kim;OU=vax;O=mpiz-koeln;P=mpg;A=dbp;C=de -+
> |             Internet: kim@vax.mpiz-koeln.mpg.dbp.de               |
> |                                                                   |
> *----=<  hierarchical systems are for files, not for humans  >=-----*

Steve

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