I long for a decent OS.

[KThunder]

this isnt a very benficial thread imho

amiga- no modern browser, office software, hardware support, but...

it boots fast!!!!!

i dont sit around booting my computers all the time. weather it boots in 2 seconds or 50 as long as it does what i need it to do when it is booted. booting to me is probably the least important part of running a computer, as long as it finishes who cares.

the reason modern machines take a while to load is because of all the stuff we expect them to do. wedont expect much of our amigas in terms of modern apps, because there arent many. my amiga is super smooth running its half meg apps too, but if i have alot of serious work to do i use the pc.

[KThunder]

geeze sorry about the rant. i see these kinds of thread too often. people complaining about the pcs that they use everyday and which do everything they ask. ok you dont like ms; ok you dont like windows. but all oss have drawbacks and benefits.
you dont want a decent os because any os you get will have some drawback to turn against, and any company that produces said os and succeeds will do something you dont like.

crap another rant. ummm...

[color=ff0000]Aros Rules[/color][/b][/i]

[KThunder]

have you done any programming? assembly or otherwise?
all compillers produce slightly different code, some are more efficient than others but none is as good as hand coding. some of us actually like assembly coding. with assebly you can conrol exactly how the machine runs in every respect.
actually operating systems are alot better if written in assembly or c, c with inline can be quite good if used carefully.
all compillers produce the same code that humans would using the generalizing effect of different commands since they get their info from us. you talk as if they are artificially intellegent or something. ad btw it doesnt take extraordinary amounts of effort. for small projects and anything that works in an environment it usually takes less. since you dont have to worry about what library files etc will do with other programs and what ou are doing. you just write the code you want to write.

[KThunder]

soooo basically you agreed with most of what i said but disagree that it is worth it. for the fun of it or whatever.

ok thats cool, somebody agrees with me, since they did write the os.

you did kindof contradict yourself though which was a part of my point. global optimizations are a part of program planning, with good modularity and proper planning keeping an entire system optimized is possible but that is true no matter the programming method. but on a smaller scale also even optimized compillers use more generalized code than can be done by hand.

[KThunder]

many assembly coders nowadays know all about caches etc and how to code specifically for them. knowing exactly how the actual pipelines work etc can result in speedups. there are several emulator coders and c/inline coders who do this extensively. see emulators.com for one.
if you know how a specific pipeline runs and how much cache you have etc you can code for that.
you can also order memory accesses and instuction streams around the architecture.  
people think they have billions of instuctions per second now so who cares about optimization you can write a program quickly and not worry about code size or speed. i mean we all have a gig of ram at least right?
thats how you end up with operating systems that take up gigabytes of space on a hard drive and take several minutes to fully load.
that is what this thread is about, someone wants a small efficient os that loads very quckly and does what he needs and thats it. not a gargantuan chunk of code that loads a hundred libraries and apps and protections and other crap that he doesnt need.
if you just want to send a simple email to a freind or something xp is way way overkill

[KThunder]

ok back on topic a sec,

do they still sell webtv boxes? those boot instantly and have some simple apps and stuff.

[KThunder]

whats really amazing to me is that some people think that is totally acceptable. "of course you need a 1gz cpu and 512 megs of ranm to surf the net"

when is it going to be too much. when you need 50gigs of hd space for your os 3ghz cpu and 2gigs of ram just to send a simple email or write a letter.

i use win98 on a 900mhz athalon it flies compared to my fathers 3ghz pIV. i have a pIV mobo and winxp but i havent really seen the need to downgrade yet. i could use the extra horsepower for emulation but thats about it.

[KThunder]

cymric,
 
>You seem to be stuck in the state when slapping 'assembly' on a product made it 'better' and 'more optimised' and 'faster'. Compilers have evolved. Humans have not.

no we havent evolved but we designed the cpus and apps and code them. assembly coders arent stuck in the middle ages (80s) they now do code for this stuff. compillers are good but if they are perfect why do they all provide inline capabilities, you yourself admitted that all major oss are written in c and assembly.

weather or not this stuff is a waste of time is up to the people wasting (or not) their time, many assem coders do it cause it is fun.
we could argue this for pages and not get anywere i think assembly is usefull for many things and you dont. i actually havent done much coding in a few months and i am a offset lithographic pressman not a coder so im not argueing my livelyhood here.

[KThunder]

i was trying to close the (useless) discussion, but was a bit clunky at it.
i didnt deliberately misunderstand you. you feel that there are a few things assem is useful for correct? there are many things you dont think it is useful for.
the fact that there are operating systems and apps written entirely in assem mean that i am at least partially right. and the fact that most oss and apps are written in c and inline mean that you are at least partially right.