Bloat

[Shadowfire]

I'm just sick & tired of all the vocal people saying that Amiga software was great & pc software doesn't compare cause of all that 'bloat'.

Back in 1993 I purchased an A3000/25. Like most people, I had disks of pirated games. Around 800, to be exact.

So I get my shiny new A3000, and the first thing I try to do is play some of my older games. Well, as some of you know, and others don't (or have conveniently blocked from your memory), there was no such thing as WHDLOAD (to fix poorly coded games) back in 1993. In fact, with a straight boot off of 2.04, there were a grand total of around FIVE games, out of about 800 disks, which worked on the new machine.

Now, you could get a few more to work by softkicking into 1.3, and a few more by using Bootcache or other hacks, but the sorry-ass state of Amiga programming (yes, these same games you rave about, quite frankly, had AWFUL programming) meant that very few games were actually playable on the new machine. Some of it was due to the 68030's caches, the VBR, ECS, the fact that expansion memory was *not* in Zorro-2 space, using the "highest address byte" to store data (which was now a valid part of an address), etc, but it all boiled down to the fact Amiga Games programmers, as a whole, had awful programming practices.

Prior to the A3000, I had an Amiga 500 with 1MB of RAM. Even the first 512k RAM expansion broke a whole lot of games at the time. Then, when Kickstart 1.3 came out, I added a hard disk to my A500. While 1.3 didn't break a lot of software (Commodore was still bending over backwards trying not to break badly written software), the # of games which could be installed on my shiny brand new 30MB hard disk was very small, certainly less than 5.

As a former developer, I can assure you, that Commodore had told developers, *well* in advance, all the "rules" for writing software, on the Amiga. Those few that followed the rules (Cinemaware among them) had games that worked on the A3000. The rest, crash and burn.

The point is, some "bloat" is needed in order for software to run on different configurations. If you slam the hardware directly and ditch the OS, of course, you can write "less bloated code", but it also means that you lock yourself into one hardware configuration. YOU CANNOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. You either need to build the flexibility into your program (or "bloat" as you people seem to call it) to deal with different situations, or you don't, and only work with a narrow subset of hardware.

The Amiga never had the flexibility that the modern PC does: mutliprocessor support, 3D video/audio, unified [DirectX] API for 3rd party hardware abstraction, native networking support, virtual memory, protected memory model, etc. Windows 2000 does all of these things. Do you really think that Windows is all that bloated when you consider all of the services that the OS supports? It's like some of you guys completely missed the boat when Microsoft phased out Windows 3.x and DOS...

[Twistin'Ghost]

Well, some of us 'vocal' people (and I only recall two of us being vocal on the subject) don't go around saying Amiga software is great. Well, Fred does, but he also says when it's shit or better on another platform. I rarely comment on the good and bad of Amiga games. I do, however, criticize most things PC (always have, always will...) That's who and what I am and this is an Amiga forum, not an abandonware forum, so expect the obvious slant of views that appear in this neck of the woods! No need to get cranky about it!

You talk about incompatibility of A500 games on your A3000/030...well, I had to deal with that as well when I ditched my A500 for an A2000/030. It pissed me off, too. Most of those games were written in assembly and were not OS compliant. Since instructions tend to change with upgrades to the processor, it's to be expected. Yes, CBM made programmers aware of upcoming changes. And there were unused areas they were told would be implemented in the future and using these beforehand would probably break the software in the future. Why did they ignore these rules? Mainly because the programmers were not registered as part of CBM's development core.

It's been years, so I forgot the name of that division, but you paid x amount of money to obtain kits for developing software on the Amiga. I was sent the brochures about it and the info on their conferences and such (my business partner and I were, at the time, considering developing CD software at the time...we decided it was out of our budget).

You have to remember that during this time, there was a lot of development still being done independently and sold to software houses. Rarely did these people have the dev kits. Even most of the software houses were too cheap to buy them, so they were ignorant to a lot of upcoming ROM revisions.

Another element is the mere fact that software houses were fairly certain that their biggest market (the kids with A500's) would have machines that would play the games. They couldn't have cared less about the odd Video Toaster user who purchased a game for his souped-up Amiga. Frankly, the software industry still has a version of this mindset even today, despite your flowery summary. Where it differed then was that programmers coded to a specific machine's specs primarily (the A500) and used every tweak they could to squeeze performace from that box. That meant a lot of illegal instructions and rule-breaking (as far as proper code goes). Bad programming practices yes, but not neccesarily 'awful programming'. After all, some of the most innovative games of our time could fall under 'awful programming' using your analysis.

