hitchens@ut-sally.UUCP (Ron Hitchens) (05/11/84)
[squish]
I just took a look at the item in the June Analog (mentioned in the orig
article), it's obviously just an Atrai serial bus connector to DB25 cable.
What that means is that any device it is connected to is plugged directly into
the bus. Not a good thing if you want to access a different device (like a
disk drive). An intelligent, non-Atari, device (like a Hayes modem) could
cause severe problems for the "standard" Atari devices.
It also means that special access techniques thru SIO are neccessary in
order to change the POKEY clock rate on the serial bus. I'm sure that's what
the software on the included disk is for, but a little more is involved than
the average CIO device driver. Anything which uses standard R: access will
probably work OK (as long as it doesn't access any other serial bus device),
but something making direct calls to SIO may be in trouble. Using it for
connecting a printer may not work because the printer would think everything
coming across the bus was for it. Unless their driver is very sophisticated
mixing accesses to other devices my not be possible. Hard to say.
I think it's a good idea, I even considered rigging one up myself, but it
can't be considered a direct replacement for the 850. Be sure to test it out
before buying.
All of this is pure conjecture, based solely on my knowledge of Atari
hardware and software. Hope it's been of some help.
Ron Hitchens hitchens@ut-sally.UUCP
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[what's the current release date for Atari Unix?]