From: johnsd2@vccnw01.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: Macintosh bigots
Reply-To: johnsd2@vccnw01.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 01:50:57 GMT

In article Cu2@news.cso.uiuc.edu, rvenkate@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Ravikuma Venkateswar) writes:
>johnsd2@jec316.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:
>
>>In article 722126991@gmd.de, strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
>>>In <r!y1nsd@rpi.edu> johnsd2@jec326.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:
>>>
>>>>In article 722096841@gmd.de, strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
>>>>>In <6dv1j!j@rpi.edu> johnsd2@vccnw07.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>[...]
>>>>>
[deletia- video cards]
>>>They don't. Some of them use Windows, others run OS/2, and 
>>>still others use plain old DOS.
>
>>An interesting arrangement. Would it hurt to for all video to be
>>faster?
>
>But graphics in DOS on an S3 card are slower than VGA. It only
>accelerates GUIs, not DOS.

Yes, I know. You seem to have lost the thread here. I am saying
your unaccelerated video should be faster. This would help DOS apps.

> And if we really wanted to make it unfair,
>we wouldn't be talking about accelerated cards, we'd have you note
>that a lot of computers come with coprocessed cards (which are even
>faster in most cases).

?? I thought "accelerated video cards" ->meant<- having a separate on-card
processor do the work.

> If I'm not mistaken, this is the kind of thing
>that Mac video "accelerators" have.

Yes it is.

> Accelerated cards on the PC
>only have a limited spectrum of acceleration - especially bitblitting.

No wonder their so cheap. :) But how is this not a video-coprocessor
type thing?

>>>>>>(why do I say its not fast enough? Because the PCheads
>>>>>>here seem to feel that way- otherwise they'd have blown away my comment
>>>>>>about Windows having a slow  GDI by demonstrating that it doens't;
>>>>>>instead they say you can use an accelerated graphics board...)
>>>>>
>>>>>Then let's start to compare lines/second. Your turn. :-)
>>>
>>>>:) I dont know how many lines per second, nor does it matter terribly.
>>>>(what these things do a lot of its blitting, actually..) I worry more
>>>>about how snappy it feels.
>>>
>>>Ok. Then tell me how snappy it feels, and I will tell you how snappy
>>>my system feels. After that, we compare, ok? Your turn.
>
>>It is worth 272 FluugleZarbs. (my Patent Pending unit for Snappyness)
>
>>(its a very subjective thing ya know. How I am supposed to
>>describe it? Things just sorta happen. Blits are just there. That sort
>>of thing.)
>
>So obviously it's not a very good metric.

That's true.

[deletia- graphics libraries, sound driver]

[deletia- SDK, sound driver]
>>>On the other hand, comparing what a hardware *and* software
>>>supplier offers with something from a software only seems
>>>a bit unfair to me.
>
>>Hmmm? We were also counting the PC itself, I thought.
>
>>Otherwise Id shut up about sound support, since Win3.1 has this.
>
>No, but in the PC's case, hardware and software are not made by the
>same company. It makes it a lot tougher to optimize since companies
>are reluctant to give up proprietary secrets and because there aren't
>even common chips (the Intel clone chips are not entirely identical
>to their Intel counterparts). You have many different BIOSes, none of
>them entirely compatible...makes it a lot more difficult to write
>software, wouldn't you think? Let's see how Apple manages to port
>System 7 to the Intel platform :-)

I understand Apple has managed it, but doesn't want to sell it.

Anyway, I now have a hard choice- be obnoxious and claim LOOK ANNOTHER
MAC ADVANTAGE! HARDWARE+SOFTARE BY THE SAME COMPANY! :) Or just mention
that if a hardware manufacturer makes sound hardware, he should provide
a nice optimized driver.

[deletia- the Great Machead Conspiracy moves on]
>
>>Oh, so its not a DOS .exe; if you ran it in DOS it would
>>crash with an illegal instruction or somesuch.
>
>No, it just wouldn't execute. Of course, if you're stupid enough to
>rename the file with a .COM extension, it would crash, but that extremely
>silly format is over 10 years old and on its way out (hopefully).

Hmm? What is the .COM format? I just thot it was basically like
.EXE.

How would it a windows .exe know not to execute?

>>>>Resources wont run..
>>>
>>>[...]
>>>
>>>>[deletia- resouce modification]
>>>>>>>Hm. Perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea that the Windows API doesn't
>>>>>>>contain calls to modify resources ...
>>>>>
>>>>>>Hmm? Me no get it.
>>>>>
>>>>>Selfmodifying programs isn't a good idea, generally.
>>>
>>>>Do you mean "always" or "usually"? Ill buy the second but not he
>>>>first.
>>>
>>>Always. A program can generate another program and run it 
>>>after creation. But as an general option provided by a high level
>>>interface, it is a bad concept.
>
>>Ah. Always is a big thing. Why? (note that this is more than just
>>modifiying your own code)
>
>Because a lot of people run programs on a network - sharing violations
>are not exactly fun (and among other things, AppleShare is buggy). Windows
>doesn't like it much (don't know about OS/2).

I know; this is a good reason not to do it most of the time on a Mac,
but its a deficiency that (I hope) is Mac-specific. How does htis
apply to Windows resource forks, wherein you coudl use range locking?

---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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