I can't agree that "some bloat is needed in order for games to run on different configurations", as you say. For example, when Codetapper fixes so many games to be hard-driveable and patches flaky code, it doesn't add any bloat at all to those games. And those games are not locked into the hardware configuration after he fixes them. Most of those games are hardware banging, OS-ditching, yet they could have been made to work if everything were in a tidy little box then (all developers knowing the rules, following them, making considerations for future systems, etc.) I still contend that bloat is not a requirement except, perhaps, on the PC.

And I realize how many things the modern PC has support for. They have nothing to do with a game, though, really, unless they happen to be used in the game (like serial linking, etc.) Why should all of those things that have nothing to do with a game have to bog a game down? I still find PC games jerky, personally. And when you consider how much horsepower and RAM there is, that's pathetic.

[Maverick357]

I think the same than Twistin'Ghost.
The pc have a lot of memory, power, ect... but the game on it is not very fun if you compare it to an Amiga game.
Now, all games are on cd-rom with hundred mega of video, but this is not the video that make a game interesting to play.

The most important in a game is the good programming code/gameplay/fun, and i must say that today rules of software houses is selling games that are full of bugs, the gamer have just to accept it because they have not others choice than accept it.

And after have buy a game you must wait months to get a patch of xx megas to correct some bugs (if any come out because some software house never correct the bugs).
You must then have the original cd-rom game + a cd-r with the patch for each game that you have buy.
No one game that are sold today don't need a patch.
All games have >2.5 Mega (of compressed datas) of patch.
This is what i call 'legal swindle'.

Now the rules are: you pay a lot of money for broken game and if we have time, we will repair it later.

Maybee with the Amiga games (or any old school game for any old computer/consoles), there whas not working on all computers of an company, but there where optimized at the max, and with very little power/memory/hardware the programmers made games that are wonderfull of playability/fun/stability.:bounce


Today, no one software company programm a game like 'Mr-Do', Dungeon master, or cinemaWare games, because there is no enough difficulty to program it (it is not like a 3D quake that require an high level of mathematics knowledge) to say excuse the bugs in it.

By chance, there is possibility to play with old school game (through emulation) that contains none of bugs, that are not bugged to death, that require very low power/ram, that are very fun to play today 20 years after.:bounce

I buy regularly a modern pc-game (1-2 games per month) and i am allways disappointed because the replayability is poor, there are all bugged and need patched, you cannot make a legal cd-rom backup, and the fun is very short time (for example Civilisation is a game that i like a lot, i have the number 1, 2-ctp1, 2-ctp2) the 2-ctp1 is bugged and sometime crash and return to Win9x and there is stupid rules/programming code that an ennemi can kill your latest 'super hi-tech leviathan' with a stupid 'stone-age warrior, with 2-ctp2 same stupid rules for combat but the game interface is very stupid (low/poor/none information about the selected unit or very complicated and boring interface) and civilisation ctp-2 is a game of 1999. :kill

Don't say that games for pc is good programmed or is perfect because they are far of it.
They are all pieces of shit made from big software house that just want make more money and not a piece of art like the old school programmers.
They uses HLL software not for the good optimized software code, but only because they fast to use and easily converted to another computer/OS.

This is not what i have learned in programming (self-made learning with very good 'old school' programming books !).

Software house today don't want make you happy, they want all you money, every cent, and give nothing back.

[Amiga1992]

I'll just say one thing...

Originally posted by Shadowfire
[...]Like most people, I had disks of pirated games. Around 800, to be exact.[...]In fact, with a straight boot off of 2.04, there were a grand total of around FIVE games, out of about 800 disks, which worked on the new machine.

HERE lies your problem, in PIRATED software. the cracktros fucked up teh aems for yoru new OS. I know because I am a 2.04 user, and back then, a lot of games didnt work. I thought teh GAMES were shite, but when I started nabbing originals I found out that most of them worked while their pirate counterparts didn't.

So blame lame cracker programming techniques, not the game programmers.

If I knew then the ammount of stuff Codetapper knows, I could have fixed the games removing those fuckingcracktros

Ì agree with what Twistin and maverick say. PErsonally that's why for my modern gaming I consider consoles and not PCs. They still have this thing about not being able to patch shit, so the products they churn out for consoles (except PC shovelware shite like Quake perhaps), have a greater quality than what you can expect from a PC game.

Back then games were delayed months and months until they got'em right, and SELDOM you saw an update disk released! Now they just shovel what they got to you to meet financial deadlines, and then patch teh games ad-infinitum.

I spend my monthly cash on console games and not on PC games, ever.

