klmartin@watmath.UUCP (K.L. Martin, Hardware) (01/22/86)
I have just finished reading the January Byte article on the 520ST
and feel that I should correct a few things that are in error.
The article is well written overall but there are some technical and
personal observations that I disagree with.
Firstly, photo 2 on page 87 shows a beautiful picture of the circuit
board of the 520. The area labeled "RAM address decoding" is actually
the data path switch controlled by the custom MMU. The two 74LS244s
control the data comming from the CPU to the RAM's and the 74LS373s
latch the data from the RAM's onto the databus. RAM address decoding
consists of the RAS and CAS lines from the MMU, when you only have
16 bits and 16 256K chips you only need one select line to make up 512K...
Now I move on to more grey areas of contention, on page 99 we have the
following:
"And, to move a a file out of a folder matters are further complicated
by the fact that the folder opens to take over the window from
which it derived. You would first have to move the file to a
different disk, delete the original file from the folder, then
copy the file back to the original disk but not within the same
folder, and then delete the first copy you made. It sounds
difficult because it is."
This is a possible way to perform this operation but it is by far the
worst. If I had this problem I would solve it in the following manner
on a single drive system.
a) Enter the folder or sub-folder that the file was in.
b) Reopen the disk by selecting the A Icon.
c) Enter the folder I wish to place the file in.
d) Drag the selected file to the new folder ( to copy the file ).
e) Delete the first file.
The only time a second disk is needed is when the disk is limited in space
and the file is large at that point I would.
a) Copy disk A to B
b) Delete the file from the folder.
c) Copy the file from B to A placing it in the proper folder.
Lastly let me take a pot shot at the software issue on page 100.
The ST arrives with Language Disk, TOS system Disk, First Word,
& DB One. Very few systems come with a Database manager, a visual word
processor, a basic and a logo (mind you the last two are not very
usefull for my applications but they are there in a pinch). For the
above list of software on a Blue machine (no names meantioned) I can see
a rather large dent being put in the pocketbook.
The local Atari dealer has been very helpful in getting any of the public domain
programs to it's customers i.e. Kermit, Neo, STW and the rest. They have taken
an active interest in the ST and although they are not technically oriented
they have not tried to "snow" any of the people here at the university.
My last little rambling is the ongoing discussion between the amiga, mac
and st users. Please stop!! The best thing that can be done is to
concentrate effort on developing the respective machines and quit
flogging a dead issue. I read something once about East is East and West is
West and never the twain shall meet. This discussion is a clear illustration
of this idiom.
Kim L. Martin P.Eng.
University of Waterloo
/*all opions expressed herein may be mine,(short pause) i'm not sure */