[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
LLUCE vs. METAL: A losing battle
I picked this up this morning off the FutureNet. This is directed to those of
you that sent me E-mail saying that LLUCE was going to make METAL look like
a childs toy. I'm afraid that METAL STILL has the advantage and it's so large
that it is NOT even funny. I too, have seen the LLUCE demo and I must say. I am
NOT impressed in the least bit. It isn't even a Logical next step fro ACOS!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number : 64 of 64 [ METAL Questions ]
Subject : Lluce van Pelt (sorry)
Addressed to : All
Author : The Captain at The Captain's Quarters (#1@#3)
Date Posted : Sunday, January 17th, 1993 02:47:12 EST
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I managed to locate a copy of the "LLUCE.DEMO" that has been on some BBS's. By
doing nothing more than reading the "LLUCE.REF" file, it looks exactly (and
reads 95%) like the orignal docs for Acos 1.3!!!! (yep, it does, word for
word... ye'ol search-and-replace coming into effect).
Things Lance has copied from the Metal concept:
EXIT to a prodos program (which Metal calls QUIT or QUIT TO)
ANSI ON/OFF lets some (not all) of the program code do Ansi output. Metal
lets you re-map ALL ptse (no matter where it comes from - program, post,
or whatever) into ANY emulation you desire (ansi, vt100, Pascal, etc)
CLS dumps a control-L. Whoopie. We've had this forever. It's called CLEAR VID
or PRINT CLEAR
DISK LOCK/UNLOCK basically kicks AppleTalk offline. Gesh! Metal LIKES
AppleTalk. It was written to be HAPPY with AppleTalk.
EXIST tells you if a file is there or not. Metal lets you use FILEINFO$ which
not only tells you if a file is there or not, but it tells you the type,
how big it is, when it was created, when it was modified, if it has a
resource fork, etc. In other words, just like a Catalog line.
FLASH some weird screen saver for the GS. Shifts colors when a clock times
out. Like I said, weird (and worthless - give us a REAL screen saver)
FMTDATE$ returns the current date in "formatted" output. Let the BBS do this
so that sysops can customize it!
GOTOXY Metal uses PRINT AT(X,Y), which is automaticly (and transparent to the
program and the user) converted to the correct emulation codes. LLUCE
looks like it only know ANSI and TTY. Bummer.
HOME Puts the cursor at the top of the screen. We do a PRINT control-X. And
again, we support all, not just Ansi.
INVERSE Ansi inverse. Why not PTSE?
LOWER$ Converts to all lower case. Metal can go lo, high, flip, and even do
a "name shift" by changing "tc wilson, the captain" to "Tc Wilson, The
Captain".
LTRIM$ removes leading spaces (flush-left). This one is a fresh one, but how
many times are you going to use this?
MIXED$ well, he ripped this one off of Metal, pure and simple. This is our
CNGCASE$ mixed-case mode.
NODE one really useless command. Just returns a constant value (this was in
Acos 1.4 beta that got floated around)
NORMAL <sigh> ansi again...
OVERLAY load an external ml program. Yes, he is allowing 8k modules. Metal
allows 24k, plus you can even "segment" your modules out to make them
larger.
RTRIM$ kills all trailing spaces. Again, how often is this needed?
UPPER$ ripped it from us again!
LLUCE finally expanded out those nasty RAM-spaces to four (4) areas of 256
bytes each. This give LLUCE 1k of ram space.
Metal has always had flexable and dynamic ram allocation from a 20k memory
chunk. This means you can have 4 or 40 areas, or one that is 20k long
(FutureVision regerually uses an 8k chunk for network routing).
LLUCE still has 20k segment limits with 20k-segmentlen for the memory.
GEEESH!
Metal has a 16MEG segment limit with 26K of variable memory that can be
shifted out to a huge 512K variable memory.
LLUCE has a 4k editor, with only a line-editor built in.
Metal's editor use whatever variable memory you have left; this means you can
have from 26k to 64K of editor space. (Consider that ProTerm has 45k of editor
space). Metal also has both a line and a full-screen editor (guess which one
gets used the most?)
LLUCE can only manipulate one MSG file at a time, and his MSG files are
limited to text only, and are prone to corruption and "super growth".
Metal can manipulate up to -four- MSG files at once, we can handle both text
and binary (even in the same message record), and are not subject to
corruption and growth.
LLUCE only knows his externals by name, and only knows of one way to call
them.
Metal supports THREE types of externals: package units, names, and shell. And
these guys know how to call each other and pass control to each other.
Metal allows aliasing shell commands to something else. For example, type
"FIG" and Metal will find out that you meant "EDIT +F 0/METAL.CONFIG", which
means "edit, using the fullscreen editor, the metal.config file"
LLUCE uses 128k and only gives you 20k of program space, 20k-programlen
variable space, 1k of ram space, 8k externals, and 4k of editor space?
GET REAL!
Metal uses 128k and gives you 16megs of program space, 26k to 512k of variable
space, 20k of ram space, 24k+ externals, and 20k to 64k of editor space.
Want more?
Okay, LLUCE uses 24-bit math, with 4-char variable names.
Gee. That sounds familar.
Metal has had 24-bit math and 4-char names and 31-char labels and multi-file
sources and procedures and long-ifs and whiles and do's and pops and pushes
and var stacking and local vars and local labels and running programs as
subroutines and irq-managed modem drivers and flashing and beeping chat pages
in the background (even during a file xfer) and... well.
You get the picture.
I'm not even going to TRY to compare FV4.0 to GBBS. Let alone 5.0 to GBBS.
It's like comparing a F-15 to a Sopwith Camel.
Both will get you there; the F15 will get you there a LOT faster, with a LOT
more style!!
Tc Wilson/The Captain \ / Wilson Wares
\/\/ / Po Box 12203
FutureNet: #1@#3 -or- #1@TCQ \/\/ Columbus, Ohio 43212
It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on their
dignity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------