From: jseymour@medar.com (James Seymour)
Subject: Re: yet more on the AA chipset...
Organization: Medar, Inc.     Farmington Hills, MI
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 00:56:23 GMT

In article <u894776.714313272@bruny> u894776@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (James McCoull) writes:
>mlelstv@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst) writes:
>
>>In <u894776.714264458@bruny> u894776@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (James McCoull) writes:
>>>	This is because CBM never put a games BIOS in the amiga.
>>>	They shot themselves in the foot.
>>>	With AA they shoot themselves in the face.
>
>>Having a games BIOS would be the worst thing to do.. It doubles the task
>>for any hardware manufacturer.. it would be used (with all its disadvantages)
>>by other programmers as well. And the result would be just to please game
>>programmers to continue their egocentric programming style ?
>>BTW, do you think that HD installable games on MS-DOS use the BIOS to access
>>the HD ?
>
>Does anyone who reads .advocacy understand how games programs are written?

I fear many of us do.

>Many come from UK, where the AtariST is chosen to be the initial platform for
>development - the developers do not have time to convert their programs from
>a lower level bios style system to AmigaOS, it makes no economic sense.

Then these "developers" ought to learn some really nifty terms, what
they mean, and how to employ that knowledge.  How about: "structured
programming",  "library", and "re-usable module" for starters?

>The programs of course break on new amigas for the lamest reasons - not
>egocentric programming, but lack of adequate documentation - and sample code.

Bullsh*t!  They break *precisely* due to egocentric programming -- and
a lack of responsibility, rather than of documentation.  I've yet to do
any serious development on/for the Amiga, but from what I've seen so far
it looks well-documented to me.

>The games programmers are there to make games, not to talk politely to the OS.
>

An equally sensible statement: Officer, I'm out here to drive my car, not
cooperate with traffic lights and such.

>IMHO it is easier for CBM to make the decision for them by putting in a BIOS
>rather than trying to train 1000+ amigaos ignorants.
>
>What would you prefer? games working on A3000 but without multitasking - or
>game not working on A3000 at all.
>Sure to have game on A3000 + multitasking is great... but it would be foolish
>to expect that from all programmers.
                     ^^^
Geez, how about at least most?  Half?

>

I'd argue that it's foolish to support games developers that produce
inferior product.  And not (properly) supporting the AmigaOS makes for
an inferior product (at least so far as the Amiga is concerned :-).  It
is exactly the attitude expressed above by James that (at least
indirectly) results in much of the poor software we see.  Not just
games, I might add.  We can't expect excellence, so we'll accept
mediocrity.

I'm as guilty as anybody in this respect, but at least, unlike
James, there's no way in Hell I'm about to try to justify poor
workmanship on the part of these developers as the fault of C=.


-- 
Jim Seymour				| "If NT is the answer, it must
...uunet!medar!jseymour			|  be a really silly question"
jseymour@medar.com			|      Warner Losh
CIS: 72730,1166  GEnie: jseymour	|      Computer Power Software
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc