PC still playing Amiga catchup

[stefcep2]

They don't, many people simply use standby thus negating the issue. Thanks to memory protection, it is rare that a piece of software will take down the rest of the OS.

thanks to saving regularly, booting in 5 seconds, and using stable well written software, memory protection doesn't matter to me.  I'd like it but I bet you'd like a 5 second boot as well.  But to use your argument against you, memory protection doesn't matter to me, so Amiga wins for me.
 

Jerky menus? Take an A1200, put a load on the cpu and watch as the rest of the system slows to a crawl.

turn on your windows PC, wait for the start button/orb to appear and try to launch something and watch the menu stutter and leave garbage behind before it clears itself.  Makes you feel good about your quadcore 4 gig ram SATA?

I have a dual P2 (233Mhz) system here running BeOS, the cpus when running live streaming are constantly at 80%. The menus are just as fast as when the system is idling. Only difference is that app loading slows down, which is to be expected.

i have a freeware scheduler "Executive" and i can render an animation in cinema 4d, whilst editing scenes and objects in Cinema 4D, send the resultant pics to Adpro for processing, save the files automatically, do a spot of house keeping with DOpus, paint a texture in Dpaint and the Operating System menues are just as fast as if had nothing loaded- on a 50 mhz machine with 16 meg ram

Malware is a consiquence of people not bothering to secure their systems. It is not ok.

malware is a consequence of having security risks in the OS that can be exploited.  A security system is what must be used to close those holes- for a few days until another exploit is found.  This then means a performance hit.

The registry is a database. If you can come up with a better solution to address being able to support and intergrate litterally hundreds of thousands of different pieces of hardware, the rest of the computing world would love to know. Linux, BeOS and (I believe) Mac all use a database help address this issue.

i don't have one on my Amiga.  It doesn't matter to me.  Therefore Amiga wins.

That was 2000 calling, their want their distribution back. And flaky hardware drivers are not a linux specific issue.

tell the thousands posting here: http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=327 or here :http://forum.mandriva.com/ (just two examples) that they its 2009 and there problems DO NOT EXIST, its just that they are caught in an alternate reality where its always the year 2000

Correct, because many of the issues do not matter to the average user - they just want to use their applications. .

Correct.  So using your argument against you: The software on my Amiga does what i want it to, reliably and efficiently and things such as nuclear physics sims, cloud computing, playing DVD's bluray and games on the PC don't matter to me and (increasingly to the average user) because a $30 DVD player does a better job of playing DVD's, and a $250 Bluray player does better job of playing Bluray and any game genre worth playing is available on any one of 3 consoles without the hassle of a PC (and a $600 PS 3 does all three).

I for one am happy that I don't have to write my own scripts to get a cd-rom to run when I plug it in

That was 1985 calling, their want their Workbench 1.3 floppy back.

And flaky hardware drivers-if any drivers exist AT all that is- are a particularly linux specific issue.

[the_leander]

thanks to saving regularly, booting in 5 seconds, and using stable well written software, memory protection doesn't matter to me.  I'd like it but I bet you'd like a 5 second boot as well.  But to use your argument against you, memory protection doesn't matter to me, so Amiga wins for me.

 
Takes less then 5 seconds for me to come out of standby. And when you have either 3.5 or 3.9 running, just getting beyond softkick takes more then 5 seconds on an 040 1200.

turn on your windows PC, wait for the start button/orb to appear and try to launch something and watch the menu stutter and leave garbage behind before it clears itself.  Makes you feel good about your quadcore 4 gig ram SATA?

I don't have a quadcore. And when you have a lot of high priority things being loaded up/run at once, even on an Amiga with Executive it'll crawl.

i have a freeware scheduler "Executive" and i can render an animation in cinema 4d, whilst editing scenes and objects in Cinema 4D, send the resultant pics to Adpro for processing, save the files automatically, do a spot of house keeping with DOpus, paint a texture in Dpaint and the Operating System menues are just as fast as if had nothing loaded- on a 50 mhz machine with 16 meg ram

And how many of those tasks require a realtime/extremely high priority? The music stream, regardless of all else happening on that machine (building up the database from FS queries, accessing and generating a web interface etc etc etc) all are going on, but the stream remains constant. Yes, I could lower the stream's priority and everything else would run a whole lot faster, but at the risk of breaking the streams continuity.

