Thomas Frieden: OS4 Questions and answers

[System]

This is different from 'screen swapping' though right? I mean, you can change from a screen in, say 800x600 and bring a 1024x768 one to the front like OS3.x ?

Yes, support for different screens is an extremely useful feature lacking in all mainstream OSes of today. When users are better informed it may become an important selling point for Amiga.

[J]

Yes, support for different screens is an extremely useful feature lackng in all mainstream OSes of today. When users are better informed it may become an important selling point for Amiga.

I agree. It's one of the things I miss most when using Windoze or MacOS. I hope screen switching is fast though. Yep, could be a big selling point.

J

[KennyR]

It seems we'll lose a lot of nice classic Amiga things when we move to the new Amigas, but I don't think screen dragging is the most important of them - most of us lost that years ago. I'd be more worried by the fact the PC standard drive won't read Amiga floppy disks, since Amiga diskdrives use a less primitive electronic mechanism (no kidding!). I guess I better adf all my favourites now like the emulator boys do, sigh.

[Kronos]

@KennyR

It's noz about being primitive, but just about the number of
stop-bits which is hardcoded into every PC-floppy-controller
(and the A1 has one of those in the southbridge).

But there is hope in the form of the aadapter developed in
Australia (planned for Amithlon. but should also work on the
A1 or Pegasos) and off-course the announced new Catweazle.

[KennyR]

Oh, and I forgot - the A1 will have to use a Windows keyboard, as far as I know. I hate those things, with their weird keymaps and truly perverse number of function keys. And the caps-lock doesn't have a light inside. And why doesn't that pause key work? ;-)

btw. if you want pause a 3ghz PC the best way is to insert an unformatted floppy - freezes the beast up like ice ;-)

[KennyR]

@kronos

Quite correct. But if I remember, the reason the PC-clone went for this setup was one of cost-cutting. Not that it needs it now :-O

The original (ISA) catweasel wasn't too hot, I hope the next one is better. It sounds just like the right solution.

[Rodney]

Screen dragging could be very very usful in so many different areas. Being a software engineer, i can already think of many. One of which you had already mentioned. I would love to have screen dragging. It wouldnt bother me if i couldnt have screen dragging between two different resolutions, i mean, i dont see why one would want to use two different resolutions (cept for games maybe, but who can play games and code at the same time?)...

Screen dragging is a must have, but i think i could do without the multiscreen resolution factor.

But maybe they can impliment screen dragging for at least screen with the same resolutions? Creat workspaces, which cosist of the same resolution and when you switch to that workspace, you can drag screens in the same workspace, over the top of other screens in that same workspace?

I would love to have this feature in amigaOs or any OS for that matter!!!

What you think?

[vortexau]

Well, I STILL use screen-dragging when I'm doing a letter. I use a Citizen GSX240 on OS3.1 and a util called 'Envelope' which opens on WB.
To enter in an Address I DRAG down the WB till the Address on the letter in ProWrite becomes visible.
Then I COPY and PASTE each line from ProWrite to the 'To' part of 'Envelope'. The PENS conflict makes Colours go astray as the Pointer is moved from one Half-screen to the other but I can live with that!

In OS3.5 I don't have this feature because of P96!

..............................................

4 SCSI Hard Drives (only had a single 52Mb Quantum at purchase).
1 SCSI Zip Drive. (Not working)
1 SCSI Toshiba 3X CD-Rom.
1 External HD Floppy Drive.
1 56K Modem plugged into standard Serial port.
2 Printers through a switchbox.
1 Vidi Video Frame Grabber, also in switchbox.
Card- GVP HD8+ (only for second SCSI addaptor).
Card- PicassoII 2Mb Graphics Card. (Can display Dragged-down screens).
Card- Blizzard 060+SCSI. (Accellorator, RAM, and SCSI).
Card- CBM Display Addaptor. (Flicker-fixer, PAL displays to SVGA).
Daughter board- 3 position Kickboard. (1.3, 2.05, 3.1).
Super Angus board- changed original 1Mb Chip RAM to 2Mb).

[Quixote]

But maybe they can impliment screen dragging for at least screen with the same resolutions?

;-) That's what I was thinking.  CyberGrafix allows some screen dragging even at different resolutions, though it's less than ideal.  

:-( If the screen behind is a lower resolution, it appears in miniature at the upper left as it is revealed, with empty space to the right.  If the rear screen is a higher resolution, the right hand side is lost off the edge of the screen.  Sometimes the colors are all goofed up, as well.

