UseNuggets

COMP.SYS.CBM: The breeding ground of programmers and users alike. Let's see what topics are showing up this month:

Let's Poll Together

Throughout the past few months, Paul Allen Panks has been conducting a poll on Commodore Business Machines' greatest success stories and most momentous flops. Although some biased opinions exist, many have agreed that the C64 was a success, while the 264 series (Plus/4 and C16) was a flop. After that, however, and few agree.

Ymodem vs. FX, Round -1

The many people who use Craig Bruce's ACE environment know that he recently added support for a special transfer protocol, FX. Proprietary in nature, FX supports very large buffer sizes and can achieve throughput of 200% or more over standard protocols like Ymodem or Xmodem. The downside of FX is the necessity of compiling an FX "server" on a UNIX host in order to utilize the protocol.

While not newsworthy in itself, a discussion about which standard protocols are fastest kicked up some dust. Many were inquiring about DesTerm support for Zmodem, causing Ismael Cordeiro to note that the DesTerm protocol implementors chose to optimize existing protocols rather than introduce new ones.

A lively debate started, as Craig Bruce noted that even the fastest implementations of Ymodem were no match for FX. Ismael countered by calling the comparison unfair. Ismael noted the drawbacks of FX being proprietary and not available for all Commodore users.

Also, Ismael explained the reasons for FX's increase in throughput over standard protocols. Packet size was a large factor, as FX uses a much larger buffer size. However, FX suffers when retransmissions are necessary, since the time between handshakes (which occur between packets) is much longer. When using a comparable packet size, FX and Ymodem are competitive.

Operating System Support

In last issue's USENuggets, we discussed the conversations stemming from the proliferation of operating system ideas on comp.sys.cbm. (C=H#12, Reference: usenet) We noted that many expressed a need for programmers to support the ACE computing environment, written by Craig Bruce. Upon noticing this, Craig responded:

   "I, of course, support the idea of other people building more
   applications for the ACE environment.  I also support the idea of
   using ACE applications with other operating systems.  ACE was built
   on the idea of providing a well-defined Application-Program Interface
   (API), and any alternative OS that can emulate the ACE interface (using
   a "middle-ware" layer of software) can run all of the existing ACE
   applications.  Thus, a new operating system can have a base of (a few)
   high-quality programs available instantly (high-enough quality that even
   _I_ use them).  Admittedly, I have to update the documentation on the
   ACE API, since it changed in Release #15, but the basic functionality
   will always be the same.   

   In addition, I also support the idea of other people using ACE code
   inside of their own operating systems.  Why re-invent the wheel?
   Especially useful may be the dynamic-memory stuff and some device
   drivers.  ACE is Public Domain software, so you can do with it
   whatever you please."


 The "More Power" Swiftlink (An Update)

And Speaking of Operating Systems...

Since the last issue of Commodore Hacking, at least two more operating systems have been announced. One, OS/A65, is detailed in this issue of Commodore Hacking (Reference: os). Another, called COMMIX 2, will encompass an object oriented operating system. The system is comprised of multiple sub parts, including:

Networked X Input/Output (nXIO), the communications sub system COMMIX Object Format (CXOF), an object and code description format nXIOtee, the object oriented programming language.

For more information on this networked OS design, check out its WWW site http://www.cynapses.com/ry/cx2/cx2home.html

Last Updated: 1997-03-11 by Jim Brain