Even Executive, which I used to use myself, does not offer the level of granularity that BeOS does in terms of task priorty.

malware is a consequence of having security risks in the OS that can be exploited.  

Sorry, but ALL operating systems have security holes. Buffer overflows in MUI anyone?

i don't have one on my Amiga.  It doesn't matter to me.  Therefore Amiga wins.

Clearly it does matter or you wouldn't have mentioned it.

tell the thousands posting here: http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=327 or here :http://forum.mandriva.com/ (just two examples) that they its 2009 and there problems DO NOT EXIST, its just that they are caught in an alternate reality where its always the year 2000

Bad drivers happen, wierd and wonderful issues with hardware mixes happen. This is one of the drawbacks in having such a diverse hardware landscape.

That was 1985 calling, their want their Workbench 1.3 floppy back.

Heh, that was OS3.5, and rigging up an IDE CD-ROM drive on an A1200. Also had to do the same later with a MO drive.

And flaky hardware drivers-if any drivers exist AT all that is- are a particularly linux specific issue.

Flaky drivers can and will happen on just about any OS, I've seen it on AmigaOS, Linux, Windows, Mac, BSD and BeOS... They are by no means specific to any OS.

[stefcep2]

Takes less then 5 seconds for me to come out of standby.

Standby does not equal boot.  I asked 14 PC users if they leave the PC on all the time in standby.  None do.  Standby doesn't matter to them.  Boot time does.  Amiga wins.

And when you have either 3.5 or 3.9 running, just getting beyond softkick takes more then 5 seconds on an 040 1200.

i run Workbench 3.1, the OS my machine came with.  Running OS 3.5 is like running XP on your 233 mhz pentium and OS 3.9 is like running Vista on your 233 mHz pentium.  How would you go booting them?  Will you enjoy that user experience, IF you could even get vista to boot.

I don't have a quadcore.

 Sorry i thought Karlos's quadcore was "just an average PC", and on that basis i thought you just had an "average PC".

And when you have a lot of high priority things being loaded up/run at once, even on an Amiga with Executive it'll crawl.

Ah more "if's" and "whens".  I don't, so it doesn't matter to me.  default priorities are fine for me.  Amiga wins.

And how many of those tasks require a realtime/extremely high priority? The music stream, regardless of all else happening on that machine (building up the database from FS queries, accessing and generating a web interface etc etc etc) all are going on, but the stream remains constant. Yes, I could lower the stream's priority and everything else would run a whole lot faster, but at the risk of breaking the streams continuity.

None require it.  And they don't need to be.  Therefore it doesn't matter to me.  i don't stream anything, so it doesn't matter to me, either.  Amiga wins.

Even Executive, which I used to use myself, does not offer the level of granularity that BeOS does in terms of task priorty.

you may be right, i honestly don't know enough about BeOS.  however my A1200 multitasks smoothly, and always prioritises my input over anything else that might be needing CPU time.

Sorry, but ALL operating systems have security holes. Buffer overflows in MUI anyone?

true.  but as it stands as of this moment, i have a greater chance of suffering from malware on a  fresh out of the box windows install than I do on a fresh amiga os 3.1 install.  The why's, buts, ifs don't matter, thems the facts.

Clearly it does matter or you wouldn't have mentioned it.

only to follow the same line of thinking as the PC camp: "yeah the registry is crap BUT....."  But nothing.  the registry is crap.  My amiga doesn't have one, it doesn't matter to me, amiga wins.

Bad drivers happen, wierd and wonderful issues with hardware mixes happen.

i see.  Its now a "feature".  Ms PR dept would be proud of that one..

This is one of the drawbacks in having such a diverse hardware landscape.

I see.  Another  "But...." argument

[/QUOTE]

Heh, that was OS3.5, and rigging up an IDE CD-ROM drive on an A1200. Also had to do the same later with a MO drive.

OS 3.5 has many bugs in it.  try OS 3.9, bet it works-unless you have one of those early almost-atapi drives, but thats a firmware fault on the drive, not a fault with the Amiga.

Flaky drivers can and will happen on just about any OS, I've seen it on AmigaOS, Linux, Windows, Mac, BSD and BeOS... They are by no means specific to any OS.

