From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett)
Subject: More BS from -DB-
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 19:29:35 GMT

In article <58226@dime.cs.umass.edu> barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett) writes:
>In article <C0BJCq.MK9@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett) writes:
>>The Mac OS is not very pretty under the surface, but is VERY elegant on the
>>surface.  The Mac OS on the surface has lots and lots of niceties, big and
>>small. AmigaOS is more elegant under the surface, but is almost completely
>>devoid of niceties on the surface.
>
>	Certainly the Amiga user interface needs some work.  I've never seen
>a GUI that couldn't be improved, including the Mac's. 
>	First, let's talk about the joke Apple calls "multitasking."

   Yes, the Macintosh's multitasking is almost completely broken.  But that is
a problem with what's "under the hood".  This is not a problem with a surface
detail.  My message was about the many, many problems with the surface details
of AmigaOS.  I expected that someone would come right back by mentioning a
problem with the innards of the MacOS as a surface, cosmetic problem, and you
did.  Congratuations!


>	Next, there's this "PrintMonitor" thing.  I wanted it to be visible
>and running all the time so I could watch the progress of the print queue.
>Guess what?  As soon as you activate a different window, the Print Monitor
>disappears.  What a joke.  In fairness, the Amiga does not even come with a
>print monitor, but other systems (like UNIX) have it without this weird
>restriction.

   That is true, but I get around it by using a third-party package called
PowerPrint that comes with a VERY nice print spooler.  

>	Next, there's this weird distinction between DA's and normal
>applications. 

   Which has been totally removed as of System 7.  Now DA's ARE normal
applications, and anything (an alias, a folder, an application, anything)
can be placed in the Apple Menu.  

> On the Amiga, you
>simply run whatever programs you want, as many copies as you want, unless
>the programs were specifically written to prevent this.

   This has problems as well as benefits.  Yes, its very nice for a power user
to be able to launch more than one copy of PageStream, for instance.  But this
has many problems for the novice user.  On the Macintosh, if you have 
WordPerfect running an double-click a WordPerfect document from the Finder, 
the existing WP task is told to load the document.  On the Amiga, another
WordPerfect or PageStream task is launched.  This can confuse novice users 
quite a lot.  For instance, one time my mom was using the computer and ran
out of memory.  I looked things over, and noticed there with NINE PageStream
tasks running at the same time.  This is a testimony to the power of the
Amiga that the Amiga could run nine PageStream tasks, but it was also VERY
confusing to my mom.  She finds the Macintosh environment much easier to
work with.

>	Now let's talk about performance.  These were 68030 machine with a
>minimum of 8MB RAM.  And yet, when I did any printing, the stupid mouse
>pointer became extremely sluggish and jerky.  And this was just printing...
>nothing computationally intensive!  The Amiga mouse pointer never gets
>slowed down by other work like this... certainly not on a 68030!!!

   Those are more problems with the engine, and not with a surface detail.  
Don't change the subject.

---
| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
--------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy