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whose

Re: A possible bug in the p96 GetBitMapAttr function

Posted on: 2010/11/14 12:31 #101

Just popping in

@Deniil

No, no, Der_Wanderer just made a typo... he told you, that 24 bits is the real color depth of a standard 32Bit screen (24 bit colour information plus 8 bit alpha channel information, which is not colour information!). So, 24 bit depth is correct for 32 bit bitmaps supporting 8 bit alpha channel.

If you want to know if the chosen screen supports alpha channel, read the format information given by GetBitMapAttr().

Edit: typo, me too...

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whose

Re: 1 gig in micro

Posted on: 2010/10/22 3:30 #102

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@netrot

Hm, so it seems that the GX Micros are more sensitive to RAM problems than the FX ones. Its a pity... sometimes having 1 GB RAM would help a lot.

Seems I have to wait for the X1000 and, much more important, for the money to buy it

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whose

Re: 1 gig in micro

Posted on: 2010/10/21 23:25 #103

Just popping in

@netrot

Well, finally I got one, too. Sadly, it doesnt work at all. Btw., which type of MicroA1 you own? FX or GX CPU?

@all: Dont buy those modules without testing them before. The Micro is very sensitive regarding RAM and most modules wont work at all. I tested several 512MB modules and none of them worked...

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whose

Re: Help: Putting 3114 in XE

Posted on: 2010/9/8 22:55 #104

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@nbache

I checked it... the A1-UBoot doesnt support SII3114 boot.

SAM-UBoot was modified to make it boot from the internal SII3114, as this is the only controller available on a plain SAM machine

Maybe UBoot betas are able to boot off a 3114 within a A1, but they are not out in the wild...

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whose

Re: Help: Putting 3114 in XE

Posted on: 2010/9/8 18:00 #105

Just popping in

@Rigo & Paul:

I vaguely remember that the A1 UBoot isnt able to boot off a 3114 based SATA controller. Only 3112, and even not all types of it (I own one which is RAID supporting, it is even not recognized by AOS4 drivers. Ranger is showing it in the PCI listing).

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whose

Re: Something missing from AmigaOS's Screens concept

Posted on: 2010/5/14 2:02 #106

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@whose

Oh, just an idea... for ReAction/MUI programs it should at least possible to drag them into another screen. Ok, its not suitable for opaque dragging, but for a simple dragging it should work. Its the mechanism that was already mentioned. The thing when e.g. Screenmode prefs were changed. In case a ReAction window is dragged into another screen, it could receive the message to close and reopen the GUI window. This way the screen pointer problem is circumvented (correct message handling is mandatory for such programs anyway).

Ok, it wouldnt work for non-ReAction/buggy programs and might lead to trouble, as Intuition would not be able to determine if the program changed its screen correctly, but it would be a start for future/updated/fixed programs at least.

Edit: typo

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whose

Re: Something missing from AmigaOS's Screens concept

Posted on: 2010/5/14 1:37 #107

Just popping in

@ChrisH

Hmm, I think thats what custom screens with "SHANGHAI" were meant for. The problem is, that some programs ignore the custom screen concept totally and explicitely open on Workbench screen instead. The other way round, most programs offering the option to open on a custom screen ignore the SHANGHAI flag/feature, too.

But from another POV, it would be much cooler to just drag those windows onto the other screen. But I think this is impossible right now, because this would imply an on-the-fly change of screen pointers which might collide with the often applied practise of buffered screen pointers and screen locking for the lifetime of the window/GUI.

Maybe its possible to install a mechanism for window-to-another-screen dragging in parallel to the old API, making it possible for future/updated applications to actually use this feature.

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whose

Re: Memory protection and tasks/processes

Posted on: 2010/4/22 2:27 #108

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@Hans

Quote:

Hans wrote:

Having talked to someone who has lived in Iran, I would say yes, they are. For example, Catholic clergy won't threaten to beat you if you question whether the bible really is the word of God; don't try that with the Koran in Iran. In fact, Catholic clergy (and I suspect most Christian clergy) would probably be more than happy to discuss the origins of the bible, and why the church teaches what it does, assuming that you're genuinely interested. You're allowed to question church teachings, just be prepared for a detailed answer.

Hmm... give the Pope the power from inquisition times back and see what will happen.

And I bet that there are Iranian clerics who are rather open-minded, although they would have the power to threaten people who are of other mind.

But all this still doesnt explain why I should be like an "Iranian cleric".

Just because I think that MP is not the holy grail?

Quote:

"Already I had learned from thee that because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false. Nor, again, is it necessarily true because rudely uttered, nor untrue because the language is brilliant. Wisdom and folly both are like meats that are wholesome and unwholesome, and courtly or simple words are like town-made or rustic vessels ? both kinds of food may be served in either kind of dish." -- St. Augustine

How true...

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whose

Re: Memory protection and tasks/processes

Posted on: 2010/4/22 2:18 #109

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@kas1e

Quote:

kas1e wrote:
Because we all live in real world. We always see apps, which need fixing, fixing and one more time fixing. In reality, from all the os4depot uploads, can you found many apps, which not need to fix, or which was done for the first version without bugs ? Imho not so many, or none at all.

At least some native applications are there, not crashing and working as expected.

In fact, the highest number of crashing applications is located in the group of ports of programs developed on MP enabled systems. Go figure.

Quote:

Even AOS4 is good example, how long way was for the aos4.1update1 (which more or less bug free now, if compare with even os4.0 final, or betas). And that is not because bad coders, that is because it's real problems, when need testing, bug hunting, and so on.

Even here are examples of bad coding. AmigaInput is a quite good example.

Quote:

And MP just help any developer to work more easyly. I just only about, that OS always reboot by any problematic programm and that is weird for everyday and real usage.

Well, its weird for you and this is ok. But what about people finding it not as weird as you?

Quote:

For now, i fully agree with total removing of 68k support inside the OS, and put all that emulation to e-uae. And let's at last aos4 start to be modern OS, which, then, can attrackt more users, commercical companies (maybes) and alt.

Why do you think that a "modernization" which resembles to mimic a un*x like OS would attract more users? I dont see this and there are lots of examples for my POV out there. There are lots of un*x derivates out there which are even not a hobby OS, they are just a curiosity.

Curiosities, at least with full MP, resource tracking, automatic stack extension, more or less working gdb and so on. Seems MP helped them a lot not being simple curiosities, hm?

Quote:

Because i know how everything happenes: user run os4, run any bad programm , os freezes. User think - ah, ok, any bug = freeze of os. No thanks.

Ah, I see... thats why there are still users interested in OS4/SAM/X1000? Because they think "No thanks"? I believe you (and others) underestimate the appeal of Amiga because youre frustrated by the quite bad development tools we actually have. Not to speak of the API chaos that was invented in the hope to get something done. We will see when we actually get e.g. MESA. And how good it works.

Quote:

Imho that is real, and important problem and let's be 68k already die if that stop to make Aos4 modern.

What about you using any "modern" OS available out there? What prevents you from using e.g. Linux with E-UAE or Windows with WinUAE? They are there, why dont you use them instead? They are "modern", hardware is cheap, development work is a joy there (according to you).

So tell me: Why dont you use them?

Quote:

I not say that need hide the bugs. Let's it be optionally (for developers). Then, users can swith it on/off for bug reports, coders/programmers always will have it ON when works. But MP and resoruce tracking, will avoid AOS from reboots/freezes and hangs. Users which switch that off, just will see that programm buggy, and remove it from memory/kill taks/process/remove windowses/does not matter how.

I think you dont know much about MP within an OS. It will hide many bugs from you just because of the way MP works.

If it werent this way, many bugs in e.g. Windows applications wouldnt exsist. There are quite simple stack problems for example. Why are those not fixed before a program was released? They went through unnoticed.

Quote:

And now here (winxp) mostly bugs are "security related", and users have their winxp runnings by years with no problems (with running and killing bad apps, with coding and so on).

Hmmm... isnt MP said to make a system more stable and secure? Why are so many security problems there? Why is it such hard for a multi-billion business to avoid those security problems on a system with full MP? Why does MP not help them to find those problems forefront?

Quote:

AOS can have the best from other world (why not), just if core developers will want to make it modern.

But what is "best"? Compositing for example, which is way too heavy for the machines actually available? Which needs a rather expensive machine to be used to its extend?

CUPS as a driver system which will not bring drivers for modern printers, as most modern drivers are developed for Linux x86, some as closed source, some as drivers not using the full capabilities of the printer?

"Best" is quite relative. Actually I see mostly mediocre or bad solutions taken from other worlds.

Ok, these days its near to impossible to develop new, really good things, as we lack developers and, even more important, money. But I really believe that a lot of development power is wasted in the attempt to get "the best from other worlds".

Quote:

Of course integration of MP for first will buggy, with problems, etc. But need to start to works on it radically, with removing 68k, with adding/changing api, etc.

As I said: No radical change needed, all those nifty APIs, MP, SMP etc. etc. are already there.

But you would have to use them. I strongly believe that there are reasons why you dont use them...

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whose

Re: Memory protection and tasks/processes

Posted on: 2010/4/21 1:58 #110

Just popping in

@kas1e

Quote:

kas1e wrote:
:) You think all the coders want to be "excellent coders" ?:) I can say that i hate programming, and hate coding, and i always think that "good coders", it's ppls with big glasses, without womans, without money, without femaly and such. Because of it, i hope i will never be "excelent coder" with start fever and big ego.

hmm... you think, prejudice is a good way to make things better? I dont.

Quote:

Why i say that: because as Orgin point, there will be all the time, and always bad programs from any coders. From bad one, from good one, from even Excelent Coders With Big Glasses Over The All Head. I can see all the times how "excelent coders" do bugs in their "excelent code". Because it just umpossible to do any big project, in fast time, without bugs.

Why should it be "umpossible"? Because there are always "bad coders" who could do their bad coding for a long time with the help of full MP? Coders who could commit bad code to a big project which slip through unnoticed? Coders who give us "big projects" on platforms with full MP, projects with lots of quirks and plain bugs?

I tell you something: Those bad coders would leave quite fast, if their bad practices would be rejected by users. Simple market principles.

As it is now, little typo errors up to really bad bugs are "accepted" because it is said over and over that its impossible to avoid these bugs and "all is fine as long as the OS doesnt crash". And this saying is plain wrong. It is possible to avoid those bugs, but it isnt done at all. Another market principle: Make more money with less effort. If "umpossible", make the customer believe that bugs are "normal".

Quote:

And saying today, that "no, AOS is Fine already ! but let's coders be excelent, and the OS will be stable..", it's .. it's some kind of "ideal world", which of course will be never happenes, and more of it, some of us (i am) , just do not want to be "excelent coder(brr)", but still, from time to time i do something when have some motivation, and i am really in uninterest, reboot AOS all the time, when i make a typo/mistake/lazy bug, and running again all those notepads/cubicide/dopus/filers/shells/etc.

Well, if youre not interested in learning to avoid all these lazy bugs/mistakes/typos, thats fine.

But I want to learn. And Im not interested in a system hiding bugs from me. I want the system to show me the bugs I invented. I want a system that wont work with a faulty program of mine. A system that forces me to learn.

Quote:

There is must be still something done on OS side, to make live of users/coders more easyly. And MP/resource tracking can help with it for sure. And yes, MP/etc will help a lot to make more better programm even if it try to do bad/lazy programmer, just because, he do not need to reboot all the time his OS when he develop.

Why do you think that less reboots will make "better software"? Because the coder can invent even more bugs to catch by the OS in the same or lesser time?

I believe, the things we really miss are a good debugger (and no, for this no MP would be needed. Just a dogma change would be needed. Away from GNU toolchain) and quality information about the principles the OS uses.

Quote:

It's sometime just annoy so well, that i just power off amiga. Because it's really suck to run everything again, because of every-little bug. And GR here help not so good. It's can catch the bug, then, it happy crash/slowdown system in most of cases.

Then its a quite heavy bug you invented there. A bug that is not a simple typo/mistake. Here most GR go away without crashes/slowdown.

And, not to forget, the OS itself is still not really bug free (not to speak of some hardware). I bet that implementing full MP would introduce even more bugs, bugs that are more harder to find...