True.  But linux has more of it.  And no I don't care about the "But", that HW manufacturers don't support Linux as much, or there's so much more PC hardware out there.  No "Buts".  It just is.

do you see a theme?  If a PC can't do something as well as an amiga, its "PC users don't need it/use it/care about it/ so it doesn't matter".  To them.  But play that argument in favour of the Amiga as i have, and what happens?  Amiga wins.  Its pointless, ofcourse and its an argument that can never be lost.

[the_leander]

Standby does not equal boot.  I asked 14 PC users if they leave the PC on all the time in standby.  None do.  Standby doesn't matter to them.  Boot time does.  Amiga wins.

Woo, because 14 people, out of 1 billion is totally valid for extrapolating how people use their systems. Standby is perfectly valid if you use it. Even if you don't, the Amiga looses to a £1 pocket calculator by this measure.  

Boot time does not matter unless you have to do it an awful lot, on the Amiga, owing to it's lack of MP, it does. On a windows/linux/mac box, you don't, you boot a maximum of once from the last time you turned it on and that is (for the vast majority of cases) all you need.

And in case you're wondering, 14 seconds does me just fine, thanks. I booted my system.... about 8 weeks ago now, so 14 seconds of booting in two months. Suddenly the boot time issue comes into context.

i run Workbench 3.1, the OS my machine came with.  Running OS 3.5 is like running XP on your 233 mhz pentium and OS 3.9 is like running Vista on your 233 mHz pentium.  How would you go booting them?  Will you enjoy that user experience, IF you could even get vista to boot.

Yes 3.5 took longer to boot, as did 3.9. But once up and running I found it to be much more responsive more of the time then 3.1 with all the hacks/trimmings. Not to mention far less crash happy.

 Sorry i thought Karlos's quadcore was "just an average PC", and on that basis i thought you just had an "average PC".

Do you even understand what the word average means? Clearly not.

Ah more "if's" and "whens".  I don't, so it doesn't matter to me.  default priorities are fine for me.  Amiga wins.

I rigged that system up specifically for that one task. In that role, it is superb. The problem with forcing a system to specialise in one thing, is that you do so at the expense of others.

That you don't is not my concern.

None require it.  And they don't need to be.  Therefore it doesn't matter to me.  i don't stream anything, so it doesn't matter to me, either.  Amiga wins.

*shakes head and walks away.

you may be right, i honestly don't know enough about BeOS.  however my A1200 multitasks smoothly, and always prioritises my input over anything else that might be needing CPU time.

This particular system is controled remotely via a web interface.

true.  but as it stands as of this moment, i have a greater chance of suffering from malware on a  fresh out of the box windows install than I do on a fresh amiga os 3.1 install.  The why's, buts, ifs don't matter, thems the facts.

And a stock 3.1 install is by itself useless. Linux, BeOS, hell even windows offers far more capability out of the box then any AmigaOS release ever produced.

only to follow the same line of thinking as the PC camp: "yeah the registry is crap BUT....."  But nothing.  the registry is crap.  My amiga doesn't have one, it doesn't matter to me, amiga wins.

There is no "registry is crap but", did you even bother to read Trev's post?

i see.  Its now a "feature".  Ms PR dept would be proud of that one..

Ugh, grow up. It is a logical consiquence, nothing more.

I see.  

Not on the basis of your replies thus far you don't.

OS 3.5 has many bugs in it.  try OS 3.9, bet it works-unless you have one of those early almost-atapi drives, but thats a firmware fault on the drive, not a fault with the Amiga.

ROTFL. Nothing can be the fault of your perfect Amiga can it?

To be clear, The IDEfix installer produced a script for the drive in question, but for whatever reason that script failed every three or four boots. I wrote my own which didn't.

The MO drive was a little more tricky but in the end it worked fine.

True.  But linux has more of it.

Try telling that to those who run BeOS on modern hardware. Oh, silly me, that's right. Not knowing anything about it you carry on regardless.

[

do you see a theme?

Yes, you twist anything and everything that you can in order that "Amiga wins". It's childish.

If a PC can't do something as well as an amiga, its "PC users don't need it/use it/care about it/ so it doesn't matter". To them.

Given that the vast, vast vast number of PC users today haven't even heard of an Amiga, much less used one and use their computers in a different way to how the amiga is used, it is one hell of a stretch to say that. I can run a rediculously stripped down system that boots in short order too, but unless it can do what I want in a reliable and stable fashion all bets are off.

