Found a newsgroup post I made on 10:th of December 1997:

"Seriously, it is called progress to make hardware as small as
possible, why shouldn't the same go for software? When I compare Win95
against my AOS 3.0, I wonder what the code for Win95 contains, since I
can do almost everything with my OS as windows can, but with much less
CPU power and it does require much less Harddrive-space. And
furhermore there is still things AOS does that windows can't do! I
think you are missing a point here, an os small in size doesn't demand
the CPU power, instead that power can be used for more important
things such as running program.
Imagine AOS on a fast pc, one would be able to run MPEG animations
while surfing internet at javasites etc. "

This was 10 years ago, I used an A1200 with a Blizzard 68030/50mhz 8mb of ram and a 120 mb harddrive, compared AOS 3.0 with Windows 95 on the pc's with Pentium cpu's.

Is this still a valid point today, 10 years later?
Most of todays programs on the pc-side would not even fit on that 120 mb harddrive.

_________________
Site admins are people too..pooff!

@tomazkid

I think thats a common opinion for Amiga fans.

@tomazkid

Agreed that this still is a valid point, in terms of multitasking and OS speed an Amiga still runs circles around windoze machines.

_________________
Amiga is additive coz it is fun to use

Well, this is because the tasks that are running are far more complicated than simple Amiga applications.

Kind regards,
James
x

@Mr-Z

I think the difference would be more obvious if we could run AOS on a multi-GHz processor.

*sigh*

_________________
cheers
tony

Hyperion Support Forum: http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php

@jmbattle
Quote:

jmbattle wrote: Well, this is because the tasks that are running are far more complicated than simple Amiga applications.

On the Windows machine I am currently using there are 30 services marked as "Started". Although there also some useless services running ("help and support", "Windows search",...) I consider most of them as vital for my work.
I wonder how fast AmigaOS would be if one would add services like "cryptographic services", "rpc", "protected storage", "net logon", etc. to it
(This is not a troll attempt! I really wonder.)

Nevertheless, Windows could have a much smaller footprint if Microsoft would think more about what they are doing (DDE/OLE, (D)COM, COM+, ActiveX, .NET, ...)

In theory, services shouldn't use much resources, unless they are actually used.

But a large "service" that's in constant use can really use lots of resources, as Windows 98 (with the hardware of that time) nicely demonstrated.

Having "Microsoft Internet Explorer" integrated to the system made it clearly slower than Windows 95 (mostly thanks to multiplied memory usage) and it also made the system less stabile. Also, this problem became even worse if the user used a better web browser and ended up having two of them sharing the same resources (And of course especially back then it was a very good idea to use a better one - and it was the MSIE that was "the unnecessary extra", not the other way around)

Of course you can remove MSIE from Win98 with unofficial software, which actually makes the system roughly "as fast as Win95" (Haven't done any tests, but it "feels" like that)

@Jupp3
actually you can remove msie from both w2k and wxp but as that will force you to use an alternative version of w.update I have never bothered. (plus it is easiest to modify an installer with this and add various cool stuff. the adding cool stuff took so long time that I never really finished my attempt).

_________________
Yes I own an Amiga. A non-upgraded A500 that is unpacked once every 3 years.

If you are going to quote me, do so fully or not at all.
/Ins

@ara

Quote:

On the Windows machine I am currently using there are 30 services marked as "Started". Although there also some useless services running ("help and support", "Windows search",...) I consider most of them as vital for my work. I wonder how fast AmigaOS would be if one would add services like "cryptographic services", "rpc", "protected storage", "net logon", etc. to it (This is not a troll attempt! I really wonder.)

Well, we probably cant test it yet. However, in the past people argumented
that AmigaOS does of course boot and feel faster because it doesnt start
an USB stack and a TCP/IP stack and gfx board drivers, doesnt support font
smoothing, a GUI with nice images and gradients etc. Now it does it and I guess
the average OS4 installation still boots and feels faster than the average
Windows machine. Hm, you can try if using the encryption plugin of FFS2 slows
it down enough.

Dont get me wrong, I'm of course not talking about things which require
raw processor speed etc. And of course you can argue that starting IE
must be slower than starting IBrowse or AWeb just because of the implemented
features.

The list of running tasks/processes after OS4 booted up is quite longer
than on OS3 AFAIK.

@jahc

It's also the view of Microsoft believe it or not.
The have already done something along those lines several times as a test exercise.
They just don't seem to be able to take it that one step further.
Perhaps worried about alienating current users with lack of backwards compatibility.

_________________
If your nose runs and your feet smell, you're upside down.

@tomazkid
It was not valid even back then... Yes, alot of programs do run/start up faster, the system is more responsive and such but it does not mean that it will be any faster for cpu intensive programs like video decoding. If you look at the Windows/Linux task manager you will see that the system does not really use that much cpu in the background. You should only see spikes of 0-3% or so from the system itself unless there is something wrong with your installation. Where AmigaOS wins when it comes to performance, is with lightweight apps like simple word processing, mail applications, chat/im, browsers and such. Of course it does not hurt with heavyweight programs/games either, but the difference wont be noticable at all and a 50mhz amiga system will of course be lagging ages behind even a p1 system.