[Shadowfire]

Twistin:

1. YOU were LUCY. You could boot up to the 68000 in your machine instead of the 68030. A3000 owners had no such fortune.

2. Now, you're underscoring exactly what my point was to begin with: bad code is bad code, no matter what the platform.

3. No op-codes "changed" with each new processor (although many did take fewer cycles to complete). Each 680x0 processor had complete user-mode backwards compatibility with prior chips. They also had additional user-mode opcodes, which didn't break prior software (as they were unused). Heck, on the 68020+, they even allowed word/long word accesses on odd-addressed lines, which would generate an address exception error on a 68000. The changes which broke software occurred in supervisor mode, with new stack frames, new supervisor registers, etc. All of those things were stuff handled by the OS. When a game took the machine over it had to explicitly follow Motorola's recommendations for dealing with interrupts. But yet, few did, and many programs broke. The only reason user-mode program would break on an upgraded processor would be either (1) self-modifying code unaware of the cache or (2) software timing loops.

4. If you had enough money to buy a machine & a development kit & get your game published, you definitely had enough money to get minimal (Certified) developer support from Commodore. No if's and's or but's about that one. Minimal developer support included all documentation needed to write system friendly programs. In fact, the only document published by Commodore which doesn't focus on the OS is the Hardware Reference Manual, which DOES detail exactly HOW you should be banging the hardware, and games which followed their directions to the letter also worked on AGA systems without patches.

5. Sorry to hear about the CD development stuff... yeah I know, I priced out the equipment at the time myself and came to the same conclusion. (For the curious, single-speed CD-R drives & crude burning software costed around $15000 at the time. Blank media was somewhat less expensive, at around $50 a pop)

6. When codetapper fixes the games, does he not add a *lot* of software from the WHDLoad suite? Isn't that bloat? Don't you require a SHITLOAD more memory to run the WHDLoad versions than the original?

7. Lets just say that there's an awful lot more going on in Quake than there ever was in any Amiga game ever written. Transcendental math functions, transformation of matrixes, etc. You'd be more accurate to compare a modern 3D game to some of the Amiga rendering programs. And believe me, they need that much horsepower & RAM.

Maverick:

I'm having a little bit of difficulty in understanding your post, sorry. I do, however, agree that QA is unfortunately an aftersight in modern PC games. Corporations force the programmers to push the product out the door in time for next months quarterly results. Let's hope that the XBox can change all that for us. MS is going to use a console model for release of games.

Let me further state that yes I have been stung by this personally. I bought Unreal when it came out without anyone in any review telling us that it ran like UTTER SHIT on any non-3dfx card. I had to wait TWO years for the final patch which made it playable on my system. Needless to say I did NOT buy Unreal Tournament & will never buy an Epic game ever again.

Akira:

No, unfortunately most of the games DID make it past the cracktros. Some didn't, yes, but many did, and subsequently failed after loading, sometimes spectacularly. I had about 2 dozen originals, too. None of them worked on the 3000 except Black Crypt.

I'm going to close my reply to you by sayin, games now are more complex than they've ever been, and therefore, harder than ever to "get right". It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a 200,000 line program has more potential for errors than a 10,000 line program.

[Maverick357]

Shadowfire:

I am not against you because you had 800 pirated games (i had only +-500 games pirated games/software ), but because you say that:

The Amiga never had the flexibility that the modern PC does: mutliprocessor support, 3D video/audio, unified [DirectX] API for 3rd party hardware abstraction, native networking support, virtual memory, protected memory model, etc. Windows 2000 does all of these things. Do you really think that Windows is all that bloated when you consider all of the services that the OS supports? It's like some of you guys completely missed the boat when Microsoft phased out Windows 3.x and DOS...

1)First, don't forget that Amiga computers is dated of 1985, the technology is from 1985 years and not 2001 year.
It is normal that they whas not an high-priced computer like the pc (just for information: back in 1988, i have paid 22500 FB (512,19 $) for an Amiga 500, with an very good OS free, today, my pc is priced at 125000 FB (2845,50 $) and more .
I am not rich, i have buy some basic one and upgrade a lot with only high-quality hardware...
Yes, today i have a modern hi-tech multimedia pc with 3d accelarated graphics card, ect...
But the price is very higher than the amiga.
For the flexibility, there whas the choice of the Amiga 2000 because the Amiga 500 whas an family computer.

Others aspect of Amiga computers: one Amiga 500 (same wb 1.2 or 1.3) whas 100 % compatible with another Amiga 500.
If a software work on it, it work certainly on the other Amiga 500.

Today, you can use high-priced games/software that work on one pc, but work not (or not without crash/reset/incompatibility with another pc because all pc in the world are hardware different.

2) The worst thing in the software/OS in the world is Microsoft because:
- with a very agressive marketing they sold every 2-3 years a upgrade of a bugged to death OS named Windows.
- The users are happy to use it because they think that a OS that crash/reset/ is bugged/ is incompatible with himself is a standard.
Microsoft sold millions of it every upgrade, and they users/buyers are happy :kill

Don't say that an 600-1000 Mb OS like windows is better than a Workbench 3.1 that need only 25 Mb on a hd because that is not true.