The amiga, especially once you started trying to go online could never be called the latter. A bridge too far.

  But play that argument in favour of the Amiga as i have, and what happens? Amiga wins.  

Ahh, but you didn't play the same argument. See, with the exception of yourself and amigaski, none of the rest of the folk here had to do mental and linguistic backflips in our interpritations or employ massive cognitive dissonance to "win".

Its pointless, ofcourse and its an argument that can never be lost.

This discussion was originally about technology, a point you clearly missed. Someone made a specific claim of technical superiority, not usage not preference, technical.

[stefcep2]

Woo, because 14 people, out of 1 billion is totally valid for extrapolating how people use their systems. Standby is perfectly valid if you use it.

Well, I deal in facts.  I asked 14 PC users, ranging from occasional to moderate users and none used standby.  None are computer hobbyists.  You are a computer hobbyist.  As other people on this board are.  Most people are not. When you survey the other 1 billion PC users out there, post here and tell us all.
 

Boot time does not matter unless you have to do it an awful lot, on the Amiga, owing to it's lack of MP, it does. On a windows/linux/mac box, you don't, you boot a maximum of once from the last time you turned it on and that is (for the vast majority of cases) all you need.

Like Is said: When you survey the other 1 billion PC users out there, post here and tell me, and then you can use words such as "for the vast majority of cases".

And in case you're wondering, 14 seconds does me just fine, thanks. I booted my system.... about 8 weeks ago now, so 14 seconds of booting in two months. Suddenly the boot time issue comes into context.

Strange: 14 random users is too small a sample size, but you and a handful of people on a computer enthusiast's forum is representative of 1 billion users world wide.  just coz you boot evry 8 weeks is not representative of the whole world, but do go on..

Yes 3.5 took longer to boot, as did 3.9. But once up and running I found it to be much more responsive more of the time then 3.1 with all the hacks/trimmings. Not to mention far less crash happy.

My 3.1 A1200 with all the trimmimgs, as you call them, - that i need- is at least as fast and as stable as 3.9.  I've tried both.

Do you even understand what the word average means? Clearly not.

i took one semester in Statistics at University level, but please do enlighten me on what the word "average" means.

I rigged that system up specifically for that one task. In that role, it is superb. The problem with forcing a system to specialise in one thing, is that you do so at the expense of others.

That you don't is not my concern.

And that you DID, is not mine.  But thats the point isn't it?

*shakes head and walks away.

 sighs deeply and walks away

And a stock 3.1 install is by itself useless.

 No, its still useful.  But it can be made a lot nicer with a few add-ons that cost no money.

ROTFL. Nothing can be the fault of your perfect Amiga can it?

To be clear, The IDEfix installer produced a script for the drive in question, but for whatever reason that script failed every three or four boots. I wrote my own which didn't.

The MO drive was a little more tricky but in the end it worked fine.

Amigans call these "scripts" dosdrivers.  Clearly a third-party utility generated a dosdriver with settings that were not compatible with your drive.  If I had a dollar that thats happened to me with linux or windows over the years I'd be...you know how it goes.

Try telling that to those who run BeOS on modern hardware. Oh, silly me, that's right. Not knowing anything about it you carry on regardless.

I find it interesting that people need to bring up just about any PC hardware-OS combination to suit their argument even when that represents less than an insignificant percentage of PC's in the world, just to prove a point they've lost.  So you can't win the boot argument with Windows so you bring on the BeOS argument.  But BeOS runs on limited hardware and less people know about it than Amiga, so Windows is back. But Windows has the registry and malware.  So linux is in.  But Linux isn't as user-friendly out of the box.  So we are back to Windows.

Yes, you twist anything and everything that you can in order that "Amiga wins". It's childish.

 Its called "mirroring"

Given that the vast, vast vast number of PC users today haven't even heard of an Amiga, much less used one and use their computers in a different way to how the amiga is used, it is one hell of a stretch to say that. I can run a rediculously stripped down system that boots in short order too, but unless it can do what I want in a reliable and stable fashion all bets are off.

As opposed to the name on everyone's lips: BeOS.  i can do what i need to do on it.  And for evrything else, a simple household appliance or a console can outdo the PC.  And no my Amiga isn't ridiculously stripped down.  But its interesting you have to strip your PC down to a non-functional state in order to compete

Ahh, but you didn't play the same argument. See, with the exception of yourself and amigaski, none of the rest of the folk here had to do mental and linguistic backflips in our interpritations or employ massive cognitive dissonance to "win".

