Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
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From: taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett)
Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future)
Message-ID: <1991Jun25.221925.11815@news.iastate.edu>
Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
Reply-To: taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA.
References: <D2150025.izm3tm@brain.UUCP>,<13420@uwm.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1991 22:19:25 GMT
Lines: 52

In article <13420@uwm.edu>, gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block) writes:
>From article <D2150025.izm3tm@brain.UUCP>, by chuck@brain.UUCP (Chuck Shotton):
>> 
>> In article <43643@cup.portal.com>, morris-ng@cup.portal.com (Yuklung Morris Ng) writes:
>>> Oh, Amiga DOES NOT need a lot of desktop space compared to Mac, as we have
>>> screens, which a lot of Mac users still not quite understand...
>>> 
>> 
>> Well, that shows what a wonderfully intuitve box the Amiga is, doesn't it?
>
>Actually, yes.  Either that, or it shows that MultiFinder is
>counterintuitive, because it is quite similar...

   Multifinder is very distantly similar.  On an Amiga, you can have as many
screens as chip RAM can hold, and switching between them is very rapid any
uses essentially zero processor time.  On a MAC, it is fun to run a program 
like StuffIt and then switch to the Finder.  It can take the OS as much as
half a minute to redraw the desktop, even on a MAC SE/30.

   The MAC does NOT have multiple screen capability.  It has software 
almost-virtual-multiple-screens-loaded-from-disk.  When you switch to a 
different application's "screen" under multifinder, the current screen 
is saved to disk and the screen of the application is loaded from disk.
The MAC has only one area of memory reserved for the display, and this 
area is wiped and redrawn when you switch applications under multifinder.

   On the Amiga, you have truly seperate areas of memory reserved for each
screen, allocated in a dynamic fashion.  When a new screen is created, a
new area of chip RAM is set aside for that screen.  A single hardware register
determines which screen is the frontmost screen, and other registers 
determine how the screens are 'layored'.  

   For an everyday description, the Amiga's multiple screens is like having
multiple pieces of paper in a pile, and bringing the sheet of paper on the
bottom of the pile to the top is easy.  The MAC is analogous to having only
a single piece of paper, that has to be erased and redrawn.  

>
>Greg
>-- 
>Socrates:  "I drank WHAT????"
>LMFAP:  "Next time you see me, it won't be me."
>Wubba:  "A dream is nothing more than a wish dipped in chocolate and sprinkled
>with a little imagination." (From my poem, "A Dream")			-Wubba

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