You can also take the AmigaONE with OS4 as an example... It is no faster than a pc with similar spec when it comes to dvd playback.

Last edited by Tomas on 29-Nov-2007 at 03:44 PM.
Last edited by Tomas on 29-Nov-2007 at 03:43 PM.

@ara

The problem with Windows is that it is messy. You have many applications running all of the time and as a user you don't really know what they are doing. Some are accessing the drive lots are hidden under the svchost name and there are a good few dozen others in there using 10Mb on average each. I hate that - I really do.

On an Amiga you knew what you were running at any one time and this increased security it nothing else. Now I know that the Amiga isn't having to do as much as my Vista PC but this way of running an OS is less than great. Also the fact that a PC has so much HD space and RAM seems to encourage bloat. For example - I'm running Firefox now and it's using 25MB of RAM - Thunderbird is using 35MB. Now okay we don't have a comparable browser but YAM is certainly a comparable email program - it doesn't need 35MB just to run. Is Thunderbird 35 times better than Shadow of the Beast?

I think not. Yet even if the Amiga was alive now and also had access to so much resource I still don't see it encouraging bloatware. Guess we'll never know.

_________________
Sam

@Tomas

Quote:

Tomas wrote: @tomazkid It was not valid even back then... Yes, alot of programs do run/start up faster, the system is more responsive and such but it does not mean that it will be any faster for cpu intensive programs like video decoding. If you look at the Windows/Linux task manager you will see that the system does not really use that much cpu in the background. You should only see spikes of 0-3% or so from the system itself unless there is something wrong with your installation. Where AmigaOS wins when it comes to performance, is with lightweight apps like simple word processing, mail applications, chat/im, browsers and such. Of course it does not hurt with heavyweight programs/games either, but the difference wont be noticable at all and a 50mhz amiga system will of course be lagging ages behind even a p1 system. You can also take the AmigaONE with OS4 as an example... It is no faster than a pc with similar spec when it comes to dvd playback.

you just said programs run/start faster and the system is more responsive...not to mention the OS starting faster... it is a valid point... OS's shouldnt be as big as vista. and dont tell me there are heaps of programs....I dont need gigs and gigs and gigs of their software. the OS should be light so the computer IS responsive, load times are fast and it doesnt take a big chunk of hard drive.

on a dual core PC with 2GB of ram XP is ok but still not as fast or as responsive as a computer should be in 2007... i think its the fundamental problem with computing today, combined with slow storage. the world is waiting for a fast loading responsive PC. I doubt windows with its array of uselessness will be part of that.

_________________
In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

http://ozconspiracyhouse.myfastforum.org

For me, the real question is: why isn't Windows faster?
Sure, it has lots of complicated stuff running in the background, but why?
And why is it so difficult to remove unwanted items (note:I have limited Windows experience)?
Why do "dormant" apps make the machine slow down?

I know you can remove many, but that would keep you configuring the machine for ages and still be left with unwanted stuff.

I've had numerous problems trying to install Windows versions, especially if I wanted to go back to a past edition (which, contrary to what MSoft thinks, I should be allowed to do).

Last edited by BrandonLee on 29-Dec-2007 at 01:01 PM.

@BrandonLee
Windows suffers from a number of basic design flaws, compounded by the need to be mostly backwards compatible with programs written 15 years ago (Windows 3.1) . And when Microsoft *does* try to fix inherent design flaws (by loosing compatibility), then they risk alienating or even loosing their customer base (see Vista). So it's not entirely Microsoft's fault, although people might overlook those problems if they could produce something that's really *far* better than current Windows (which Vista is not).

It's *possible* that the next version of Windows after Vista may actually be a lot better, by making an incompatible version of Windows that runs old programs using some kind of Virtual Machine (ala OS 9 on OS X). Assuming that Microsoft is actually capable of such a feat, and doesn't botch it... Linux/Mac need to grab a lot of market share before then (which thankfully they seem to be, touch wood).


I don't claim to know the inner workings of Windows, but it's handling of virtual memory (actual swap space) is quite poor - it often seems to store things on disk well before it has run out of memory, unlike Linux. Although I'm not sure why they haven't fixed this, since I can't see that this particular 'feature' would affect anything - unless Microsoft simply dare not touch some things, because they are too complicated to risk it.

edit:
Also, the "pre-emptive multitasking" seems to be a lot worse than the Amiga, or even Linux - some busy task can stall the rest of the machine (even the GUI). That's probably a scheduler issue, but I suspect that would break a lot of existing programs.

And just take a look at the memory used common Windows tasks: LastFM.exe is using 40MB in an INactive state, explorer.exe (sort of a Workbench equivalent) is using 30MB at the moment (even though it's mostly been replaced by DOpus 6), Windows Defender is using 22MB in an inactive state, Nokia PC Sync is using 22MB in an inactive state, etc. In short, Windows programs tend to use vast amounts of memory (as if it were infinite), which is OK until you have a normal computer with a lot of stuff installed, then you run out of memory quickly and it has to swap to disk (which is veeery slow). 2GB of memory sorts that out, but it is kind of ridiculous.

Last edited by ChrisH on 29-Dec-2007 at 01:24 PM.

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@ChrisH

I can't see Windows getting any better unless it's rewritten entirely from scratch, forgetting about full backwards compatibility (I like the way OS4 compromised, for example).
And I can't see that happening either, since Microsoft would probably lose most of their user base AND would be left with precocious OS in their hands. By precocious, I mean buggy and (relatively) untested, even with MS gigantic team of programmers. To add to that, the Linux threat makes it even more risky for MS to make such an aggressive move.

I know they can't go the way OS4 went (JIT) because of their enormous system dependencies.

Could the end of the line be near for Microsoft? ;)

OS4 takes 110-130 MB. My XP takes less, 90-100 MB.

And XP is lot better and loaded with bunch of drivers.

_________________
May the force be with you...

@Srbin
OS X has lots of nice points, but it isn't perfect. For example, it's handling of threads is supposed to be quite poor due to it's ancestry. I would certainly not be surprised that it's memory consumption is higher, but that's likely partly due to all the wizzy graphical effects.

Last edited by ChrisH on 29-Dec-2007 at 01:30 PM.

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@eniacfoa

Quote:

eniacfoa wrote: @Tomas Quote: Tomas wrote: @tomazkid It was not valid even back then... Yes, alot of programs do run/start up faster, the system is more responsive and such but it does not mean that it will be any faster for cpu intensive programs like video decoding. If you look at the Windows/Linux task manager you will see that the system does not really use that much cpu in the background. You should only see spikes of 0-3% or so from the system itself unless there is something wrong with your installation. Where AmigaOS wins when it comes to performance, is with lightweight apps like simple word processing, mail applications, chat/im, browsers and such. Of course it does not hurt with heavyweight programs/games either, but the difference wont be noticable at all and a 50mhz amiga system will of course be lagging ages behind even a p1 system. You can also take the AmigaONE with OS4 as an example... It is no faster than a pc with similar spec when it comes to dvd playback. you just said programs run/start faster and the system is more responsive...not to mention the OS starting faster... it is a valid point... OS's shouldnt be as big as vista. and dont tell me there are heaps of programs....I dont need gigs and gigs and gigs of their software. the OS should be light so the computer IS responsive, load times are fast and it doesnt take a big chunk of hard drive. on a dual core PC with 2GB of ram XP is ok but still not as fast or as responsive as a computer should be in 2007... i think its the fundamental problem with computing today, combined with slow storage. the world is waiting for a fast loading responsive PC. I doubt windows with its array of uselessness will be part of that.

I was not disagreeing about the OS being faster and more responsive. I was disagreeing about cpu intensive programs/video decoding being significantly faster. Try for example to playback a xvid on a amigaone and you will see that it wont use noticeable less cpu power compared to similar cpus running linux, windows or similar. Even windows use only 1-3% cpu while doing nothing and this really wont make a noticeable impact on cpu intensive software like games, video decoding/encoding or similar. You might see a perfomance increase with games if you are very low on ram though, since amigaos use less memory compared to windows, linux or osx.

@tomazkid

Your comparison was not valid even then. You're comparing apples and oranges.

Hardware grows smaller, yes, but only because companies find ways to make the wires in a processor smaller. This is a physical matter, and there is a very real limit which the engineers are starting to come up against. By your argument, the fact that we can now store the same amount of data from several hundred Amiga disks onto one CD-ROM means that software has gotten "smaller". Obviously this doesn't make sense.

A far more accurate comparison would have been to compare the complexity of hardware, which in fact has exploded over the decades, and is comparable to the complexity of software. I have read that AmigaOS 4.0 appears to be huge in comparison to AmigaOS 3.0. Is that because the developers involved were incompetent, wasteful, etc.? Of course not.

Several problem have contributed to the size of Windows, but primary has been the attempt to be all things to all people, including the ability to run early versions of MS-DOS. Since MS-DOS was a fairly pathetic piece of software, they had to run through all sorts of hoops (including the fact that IIRC each version of Windows 9x was really just a GUI laid on top of DOS). In addition you have all those APIs that Windows tries to maintain.

Amiga doesn't quite have this drawback, because AmigaOS 1.0 was a new, "clean" design. Unfortunately, it had two huge problems, which continues to plague AmigaOS 4.0 and Hyperion's developers have discussed: no resource tracking and no memory protection--in fact, not even the ability to provide real memory protection without new APIs and a redesign of the kernel. If that is ever done, and if backwards compatibility is somehow maintained (through a VM say) you will see AmigaOS' size grow even more--and already some people have complained about the size of 4.0.

_________________
I've decided to follow an awful lot of people I respect and leave AmigaWorld. If for some reason you want to talk to me, it shouldn't take much effort to find me.