Actually a pro-PC user wnat to debate the grammarof the original post:  Is it a question or a statement, as if that made any difference.  A few others pointed out in what instances their amiga was superior to the PC for the intended use.  And they pointed out some of the deficiencies in the PC that are simply not present in the amiga.  But the usual "i don't care/ doesn't matter to me" cry of the masses drowned out any of that.  BTW I hear Copernicus didn't have much support in his day either, but just goes to show that a popular opinion isn't always the right one.

This discussion was originally about technology, a point you clearly missed. Someone made a specific claim of technical superiority, not usage not preference, technical.

 it was about seeing a PC do picture in picture, which the Amiga did years ago.  As is the way of these things, many interpretations can sprout from a single statement and the PC camp turned it into an argument about usage and preference when it suited their case.  Just providing same balance to the discussion.

[Hammer]

go look it up yourself how the parallel ports did enhance-> spp -> bpp -> epp -> ecp and also isa -> vesa-based -> pci.

isa->e-isa->vlb->pci

[Roondar]

Which is faster: MOVE.W $DFF00A,D0 or going through a serial protocol?

That's a dishonest question.

But I'll bite.

The PC implementation (using API's etc) will be faster doing it's poll than the Amiga's MOVE.W will be. Even if the serial protocol itself is slower, the vastly (and I do mean vastly) faster processor will need less time to execute the whole API based serial poll than the Amiga's MOVE.W will take.

Now, that the serial port on the PC is usually sucky and hence slower to be sampled is another matter, but the fact is that the code driving said sucky serial port is extremely likely to be faster than the MOVE.W.

If only because your 3Ghz machine can execute it's code -literally- thousands of times faster and the API overhead is not adding thousands of times more code.

[Hammer]

Hey I stopped arguing since it's obvious Amiga joystick port is faster, butl someone started to challenge it again.

>APIs enables the hardware to change significantly and reduce hardware complexity i.e. save on
>1. Transistor usage,
>2. Energy consumption.
>3. Maximised math units.

Hardware can be enhanced significantly and retain hardware  compatibility.  As for reducing hardware complexity-- well why do they retain processor compatibility then-- same argument can be applied there as well.

Depends on the priority. Notice the CPU didn't keep up with the GPU market in pure math performance.

[the_leander]

Well, I deal in facts.  I asked 14 PC users, ranging from occasional to moderate users and none used standby.  None are computer hobbyists.  You are a computer hobbyist.  As other people on this board are.  Most people are not. When you survey the other 1 billion PC users out there, post here and tell us all.

Actually I'm firmly in the user camp these days. I've niether the time nor inclination to go around tweeking and tinkering. I just want to do the things I need to do with the minimum of hassle.  
 

Like Is said: When you survey the other 1 billion PC users out there, post here and tell me, and then you can use words such as "for the vast majority of cases".

And when you present documentation to show these people you supposedly surveyed you can claim the opposite.

Strange: 14 random users is too small a sample size, but you and a handful of people on a computer enthusiast's forum is representative of 1 billion users world wide.  just coz you boot evry 8 weeks is not representative of the whole world, but do go on..

Well see, at least from this side, we have more evidence then your say so.

My 3.1 A1200 with all the trimmimgs, as you call them, - that i need- is at least as fast and as stable as 3.9.  I've tried both.

Didn't mention one way or the other whether they were needed, as it happens the vast majority were - I would not for instance be happy using an Amiga without Opus Magellen on it.

i took one semester in Statistics at University level, but please do enlighten me on what the word "average" means.

1.   a quantity, rating, or the like that represents or approximates an arithmetic mean.

But it is irrelevant, you made an assumption, which in this case was false.

I use laptops. And whist you can get quadcore laptops (which generally produce more heat then the legendary nut roasting P4 mobility ones did) mine isn't.

And that you DID, is not mine.  But thats the point isn't it?

Overspecialise and you breed in weakness. More on this further down.

 No, its still useful.  But it can be made a lot nicer with a few add-ons that cost no money.

