Conference hydra::amiga_v1

     
    My brother in law works in marketing at Apple.  He joined the company
    about the same time that the Amiga 1000 came out, back in October of
    1985.
    
    When I got my A1000, I took a lot of heat from Bob for not buying a
    Mac (this is back when a Mac Plus was Apple's top model).  He used to
    laugh at my Amiga and ask 'what on earth are all those colors good for
    anyway?  And who needs stereo sound?'
    
    I used to try to explain to him that you could actually do useful work
    with an Amiga and be quite productive due to it's multitasking exec. 
    He _always_ used the argument that the Mac could multitask too, and
    since it's software was so much better, it was obvioulsy a much more
    productive platform.  No amount of discussion could convince him that
    what the Mac was doing was not the same thing as what the Amiga was
    doing.
    
    Multifinder _does_ do a fair impersonation of true multitasking. 
    Although you certainly can't slide custom screens up and down, when you
    'switch' screens, it seems analagous to doing the old 'left-Amiga-M/N'
    shuffle.  The main difference, of course, is that program output
    generally is only occuring in one window at a time.  For many
    applications, the Mac's MultiFinder is a fine solution.
    
    It does suck in several regards, namely the inability to load and run
    the same application twice, and the need to allocate memory _before_
    the application is launced.
    
    The Amiga _does_ need improvements in the areas of data sharing between
    applications.  Arexx will help, but even simple clipboard support would
    go a long way.  I know that the Amiga clipboard.device is a b*itch to
    implement, but it needs to be fixed.
    
    Ed.
    

Yes the Amiga has multi tasking, but what is there to protect the running
tasks from each other? Does the Amiga use a MMU?

re: .2
> Does the Amiga use a MMU?

No.

Actually it can have an MMU if you buy an accelerator card. Then later
versions of the o/s will make use of it and VIRTUAL MEMORY.

I believe 1.4 will have all the hooks for VM...

John

    
    .2> Yes the Amiga has multi tasking, but what is there to protect the running  
    .2> tasks from each other? Does the Amiga use a MMU?
    
    Following programming etiquette is currently the only way.  I'm not a
    programmer, but there are a number of do's and don'ts to follow to make
    your program behave nicely in the Amiga system.  Don't take memory or a
    resource without asking for it, and always give it back when your done
    etc.
    
    Many people do not accept this as a valid or reliable way of doing
    things, but there's just no denying that it _does_ work when programs
    are properly written.
    
    Ed.
    
    
    

    With the 020,and 030 models the MMU is there,however I have had
    little trouble with multasking on my 2000 without one.Once in a
    while some PD stuff,and or game may trash memory but the problems
    this causes can be delt with by thoughtfull use.For example games
    that don't multitask most often require you to boot off the game
    disk so you won't be multitasking anyway,and the PD stuff written
    improperly can be discarded for programs that exists nicely in a
    multitasking enviornment.Granted it is not as elegant as a MMU but
    as ED stated it can be done if the programmer follows the rules.
    The key is that the Amiga was structured from the ground up to be
    a multitasking system,and as a result will function better as one
    than some of the other operating systems that emulate multitasking,
    or do so running a kludge.OF course when Unix is released none of
    this will matter for those that choose to go that route.Bottom line
    if you can be downloading a file,and playing a game you are ahead of
    any other PC in the amiga's price range.
    						bill

    
    Think of multitasking as a marketing concept, simply the ability to
    run two or more programs at the same time.  With that loose of a
    description it covers everything including task switchers.
    
    It's taken a long time for the pc market to recognize the need for
    something more than Desk Accessories, TSRs, or task switchers.  If
    that meets your needs, why worry about if it is "true" multitasking.
    
    It's going to take a longer time before the pc market discovers why 
    "true" multitasking is needed.  Even if it doesn't have memory protection.
    Amiga owners already know why, it's just going to take the rest a while
    longer to figure it out.
    
    The best way I've found to deal with the debate is to reduce it to
    human terms... Why should you go thru a hassle just to run more than
    one program at the same time?  It should be as simple as RUN FOO or click
    on the icon.  The rest should be handled by the operating system.
    
    -Dave

    	Multi-tasking is indeed a marketing concept - to some people.
    Me, for instance. I don't recall the last time I needed to truely
    multi-task at home. Print spoolers and DAs aside, it isn't something
    that relates to my home computing needs. There are people out there,
    though, who do tiresome things like compile large programs and
    down-load large files, these people can do several things at once
    from one keyboard - if the computer will let them, if it will
    multi-task. Perhaps the Mac users who THINK they are already
    multi-tasking would be easier to convince if they were doing the
    sort of work that could be helped by multi-tasking. Most don't.

    
    > Me, for instance.  I don't recall the last time I needed to truely
    > multi-task at home.
    
    Are you _able_ to multitask at home, ie; are you using an Amiga?  If
    not, then you just can't pooh-pooh it away so easily.  If you can't touch
    your ear with your elbow, then there's not much need to put your elbow
    into your ear, is there?
    
    A minor example... last night I was shopping for Fish disks off of the
    net.  I was already connected and downloading FF308, but was still able
    to do a         database search for other programs that I was looking
    for by using the Aquarium Fish Database program.  No hassle, no
    pre-allocation of resources, just simply point and click at the
    database icon.  As soon as FF308 rolled off of the net, I was able to
    begin downloading another volume.  At exactly the time that this was
    happening, I used the archiving features of SID to unpack FF308 onto a
    floppy that had been formatted (while playing with Aquarium).
    
    All this can be performed by an imbecile, on a very inexpensive,
    standard, bottom-line configured Amiga.

    Just last night I was testing the Director's Midi capability.  I
    fired up my sequencer on the Amiga, then fired up the Director's
    projector program.  The Midi sequencer not only played my Synthesizer
    but controlled what was happening with the Director animation. 
    
    Earlier, I had wanted to talk a song from DMCS into my sequencer
    to add some stuff live to it.  Fire up DMCS; Fire up my sequencer
    with midi out going to midi in and record the DMCS song into my
    sequencer program on the Amiga.  Now I can add a drum track in real
    time.  Isn't multi-tasking great!?
    

    Ed,
    	no, I don't have an Amiga at home (yet) but I do have a variety
    of ways to multi-task. The old fashioned way. I could fire up a
    second (third, fourth) computer. I used to do this before print
    buffering became an option for me. The fact is that I don't DO things
    that tend to sit there and chug along without user interaction.
    I only do things that require frequent or constant user interaction.
    Word Processing, Computer Aided Publishing, Graphic Art, Spreadsheets,
    and (of course) games. My Animation program runs in one stream,
    if I were testing a stream it would be nice to run the creation
    programs in a background mode - but that isn't really multi-tasking
    as I would only be using one at a time.
    	When I get my Amiga (Real Soon Now - after the IRS gets done
    with me, DEC stock hits $100 and my sweetie says "OK") I expect
    I'll use the multi-tasking capability only to switch between
    applications. This does not mean that it isn't a very nice feature,
    one that is not yet vailable on a Mac, it's just that it's wasted
    on the likes of me. My failing, not the software's. But then, I
    suspect most people are in the same situation.

    re .11:
    I too use the old fashioned way at work - I develop MS-DOS software and
    use 2 PC's and a terminal.  I have to remind myself at home to
    multi-task.  For example, I was converting GIF pictures to IFF and
    after watching it crunch way for 15 minutes, I realized that I could
    also be doing this to files in the other GIF directories while
    formating floppies to copy them onto from the hard disk.  7 CLI Windows
    later the system had noticibly slowed down, but kept crunching away
    until it finished all the files.
    
    regards,
    dennis
    

    Well, I hate to sit waiting for the dumb machine (I don't mind at 
    all letting it sit waiting for the dumb human).  Since I use mine
    as a terminal to do work at work from home (my VS3100 is on my desk,
    so I am working at my desk without being there!), and the 3100 is
    soo slow to compile (to be fair, the code I am compiling is soo
    baroque that it's amazing that the C compiler gets it done at all),
    I am very grateful to be able to be drawing in Deluxe Paint III or
    playing asteriods (the better option of the two 'cause it is instantly
    obvious when the game starts multitasking with the terminal emulator
    (handshake is a pig) - I tend to get lost in Deluxe Paint and not
    notice that the compile finished).
    
    (Actually, if I have settled in for a day of work at work from home
    then I end up LATted into several processes on my VAX, plus another
    on the cluster to check for mail and do notes, plus the several
    processes on the Amiga.  The end result is a nice job of multitasking
    me dealing with multitasking machines so's to keep everybody busy).
    
    Some people use a workstation as a big screen with one VT200 emulator
    on it.  I've never been able to understand that.  Even if I'm just
    reading notes, I end up wanting to go look up something or send mail
    to someone without losing the context of where I am (sure, you can
    spawn out of most decent utilities, but then how do you refer to the
    text that caused you to spawn out in the first place?).
    
    That's a bit off the subject of the Amiga, but I think the real
    question was "why multitask" and the real answer is "it's boring to
    watch the machine think".   Once you hit the machine limits (perfmon
    shows the cpu is bottomed out" you are better off going out for a
    cookie, but until then, multitask!!
    
    Yours
    Erg
    

    re: multiple computers single tasking
    
    Just think how much more fun it could be with multiple multitasking
    computers :-)  Multiple computers also gives you a limited form of
    memory protection - you run the questionable stuff on another system.
    
    One thing to remember though... the base Amiga comes with a lot of
    goodies that makes you want to multitask them - music, graphics,
    cli windows, etc.  And the coprocessors make it reasonable to multitask
    them even on a lowly 68000.  That tends to make the argument system 
    specific, what is reasonable to do on an Amiga might not be so on some
    other system.  On the other hand, why buy a single tasking computer
    these days?  That's the dark days of computing :-)  Why should the
    OS be the only one who gets to multitask, the user should be able to
    join the fun (not just the power users).
    
    -Dave