If you look inside the Api of Windows, you will see that winxx is just a piece of shit.
Most of the APi is usefull (like directx) but are very complex to use, are bugged, or use a technology of 1980 (Like the file format name of 8.3 because the long name of windows is a trick, they don't really exist, and you can see that if you go in the command line).
The reality of Windows is that windows is not an OS but only an graphical interface on the Ms-Dos 7.xx (and you can verify yourself, just change a flag in a config file 'Ms-dos.sys'

[Paths]
WinDir=C:\WINDOWS
WinBootDir=C:\WINDOWS
HostWinBootDrv=C

[Options]
BootMulti=1

BootGUI=1 <==== set this to zero and reboot, you will be in the ms-*dos OS.

DoubleBuffer=1
AutoScan=1
WinVer=4.10.2222

Yes, Windows is not an OS but really an graphics user interface with dosextender and some multimedia library, that's all.

I prefer a real OS like the Workbench that use modern functions, that is optimized in size and speed, and that the API whas wonderful of easy to use.

What i hate today, it is hear how wonderfull is windows and what wonderfull are the software of today.

I have buy original cd-rom of Windows 3.1 (disks 3.5 but i don't have anymore because i hate this buggy windows), the cd-rom of Win95 (bugged to dead too), the cd-rom of Win98 OS release2 (bugged too, need a lot of 'upgrade' on the MS server) but i will never use the win 2000 or later release.
The size of it is big like 2 cd-rom an they need 512 Mo of ram if you want use it. Really foolish to use this shit.
All the power is used by the OS.
If today, a new Workbench come out for pc, i will immediately by it because this is what i call a 'modern OS', like the Mac OS for example.

[Shadowfire]

Maverick:

Yes, the Amiga is an older, simpler computer. It was much easier to make an OS stable when it only took up 256k of space. Of course, Windows does much more than AmigaDOS ever did, so of course it's bigger.

When people start whining about Windows being bugged, that 95% of the time it's "pilot error" [thats a nice way of saying the user screwed up] and 5% of the time it's "hardware error". <1% of the time is it "Windows error".

By pilot error I mean: screwing around with things you shouldn't be touching (registry/.ini settings, or **installing beta software**)

I have 3 machines. 1 runs Windows 2000 Professional, the others run Windows 98. The Windows2000 box IS my MAIN machine and has locked up on me ONCE in the past year when using some beta software. The Win98 boxes only lock up on me when running beta emulation software. I don't get sudden spontaneous blue screens of death, but then again, I don't have a gazillion 3rd party programs running in the systray. I don't have any beta device drivers installed. Beta = asking for trouble.

A lot of people complain "windows SUCKZ it crashes all the time". What these people don't realize (or choose to ignore) is that Windows is only a part of what's running on your system: applications and 3rd party device drivers all have the run of your system (ESPECIALLY on Win9X). If a device driver or app hoses your memory space, Windows is going to try to stop it, but quite frankly the memory protection model of Win9X isn't very good. Once a program starts trashing system memory, forget it. No OS on the face of the planet can keep your system up once its internals are hosed, not LINUX, nothing. NT/2000 is much better with regards to this, since they are better about protecting undeclared space.

I'm sure that we can all agree that if it weren't for the fact that anyone can create a PC system, they would still cost multiple thousands of dollars to purchase. We can all agree that MS took far too long to drop 16-bit compatibility, DOS baggage, and get a unified hardware abstraction layer. But even MS learns from its mistakes, and improves its software.

While Win9X does have DOS installed (it needs it for the DOS compatibility boxes/reset to DOS mode) I can assure you that the windows kernel and device drivers do not do ANY DOS calls WHATSOEVER (unless you run a program in the DOS box, in which case most DOS calls are trapped and emulated). The 8.3 filename you see is baggage left over from DOS - you don't ever need to use 8.3 filenames inside Windows programs. It's there for the DOS box. Want proof? Boot up WinNT or Windows2000 and use NTFS, not even a whiff of DOS on that installation. The flag you mention simply tells the computer not to boot Windows up. It is not proof that Windows is built on DOS - that era ended with Windows 3.X. The FAT32 driver is DEFINITELY not a DOS driver (the DOS FAT32 driver doesn't support long filenames).

Also, your perceived memory requirements are kind of insane. 512mb of RAM is only needed if you're going to be doing stuff like Image editing, or running Windows 2000 Advanced Server. You really need 192mb with current software. More is always better, but your system will be adequately functional with 192mb.