One of the biggest, and for me nicest parts of moving from AmigaOS was that when I installed BeOS or later Linux, I didn't have to prat around with dozens of disks to install all the other software I needed day to day. So from going from half a day to install, optimise and install all the stuff I needed to... around 20 minutes. It was a revelation and is actually something I miss whenever I had to setup a windows environment. Perhaps I'm spoiled in this.

Amigans call these "scripts" dosdrivers.  Clearly a third-party utility generated a dosdriver with settings that were not compatible with your drive.

Nah, really?!

If I had a dollar that thats happened to me with linux or windows over the years I'd be...you know how it goes.

As does any person who has ever done anything more then just used the factory installed setup.

I find it interesting that people need to bring up just about any PC hardware-OS combination to suit their argument even when that represents less than an insignificant percentage of PC's in the world

BeOS at it's height barely scraped 1% of computer usage. Depending on who you ask, Linux now, with a much more varied landscape has just about hit 1%. The point was that minority OS's all have hardware support troubles.

just to prove a point they've lost.

So you can't win the boot argument with Windows so you bring on the BeOS argument.

Actually, the boot argument is a non starter - it is completely irrelevant when looked at over the long term. It only becomes a concern if your system is prone to crashing a lot. I brought BeOS into it with regard your "jerky menus" complaint. I pointed out that other systems did it better then the Amiga at high loads.

But Windows has the registry

You have not shown why having a database to deal with a huge amount of hardware configurations is a bad thing. Nor have you pointed to a more effective solution.

and malware.

With few exceptions, all OS's have malware for them, even your beloved Amiga.

So linux is in.  But Linux isn't as user-friendly out of the box.

I'd have to disagree there.

But regardless, if nothing else it shows that all OS's have different strengths and weaknesses.

As opposed to the name on everyone's lips: BeOS.  i can do what i need to do on it.  And for evrything else, a simple household appliance or a console can outdo the PC.  And no my Amiga isn't ridiculously stripped down.  But its interesting you have to strip your PC down to a non-functional state in order to compete

Specialist appliances will almost always perform better then a do everything solution. But, as I pointed out with the BeOS streaming server, that specialisation comes at the cost of ubiquity. And yes, the Amiga is ridiculously stripped down compared to a modern OS. To get it to do what I take for granted on a modern OS (any of the ones I have mentioned), I would then have to add that functionality back in in the form of hacks, third party replacements (Magellen) and a pile of support software (such as MiamiDX) that on any remotely modern OS comes as standard with.

Expectations change. I can do more with an EeePC then I ever could with even a top of the line Amiga and for a fraction of the cost. Amiga, as elegant as the whole thing was could not meet my needs, if it meets yours great. But the rest of the world has moved on.

popular opinion isn't always the right one.

By the same token though, taking the oposite side doesn't make you right either.

[alexatkin]

At the end of the day, stick your average PC user in front of:  Amiga OS, Linux, Windows, Mac.

Chances are they will figure out how to get on the Internet on the latter three, but stand no chance at all on the Amiga.  Mainly because they would be lucky if they even had a TCP/IP stack on it.

Come on, lets be realistic.  The point here is, that for the vast majority of user a PC does exactly what they need it to do.  This might mean it can't do a few things the Amiga could do, mainly because they are things your average user does not need to do.  The PC is a mainstream "do it all" machine, it makes no sense wasting time and money including backwards compatibility, except wheres its absolutely essential.  That is why they removed 16bit support from Windows some time back, it was no longer useful and just added bloat, bugs and more importantly a LOT of time wasted for the development team making sure it was still compatible with all the new stuff.

As we said before, why bother including support for the PC to be able to do stuff that 99.9% of the userbase do not need, and can easily be done on custom hardware more efficiently?  If the Amiga is better at this than a modern PC then excellent, but it also proves the point that it would make no sense using a PC to do it.  Why would you want to use a Ghz CPU eating around 150W of juice, to do something that a custom board could probably do in 10W?

[Hammer]

If hardware that is backward compatible uses same I/O ports, IRQs, DMA channels-- there no conflicts to be resolved.  When hardware vendors use their on I/O ports arbitrarily, their own IRQ channels, DMA channels then you have conflicts to resolve.  

The Wintel PC is an open platform.

>If you're having to reinvent the wheel and have every application bang the metal to the extent the app requires, you are in effect writing a (partial) driver or framework for your application to sit on...

