26 Mar
2002
26 Mar
'02
9:17 p.m.
> > This and that is still was a BASIC machine
with no real disks.
>Come on, first of all, a basic like the QL Super Sasic is quite
>different from everything else you know ... QDOS is a multitasking
>OS, and the Basic incooperates all features to use the windowing
>and taskingsystem from within. it is jut not comperable to all the
>MS-Basic crap found on 90% of all old homecomputers.
Hmm...
It *was* revolutionary for 1984, this is true.
And is still one of the best Basic around.
However, QDos is not a
/true/ multitasking OS; it relied on co-operative time-slicing. So, one
badly written task could hog the whole machine (not uncommon...).
Well, true multitasking is as soon as one can have severale
tasks running quasi parallel. Cooperative or not doesn't matter.
In fact I'm a big fan of cooperative system - way less OS overhead
in terms of CPU usage.
SuperBASIC was - still is - fantastic. It far
outstripped ALL versions of
BASIC available at the time, and (IMNSHO) was not really superceded until
Visual Basic 2 or 3 - and even then, VB's main improvement was the forms
designer. OTOH, the "window" facility was vastly over-rated. Unfortunately,
however, it wasn't possible to harness the tasking system from within
SuperBASIC - that required machine code.
With the 'Pointer Environment' (?) the QL was way ahead.
>And adding a disc controler wasn't that
expansive (720K 3.5"), if
>your need did ourtgrow the microdrives.
Erm, it did back then... A basic single-disc system
(3.5", 720K) +
interface cost circa GBP400. The first Winchester disc systems (5MB) cost
over GBP1000 when first available.
Which was a total rip of in both cases. Building a FDC for the
QL bus was straight foreward aut of the design handbook.
> > I found out that it cost APPLE $100 ??? to
make the $500 ??? floppy
> > system for their computer reading the history of the apple from a web
> > site.
>That's called best bussines practice :))
Capitalism: Charge what the market will stand - no
more, no less.
Always charge a little bit more, otherwise you don't know
if you're not too cheap.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/