From: harp@netcom.com (Gregory O. Harp)
Subject: Re: Considering switching to IBM
Date: Sun, 05 Apr 92 20:59:23 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy

[Followups to c.s.a.advocacy!  And hit <RETURN> in something under 80
columns!] 

nap42487@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Nishith A. Patel) writes:

>Gregory Harp talks about how great the Amiga OS is compared to other
>OS's, and then says things which prove he has no idea what he is
>talking about.

Hmmm...  Really?  

First of all, I was not sitting there just claiming that the Amiga OS
is "so much better" etc.  If you have been reading c.s.a.advocacy for
a while you know that I do not do such things.  I'm an advocate of 
quite a few OSes, one of them being that Amiga's.  

What I _won't_ do is sit around and watch you make false claims about
what the Amiga can or cannot do.  I responded directly to your claim
that the Amiga could not handle a download while mousing around in 
the Workbench, which is simply not true.  I can handle that and quite
a bit more, as I explained in my previous response.

You know, the "So-and-so has no idea what he/she is talking about"
claim seems to have become trendy around c.s.a.advocacy when the
person responding doesn't really have anything better to say...

I assure you that in this case I _do_ know what I am talking about.
I have a good deal of OS experience and development time on Amigas
and PCs.  It is unlikely, from what you say, that you have ever
used and Amiga.  Now, to whom does that give the benefit of 
experience, eh?

>first, you can set priorities for DOS apps being multitaskedunder Windows.

Yes, but the time-slicing method used is inefficient, not to mention
that most DOS apps rely totally on polling loops, which are the bane
of true multitasking systems.

>Second, about the 486's using V8086 mode: This mode does not mean you can only
>use the 8086 instruction set. That is wrong. 

Did I _say_ that you couldn't use the extra instructions?  NO.  Why do
you bother to dispute things I didn't say?

What I _did_ say is that the majority of 486's are still running a
segmented, crippled OS.  The power of the 486 is being wasted here.
The _only_ places I've seen a 486 (or a 386) being used to its 
potential were under Unix or OS/2 2.0.  Given that most 486's are
running DOS and Windows...

>V8086 mode just traps certain things and handles little bits and
>pieces to allow multitasking when the program
>is expecting a single tasking environment, i.e. DO. As an example, other
>programs that use the 8086 mode, like Turbo Debugger, allow 386 instructions.
>The debugger runs in one v8086, while the program being debugged, which can
>use 386 instructions set, run in another. There is a restriction on using
>protected mode, which is what is used to access memory over 1MB and to set
>up the v8086's, since then the program can mess things up.

I _know_ what V8086 mode is, and I don't recall asking you.  Please do
not answer questions nobody asked.  It is quite unlikely that we are
interested in your answer.

However, now that you've brought it up, you can't use several programs
that run in V8086 mode together.  Try EMM386 or QEMM with Turbo 
Debugger 386, for example.  Nope...

So much for the V8086 mode being useful for multitasking.  The
programmers who have been using it come from DOS up-bringings and
still think they own the entire machine.

>But Operating systems, like Windows and Desqview, have a simple add on
>that allows to handle a program trying to use protected mode (which is
>a program trying to access memory above 1 MB, basically.) If the DOS
>extender used for the program trying to access memory over 1 MB
>through protected mode follows the DPMI standard, then it will work.
>Programs that use VCPI will not. Those that are using VCPI are now
>converting to DPMI (AutoCAD, for example). So that they will work
>under Windows. (I think Desqview can handle VCPI).

Yes, and most of these updates are currently vaporware...  Face it.
It has taken over 10 years for PCs to even standardize such things
as extended memory access.  The number of people who have the old
versions of many packages who won't bother to upgrade are going
to keep the PC in the dark ages, where it belongs IMO.

Greg
-- 
---------------Greg-Harp----------------harp@netcom.netcom.com---------------
           "We're not hitchhiking anymore.  We're riding!" -- Ren
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy