Amiga's place in the modern computing world - 00s

[amigaksi]

>That is not what you said. you said that a USB port has 4 pins. That is true, but they are not simply 4 parallel data lines, they have very specific functions... don't start changing your argument mid discussion.

Here I'll quote myself (you can go back and re-read it yourself since I have not edited any of my posts):

"Look, even the USB ports are usually in pairs so you have 4 data lines so if you update the joystick port so that the 4 parallel lines can serve both purposes serial and parallel, it's a superior technology AND backward compatible."

I just PROVED that what people write and what you understand are two different things.

>>Because of lack of hardware standard.

>No, it's because of physics. Please understand that you can't defy the laws of physics...

I am not.  Hardware standards are faster ways to access devices than software APIs.  

[amigaksi]

>Two serial interfaces are not the same as a single parallel interface... their mode of operation is very different. Don't be an idiot!!

You know you can't understand things if you get too emotional as I already stated so.  You don't know that you can program parallel ports already in different modes so that could have been another mode of operation.  Q.E.D.

>Go on then, what software won't run on my Mac or my PC...?

If you are just going to call people names, you can search it on this forum yourself.

[amigaksi]

Okay, I'll wait for their reply since I don't see why you can't have a dual-USB/joystick port.

>The software ensure that the hardware is future compatible and used to the best possible advantages.

If the hardware was standardized, you don't need an intermediary layer so the best possible useage of hardware occurs then.

[amigaksi]

>>If the hardware was standardized, you don't need an intermediary layer so the best possible useage of hardware occurs then.

>Because the hardware can be changed and improved and any program that used the software API will still work... But any program that hit the hardware won't work because the hardware has changed... This really is elementary stuff...

"If the HARDWARE WAS STANDARDIZED..."  Example, A000:0000 to access the VGA memory has been a long time hardware standard.  I can write to A000:0000 using an ISA VGA card and PCI VGA card, the PCI version just works faster but the hardware standard remained.

[amigaksi]

>by kolla on 2008/6/9 23:24:10
>
>@amigaksi
>
>What the heck is wrong with you?!

Some guy on an Amiga forum is insulting the Amiga (and myself) with misinformation and there's something wrong with me if I speak out against him with FACTS?  Perhaps, you want to answer as to what exactly you are denying: (1) digital joystick is superior to a USB-based one and USB can be implemented within a joystick port, (2) overscan area inherent to NTSC is not accessible via standard graphics cards or APIs, (3) timers are more accurate on Amiga than on PC. Perhaps, you are denying that API calls are less efficient to use than directly accessing standardized hardware.  Even USB has multiple standards and even if there was only one hardware standard, you still have to go through the API since modern OSes won't allow you to access them directly anyways.  And even if you can access them directly, you need more instructions to read a joystick than with a digital joystick.  Or are you denying the fact the industries don't always use the latest technologies-- heck, even an Atari 800 with an LDA 54016 instruction is faster than reading a gameport which was developed years later.

Oh, one more thing, if you are going to reply leave out cursing me out or cursing the amiga out claiming I don't know modern hardware as these don't constitute rational arguments in the college that I come from.

[amigaksi]

As I said insults don't constitute arguments.  Everything I stated was a FACT; if you can't understand, it's your problem or lack of education.

I guess one point I can TRY again to see if you can understand:

>The advantage of Standardised API calls over hitting the Hardware is well proven... the downfall of the Amiga was caused in part by devs hitting the hardware.

USB has multiple standards-- the most recent may be 2.0.  Previously compaq and others had their own.  If your hardware is standardized, you can access the hardware directly since the ports/Mem locations will remain the same in the future so you avoid the overhead of APIs.  That is the optimal way to use the hardware.  You avoid overhead, and you know EXACTLY how many instructions you used for real-time analsys.  I already gave you example of VGA.  You can still access 1024*768*32 in DOS with A000:0000 only thing that became nonstandard was the VGA Video window port.

[amigaksi]

>by pkillo on 2008/6/10 20:46:40
>...
>@amigaksi: You can only use the writes to the address you're giving in real mode, at least on the x64 systems I've worked with. As far as I could tell while studying this very problem as an undergraduate, when you enter a 64-bit mode you lose that functionality. At that point you have to copy the VESA BIOS into RAM and set up an entry table for it, and then use its routines instead, iirc. So while you're right that under DOS you can do that, it's not really applicable to problems requiring the full resources of a modern PC.

There's an exported variable in Windows 3.x/'95/'98/'98SE/ME called _A000 that you need to import and that gives you the selector which maps to physical address A000:0000 and you use offsets as normal.  I did this with the multimedia Gita CDROM (shown towards the end at http://www.mpdos.com) and was able to write directly to the VGA memory in protected mode.  As far as setting the mode, you can directly do the IN/OUTs to set the mode to avoid BIOS calls, but higher resolutions of SVGAs don't have standard IN/OUTs so you basically have to code for some of the popular cards or try your chances that at setting the mode via the VESA BIOS.  As long as the routine does not use segments, you can call the routine in VESA BIOS directly from protected mode.  The Gita CD does this as well  and you can compare the frame rate speed of Windows API (SetDIBBitsToDevice) verses VESA modes.  
The Gita CD uses the Windows resources normally for other things like sound, mouse, printing, etc.

[amigaksi]

>by Roj on 2008/6/11 13:11:21

>If I didn't have a CSPPC, I probably wouldn't still be using >an Amiga. I don't really think a stock Amiga can be given a >place in the modern computing world - 00s.

If you first define what you want to use the computer for, then you can make a better determination if the Amiga can be used for that purpose.  Modern computing uses games so I would say Amiga can still be used for games.  If you want a simple machine for just controlling external devices and stuff, I would prefer an Atari or Amiga with it's simplicity and ports than the latest PC.  I used to use the Amiga for video titling stuff and they came out pretty good.  Recently, I got used to using the PC as just a big server for all the files, image disks, etc. for Atari and Amiga and just upload whatever I need via a cable like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320262511361

Some things just don't require complex OSes and 4Ghz processors.