Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!gcwilliams
From: gcwilliams@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Graeme Williams)
Subject: Re: Archimedes Suggestions
Message-ID: <1991Feb12.212522.14434@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Sender: gcwilliams@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <1991Feb11.124128.2990@cns.umist.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 1991 21:25:22 GMT
Lines: 45

In article <1991Feb11.124128.2990@cns.umist.ac.uk> vanaards%t7@uk.ac.man.cs writes:
>[stuff deleted]
>  Why place the Econet roms in the machines OS as standard ? How many users
>  actually use Econet.

Not me, but then just how much space does the Econet code use?

>  The MEMC chip needs to be replaced, I believe that the current page size
>  is far too large - this is apparent on UNIX boxes.

And be able to address a whole lot more than 4Mb. Lets say 4Gb,
that should take care of any expansions for the next year
(maybe even *two* yrs :-) ).

> I'd like to see faster screen updates regardless of mode. Now I haven't
> any sound ideas on how this should be done - perhaps a second bus and
> screen memory, or a BLITTER chip ?

Does this mean I'll have to learn how to write code for a second chip??
The nice elegant ARM code is plenty enough complexity for me. Also
having screen memory separate would spoil the simplicity and elegance of
things. (I'm a great believer in keeping things clean and simple and
efficient, for a reason why one only has too look at a 386 running DOS.)

"Blitter chip" - sounds like Amiga or Atari. No thanks. Crank the ARM's
clock speed up another notch instead.

>[stuff deleted]
> Group selection of icons within a window would be useful. If you're familiar
> with the Atari machines you'll know what I mean. Being able to have a rubber
> banded selection area would make things a lot simpler when operating upon
> a lot of files.

Doesn't the desktop enviroment do this? I know if I want to copy a bunch
of files from one place to another, I go click-click-click on each of the
files (BTW they almost never fill a rectangular region) then drag them
inside a rubber band as *one* group to the other directory/device.

Here's one thing I'd like to see. The graphics code in ROM for drawing
circles and rectangles and such like appears to be very inefficient,
it'd be nice if these could be made faster (like by a factor of 3 or 4
in some cases - I believe this is possible)

Graeme Williams - a Kiwi in Canada
gcwilliams@watdragon.waterloo.edu