:-) However, as long as the resolution is the same, it should be feasable.

[System]

i dont see why one would want to use two different resolutions

I would say for the same reasons why some people simultaniously use multiple resolution monitor displays.

For instance it would come in handy when you are developing a website and you want to see (on the fly) what your website looks like with different screen resolutions.

Or think about the future when for example 5120x3840 resolutions or higher resolutions are common for desktop usage, then many of your applications will look like tumbnails on your desktop or their layout could be completely ruined.

Screen dragging is a must have, but i think i could do without the multiscreen resolution factor.

I don't think that would mean much added value as compared to simply having applications running in seperate windows. On AmigaOS4 you can simply drag the window out of the display in any direction and see/use the Window of another application underneath.

[KennyR]

Multiple resolution displays were heavily used in the golden age of Amiga gaming - you had a low-res game screen so it would be fast and colourful but a high-res status bar so the text would be readable. This little thing, among others, gave the Amiga an edge over its rivals, like the ST. People like clever little touches - and it's amazing the uses they can be put to.

The PC hardware market has stagnated - nothing new, no innovation, just faster faster faster... Their hardware hasn't improved in the scope of what it can do, just in the speed it does it in. And we can't blame Microsoft for this one.

[lempkee]

The PC hardware market has stagnated - nothing new, no innovation, just faster faster faster... Their hardware hasn't improved in the scope of what it can do, just in the speed it does it in. And we can't blame Microsoft for this one.

lol..thats like true and false.

Yes the pc is a TURTLE with a turbo...how true.

BUt windows is a OS wich is not a OS really (in my eyes)
i could start a flame here...but surely i wont bother.

Point is , if there was a LOW EFFICIENT os like AMIGAOS on x86 (native kernel) with 10000% x86 kernel bla bla bla.... well then all the mainstream 3rd parties on pc would have been ruined , easy as that ..., as then everything would have BEEN fast and not the UPGRADE dayly style it has now.

and btw i am not saying upgrade suxx , i love to upgrade but i dont like how its done on pc....ie u upgrade monday , on friday same week u regret it because allready a v5.x is done of that revision or the product has been dumped and u will have to buy a new device/io.


look at all the great stuff people is throwing away , its like this in the TV/DVD/VIDEO etc all electronics and PC's , u wont exactly find that amount of amiga or macs etc on scrapyards, actually if u are a lucky amigauser u can find voodoo3,4,5 cards in scrapyards ,
people throw away tv models from 1996 , monitors as new as 1999 ...etc , what a sick world...do we really need it to be like this?
Xbox 2.0 will come ASAP , what will this do the console market? , shall we just LOAN a console in the future (at a local games dealer) ,...

point was.... if a real os ever hits a x86 then 3rd parties will have to be innovative,but until then...a new REDESIGN of the PC wouldnt hurt (motherboard/os ...basically all they SHOULD have done in 95 before win95 came)

btw did any of you guys notice A BIG difference with Gforce 3 and 4 ? , well now u MIGHT! see some difference...  get a hint? .... why upgrade if it doesnt upgrade?.....

i want the opertunity to upgrade,thats all i ask ...and not a OS that makes ME upgrade over and over again (why M$ is multi trillion gazillion richer than amiga id guess + m$ actaully have a marketing section)

heheh ..hmm turned out to be a flame after all ....
sorry...but its the truth...

[System]

lempkee, I partially agree with what you stated, but I don't think an efficient well designed OS will hurt 3rd parties at all. I even believe a modular OS like AmigaOS offers 3rd parties far better competitive oppertunies.

For example webbrowsers, multimedia players and even far more fundamental OS components are not in any way tied to the underlying OS, unlike the monopolistic Windows OS. This fact offers many oppertunities for an innovative competitive market especially when a well established company would offer OEMs the freedom to choose their own components for consumer devices.

Also I don't believe people should be bothered with upgrading their computers all of the time, this even without adding much functionality, but just to be able to use the latest OS, to browse the web and write a document.

Instead there are many more oppertunies for making money, like for instance selling portable hardware and household devices which work seamlessly with computers and the internet. IMO there is a huge potential market for devices like webtablets, digital interactive TVs, PDA and smart phones, at least if they can all work seamlessly together. Amiga Inc's homesever platform and high performance binary indentical layer could eventually provide such solutions.   :-D