Ahhm, did you miss the list I gave of advantages; you wouldn't rewrite the driver-- the OS would have the functionality built-in without needing drivers and application would be able to go directly to hardware where driver functionality is not supported or inefficient (like palette example).  

If the userland applications "hits-the-metal",  who will arbitrate the device's access?
I'm still waiting on Protracker vs OctaMED V4 vs Deluxe Music.

>The gains of hardware compatability, yes, lets add 10, 20, 30% extra silicon to every major I/O chip for stuff that's no longer used and long dead... Your entire argument is based on a fairytale world.

Sorry, you keep missing the point.  That's your speculation 10-30% extra silicon.  Even with some extra silicon, it's worth it given the benefits.  

As for the benefits, it depends on the market.

The legacy percentage for AMD K8 Winchester is larger than AMD K8 Sledge-Hammer i.e.
1.  K8 Sledge-Hammer, ~10 percent for legacy 105 million.
2.  K8 Winchester i.e, ~17 percent for legacy from 68.5 million.

[Hammer]

At the end of the day, stick your average PC user in front of:  Amiga OS, Linux, Windows, Mac.

Chances are they will figure out how to get on the Internet on the latter three, but stand no chance at all on the Amiga.  Mainly because they would be lucky if they even had a TCP/IP stack on it.

Come on, lets be realistic.  The point here is, that for the vast majority of user a PC does exactly what they need it to do.  This might mean it can't do a few things the Amiga could do, mainly because they are things your average user does not need to do.  The PC is a mainstream "do it all" machine, it makes no sense wasting time and money including backwards compatibility, except wheres its absolutely essential.  That is why they removed 16bit support from Windows some time back, it was no longer useful and just added bloat, bugs and more importantly a LOT of time wasted for the development team making sure it was still compatible with all the new stuff.

As we said before, why bother including support for the PC to be able to do stuff that 99.9% of the userbase do not need, and can easily be done on custom hardware more efficiently?  If the Amiga is better at this than a modern PC then excellent, but it also proves the point that it would make no sense using a PC to do it.  Why would you want to use a Ghz CPU eating around 150W of juice, to do something that a custom board could probably do in 10W?

My dual core 2.2 Ghz CPU eats around 35Watts.

[stefcep2]

Actually I'm firmly in the user camp these days. I've niether the time nor inclination to go around tweeking and tinkering. I just want to do the things I need to do with the minimum of hassle.

You're on an obscure forum about a commercially dead computer platform espousing the virtues of an even more esoteric OS like BeOS, you are a tinkerer my friend a computer hobbyist.  No shame in that.  But representative of the 1 billion PC users out there you are not.
 

And when you present documentation to show these people you supposedly surveyed you can claim the opposite.

Ha Ha.  Too funny. Here's my "double blind" study: I asked my work mates: "Do you leave your computer on for days weeks or months?  Show of hands please".  No hands went up.  "OK then what do you do?"  We turn it on when we need to use it and then and shut it down when we finished" they said.  

Well see, at least from this side, we have more evidence then your say so.

of a select bunch of experienced computer hobbyists.

Didn't mention one way or the other whether they were needed, as it happens the vast majority were - I would not for instance be happy using an Amiga without Opus Magellen on it.

I used it on Amikit.  I can easily live without it.

1.   a quantity, rating, or the like that represents or approximates an arithmetic mean.

But it is irrelevant, you made an assumption, which in this case was false.

I use laptops. And whist you can get quadcore laptops (which generally produce more heat then the legendary nut roasting P4 mobility ones did) mine isn't.

Does the word "sarcasm" mean anything to you?   I was being sarcastic that a quadcore with 4 gig ram and 600+ mb graphics card was considered "an average PC".  I wasn't really apologizing to you.  Sorry.......err not really, sarcasm again.



Overspecialise and you breed in weakness. More on this further down.

One of the biggest, and for me nicest parts of moving from AmigaOS was that when I installed BeOS or later Linux, I didn't have to prat around with dozens of disks to install all the other software I needed day to day. So from going from half a day to install, optimise and install all the stuff I needed to... around 20 minutes. It was a revelation and is actually something I miss whenever I had to setup a windows environment. Perhaps I'm spoiled in this.

Don't get me wrong:  I did play around with BeOS ages ago.  And I liked it a lot.  In fact IMO it was the most responsive multimedia OS for a PC you could get.  Has many amiga-like qualities.  I think Be even tried to poach many Amiga users.  But alas I never got it to work on a later P3 and so gave up on it.

