From: drector@math.uci.edu (David Rector)
Subject: Re: Advice for Smalltalk/V on Mac
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Keywords: Smalltalk/V, Mac, Advice
Bcc: drector
Date: 22 Dec 92 19:06:53 GMT

sk3@doc.ic.ac.uk (S Karathanos) writes:


>Hello dear friends of Smalltalk,

>my apologies for this request, I know that this is not a
>marketplace, but I couldn't find the following information:

>Smalltalk/V for the Mac:

>* What are the requirements (68020? 68881? 4MB? 6MB? 20MB? System7?)
>* How much does it cost? (Student rebate?)
>* Where do I get it? (UK? Germany?)
>* Somebody used it on the Mac? Can you recommend it?

>I used an antique Smalltalk/V on the IBM-PC (oh dear) some time ago,
>it ran under DOS with only 640K and was astoundingly fast and crashproof.
>I simply loved it. Smalltalk80 from Parcplace doesn't run on my small
>Mac Powerbook (needs the 68020 I think) and I guess it would be too
>big and too slow anyway. Any ideas?

>Thanks very for any advice

You don't say what you want to use ST/V Mac for.  Your application may
determine how satisfied you are with the Mac version.

I am using ST/V for teaching numerical analysis.  I started
development on the Dos version and, like you, loved it.  I have to use
the Mac version for my student laboratory, and it is less
satisfactory, but usable.

The current Mac version sells for about $80 with student discount,
about twice that retail.  I cannot say if this pricing applies to the
UK.  A new Mac version, compatible with the Windows and OS/2 versions
has been promised for next year (93), but I have seen no indication of
pricing.  Digitalk is getting greedy, so it will probably be much
higher than the current version.

Here are some of the differences from the DOS version.

Improvements:

   1.  Reasonable integration into the Mac interface.  A workspace can
be directly saved to a file.

   2.  Full access to Mac environment.

Problems:

   1.  Graphics model is similar to DOS version--dot matrix graphics--
but the is considerable variation in detail, particularly in high
level structures.  Your graphics code will not port directly.

   2.  The arithmetic classes are terrible.  Besides the errors and
inefficiencies present in the DOS version, new monstrosities have been
added.  I can send you fixes for the worst ones.  The big number
arithmetic is written in ST rather than assembly and is thus very
slow.  Furthermore, there are errors in the big number arithmetic
routines that raise debugger windows.  I don't have fixes for these.
My students or I run into this problem about once a year.

   3.  Floating point numbers are stored in 80 bit format (64 bit
mantissa) rather than 64 bit format (53 bit mantissa).  Whether this
matters to you depends on your application.  It's a trade-off of
accuracy vs. speed and storage.

   4.  ST/V Mac is a space hog in comparison with the DOS version,
which has virtual memory.  My students report that some projects which
run fine on DOS will fail on my laboratory Macs.  I have not yet
investigated to see if this is a ST/V problem or is caused by the
configuration of the laboratory machines.

   I hope that some of these problems will be fixed on the new Mac
version.  Now that Digitalk has an e-mail address for bug reports,
there is some reason to hope.  It shouldn't cost them much just to
include the fixes that I and others have sent them!

Please don't let the slightly negative tone of the above discourage
you from using ST/V Mac.  In many applications you will never notice
the problems.  In any case, all of the problems can be managed.

(Next time, buy an IBM clone for half the price and twice the
performance :-)  The Windows version of ST/V is supurb--except that
the arithmetic stupidities from the DOS version are still there!)

David

--
David L. Rector				drector@math.uci.edu
Dept. of Math.				U. C. Irvine, Irvine CA 92717