From: mrmike@michelotti.ae.ge.com ("Mr. Mike" Passaretti)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Future Amiga chipsets
Date: 31 Dec 92 20:34:04 GMT
	<1992Dec30.192541.27943@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>
Reply-To: Mike Passaretti <passaretti@crd.ge.com>
Organization: GE Aircraft Engines, Cincinnati OH

# In article <1992Dec30.192541.27943@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>, 
# jerry@msi.com (Jerry Shekhel) writes:

[...]
jerry> Just wondering: Does your OS have virtual memory?  How
jerry> about device- independent graphics and sound?  These
jerry> are the things I was talking about -- the things that I
jerry> consider the strengths of Windows.

VM, yes (Although not in certain real-time areas).  
DIG yes.  Sound no.  There are no sound outputs
(modulo buzzers) on my hardware, so I've never troubled to
write a device for it.  It does support streams I/O, though,
so any generic device _can_ be made to work...

[...]
: Actually, all my examples were of resource allocation.
: An OS _must_ do several things; It must allocate resources,
: including but not limited to displays, storage devices and
: input devices.  It must provide for the loading and execution
: of other programs which utilize its features.  It must
: provide a consistent, useful interface to those features for
: the application programmer.
: (I cribbed that from my course notes on OS design)

jerry> OK, we started this discussion because people were
jerry> saying that DOS is not an OS.  What doesn't it provide,
jerry> in terms of resource allocation?  You'll probably say,
jerry> "It doesn't manage the CPU resource," which is true of
jerry> course, but does that mean that an OS has to be
jerry> multitasking by definition?

Well, it has no good method for allowing, for instance, a TSR
and an App to share serial I/O.  It's also (as my example
noted) indifferent at best on managing keyboard input in a
timely fashion and passing it down the food chain.  There is
also no good support for timers, which is a _real_ problem for
certain applications...

[...]
jerry> I must take issue with this.  Windows replaces *all* of
jerry> DOS's resource management code with its own, with one
jerry> possible exception -- the disk.  I say "possible"
jerry> because Windows doesn't even have to use DOS to manage
jerry> the disk -- the FastDisk driver totally replaces DOS.
jerry> Windows also manages devices which DOS does not, such
jerry> as mice, sound cards, and graphics screens.  So I
jerry> believe Windows can and does "fix" DOS's inadequacies.

It still doesn't manage time very well...  That's the biggy.
It also doesn't handle food chains as cleanly as I'd like.

: The simple fact of the matter is that Windows supports no less
: than three different APIs, and that's confusing to say the
: least.

jerry> What different APIs?

MS-DOS, Windows 1.0ish, Windows 386/486.

[...]
jerry> I do agree with this!  OS/2 has everything that Windows
jerry> has, but with a better API, preemptive multitasking,
jerry> memory protection, and a flat 32-bit address space.
jerry> The API is cleaner; IBM and MS saw the mistakes they
jerry> had made with the Windows API, and corrected them.  It
jerry> makes the Windows API look like a first draft, which is
jerry> exactly what it is.

Ayup.  No argument here.

jerry> As for whether or not Windows was designed to be a
jerry> single OS, well, I don't know.  I'm sure BillG always
jerry> wanted to sell it as an add-on to DOS, but how it's
jerry> packaged and bootstrapped doesn't change what it is,
jerry> does it?

Nope, but how it's built does.  It's not a designed OS, it's
an application environment with most of the features of an OS.
It works, but it wasn't designed to run alone...

jerry> Now that we're talking about it, X doesn't really
jerry> support DIG in the same sense as Windows or OS/2.
jerry> After all, I can't use X calls to send output to a
jerry> printer.

Why not?  If you can write a display driver for it, you can.
Actually, I've played with that before and it's not as hard as
you might think...

: There's a big difference between designing a feature in and
: sticking it on later, but that's another story.  If you could
: see some of the code in the MacOS (Yes I have), you would
: cringe.  Or maybe not.  I'm an aesthete when it comes to
: programming.

jerry> Me too!  Perfectionist down to the alignment of the
jerry> last closing brace.  I can't comment on MacOS
jerry> internals, though, because I've never seen them (should
jerry> I be thankful?)

Yes.  Very.  Some of the worst code I've ever seen.  
I'll say no more as I'm skirting legal issues...

: Right.  That doesn't mean every product is well designed or
: thought out.  I still think the PC world would have been
: better off with a new, designed from the ground up with no
: baggage, OS.  The pain involved in the changeover would have
: been great, but I think you would have ended up with a better
: product.  None of the big boys would stick their neck out that
: far, though, and it ain't a job for a two man company...

jerry> Agreed.

There now, we discussed a little, bitched a little and
actually communicated a little.  We better get off c.s.a.a.
before we ruin the atmosphere...
                                                        - MM

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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy