HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jerry@connection.prospect.com (Jerry Shekhel)
Subject: Re: I am not giving up on the Amiga
Organization: Molecular Simulations, Inc.
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 14:58:15 GMT
X-Posted-From: connection.prospect.com
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

dtiberio@libws2.ic.sunysb.edu (David Tiberio) writes:
>
>	I agree with both of you. The Amiga does achieve the performance from
>the specs I have seen (within 10% on raw data), but of course would lack
>the specialized software.
>

Nope, sorry.  The Amiga with an accelerator and a high-end graphics board
may compete with a base Indigo, but *not* with an Indigo Elan.

>
>	What does an Indigo have in it hardware wise? What kind of expansion
>slots does it have? What OS does it run (UNIX?)?
>

33MHz R3000, and there is now a new Indigo with a 50/100MHz R4000.  There is
a range of graphics options.  The OS is IRIX -- sort of SVR3 with SVR4 and
BSD features.

>
>      //   David Tiberio  SUNY Stony Brook 516-473-5156 AMIGA  DDD-MEN   
>
--
+-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
| Jerry J. Shekhel  | Molecular Simulations | Time just fades the pages      |
| Drummers do it... | Inc.  Waltham, MA USA | in my book of memories.        |
|    ... In rhythm! |     (617) 890-2888    |              -- Guns N' Roses  |
+-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
|           ...! [ princeton mit-eddie bu sunne ] !polygen!jerry             |
|                            jerry@polygen.com                               |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: dano@srl01.usl.edu (Dan Stephenson)
Subject: Presidential predictions Re: Perot?
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 23:27:25 GMT

I too think that George Bush will ultimately win the presidential race.
Simply put, I do not think American voters are stupid enough to fall
for Clinton's demogogic rhetoric.  I think that once George Bush starts
campaigning hard, and after the Republican convention, many fresh-from-
the-Democratic-convention Clinton supporters and especially the more
moderate Perot-> Clinton supporters will become disillusioned.  Right
now they are full of zeal from Clinton's promises (which they will
eventually realize he cannot deliver).  Their 'CHANGE change CHANGE
change CHANGE change CHANGE!' fanaticism will be turned on the Congress
once they've been told the truth that the Congress is _the_ source of
legislation in the U.S..  Not George Bush.  He *executes* the laws the
Congress passes and he signs.  George Bush has no direct control over
what money gets spent, raising taxes, regulations, etc.  He can only
sign into law a _whole_ package of bills, whether he likes them all or
not.  _That_ is what the Republicans will point out a their convention:
George Bush got slammed for 'raising taxes'in 1990, when in actuality
it was the vastly Democrat-controlled House of Representatives that
raised them and included it amongst all the other zillions of items in
the budget.  What is a president to do? simply prevent the government
from running?  At the Republican convention, it will be clearly stated
that there would be NO 'gridlock' if the Congress didn't keep preventing
his *proposals* from going through (and then, of course, they slam him
for 'inaction') and if George Bush had line-item veto powers (like many
governors do)

When the Democrats scream 'CHANGE change CHANGE change' ... of course
they do not point out that the House of Representatives has been
controlled by Democrats for the past 40-odd YEARS, or the Senate being
controlled by Dems since 1984.  No no no.. THAT is what they DON'T tell
you - and the Republicans will at the convention/elsewhere/all along but
weren't noticed.

Once people are told and understand that it is the Democrats socialistic
(but ROUSING) speech and policies are a major cause of the U.S.'s
problems (AND the Business Cycle), they will vote for George Bush in
large numbers.

My Popular vote predictions:

George Bush:  55%
Bill Clinton: 35%
Ross Perot:   10%

Indeed, I do think Ross Perot _will_ get such a large percentage.

Electoral collenge-wise, I predict:

George Bush:  80%
Bill Clinton: 19%
Ross Perot:    1%

Like Mike, I welcome your opinions concerning the presidential election,
and your opinions and predictions , EVEN if they aren't similar to mine :-D 
 (note BIG
smiley). After all, they worse you could be is _wrong_.  :)


--
Dan Stephenson|das9674@usl.edu masres10@ucs.usl.edu dano@srl01.cacs.usl.edu
Come all of you you/Who are not satisfied/As rulers in a lone wall/
papered room/Full of mute bird and flowers that /Falsely bloom/And
closets choked with dreams that long ago died,... --Judy Collins
From: foax@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amigas are cool
Date: 30 Jul 92 23:29:38 EDT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Cornell University

In article <1992Jul26.222553.25863@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de>,
mlelstv@speckled.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst) writes: 
> In <1992Jul26.190744.12857@cheshire.oxy.edu> leavitt@cheshire.oxy.edu (Thomas VanNess Leavitt) writes:
>>Just curious... is AmigaDOS 2.0 a 32 bit OS?
> 
> Well, there's nothing like a 32-bit OS. This term is used for PCs which can
> operate in different processor modes resembling the whole 80x86 family.
> The 8086 (real mode and virtual 8086 mode) and 80286 modes (286 protected
> mode) are refered to as 16bit modes. The 80386 protected mode is refered
> to as 32bit mode. The 80286 can run in the real mode too, the 80386
> and 80486 can run in all these modes.

> The instruction sets used are different for each mode which largely
> affects execution speed and memory access methods if the program is
> compiled for a specific mode.

Yes, but the protected mode instructions are mostly for memory and
privilege management.  They aren't for handling 32-bit values.

> The 386 protected mode is called 32bit mode because most instructions
> will work on 32bit data and all data registers are treated as 32bit values.

The instructions that work on 32-bit data and 32-bit registers will run
in either real or protected modes.  (Most real-mode software might not
yet take advantage of these instructions, since people write real-mode
software assuming that it might have to run on 286's or even 8088's, but
that's another story.)

> So a 32bit OS in PC-speak would be an OS that runs in 386 protected mode.

The real reason that OS's running in 386 protected mode are known as 32-bit
OS's is because SEGMENTS use 32-bit values for both length and offsets.
In 286 protected mode, segments used 24-bit offsets (allowing the use of
the entire 16 Mb of physical memory) and 16-bit lengths (so they still
had to be less than 64 kb long).  In 386 protected mode, the offsets are
32-bit (allowing a 4 Gb physical memory space) as are the lengths (so
you can have 4 Gb segments!).

Practically this means that segments can now be used for code and data
organization, rather than being an arbitrary restriction to code and
data length.

Of course an OS written to run only on 386's and up can now make full use
of the 32-bit data manipulation facilities of these processors without
compatibility worries, so that fact is often rolled into the term "32-bit"
without comment.

Obviously too many people are throwing around "32-bit" without defining
what it means, and this leads to a lot of confusion.
-- 

--Colin Howell			email to howell@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu
--Cornell Astronomy Dept.	(hopefully switching to computer science)
From: leavitt@cheshire.oxy.edu (Thomas VanNess Leavitt)
Subject: Re: Amiga Future?!?
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 10:47:22 GMT

Come now... if a clone company is capable of stealing enough business
away from CBM to induce them to restrict distribution of the chipset,
then it would be far more successful than anyone could imagine...

I mean, a clone company would have to start to ship in the hundreds of
thousands before making a noticable dent in CBM's market... not likely,
at least immediately.

If CBM could be induced to leave the Amiga market by the success of a
clone company, then I doubt they'd be reluctant to sell off the r&d
section and the chip design rights... 

if you are seriously interested in seeing an Amiga clone develop, with
some interesting capabilities, then mail me and I'll set up a mailing
list...

Thom

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: tony@ais.org (Tony Poole)
Subject: Re: Silly columnists
Organization: UMCC
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 18:44:27 GMT

TomK@cup.portal.com (Tom R Krotchko) writes:

>Okay. Now I understand that computers use 1's and 0's to represent
>data, but how do they get the colors on the screen?

Why that's simple.  

They use the instruction set that communicates with the machine code to send
the data to the cashes, wherein the teller sends it to the screen.


-- 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Poole                       tony@umcc.ais.org * tony@irie.ais.org 
Traverse City, MI USA          tony@cherry1.trv.mi.us * tony@cherry1.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: parris@cs.scarolina.edu (Barry Parris)
Subject: Re: Silly columnists
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 26 Jul 92 19:51:20 GMT

tony@ais.org (Tony Poole) writes:

>parris@cs.scarolina.edu (Barry Parris) writes:

>>tony@ais.org (Tony Poole) writes:

>>>TomK@cup.portal.com (Tom R Krotchko) writes:

>>>>Okay. Now I understand that computers use 1's and 0's to represent
>>>>data, but how do they get the colors on the screen?

