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From: hadeishi@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (mitsuharu hadeishi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: More Electronic Arts Bashing...
Message-ID: <2507@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Jul-87 14:54:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: husc6.2507
Posted: Fri Jul 10 14:54:21 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jul-87 11:51:20 EDT
References: <3526@well.UUCP>
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Reply-To: hadeishi@husc4.UUCP (mitsuharu hadeishi)
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Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
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In article <3526@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes:
>	General EA Bashing:  EA claims to offer to its artists a state-of-
>the-art program development system.  This means an Amiga with a CSA Turbo
>rack with the Manx compiler, right?  *Wrong!*  It means an IBM-AT with the
>Lattice cross-compiler.

	Well, not completely true.  I agree that native development is
superior to cross-development, although both is even better (having
an AT to run the remote debugger is great.)  I personally have always
done native development, and I think you are right, it has contributed
to the general reliability of the stuff I've done on the Amiga.
EA, however, developed the AT cross-development workstations because
they were committed to Amiga development long before prototype machines
were available.  I should note that they put a large fraction of their
development staff on the Amiga out of pure faith in the machine and
a desire to work in a state-of-the-art environment, despite the
fact that it was very iffy at the time whether the Amiga would even
get to market at all.  I should note that this was a great risk
taken by EA, and it was not at all a money-driven decision (they
had most of their top developers working on the Amiga way back before
it was even a news item to most people).  The AT stations were necessary
because there was nothing else to develop on; they were running
a simulation of an Amiga on an AT.  Later they turned it into
a cross system, which many people there still use, but not all.
They have long known of the advantages of the Manx compiler, and
many (I'm not sure how many) of them have switched (including
Dan Silva, for DPaint II).

>	EA should seriously examine these issues.  It could well be the root
>cause of a lot of the, shall we say, "fluff" in their products.

	I agree.  There is a good argument for native; I prefer
native---but note that EA had put in a lot of effort getting tools
for people to use on the cross systems, and it was some time before
alternative native environments were available.  (Also, many of them
*bought* their ATs, and in the middle of projects to switch to native
would have been a pain.)  As I say, people like Dan Silva have switched
to Manx, so others may have too (I haven't been around there recently.)

				-Mitsu