sinclair@aero.ARPA (William S. Sinclair ) (08/15/85)
I just got a peek at the Atari ST developer's package, the one they send you
for $300. It comes in an 8.5 by 11 by about 10 inch box, with 4000 pages of
unbound documentation, and six floppies. The floppies include: GEM, TOS, Cpm-
68k, 68000 assembler, linker, debugger, LOGO, and C compiler.
My understanding is that they will send you the stuff no questions asked, if you
supply the serial number of your ST. Could it be that this computer has a
hardware readable serial number? Also schematics are included!!
My impression after a cursory glance is that the documentation is fairly recent,
and complete. As far as being easy to read, it's not at a tutorial level, but
it's fairly well written. I would say it's a MUST for hackers. I was playing
around with the CPM68k, SID, etc. and learned a lot just poking around in
the system base page. There are a complete set of GEM listings in C, of course.
Atari also offers GEM courses, as 2 day seminars for mucho bucks. I would like
to see longer seminars on a weekly basis. There is too much stuff to cram into
2 consecutive days.
Anyway, if you get this package, happy hacking!!!!
Bill Sinclair
213/647-7153