From: jerry@connection.prospect.com (Jerry Shekhel)
Subject: Re: PC (OS/2) / Amiga debate -- hopefully a rational debate, an I an ideali
Organization: Molecular Simulations, Inc.
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 14:49:56 GMT
X-Posted-From: connection.prospect.com
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

addison@pollux.usc.edu (Richard Addison) writes:
>>
>>Greater sophistication implies greater code size, which in turn implies a
>>higher chance of bugs.  It doesn't work backwards; take a logic course.
>
>But greater _elegance_ can mean smaller code size.  If you are just patching
>a bunch of stuff together to add features, you can run in to a monster of
>a program.
>

Agreed, but if you think that a re-coded OS/2 could fit on a 360KB diskette
and have a 65KB kernel, you're mistaken.  BTW, the fall update of OS/2 should
reduce the memory requirements somewhat.

>>
>>AutoConfig is nice, but you get to use it, what, once every couple of
>>years or so?
>
>The Amiga uses AutoConfig (tm) every time it boots.
>

The way I understand it, Micro Channel PC's store the configuration info of
their boards in CMOS non-volatile RAM, so configuration only happens once.
I don't know about EISA.

>>
>>As for "real-time", what is it about AmigaOS that makes it
>>more "real-time" than OS/2?  Please limit your answer to facts.
>
>Why do you ask others to limit themselves to facts when you don't?
>

You misunderstood me.  Opinions are fine with me -- just don't try to
pass them off as facts, and don't post any lies.

>>
>>Do all Amiga owners do video stuff, or is it just something you
>>can whine about other systems not being able to do?  By the way,
>>call Boffin Limited at (612) 894-0595, and ask them about their
>>$199 VGA-to-NTSC cable.  Wow, less than the flicker-fixer even!
>
>OK, the $199 converter (internal or external) is essentially an
>NTSC encoder.  For $299 you can get one with S-Video and an RGB
>pass-through.  The complexity of this is a good deal less than
>a flicker-fixer, by the way.  Consider what it does, I feel it
>is over-priced.
>

Overpriced it may be, but at $199, it puts to sleep all the arguments
about video being super-expensive on PC's.

>
>Anyway, these converters rely on reprogramming the VGA card to
>attempt RS-170 scan rates.
>

How can an external converter reprogram the VGA card?  Answer: it can't.
Somehow (I really don't know) it converts VGA output to NTSC.

>
>But, then how close does the video
>signal come to meeting the NTSC specifications?  [Is the horizontal
>scan rate 15734 Hz?  Is the vertical scan rate 59.94 Hz?  Does it
>change the phase of the color subcarrier when it should?  Does the
>color subcarrier burst occur at the right time?]
>

The things you ask in brackets are way out of my league, but the ad
says that it *is* NTSC.

>
>>This is insane.  The PC arrived at a time when the typical mainstream
>>personal computer had a 64K RAM limitation and a file system that didn't
>>support subdirectories.
>
>When the PC arrived, I was writing software for a microcomputer that
>was both multi-tasking and multi-user.  The total memory was not limited
>to 64K ram, either.  Granted, the file system was primitive (it had no
>subdirectories), but the system allowed for multiple logical drives on
>a single physical device.  BTW, we did have a 70 megabyte harddrive.
>(It had 14 inch platters and took a couple of minutes to spin up).
>

This computer was hardly mainstream, no?  In those days, that 70MB hard
drive cost, what, around $4,000?  I was talking about the Apple ][ and the
Atari 400/800.

>
>Of course, when the IBM PC was introduced, it did not support
>subdirectories either.
>

Oops, you're right.  I forgot about that.  Subdirectories arrived with
DOS 2.0, right?

>
>And your point about the planned obsolescence being insane:  IBM works
>this way.  When IBM brought out the PC, it had tried various other
>small machines with non-IBM microprocessors.  They even had a machine
>based on the 68000.  And they had a machine, the DataMaster, that
>was based on the 8085.
>

Then why did the PC *not* end up having an IBM microprocessor?  I really
don't think that the shortcomings of the PC were planned, as you say.

>
>What kind of support is there for the IBM PCjr?  Or for the IBM PC,
>for that matter?  You can't even get ROMs for the IBM PC from IBM
>anymore.
>

What a loss.  Let's get something straight.  IBM has always had excellent
(if costly) support.  They supported the PC and XT for a lot longer than
any other vendors supported their bottom-end clones.

>
>Or, maybe more typically, the user pays someone to do the configuration.
>

Or, maybe even more typically, the user reads the installation guide and does
the configuration himself.
--
+-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
| Jerry J. Shekhel  | Molecular Simulations | Time just fades the pages      |
| Drummers do it... | Inc.  Waltham, MA USA | in my book of memories.        |
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