Finally, if they were to release a Workbench today for the PC that was competitive with Windows, it would BE Windows. It would be saddled with having to deal with all sorts of different hardware, or it would only work on boxes built by Amiga Inc. (which would cost 3x as much as a normal PC, and the only thing you could upgrade would be the processor or memory).

And if you crave stability, stop running all those beta programs & device drivers-

* Don't get a bleeding edge ATI video card. Get something like a Geforce instead which has had 2 or 3 years of bugfixing in its drivers.

* Don't get a "noname" soundcard. Actually, as far as soundcards go, at this point in time if you're willing to do without fancy 3D audio, and have an ISA slot, a Soundblaster 16 or AWE32 is the ideal card, Windows drivers have had about 6 years to mature, does stereo 16-bit audio, great DOS compatibility for those old games, etc. The SBLive! still can have issues under Windows 2000.

* DON'T get a "noname" socket-to-slot converter!! DON'T get a generic noname motherboard!! DON'T GET A CYRIX or AMD PRE-ATHLON processor! ALL BIG NONO's IN THE QUEST FOR STABILITY!!!

* TRY to AVOID USB devices if you can. USB is *still* experiencing unpleasant growing pains. The only thing I seriously recommend using USB for is game controllers.

* DO go to Windowsupdate frequently and download the critical updates!

* and finally, if you feel an urge to use beta software remember that even after you've quit out of the software it could still have hosed memory and you machine could quite possibly crash when you attempt something else which accesses the altered data. I can crash my Win9X boxes EVERY time by running EPSXE then quitting out of it using the "close" box on the window (instead of the Exit option in the menu) then trying to run EPSXE again. Remember, its called BETA for a REASON.

[Maverick357]

First i have none of 'noname' hardware and all drivers are updated immediately when i go on the company website.

My cd-writer is a Yamaha, my soundcard is a Soundblaster live, my motherboard an asus, my videocard is Creative labs, ect...
I never use low-cost hardware.

My HP 520 printer work fine many years long with win9x, today same configuration, just the motherboard is changed, and i cannot use my printer with win9x because the text printed is only trash.

With Dos or Linux, no problem, my printer work fine, perfectly, in the command line and in the x-window.

If that is not a prove of instability, then what you need for..

For memory, i have today 256 Mo of ram and windows need a swap file (just after booting and run Win-commander) of > 79 Mo.
Some time after a day of using windows without reset or crash, i receive message from win9x 'not enough memory to run this program'.

Don't say to me that Win2000 need only 192 Mo because this is what Win2000 ONLY require to run, if you want use another program like a game or a wordprocessor, you are death because 'not enough memory to run this program' will be the message that will come again, and again,...

Are you working for Microsoft or have you some auctions of Microsoft, maybee this will be explain why you love so much Winxx and the product of Microsoft...

[Twistin'Ghost]

Before I respond, I'll mention that I split this thread since none of this has arse to do with Faery Tale Adventure.

So much has been posted on this thread since I have been able to get on and read this, I hardly know where to begin. I do agree that I was on the right track and shadowfire either has some connection to the PC industry or Micro$oft, as all of these stupid comments blaming all problems PC on beta software, user errors, etc. and nary a blame in sight to Micro$oft is awful strange. Especially considering the fact that we all know better.

@Shadowfire
- My A2000 did not have the option to boot into 68000. It had an 030 processor and that was it. Sure, I could pop an 000 chip or rom switcher in there, but I didn't have those things, so in effect, I couldn't do this. Either way, you later dismiss the incompatibility issue of the op-codes anyhow, so what difference does it make? We didn't buy the A3000 because we did our homework first and were aware of certain limitations that came with being an A3000 user regarding backwards compatibility. If you didn't, I hate it for you.

- I never denied that bad code was bad code, but that is not what we were discussing. We were discussing bloatware. And just because bad code exists, doesn't dismiss the fact that bloatware exists, as well.

If you had enough money to buy a machine & a development kit & get your game published, you definitely had enough money to get minimal (Certified) developer support from Commodore. No if's and's or but's about that one.

Not true. There are ifs ands & buts: you talk of 'affording' the development kit...the starting coding teams who were programming from their bedrooms and selling their wares to the softco house likely couldn't afford it, but at the same time, the software houses many times simply didn't bother, afford or not. And even if they had said kits, every programmer of games released by them were not done by an 8-5 staff that clocked in and out everyday with these tools at their disposal. More often than not, the development team was completely separate from the publishing company. I think we have all read enough horror stories from the developers about their dealings with the publishers, including the typical being ripped off of money, among other things. We are talking about impassioned programmers, not the kind of mindless zombies churning out games now with their pre-fab 3D engines tied into 3D drivers, graphic cards and the OS. Let's call a spade a spade here...your parallels are completely unfair!

