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REVIEWS
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About_ARP
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1988-05-28
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The AmigaDOS Replacement Project - a User's View.
by Jason Pearse
[Ed: Mike Simpson, who wrote the Spreadsheet on MD7, has put
together a Theme disk for us which combines ARP1.1 set up with
the Directory Utility JOBS, fully customised to access all your
normal commands and utilities.]
Many Amiga users will have heard of the AmigaDOS Replacement Project (ARP),
a project proposed and lead by Charlie Heath of Microsmiths in the United
States. The project is a serious attempt to replace the standard AmigaDOS
commands, as supplied by Commodore, with a new set of DOS commands which
are smaller, faster, and more useful. In a strong show of faith in the
popularity of the Amiga, the ARP team have placed the entire ARP setup into
the public domain. The comments in this article about ARP are based on the
ARP set included with TxED PLUS (ie, version 1.1, as on our special ARP
disk). Other versions may differ in the range of commands included.
What is ARP, exactly? Basically, ARP consists of all the most-used DOS
commands (RUN, LIST, DIR etc.) re-written in raw assembler. The original
Commodore-supplied DOS commands are written in BCPL, which is now a largely
out-of-date programming language, and not renowned for its speed or
compactness. By writing the ARP commands in assembler, Charlie Heath and
friends have almost halved the size of most of the BCPL commands, while
making them more capable.
For example, the original DIR command is 8128 bytes, and provides the
following features:-
- limited wildcard capability.
- list directory by device name (e.g. DIR DF0:)
- list directory by disk name (e.g. DIR AMIGALIBDISK74:)
- options for interactive directory, hex display and display ALL files
and directories.
The ARP version of DIR is 4872 bytes, and provides these capabilities:-
- improved use of wildcards (many ARP commands allow wildcards - more
on this later).
- find a file on disk (i.e. DIR "df1:My_prog" will display "My_prog" if
the file exists on the disk in df1:)
- allows highlighting of directory names, with file names left
unhighlighted.
- display size of all files listed (similar to LIST).
- help for interactive mode.
- display only files and not directories or vice versa.
As you can see, ARP is powerful! Since DIR would be one of the most
often-used commands, imagine what a C: directory full of similarly-powered
commands can do for your computing time! Because smaller commands take
less time to load, you save time, without even considering the time you
save because the commands are more POWERFUL. Using ARP also reduces the
time you have to wait while your machine grinds through its
startup-sequence.
Now a brief word on wildcards. Wildcards allow you to specify a group of
files or directories with the same "file name", using one or more of
several special characters. This is a powerful feature of other DOS's
(some would say it is the ONLY powerful feature of MS-DOS, for instance).
For example, the character "*" stands for any number of any character. In
other words, the command "LIST DF1:*.doc" will list all the files in the
root directory of DF1: which end in ".doc". Wildcards are allowed in
commands like COPY, DIR, CD, RENAME, etc. The only exception to this rule
is that commands like RUN will not allow wildcards (imagine typing RUN
DF1:* by accident and watching helplessly as every program on DF1: starts
and you will see why RUN doesn't allow wildcards!)
One especially useful command that ARP provides is RESIDENT. Resident
provides the ability to make specific commands memory-resident. This is
best illustrated with an example. Say, for example, that you use DIR
often. By typing RESIDENT DIR, the DIR command will be stored away in
memory, and all subsequent uses of the DIR command will run immediately.
The DIR command will NOT be loaded from disk. Instead, it will run from
memory. And if you have two CLI's running, and use DIR simultaneously in
both of them, both CLI's will use the same copy of the DIR code. This
translates into lower memory usage and more efficient use of your time.
Besides replacing the standard AmigaDOS, the full ARP set supplies other
public domain or shareware utilities. The most useful of these is ConMan,
by William Hawes. This small utility installs itself away from prying
eyes, and provides a much more friendly CLI environment. All CLIs opened
after ConMan is installed will have line editing. That's right, no more
backspacing an entire line to change one mis-typed letter! Now, simply
move the cursor back THROUGH the correct letters, press delete to remove
the offending character, and retype it correctly. Press RETURN, and your
command is executed. ConMan provides a command line history facility,
which remembers the last 10 commands you've used, and will recall them
instantly. Imagine you're copying files from one disk to another. Using a
standard CLI, you'd have to re-type the COPY command once for every file.
With a ConMan CLI, just type it once, recall it, and edit the filename, and
run it again!
A utility called LOADLIB is also included. Ever been using a stripped-back
version of WorkBench that doesn't have a particular library on it? You run
a program, and it comes back with the message (for example) "Couldn't open
DiskFont Library". Great! The only option is to reboot with a disk that
HAS the library on it, and start the program again. Using LOADLIB (yes, it
runs from the WorkBench), all you would do is insert a disk that DOES
contain the library and use LOADLIB to load the library into memory. Then
your poor program can use the library even though it's not on your boot
disk.
Another bonus program included with some versions of ARP is PROFF, a
professional text formatter. I haven't tried this one, myself, since my
word processing needs are met by MicroEMACS, but I have heard it is quite
powerful. Note that PROFF may not be included with some versions of ARP,
though it is public domain, so you should be able to pick it up somewhere.
All right then, what's the bottom line? I would recommend ARP
unreservedly. The programs are smaller, faster and more efficient. I have
found only 1 program that doesn't like working in conjunction with ARP, and
I can't remember what it was (must have been something really significant,
huh?!) ARP is free (for the price of a disk - is that free?) and it
represents a considerable effort on the part of Heath and associates to
really do something IMPORTANT for the Amiga. A machine cannot go
incredibly far if its DOS is unwieldy and difficult to use - ARP puts the
Amiga ahead of everything but UNIX in this regard. For anyone who uses the
CLI at all, ARP is a must.
************************** END OF ABOUT_ARP *******************************