Quote:

(that all imho of course).

Mine, too

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whose

Re: Memory protection and tasks/processes

Posted on: 2010/4/21 1:33 #111

Just popping in

@orgin

Hm, did I something bad to you or why youre calling me "Iranian cleric"? Just because I say that the "normal" way of coding need not be the best one? That there are different approaches to the same "problems"?

Clerics tend to reject any new (or not "conform") ideas to handle things. Seeing it this way, you would be the "Iranian cleric". But I would never call you like this. I try to convince, not to blame.

Dont think that I dont know what Im talking about. I had all the problems you told of myself. I needed a lot of time to find my errors. And I learned from them. Some of these errors where of those kind full MP would magically "repair" for me. With this POV, full MP would hinder me to learn, what I did wrong.

In fact, OS4 teached me to become better in coding.

Windows didnt.

Uhm, by the way, why "Iranian cleric"? Are catholic clerics better or more free in thinking? Or any other clerics?

Edited by whose on 2010/4/21 2:00:25

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whose

Re: Memory protection and tasks/processes

Posted on: 2010/4/20 19:38 #112

Just popping in

@ssolie

Well, I hope Hans enjoys the discussion, too, then

@orgin

"People really need to start to understand how the real world works and stop dreaming about magically ending up in a fairy tale 'perfect software' world. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN."

Yeah, you see my point, but you didnt understand it

Well, MP might help to keep the system stable if a "bad coder" (I call them "lazy coders") released his program to the public. But does it help then to make the software better? Does it help to make the bad, lazy coder an excellent one?

No, it doesnt. It helps to drop software quality to a level that is, well, "accepted" by the public. Thats what the origins of the quirks I told of before are. These are e.g. drivers distorting the timing of Windows, distorting other processes, and the OS isnt able to do anything against it. I have to reboot to get rid of them. Until next distortion...

"Accepted" flaws in software engineering that would have been fixed if the OS wouldnt catch those flaws the "comfortable way".

This "help" by catching software flaws in "a comfortable way" supports lazyness of developers, who are more and more working with highly abstracted layers for things that arent as complex in reality without thinking about it.

I never denied the fact that "modern" software becomes more complex each month, levels of abstraction are raising each day, all points that are hard to control by a single coder.

But is this raise in complexity and abstraction really needed? Whats the point of e.g. HD codecs that are modified to more complexity each year? Could you really see a "better quality" in moving pictures? Is it worth all the complexity, needed CPU power, special hardware, money?

I really think that the word "simplify" matches AmigaOS best. If, and only if, we dont go the way of unneeded complexity, we can simplify the experience of computing, even developing, making it fun again, as it was advertised not so long ago. Its no easy way, right, but we still can go this way and if we decide to make the first step on this way, it will become more and more easier with each single step forward.

Theres still one little obstacle: Amigans would have to open their minds to things that arent really new, but will be seen as new, as most people forgot about their existence.

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whose

Re: Memory protection and tasks/processes

Posted on: 2010/4/20 17:16 #113

Just popping in

@orgin

Well, but atm. we have the tools to check the software. Are they really used? How many programs are out there throwing a GR which is not fixed?

Another one: Any of you experienced these "interesting" quirks with some software on systems with full MP? I do each day and I see, that full MP leads most coders to do it with a "well, at least it doesnt crash" attitude.

Not really the path to HQ software, dont you think?

Oh damn, we hijacked Hans? thread

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whose

Re: Memory protection and tasks/processes

Posted on: 2010/4/19 14:53 #114

Just popping in

@KimmoK

Maybe you missed it, but this concept is reality since the GrimReaper was invented.

The problem with crashes is not the fact that a single Process/Task crashes, its the system itself. Even there some cases may occur where MP wont help a single bit. Theres a reason why BSODs occur, or kernel panics.

One could do a big effort to ensure that crashed kernel space processes are killed and restarted, but I strongly believe that this is not a way AmigaOS should go. Its the way to "bloat".

IMHO there should be much more effort in IDE things. We miss a useable debugger. We lack lots of good information about the OS internals (no, internals should not be hidden from application developers. The devs should be encouraged much more not to abuse them by examples how to not abuse them!). Good help is given by sites like utilitybase, or this site here.

