From: rxkajv@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Andrew Vanderstock)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Mac OS just sucks -- "ease of use" = "lack of freedom" ?
Summary: Why the mac os is so far superior
Keywords: stupid, silly, amiga, heads, cant, win
Date: 6 Apr 92 08:52:15 GMT
Organization: RMIT Computer Centre, Melbourne Australia.

skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip 'AdaX' Sauls) writes:

>In article <1992Mar30.231139.10967@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> hauer@roby.ecn.purdue.edu (Corey Hauer) writes:

>>Amiga OS does not have a compressed video standard like Quicktime.  Amiga OS
>>does not have a MIDI manager or Communications Toolbox.  Amiga OS does not
>>directly support 24-bit color or multiple screens on an infinite desktop.
>>Amiga OS also doesn't have Truetype or Postscript support.

>Mac OS does not have proper multitasking like Exec.  Mac OS does not have
>a RexxMaster to support interprocess communication.  Mac OS does not directly
>support a Blitter, a Copper, or multiple screens with varied bit-depths and
>resolution on the same monitor.  Mac OS does not support AGFA-Compugraphic
>Bullet Font technology.  Mac OS does not support BLAZEMONGER! 

"Proper multitasking"? I would have to disagree - Amiga programs can still
takeover the entire computer (see any game for proof of this.) Is the Amiga
OS protected? No! So where's the problem? This will be fixed with the micro
kernel version, which will have according to MacLeak, memory protection and
pre-emptive multi-tasking. Big deal, it works right now, and sure some
microsoft products crash occasionally, but who uses them anyway? :-) (I use
everything but uSoft products because they so flagrantly abuse the Mac
guidelines, and there are much better products than Word, Excel, Works,
etc, for example Nisus, Lotus 1-2-3 or Resolve, and Claris Works, all of
which I own AND use! So nyer)

Mac OS has PPC and IAC to allow inter-process communication, as well as Apple 
Events. These are very mature network-based as well as locally based IAC calls. 
These allow programs to talk to each other, as well as send other programs
commands to quit, print, open a file, and a whole host of new goodies in
publish and suscribe - the ability of a word processor document to contain
an up-to date version of a spreadsheet, for example, without knowing how
the spreadsheet works. It just works, as anyone who has used a Macintosh
for serious work can tell you. I love them, even they can be a bugger to 
program. 

Please tell me what the 8*24 GC card is, if it is not a Quickdraw accelerator? 
Booger on a card? Any mac program that uses Quickdraw gets all the benefits of 
being drawn by a nice little 30 MHz AMD 29000 processor. In parallel to normal 
CPU use. Any program that directly writes to video memory is not supported
by Apple guidelines, and QuickDraw is about the fastest device independant
way of supporting a huge number of combinations of screens (can Amigas open
a window over two screens, of varied bit depths, say one in 16 million
color mode, and the other in two color mode, and let the operating system
automatically dither & display the appropiate portion correctly in each
window, with the pointer looking exactly the same shape, and on Apple
monitors, even being the same size? No? Oh well, I'll keep my amiga for
playing games, and my mac to do real work, and my flatmate's PC for a
terminal and his Powerbook 100 for on the fly work! :-)

Who requires varied resolutions, when you get the maximum resolution 
automatically for your video set up when you start your mac? Personally I'd 
sit on a 1280*1024 in 256 colour screen on a 21" monitor any day of the week 
instead of being in 320*200 in 32 colours. 

And AgfaCompugraphic fonts! You surely fart in my face!  :-) TrueType shits
all over Amiga scaleable fonts - even on a classic, they redraw nicely at
a nice rate of knots, and print at even better speeds : on a mate's Plus,
40 minutes to print using ATM to an ImageWriter II, 8 minutes using
TrueType, 3 pages of varied (and angled text) fonts (about 40), in Best
mode. Would someone using a A500Plus (say that's me!) with a suitable
dot-matrix printer (in draft text mode, it is rated at 240 cps) print out
40 fonts at various sizes and angles (if you can get 40 fonts! :-) at your
highest resolution and let us know how long it took?



>>-Corey

>Skip Sauls                     //    Graduate Student & Instructor
>skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu    \X/     CS Department, University of Mississippi 

Andrew