But interesting point you make.  Once you've set up your Amiga environment, its pretty much done.  Not sure about BeOS, but remind me again what is the experience of the other 99 % of PC users..

BeOS at it's height barely scraped 1% of computer usage. Depending on who you ask, Linux now, with a much more varied landscape has just about hit 1%. The point was that minority OS's all have hardware support troubles.

Good we agree that Linux and BeOS have hardware support troubles.  So lets get on the Windows bandwagon coz it doesn't..but over at MS Land we have that damn pesky registry, where all the malware hides (we think, no-one can be REALLY sure whats meant to be there or not)

Actually, the boot argument is a non starter - it is completely irrelevant when looked at over the long term. It only becomes a concern if your system is prone to crashing a lot.

Or heaven forbid, if you turn your computer off once or twice a day coz you only want to check an email, or a weather report, or check the latest headlines and then leave your home. And do it again when you get home.  For example.

 I brought BeOS into it with regard your "jerky menus" complaint. I pointed out that other systems did it better then the Amiga at high loads.

And those arguments were negated.

You have not shown why having a database to deal with a huge amount of hardware configurations is a bad thing. Nor have you pointed to a more effective solution.

Like I said: over at MS Land we have that damn pesky registry, where all the malware hides (we think, no-one can be REALLY sure whats meant to be there or not).  Yes your security software will know most of the malware most of the time, but not all of it, and even then many (most?) PC users are paying Symentic, Trend, Kaspersky etc for the privelege.

With few exceptions, all OS's have malware for them, even your beloved Amiga.

 Never said otherwise.  But they don't affect my Amiga.

But regardless, if nothing else it shows that all OS's have different strengths and weaknesses.

Now THAT is a Eureka moment!!!!  Nail-Head.

To get it to do what I take for granted on a modern OS (any of the ones I have mentioned), I would then have to add that functionality back in in the form of hacks, third party replacements (Magellen) and a pile of support software (such as MiamiDX) that on any remotely modern OS comes as standard with.

You have a TCP stack in OS 3.5 and Os 3.9.  DOpus 4 is free, it does the job.

Expectations change. I can do more with an EeePC then I ever could with even a top of the line Amiga and for a fraction of the cost. Amiga, as elegant as the whole thing was could not meet my needs, if it meets yours great. But the rest of the world has moved on.

Absolutely expectations change.  But there still a few little things or not so little things the PC could learn from the Amiga concept.

By the same token though, taking the oposite side doesn't make you right either.

Hey you were the one who sought a safety-in-numbers, not me.

[koaftder]

holy s#it! The size of these replies! T to tha L semicolon D R

LOL

[Hammer]

People have problems in this thread sticking to the example.  I can also switch entire frames by changing a video memory ptr on Amiga. But that isn't the point.

Still limited to Amiga's memory design and graphic's processor speed. You want to start a frame per second race? Let's see HAM8 vs ....

CUDA GPUs have extremely large instruction issue per cycle rate, extremely large registers (e.g. can go up to 512 KByte), super-scalar (dual issue per SP) pipelines, extremely large SMT, caches (both hardware and software managed), high speed memory (and designed specifically for graphics i.e. GDDRx types), Ghz range stream processors(SP), multiple ROPS,Triple digit (e.g. 400Mhz) Mhz dual RAMDACs and 'etc'.

The amount of “Instructions in flight” (both in parallel and sequential(in pipeline)) in CUDA GPU kills any classic Amiga IGP chipset.

Should I bring in ATI Xenos?

[Karlos]

i have a freeware scheduler "Executive" and i can render an animation in cinema 4d, whilst editing scenes and objects in Cinema 4D, send the resultant pics to Adpro for processing, save the files automatically, do a spot of house keeping with DOpus, paint a texture in Dpaint and the Operating System menues are just as fast as if had nothing loaded- on a 50 mhz machine with 16 meg ram

And you had the audacity to call my A1200 machine a frankenstein?

Executive is a complete hack into exec. A very well written one, I might add and one I was happy to use for many years. However, since we're on the subject, why don't you read the documentation and see where the entire motivation and basis for Executive came from? That's right, Un*x. All linux kernels have such a scheduler and modern ones are significantly improved compared to those around when Executive was written.