From: dud@hardy.u.washington.edu (Daniel Aylward)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Falcon 030 specs released! No more rumor...
Date: 15 Aug 92 19:50:32 GMT
Organization: University of Washington

kentd@FtCollins.NCR.com (Kent Dalton) writes:

>I didn't learn of this until after my initial post. That will definitely
>improve things, but how is it going to work and still maintain
>compatibilty with old apps?  Are they going to somehow hack it in using
>the DA slots (wouldn't this limit the number of processes available,
>scheduling efficiency, sharing of resources)?  Complete rewrite (won't
>this break lots of stuff)?

I have heard that application compatibility on the Falcon with MultiTOS is
better than that of the TT.  MultiTOS will do away with accessories;
you'll be able to multitask as many processes as memory allows; they will
show up as entries underneath where the accessories are; like MultiFinder.
 Accessories will run like regular programs (or, rather, all programs
including accessories, will run like accessories).

<stuff deleted>

>compared to OSes designed from the ground up to implement the features
>it is trying to retrofit into TOS/GEM (highly probable) and its API will
>be nearly identical to the Atari BIOS (which is a fact). And if you had
>been privy to the original thread you'd realize this is the main point.

We'll see...

>The original purpose of my post was to point out, that it is highly
>unlikely that MultiTOS will provide anywhere near the functionality of
>UNIX and that it's API will definitely not look anything like UNIX
>without some kind of programming library to implement the standard UNIX
>system calls using MultiTOS calls. Primarily because it is still
>partially based on the old, brain-dead, TOS/GEM (API is nothing like,
>and extremely limited when compared to, UNIX...) and will be limited by
>compatibility issues.  (limiting how effectively things like scheduling,
>resource sharing, new features, etc, etc can be implemented.)

>I believe this still stands despite the inaccuracies concerning the
>details of MiNT.

>None of this is surprising, after all, we've seen this scenario a
>zillion times before...  A vendor designs a product that is inadequate
>for some fundamental task and then developers (often times both the
>vendor and third parties) try for years to retrofit it to do something
>it was not designed to do. The end result always sucks when compared to
>similar systems that were designed to do the Right Thing from day one.

>I see no reason to expect Atari to be any different. In fact, given the
>quality of their past efforts and the base OS MultiTOS is built on, it
>seems even more likely that their version of the above scenario will be
>particularly pathetic. Actually in a way the main thing going for
>MultiTOS seems to be that it is partially based on something Atari did
>not write.

>FWIW, As a consumer, I think it would be great if Atari, or anyone else,
>came out with an incredible computer with a killer OS for a net cost of
>$700. I'd buy it in a heart beat, I have no excessively zealous loyalty
>to any computer system. It just seems incredibly unlikely given the
>specs of the Falcon and the development history of the OS it will run,
>that the Falcon will be such a machine.

We'll see...