>>>Why that's simple.  

>>>They use the instruction set that communicates with the machine code to send
>>>the data to the cashes, wherein the teller sends it to the screen.
>>                                     ^^^^^^

>>Ohhhh!  That explains banks of RAM.  And the cash(es).

>Yes, exactly.  However, one additional point should be noted.

>Most Amiga people know this, and realize it's a problem.  The tellers in an
>Amiga are generally lazy, relative to PC tellers.  It's true.

>The reason is that tellers in PC's have to run back and forth between the
>vault and the ram MUCH more often than in an Amiga.  You see, the teller in
>a PC has to run from the vault to the ram, run all the way back to the
>vault, throw the lever to switch ram banks, run all the way back to the
>ram, etc.....

Aha!  They can't do their task all at once, they must do it in segments.

>On the Amiga, the tellers take just one load, and they're done.  

>This is why PC tellers often complain of carpal bus syndrome - injuries
                              ^^^^^^^^    ^^^^
>caused by repetitive bus motion.

Another word for complain is 'carp'.  A carp is a bottom-dwelling, trash-eating
fish; by analogy, the ISA (Insidious Substandard Architecture) bus is a 
smelly creature.
--
----
Barry Parris    parris@cs.scarolina.edu
From: jprad@faatcrl.UUCP (Jack Radigan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A4000 article
Keywords: A4000, new, Amiga
Date: 28 Jul 92 14:45:39 GMT
Organization: FAA Technical Center, Atlantic City NJ

kxs5829@ultb.isc.rit.edu (K.X. Saunders ) writes:

>This is typed from the _AMIGA news_ newspaper, volume 1 no. 7.

>			The A4000
>		The Scoop on Commodore's Newest!
>			 by Anon

  Oh, my!  A recursive rumor...

  -jack-
From: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Presidential predictions Re: Perot?
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16e (7/4/92) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith
Date: 25 Jul 92 11:15:30 PST
Organization: Amiga makes it possible

I am following up my own article to give credit where credit is due.


In article <mykes.0a36@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG> mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes:
> In article <dano.711931644@srl01> dano@srl01.usl.edu (Dan Stephenson) writes:
> > >Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
> > >Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
> >
> > Are you the SOLE programmer behind these? Is you NAME or something in
> > the
> > packageing?
> >
>
> I am sole programmer of GRn, MailMinder and Dick Tracy.  Budokan was designed
> by Mike Kosaka, programmed on the PC in assembly by Ray Tobey, and recoded in
> 68000 for the Amiga by myself.  DC and BDC were designed by Mark Pierce and
> programmed on the Mac by Jon (I forget his last name) for the Mac.  I rewrote
> both versions entirely from scratch without looking at the Mac sources -
> about 400K of assembled assembly language.  Marble Madness was programmed
> by Atari Coin-op (several programmers) and ported to the Amiga (under the
> OS) by Larry Reed (in 'C') which I ported to the Sega and optimized to make
> it run at 30Hz (same speed as coin-op version).  The Amiga version ran at
> 3Hz (thank you OS :)
>

Jonathan Gay was the original programmer of the Mac version of DC and BDC.

Also, I designed and programmed the original many versions of GRn, but these
days, Mike B. Smith is maintaining and improving it.  His work has been
outstanding and GRn has improved quite a bit.  I did not mean to imply that
Mike wasn't being of great help and providing a great service to all those
who like to use GRn to read news.  I was only trying to explain that GRn
was not a port of something coded by someone else - though it was inspired
by a screenshot of XRn from a Sun workstation.