When codetapper fixes the games, does he not add a *lot* of software from the WHDLoad suite? Isn't that bloat? Don't you require a SHITLOAD more memory to run the WHDLoad versions than the original?

You're delusional, dude! No, a *lot* of software from the WHDLoad suite is not added. Since you obviously don't know, I'll explain. You install the WHDLoad 'suite'. The archive for that package is 120k!!! You think that's a lot while you defend PC games and OS? And as is discussed in a different thread, the memory requirements can very often be reduced by a switch in either the command line or in the icon for the WHDLoad game. But those that need a WHDLoad version due to incompatibility with their too powerful machine typically have these minimal memory requirements that you refer to as SHITLOAD. Perhaps you can elaborate on that term with some real examples.

- Your comments about how much more is going on in Quake than in Amiga games was a bit condescending, I think. OBVIOUSLY more is going on in a complex 3D game. Nobody ever stated anything to the contrary, so I fail to see your point. My point was how much horsepower a PC already has and how crap the games still are. And I stand by that. By your rationale, there's not enough horsepower out there to service a 3D dungeon game with bitmapped textures and realtime 3D views. And you ignore the neverending patching issue entirely. Why does everything PC games related have a tidy little excuse to go with it, but the games that didn't work on your A3000 are unforgivable?

Yes, the Amiga is an older, simpler computer. It was much easier to make an OS stable when it only took up 256k of space. Of course, Windows does much more than AmigaDOS ever did, so of course it's bigger.

Gawd, what a patronizing comment! So the OS on your A3000 only occupied 256k of space, huh? And it's all about how much more Windows does. Your tone is so snobbish towards the Amiga and so cozy with Windows, I wonder why you are even here in the first place! Furthermore, there's a lot more to an Amiga than the OS. Windows does a lot of things in software because the PC architecture was not created with being a multimedia machine in mind. The Amiga has custom co-processors that the PC doesn't, so you cannot look at the size of the OS and expect that to explain away how complex the machine is. Despite this, there's still a lot of things the AmigaOS does that is far more intuitive than Windows does even today. I'll not elaborate on that because if you don't know, then you are not an Amiga user and it's not my job to teach the differences in the two OS's. And I have no desire to 'convert' you to the Amiga camp.

When people start whining about Windows being bugged, that 95% of the time it's "pilot error" [thats a nice way of saying the user screwed up] and 5% of the time it's "hardware error". <1% of the time is it "Windows error".

I'm very curious as to what source these statistics come from. How could you possibly create these figures without knowing everything ever user on the planet is doing? You can't. You are fabricating figures from nowhere! 96% of the time pilot error...LOL!!! Windows <1%???? You're on crack, dude! Show me your source for these figures, otherwise this is a 'faery tale'...

The Win98 boxes only lock up on me when running beta emulation software. I don't get sudden spontaneous blue screens of death, but then again, I don't have a gazillion 3rd party programs running in the systray. I don't have any beta device drivers installed. Beta = asking for trouble.

You only speak of how it affects YOU. There are other users with other hardware configs, other software installed. Just because everything works perfectly for you except for beta software does not mean that your conclusions are defacto. If the systray was only for Windows OS apps, why are other programs allowed to reside there? I run Win98 on a LOT of machines at work and at home. They lock up all the time and there is no beta software in ANY of them. Especially at work! Yet we have issues all the time with software such as Adobe Photoshop, Quark Xpress, etc. Out of the box, no pirated versions, no beta version, clean OS installs. You aren't factoring in networking, memory differences, etc. And on those systems at work, the only third party software in the tray is Norton virus software (which is not beta, btw...)

Just because you have different experiences with whatever it is you do on your machine, does not explain away that we are all making stupid users errors, using buggy beta software, and that Windows itself is doing almost everything by the book!

Enough....this message is way too long already...

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by Shadowfire
[B]Maverick:
...It is not proof that Windows is built on DOS - that era ended with Windows 3.X...

I am no PC/Windows techie, so I am probably not qualified to argue this. But what is all of that DOS shit going on when the system boots up? The loading of drivers, the DOS screen, etc. - isn't that DOS? Or is it an emulator? It just looks like DOS going through its usual motions to me, and then Windows loads up after the fact. Am I missing something here?

Finally, if they were to release a Workbench today for the PC that was competitive with Windows, it would BE Windows. It would be saddled with having to deal with all sorts of different hardware, or it would only work on boxes built by Amiga Inc. (which would cost 3x as much as a normal PC, and the only thing you could upgrade would be the processor or memory).

