NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/hardware-part2/10732

Text File | 1996-08-05 | 5.6 KB | 117 lines

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.games,comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Path: netcom.com!jsheehy
From: [e-mail] (John Sheehy)
Subject: Re: Why are europeans dumb enough to buy amigas?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <1996Mar11.221045@cantva> <4kba6r$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 06:17:12 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]>, Eddie <[e-mail]> wrote:
>John Sheehy ([e-mail]) wrote:
>: In article <4kba6r$[e-mail]>,
>: Rask Ingemann Lambertsen <[e-mail]> wrote:
>: >
>: >Imagine how an Amiga user feels when Window gives you "General application
>: >fault" (or something like that) from Word, Wordperfect or Turbo Pascal.
>
>: That's right.  If the system gets thrashed, they have to reset the system
>: manually.  On the Amiga, you get a fireworks display on the screen just
>: before it reboots itself.
>
>: With Win95, errant apps are generally closed down with all system
>: resources reclaimed.
>
>Oh come on.  Only if you have at least 16meg of memory.  Word causes my 486dx2
>8meg RAM to crash consistantly.  Yes the system!  You do indeed get the
>General Application Fault message - then with the press any key to proceed,
>guess what happens?  Thats right Win95 dies _big time_.

I've never had less than 12meg since getting '95, but my mother has 8 and
hasn't had any problems at all with her machine.  I really don't think
your probem is one that happens on all machines with 8 megabytes.  It may be
specific to your system.  Win95 relies on properly functioning ram more
than 3.1 did.  Many people have traced problems to their ram chips.

>: If you're talking about having multiple apps open, this has been
>: possible in 16 bit Windows for quite a while, and Win95 and NT
>: pre-emptively multitask 32 bit apps.
>
>No.  Multiple Apps open is generally known as Task sharing.

Whoahhh!  I didn't say having multiple tasks open = Multitasking.
Read again, without any assumptions.

>I don't know
>about NT but 95 is the *worst* pre-emptive multitasking OS I've ever had the
>misfortune to come accross!  It tries, but fails!

It's no secret that Win95 needs ram to breathe.  If your experience has
been only on low ram machines, you really can't comment on the
multitasking ability, you can only complain about the ram consumption.  I
have run a dozen busy-looping programs that write constantly to the
screen (and share a .dll!) at once and they all run apparently at the
same time.  This was while a dense MIDI file was playing at a fast tempo,
and no notes were missed.  Accessed a Hard disk, still no notes missed.

>: >And then
>: >there is the thing about formatting disks...
>
>: What thing?  I'm formatting a floppy right now as I type this, and it's
>: very hard to tell, other than barely hearing the step motor in the
>: drive.  Well what do you know?  The drive stopped and I felt no surge in
>: performance!
>
>Yes, but have you tried formatting a floppy from a shortcut on the desktop?
>Does it recognise the drive?  NO.  So go to explorer!  Format the floppy from
>there. OK.  Now let me just minimize that explorer window so I can get to my
>desktop again.  What do you mean I can't access that window?  I thought this
>was pre-emptive multitasking!  Obviously NOT.

Why do you choose the worse way to do something and then complain about it?
This is typical of an advocate of one platform when using another.

>: BTW, where can you buy floppies that aren't already formatted?  How often
>: do you format floppies?
>
>What are you talking about?  All new floppies come as unformatted media.
>Without exception!  Perhaps your floppy dealer formats them for you?  Very
>bizzare.  If this is the case, I'd be really careful about viruses.

I don't know where you live, but here in New York, all floppies come
formatted now, even cheap bulk ones.  As far as Viruses are concerned, I
doubt they are formatted on desktops; they are probably done with
embedded systems.

>: >I've never had such constrains on my Amiga...
>
>: I don't have any such constraints on my PC.  Don't know what you're
>: talking about.
>
>What they are talking about is the fact that the Amiga can multitask properly!
>Windoze cannot.  There is a big difference between Task Sharing and
>Multitasking.  Multitasking means that applications perform work concurrently.
>Task Sharing, only the application in focus does anything!

Win95 DOES multitask.  You've just never used it on a system which had
enough ram to breathe, you're using 16 bit apps, or you're letting Win95
automatically manage your swap file and vcache.  Also, programmers are
just now learning to do multithreading, but it can happen; I've seen it.

The apps don't get the cpu on as regular a basis as in AmigaDOS, but the
Amiga runs out of resources far more frequently for me.  I've never run
out of memory for graphics or apps with Win95.  Multitasking includes the
ability to have many apps open at all, and on the Amiga this is only
possible with very small apps.

Don't forget, not all of the Amiga's apparent multitasking ability comes
from preemptive multitasking.  It comes also from coprocessors, and
therefore multiprocessing.  You can't think of AmigaDOS as a pure
multitasking environment.

John Sheehy <[e-mail]>