> > Dan Stephenson|das9674@usl.edu masres10@ucs.usl.edu dano@srl01.cacs.usl.edu
> > Come all of you you/Who are not satisfied/As rulers in a lone wall/
> > papered room/Full of mute bird and flowers that /Falsely bloom/And
> > closets choked with dreams that long ago died,... --Judy Collins
>

--
Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
1124 Fremont Ave.
Los Altos, CA 94024

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
From: rickan@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Mark Rickan)
Subject: Re: ! Pournelle [sic] says that there is a new amiga !
Organization: Department of Computer Science, McMaster University
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 19:19:06 GMT

In article <0eQNm4600XNI1NmFA0@cs.cmu.edu> Michael.Witbrock@cs.cmu.edu writes:

>Well, I was looking in a copy of BYTE in a bookstore, and I looked at
>the list of topics (not the index, the other list), which I do, rather
>forlornly, out of habit, and lo and behold, the word "AMIGA" was on the
>list. So I turned to the page mentioned, and it was Pournelle's
>``column''. I searched, and near the end, I found about two sentences to
>the effect that: His next column would be about the state of amigas, and
>that he had recieved a *new Amiga* just the previous week. 
>O.K. that's what it said. Fire up the rumour mills.

If there is a God, please let it not be an A600.

Mark

-- 
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
 = Mark Rickan                         ...!uunet!utai!utgpu!maccs!rickan = 
 = DCSS, McMaster University               rickan@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca = 
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: jerry@connection.prospect.com (Jerry Shekhel)
Subject: Re: PC's are *total* kludges
Organization: Molecular Simulations, Inc.
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 15:04:48 GMT
X-Posted-From: connection.prospect.com
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

mlelstv@speckled.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst) writes:
>
>>Yes.  The 286 and above CPUs have on-board MMUs, so they know how to generate
>>a trap whenever a program attempts to access a swapped-out segment.
>
>Sorry, I didn't clearly said what I meant..
>Can it _run_ if one of the segments is swapped out ?
>
>On a 286 there is no demand paging and running in real mode doesn't provide
>VM at all. In 286 protected mode you have large segments (and probably
>use large segments to avoid the overhead of reloading the segment registers
>and -caches).
>

First of all, 286 protected mode does not have large (>64K) segment
capability.  Second, even when running in real mode, Windows 2.x and 3.0
implemented this segment-based virtual memory.

>
>A program with a swapped out segment will probably not be
>able to run until the segment is loaded back.
>

Wrong.  It runs until it tries to access the segment, at which point
Windows gets a trap and loads the segment in.  Case in point:  I used
to run WinWord (whose executable image is close to a megabyte) under
Windows 2.1 on a machine with 1MB RAM.  Not only did it run fine, but there
were other (small) apps loaded at the same time.

>
>In 386 protected mode and 8086 virtual mode you could do demand paging but
>I'm not sure if Windows uses this in 8086 virtual mode.
>

It does.

>
>Michael van Elst
>
--
+-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
| Jerry J. Shekhel  | Molecular Simulations | Time just fades the pages      |
| Drummers do it... | Inc.  Waltham, MA USA | in my book of memories.        |
|    ... In rhythm! |     (617) 890-2888    |              -- Guns N' Roses  |
+-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
|           ...! [ princeton mit-eddie bu sunne ] !polygen!jerry             |
|                            jerry@polygen.com                               |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
From: thompson@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: I am giving up on the Amiga
Date: 27 Jul 92 17:46:45 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <33711@cbmvax.commodore.com>, andy@cbmvax.commodore.com (Andy Finkel) writes:
> In article <1992Jul24.200256.4933@msi.com> bill@msi.com writes:
>>al158305@academ01.mty.itesm.mx (Gustavo Cordova Avila) writes:
>>: ggg@kepler.unh.edu (Gregory G Greene) writes:
>>: 
>>:    Besides being out of the discussion point, if half-OS (OS/2) need 
>>: a *little* more hardware to run than windows, then it needs much more
>>: hardware to run (just to run!) than AmigaDOS 2.04. And period. Don't 
>>: start saying "You haven't seen it run!!" blah blah blah, you CAN'T
>>: install it in a machine that's less than a 386DX-33 and hope for it to
>>: run at an acceptable speed, but AmigaDOS can. You can't install it on a
>>: machine with a 60Mb hard disk and hope to have enough disk space free
>>: for some apps, and AmigaDOS can.
>>
>>Ahhh more Amigoid OS/2 bullshit.  Have you seen it run?  From what I've
>>heard, a 386SX-20 w/8MB RAM runs OS/2 2.0 quite well.  If you just want
> 
> 
> Let me get this straight...you flame someone for complaining on the
> speed of OS/2 on anything less than a 386DX-33 without seeing
> it run;  yet you imply that you've not seen it run on a 386SX either 
> in your counter aggument ?
> 
> That's an interesting argument;   The old 
> "You've never tried it so you don't know; I've never tried it, so I do know"
> line of reasoning isn't often used.
> 
> There's probably a good reason for this.