This help should be expanded much more, massive information interchange is the key here. It will lead to much higher software quality than MP could do ever. Have a look into other platforms, their driver bugs and quirks, and you will know what I mean.

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whose

Re: USB Printers & OS4.1 on Samflex

Posted on: 2010/3/31 2:45 #115

Just popping in

@rwo

The PCL drivers are hidden in the LaserJet series drivers. LaserJet3 is fine for most PCL driven printers (I used it much with a Kyocera FS-810 until I got my LaserJet4M/Plus with Postscript

).

Theres an old driver example for PCL drivers for a start, too (LaserJet, OS3.x SDKs).

Regards

Topic | Forum

whose

Re: YAM DragNDrop when streaming radio via TuneNet

Posted on: 2010/3/5 2:09 #116

Just popping in

@bean

Ah, ok, so you implemented the separate player task finally... nice

I didnt discover it for the latest version, as I seldom use TuneNet menu once I started playback. I only saw it with the older version (dont remember which one).

Well, I think its not really about ReAction and MUI, its about locking the whole screen, resp. missing "sprites" for display dragging actions. ReAction gadgets lock the screen if they update their contents and MUI needs a previously unlocked screen to display the dragging action. So it breaks the dragging action in case the screen is locked at any time the dragging action takes place. Do I see this right?

I had a similar issue with Workbench dragging, I solved this by checking the screen if its locked and if its locked, I stepped over GUI update until the screen is unlocked again. Its not perfect (race conditions still possible), but quite ok.

I think we have to wait for a solution that permits drawing in the background resp. layer-dependend drawing, so that a program doesnt need to lock the whole screen for actions that take place in a specific layer only...

Edit: Another idea traveled through my brain as I read my text again... what about implementing dragging with a "moving layer"? This way layers.library would be able to reconstruct a layer needed by a gadget in a temporary way, until the moving "dragging object" is out of layer range... its really a pity that sprites where dropped back then

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whose

Re: YAM DragNDrop when streaming radio via TuneNet

Posted on: 2010/3/3 13:41 #117

Just popping in

@bean

You could partly solve this issue by using separate tasks for playback and GUI. GUI is messaged from the playback task regarding progress of playback (timer) and other things necessary to know for the GUI task.

This way you could avoid the full stop on locking menu actions as well

hmpf, typo...

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whose

Re: The Top 100 Amiga Games of all Time

Posted on: 2010/2/19 19:16 #118

Just popping in

@harrison

Is it planned to make the survey data public? I mean, e.g. number of Amigans participated, special data you retrieve on the second page of the survey etc.

Regards

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whose

Re: list of software on sam440 and amigaOS 4.1

Posted on: 2009/12/13 19:38 #119

Just popping in

@jackepc

Amijeweled V1.2 is not available anymore...

it is updated to V1.3 ;)

Regards

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whose

Re: Gutenprint

Posted on: 2009/8/10 19:11 #120

Just popping in

@Mark

Quote:

because as most people involved will know, the Amiga print system is flawed,

Only in that point that it doesnt support application developers very good. But still no reason to switch to another system that doesnt support the developers of graphical software very good...

Quote:

by using Gutenprint/Ghostscript you output in Postscript and convert to the best the printer can do.

You want to say that it is good for e.g. a developer, that he has to output picture rasters to PS first, to get it rasterized further by GhostScript and finally get it rasterized a third time by pstoraster?

Not to mention the RAM demand this chain will have, speak, the user has several problems getting his machine equipped with RAM, just for raster printing...

No question, it is time for some improvements on the Amiga print system, even a page description/layout language could be used in the end (what about PCL?), but I dont think that it is necessary to use (as I said in my first post) a half-finished port of some quite bloated *nix subsystem for this.

The current Amiga print system is still good enough to get the best out of a raster printer, if the matching driver is supplied. The latter one is the real problem we just have, and at first glance CUPS seems to be the solution for this. But in the end it isnt.

Btw., which AmigaOS print software you want to use for printout using CUPS actually? :)

Regards

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