From: bloc1469@ee.ee.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: CBM mention on 12/11/92 Computer Chronicles
Date: 30 Dec 1992 23:16:56 GMT
Organization: Electrical Engineering Dept. University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.2.33

In article <1992Dec30.160950.24598@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> jerry@msi.com (Jerry Shekhel) writes:
>Only if you let me do the same :-)

Naturally.  Fair is fair.  :)

>Yes, but is it so difficult for you to accept that there may be people
>out there for whom virtual memory is a heck of a lot more important than
>optimal real-time response?  Why is it that you believe that real-time
>response is somehow a more desirable OS feature than virtual memory?

The only people who DON'T want optimal real-time response are those
running non-interactive applications.  For ANY interactife
application, you WANT the best real-time response you can get.
Anything less will shaft you.

>The point I was making is that Windows has device independence.  This allows

The point _I_ was making is that it MUST.  Because there are 1200
different standards, Windows would become unsuitable as a good
solution if it didn't JUST BECAUSE EVERYONE AND THEIR GRANDMOTHER
MAKES INCOMPATIBLE GRAPHICS BOARDS.

>it to support lots of different video cards, and take advantage of video
>coprocessors if available.  It also allows it to support lots of different
>sound cards, dumb and intelligent printers, etc., all through a single API.

Same thing with the sound cards--since there IS no one standard, it
becomes that much more important.  And that device-independent sound
is some of the worst stuff.  Seriously.  Ever see a lemming scream
seconds after he should have?

>AmigaOS doesn't have this, because originally there was no need for it, as
>there was only one Amiga hardware standard.  But now AmigaOS is in dire need
>of device independence.

And it's getting it.  For audio (to a degree) and video (to a HUGE degree)

>Your article has proved NOTHING about what you say.  We seem to agree that
>AmigaOS and Windows have different, although overlapping, sets of features.

There are very, very few places where they DON'T overlap.  VM happens
to be one of them.  But since VM and MP are things that just don't do
well in a real-time OS...

>Yet you believe that AmigaOS's feature set is somehow "better" overall, while
>I say that the two serve different markets and cannot be compared.

It is, for anyone who uses interactive applications.

>There are two reasons.  First, DOS is necessary because people still want to
>run DOS commands and applications.  Second, Microsoft would much rather sell
>two products per PC than one.

If people want to run dos applications and cmds, then give them a
Virtaul DOS like in OS/2 and NT.

I say that the dependence on DOS runs much deeper.  In fact, I say the
dependence runs down to the CORE of windows itself.

Greg

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