Well, he heard right.  I have seen OS/2 2.0 on a 386sx-25 with 6 megs 
of RAM.  It ran moderatly fast.  With some more RAM, it would be just 
plain fast.  And with the September CSD, it will be even faster.

> 
>>| Bill Poitras    | Molecular Simulations Inc.    | Tel (408)522-9229       |
> 
> 		andy
> -- 
> andy finkel		{uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy
> 
> "Programming is 5% theory and 95% trivia."
> 
> Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share.
> I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Charles A. Thompson               |  thompson@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu         |
|  CS Student, University of Kansas  |  thompson@ukanvax.cc.ukans.edu        |
|  and _avid_ SkiBum.                |  OS/2 2.0 is for YOU!!!               |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  LOOK FOR RECIPE PRO(tm), AN INTERACTIVE RECIPE DATABASE FOR WINDOWS WITH  |
|  AN EASY TO USE, INTUITIVE QUERY.  COMING SOON TO YOUR LOCAL WINDOWS BBS,  |
|  FTP SITE, OR SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTION HOUSE.                                |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: cpca@marlin.jcu.edu.au (Colin Adams)
Subject: Re: Commodore and the Osborne Syndrome
Organization: James Cook University
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 02:07:45 GMT

In article <63071@cup.portal.com> TomK@cup.portal.com (Tom R Krotchko) writes:
>Resource tracking will add a whole lot more overhead than memory
>protection. I think the bill for resource tracking can be 33% and
>up.

33%+?  I sure don't believe that.  Have any facts to back this up?  The OS
already checks whether a lot of resources are in use, it just doesn't
store who it allocated them to or release them when a program exits.

>TomK@cup.portal.com
>Tom Krotchko

-- 
Colin Adams       Honours Student - James Cook University of North Queensland
              "Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: troy@bluemoon.rn.com (Troy Fridley)
Subject: PLAN!!!!!
Organization: Blue Moon BBS ((614) 868-998[024])
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 01:50:23 EDT

OK Guys, I've come up with the perfect plan to solve all of our problems!  
We just hire someone to Assasinate(sp?) Gould!!!!!  Theres where the 
problems lie! I mean step back and take a look folks! (But then again 
Nukeing the world would solve all of our problems also.)
 
                Troy

 It'll be my luck that GOULD bites it tonight and the CIA will just happen 
to read this post.... :)
 

  Does one actually need a brain to think?  Obviously Not!
 
 UUCP: Troy@Bluemoon.uucp
From: philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: The Amiga, Just my opinion...
Date: 25 Jul 92 08:48:39 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: University of Toronto, Dept. of Statistics

In article <1992Jul24.193651.21547@cs.cornell.edu> papo@cs.cornell.edu (Luis R. Anaya) writes:

[Well thought out article commenting on PC's, Mac's,Amiga's. Questions
the availability of scietific software.]

I only wish to comment on the scientific software issue w.r.t the Amiga.
The Amiga has TeX and Maple 5.0 . These two account for a very strong base
for useful computing with the Amiga from a mathematical point of view. Maple
for example is, in my opinion, far better than Mathematica.

I'm sure there are other interesting packages out there of interest to 
scientists. There was an AmigaWorld a few months ago that talked about them.
There are tektronic's terminal programs, X server software, imaging software,
etc...

Many of the weaknesses can be handled by an emulator. I only have a CDTV (as
my main computing platforms are not for  now the Amiga et al...). However,
the Amiga is one of the finest micros you can buy. Excellent computer. At
this time, they are too expensive though.

My 2cents worth.

[ ]

Philip McDunnough
nextwave!seacove!philip@epas.utoronto.ca

PS: You can also get an HP48sx calculator and kermit it to the Amiga. This 
will provide you with excellent scientific sw.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy