aer@alice.UucP (D. Rosenberg) (01/15/86)
I have a few questions about the 520 ST I'm curious about:
Speech synthesis: is there any?
Sound digitization- ditto?
Is it true that, by fiddling with interrupts, one is able to
get more colors on the screen than normally?
Multitasking- is there any?
Are double-sided disks and single-sided disks compatible/incompatible
with each other and with their respective drives in any way(s)?
Any meaningful responses appreciated-
I still can't decide between an ST and an Amiga...
--
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#D. Rosenberg "Disclaimer: I'd never want to hurt anyone with My Opinions"
#(..{ihnp4,research,allegra}!alice!aer) sansom@trwrba.UUCP (Richard E. Sansom) (01/16/86)
---------- >I have a few questions about the 520 ST I'm curious about: > Speech synthesis: is there any? > Sound digitization- ditto? > Is it true that, by fiddling with interrupts, one is able to >get more colors on the screen than normally? > Multitasking- is there any? > Are double-sided disks and single-sided disks compatible/incompatible >with each other and with their respective drives in any way(s)? >Any meaningful responses appreciated- >I still can't decide between an ST and an Amiga... The ST has no speech synthesis in hardware, although I've heard that several people are working on some software based stuff. Also, I don't imagine it would be too hard to add a speech synthesiser to the RS-232 port. By "sound digitization" I assume you mean a built in synthesiser of some kind. Well, there is the General Instruments sound chip (I forget the actual chip number), and it does provide some very limited control over sound generation. If you really need the control and flexibility that digital synthesisers offer, than I would suggest you use the ST as a MIDI controller for an external synthesiser such as the Casio CZ-101 (very reasonably priced entry level MIDI synth.). Several companies are presently developing MIDI software for the ST and I imagine it won't be too long before the ST really takes off with musicians. The ST does offer the ability to change screen colors "on the fly" by changing the color palette hardware registers. Tom Hudson presented an excellent article on this subject in a recent Analog magazine (either December or January, I can't remember which). For another example of the ST's ability to display more than the 16 advertised colors, look for the public-domain "paint" program called "NEO". Contrary to popular (unpopular :-) opinion, the ST does support a limited amount of multi-tasking. Although I've just begun to find out all of the details, I have been able to figure out that the GEM desktop is in fact a multi-tasking environment in which each of the desk accessories is sharing CPU time, with one particular accessory being the "foreground" task. Sorry I can't inform you any more as to the multi-tasking potential the ST has to offer (for my purposes, I don't need GEM or multi-tasking so I haven't spent a whole lot of time studying in either of these areas). About the double/single sided disk question you had - I needed two drives before the double sided drives became available, so I bought a second single-sided drive. Sorry, I can't help you with that one. One last thing; it has been very interesting watching the Amiga v.s. ST debate on the net these last few months. I've tried to stay in the middle of the argument - not leaning one way or the other - but I have found myself (on occasion) taking exception with some of the things the Amiga people said about the ST which were just not true. After reading my last reply to one of these articles, I decided not to participate in the debate any more (it wasn't very neutral). To make a long story short, it may be to your advantage to not listen to any emotional arguments about either machine. Being an ST (and soon to be, Amiga) owner, I have no problem stating that the Amiga certainly has some big advantages in it's favor. However, I also know for a fact that the ST offers more raw computing power per dollar than any other computer on the market. Hopefully, there is a place in the altogether too BLUE computer market for both machines to prosper. Richard E. Sansom {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!trwrb!trwrba!sansom
hmm@unido.UUCP (01/17/86)
> I have a few questions about the 520 ST I'm curious about: > > Speech synthesis: is there any? No, just a simple sound chip, the AY-3-8910. Just enough for beep, bang, crash, zap and this video game stuff. > Sound digitization- ditto? Nothing, the midi-in is only for music instruments. It's not an analog interface but a digital serial line. > Is it true that, by fiddling with interrupts, one is able to > get more colors on the screen than normally? Yes, you can intercept the horizontal sync and change the video lookup table on the fly. This means 16 out of 512 colors per scanline. I have not tried it, but I've seen it in a color graphics editor (NEOchrome). They displayed about 200 different colors on a pallette in the bottom half of the screen. I don't know if it's possible to change all 16 lookup table entries in the horizontal sync time, they had a blank scan line between two color rows. > Multitasking- is there any? A very limitied multitasking: There is one application process and several accessory processes (7, I think). A process should give up control periodically to enable other processes to run. Since the evnt_multi call, which waits for some mouse, keyboard or timer event gives control to the system, it is fairly easy to write programs which use it. Examples of such accessories are a digital watch, a ramdisk program and such stuff. > Are double-sided disks and single-sided disks compatible/incompatible > with each other and with their respective drives in any way(s)? You can use double-sided drives in exactly the same way as you use single-sided ones. In any case, get double-sided ! 360 K is far too small for any serious work. > Any meaningful responses appreciated- > I still can't decide between an ST and an Amiga... As was noted some time before, it depends on your needs. If you want real multitasking, expandability and fancy graphics, you will find that the amiga is your machine, even if it costs more in a comparable ram and disk configuration. If you want good text display and much ram and don't need hi-resolution color, the atari may be better for you. And you should consult your bank account, maybe it's an argument for the atari, too :-) > -- > ########################################################################## > #D. Rosenberg "Disclaimer: I'd never want to hurt anyone with My Opinions" > #(..{ihnp4,research,allegra}!alice!aer) Hans-Martin Mosner (eagerly waiting for a hard disk) University of Dortmund Germany