Lame arguement. Windows in itself has to deal with all sorts of hardware, so yes, a PC Workbench would have the same issues to deal with. And yes, it would cost 3X(ish) more because it doesn't have the built in numbers of users that the current model does. A given. But the whole arguement misses the boat. Workbench works with a different processor and architecture. They were created to work together. It's unfair to compare that functionality with how it would/could function in a PC box because the Workbench would not be Workbench anymore if it had to cater to a PC and all existing software which was written for Windows. You could make the same remarks about any and every other non-PC OS.

And if you crave stability, stop running all those beta programs & device drivers-
[...]
The SBLive! still can have issues under Windows 2000.

It appears everything doesn't function perfectly under Windows 2000, despite previous reports. Is SBLive! beta, too?

Although I haven't quoted your big DON'T DO list of things to not do in the quest for stability, it hardly adheres to your previous PC stability comments. Of course, none of it is Windows problems. How is a PC user supposed to know all of the DO's and DON'T's of what hardware and software will magically make Windows happy? You dismiss away USB compatibility issues as 'growing pains', which seems all nice and tidy, but if it were an issue on the Amiga, I'm sure it wouldn't be treated with such a kind assessment from you. Is USB hardware the culprit?

Finally (yes!), not only beta software hoses memory. It's not as if programmers say "OK, it's beta...be sure to chew up the memory until the final version, then we can clean up behind ourselves..." Any software at any time can mishandle memory. Likewise, beta software can also handle memory properly if it is coded that way. As you said earlier, bad code is bad code. The beta flag does not mean: we trash your memory.

[Drake1009]

Originally posted by Shadowfire
[B]Yes, the Amiga is an older, simpler computer. It was much easier to make an OS stable when it only took up 256k of space. Of course, Windows does much more than AmigaDOS ever did, so of course it's bigger.

I agree that Windows has it size from somewhere. And that Workbench haven't been completely unstable for me always either. Still Workbench has been far more stable than my Win9x. That's because of non-standard products.

When people start whining about Windows being bugged, that 95% of the time it's "pilot error" [thats a nice way of saying the user screwed up] and 5% of the time it's "hardware error". <1% of the time is it "Windows error".

Dang I've been blessed with a computer within the last 5% it seems. My whole system is a bleeding hardware conflict. Hurray for standards which define something about how things should work.

By pilot error I mean: screwing around with things you shouldn't be touching (registry/.ini settings, or **installing beta software**)

By pilot error you obviously also mean installing drivers for your software, the newest even. Or is that considered Beta too? I installed DX 8. It crashed my system completely, the only way to prevent it from sending everything crashing is to make sure not to install any drivers other than windows Standard drivers before touching that. Then there are still things which crash frequently. Of course I'd need drivers to use my hardware otherwise it wouldn't be right right? Ok so my system is now running with the newest NON-beta drivers. It still crashes a lot. Why? Other 3rd party products? I've managed to get a blue screen and complete crashes by installing windows, DX, and new drivers and then updating IE. That's all it takes to get me a blue screen. Again it seems random when it decides to do it. And now answer me honestly. If no 3rd party software whatsoever was to be installed, would that mean nothing but windows? HEY I CAN LOOK AT MY DESKTOP *Desktop blue screens for some reason*

A lot of people complain "windows SUCKZ it crashes all the time". What these people don't realize (or choose to ignore) is that Windows is only a part of what's running on your system: applications and 3rd party device drivers all have the run of your system (ESPECIALLY on Win9X).

Standards again are a thing of the past. Drivers are needed to use the hardware, otherwise it won't work right.

you don't ever need to use 8.3 filenames inside Windows programs. It's there for the DOS box.

So you're saying that unless you use DOS specific programs you won't have a problem with 8.3 filenames? Please do tell that to all my burner programs. When trying to put together a CD from files scattered around the harddisk which have the same 9 first characters and the same 3 last characters it will do it right. Unless of course you intend to put the files in the same subdir at which point it will tell you there's a filename conflict even though maybe windows hides it from you normally. If you move the file to the same dir windows will be so nice as to change the filename and update it's table or whatever it stores the long filenames in for you.

As for Memory. Well Windows is a big memory hog, and with good reason too. Problem is as you said software which doesn't give back your memory. Workbench had this problem as well with some kinds of software.

Finally, if they were to release a Workbench today for the PC that was competitive with Windows, it would BE Windows.

Correct me if I'm wrong. But didn't workbench use direct browsing of your filesystem, and icons you could activate for more than minimized programs on the desktop long before Windows started using that? As for other OSes I don't know how they work.

And if you crave stability, stop running all those beta programs & device drivers-

- in fact. Stop running other drivers at all. Just use the windows standard drivers which will allow you stunning 256 color graphics in 640x480 mode if you're lucky.

