From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip 'AdaX' Sauls)
Subject: Re: Mac OS just sucks -- "ease of use" = "lack of freedom" ?
Keywords: stupid, silly, amiga, heads, cant, win
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 14:08:05 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.085215.7457@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au> rxkajv@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Andrew Vanderstock) writes:
>skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip 'AdaX' Sauls) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Mar30.231139.10967@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> hauer@roby.ecn.purdue.edu (Corey Hauer) writes:
>
>>>Amiga OS does not have a compressed video standard like Quicktime.  Amiga OS
>>>does not have a MIDI manager or Communications Toolbox.  Amiga OS does not
>>>directly support 24-bit color or multiple screens on an infinite desktop.
>>>Amiga OS also doesn't have Truetype or Postscript support.
>
>>Mac OS does not have proper multitasking like Exec.  Mac OS does not have
>>a RexxMaster to support interprocess communication.  Mac OS does not directly
>>support a Blitter, a Copper, or multiple screens with varied bit-depths and
>>resolution on the same monitor.  Mac OS does not support AGFA-Compugraphic
>>Bullet Font technology.  Mac OS does not support BLAZEMONGER! 
>
>"Proper multitasking"? I would have to disagree - Amiga programs can still
>takeover the entire computer (see any game for proof of this.) Is the Amiga

Did I ever mention games?  Hell, a game or other program could be written for
any computer that takes over the entire machine.  Get a clue.

>OS protected? No! So where's the problem? This will be fixed with the micro
>kernel version, which will have according to MacLeak, memory protection and
>pre-emptive multi-tasking. Big deal, it works right now, and sure some

The Mac will be nearly a decade old by the time Apple learns how to develop
a decent OS.  Sometimes I wonder if the Mac is really Intel based.

>microsoft products crash occasionally, but who uses them anyway? :-) (I use
>everything but uSoft products because they so flagrantly abuse the Mac
>guidelines, and there are much better products than Word, Excel, Works,
>etc, for example Nisus, Lotus 1-2-3 or Resolve, and Claris Works, all of
>which I own AND use! So nyer)

Ooooh...  Don't make me so jealous.  I teach a damn Lotus 1-2-3 class to a
bunch of accounting majors and I have yet to figure out why everyone seems
to think that it is such a killer app.  Puhleaze!  It is a piece of crap!
What are you, a business major or something?

>Mac OS has PPC and IAC to allow inter-process communication, as well as Apple 
>Events. These are very mature network-based as well as locally based IAC calls. 
>These allow programs to talk to each other, as well as send other programs
>commands to quit, print, open a file, and a whole host of new goodies in

What a revolutionary idea!  I sure wish that my Amiga could do that!  Maybe
Commodore will just adopt MacOS for the Amiga since it lacks these features.

>publish and suscribe - the ability of a word processor document to contain
>an up-to date version of a spreadsheet, for example, without knowing how
>the spreadsheet works. It just works, as anyone who has used a Macintosh
>for serious work can tell you. I love them, even they can be a bugger to 
>program. 

Since you mention programming, I guess you must not be a business major.  It
is just too bad that you waste your time programming a toy.

>Please tell me what the 8*24 GC card is, if it is not a Quickdraw accelerator?

It is an orphaned graphics card.  BTW, if Quickdraw is so quick, then why is
an accelerator needed?
 
>Booger on a card? Any mac program that uses Quickdraw gets all the benefits of

How crude!  Dried phlegm and dust sphere is a much nicer phrase.
 
>being drawn by a nice little 30 MHz AMD 29000 processor. In parallel to normal

Apple probably got liquidator prices on these things as no one else uses them.
 
>CPU use. Any program that directly writes to video memory is not supported
>by Apple guidelines, and QuickDraw is about the fastest device independant

And thats why it costs so much money to get decent video from a Mac.

>way of supporting a huge number of combinations of screens (can Amigas open
>a window over two screens, of varied bit depths, say one in 16 million
>color mode, and the other in two color mode, and let the operating system
>automatically dither & display the appropiate portion correctly in each
>window, with the pointer looking exactly the same shape, and on Apple
>monitors, even being the same size? No? Oh well, I'll keep my amiga for

I sold Macs a few summers ago when the IIfx was the hottest box and got to
play with all sorts of monitor combinations.  As neat as it seemed, I never
found any practical use for multiple monitors.  Where in the world would I
put a second monitor for my Amiga?  With screens, I do not worry about
increased real estate and it is no trouble for most people to learn to use
them, but then again I do not know you personally.

>playing games, and my mac to do real work, and my flatmate's PC for a
>terminal and his Powerbook 100 for on the fly work! :-)

Maybe you and Kareem Abdul Jabaar can network your nifty toys and then use
Publish and Subscribe to work together!

>Who requires varied resolutions, when you get the maximum resolution 
>automatically for your video set up when you start your mac? Personally I'd 
>sit on a 1280*1024 in 256 colour screen on a 21" monitor any day of the week 
>instead of being in 320*200 in 32 colours. 

I do sit in front of a 1280*1024x24bit 19" monitor many days of the week, but
it is hooked to an RS/6000 550, not an Amiga, and it is not much of a thrill.
As for 320x200x5bit, why on earth would I use that mode?  I typically use
668x448x3bit and find that to be very nice.  PC owners ask me if it is SVGA
and can hardly believe it when I tell them it is not.  Macs and Windows may
support larger screens for the moment, but Amigas they ain't.

>And AgfaCompugraphic fonts! You surely fart in my face!  :-) TrueType shits

My, what a foul mouth you have!  You seem to have an anal fixation.

>all over Amiga scaleable fonts - even on a classic, they redraw nicely at
>a nice rate of knots, and print at even better speeds : on a mate's Plus,

I think I have it now, you are a sailor who writes computer programs!

>40 minutes to print using ATM to an ImageWriter II, 8 minutes using
>TrueType, 3 pages of varied (and angled text) fonts (about 40), in Best
>mode. Would someone using a A500Plus (say that's me!) with a suitable
>dot-matrix printer (in draft text mode, it is rated at 240 cps) print out
>40 fonts at various sizes and angles (if you can get 40 fonts! :-) at your
>highest resolution and let us know how long it took?

Sorry, I am not an anal-retentive font-monger.  Forty fonts, sure, but why?
If I spent all day playing with fonts I would never have time to read news.

>>>-Corey

>Andrew

Skip Sauls                     //    Graduate Student & Instructor
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu    \X/     CS Department, University of Mississippi