* Don't get a bleeding edge ATI video card. Get something like a Geforce instead which has had 2 or 3 years of bugfixing in its drivers.

And if someone want this piece of sh*t GeForce I've got here I could have a good reason to get me a properly working graphics card. I just bought Megaman X4 for the PC today because it happened to be a good platform game from before the 3D nonsense era, only to find to my (not really) surprise that it wasn't able to pull the game at the full speed because of the GeForce's crippling 2D capabilities.

* Don't get a "noname" soundcard. Actually, as far as soundcards go, at this point in time if you're willing to do without fancy 3D audio, and have an ISA slot, a Soundblaster 16 or AWE32 is the ideal card, Windows drivers have had about 6 years to mature, does stereo 16-bit audio, great DOS compatibility for those old games, etc. The SBLive! still can have issues under Windows 2000.

I have a SBlive now. It works a lot better for me (i think, maybe it's also conflicting with my hardware, it seems to be what's keeping my Emulation speed down) than my AWE32 which sent my old computer crashing every 5 minutes in spite of the latest RELEASED-CREATIVE-NON-BETA drivers. Here I go again with the standards. There ought to be some. I know the Amiga isn't without issues, but as far as I know there are clearly defined standards which ensure better compatibility.

* TRY to AVOID USB devices if you can. USB is *still* experiencing unpleasant growing pains. The only thing I seriously recommend using USB for is game controllers.

BTW. USB has been given up. Thank god for that. My USB still doesn't work one bit. Well maybe a bit if you consider spitting out random AscII characters on the printer.

* DO go to Windowsupdate frequently and download the critical updates!

-definition of update : Take out old Bugs. Put in new bugs.
The amount of new bugs can easily be calculated with this formula

NB = RB * 2
where NB is new bugs and RB is the amount of old bugs

I'm not going to say the Amiga is completely problem free, and that it would be much better than the PC if it was updated as regularly. That would be impossible. What I'm saying is that the Amiga hard/software from what I know (very little) seems loads more stable and compatible than the PC (at least from where I'm standing). It would of course have it's disadvantages too. No system can be without it, but saying Micro$oft is the only way to go is wrong. The only reason that might be right is because of M$'s aggressive marketing which have kicked most of the competition out of the way. They have the power to do virtually what they want because there are so many users.

Internal Memos which have been leaked seem to indicate M$ is seeing Linux as a threat. You should rest assure M$ will find a way to try and kick out Linux from the Market.

Take IE. Why is that so much better at working with all pages than the other browsers? Because M$ conveniently changed the standard HTML conventions to fit them. There are clearly defined outlines as to how HTML tags should be made. M$ changed their browser's specifications so what would be 100% compliant with the HTML standard would not work right with IE and because so many people use IE by default (standard browser in newer Windows) those people trying to make alternatives are having a very hard time because they can't just make it like the standard if it has to be good. It also has to be MS-standard.

As for the DOS Windows 9x is built on (I know you say it isn't, but it's still running on top of DOS, you can actually prevent the "it's now safe to turn off your computer" from coming up and just dump you back in dos instead) I quite like that since many of the good games on the PC doesn't really work with Windows. Another reason M$ is so powerful. Many games were developed for the M$ system. Jumping ship to more stable solutions would mean leaving a lot (and I mean a LOT) behind. I wouldn't cry too much over the ability to play such games as UT, Aliens vs. predator or hot-dang-here's-a-new-3D-game. But I'd miss the DOS games and the early windows games which were actually good some of them. I bought my Amiga mostly because of those games which I had played a lot of on the PC (and because I remembered some games which never made it). The PC was not working with them anymore, and the games didn't really look all that good either.

Well I think this is more than enough to write, I've made a lot of mistakes in this post and made a real idiot of myself. No need to take it further I think.

I think the bottom line is. In spite of it's crashing nature I still like my PC, though there are fewer and fewer games which work (I want to play Simon but my Creative shitboard won't let me) properly it's still what I use most. There are still games developed which I think are good, in spite of the 3D graphics which some people diss. Just remember. Because it's 3D it isn't nescesarily better. Take Oddworld : Abe's oddysee and Abe's exoddus. 2D games, albeit a bit old now they're still examples of good PC games (Probably because they originated on the PSX). I had hoped to see the next game on the PC, but it seems M$ slipped some money under the table and now the game seems to become X-box only. I don't play much any longer anyway, it's just not really fun any more. When I do play there's greater chance that I'll fire up my Amiga and use that than me using a PC game.

Just please don't go kicking the things about like this. Everything isn't black and white. The PC isn't nescesarily the bad guy.

And don't go praising the Amiga too much either. It would probably be coping with many of the same problems did it get as many different manufacturers.