info-mac@uw-beaver (01/14/85)
From: Hackerjack <Palevich%hplabs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa> You can put two 3.5" Sonys on the Atari ST machines, if you want to. The ST runs CP/M-68K. GEM is a shell/toolbox that sits on top of the CP/M. DR's GEM operating system is probably not as high quality as the Macintosh ROM. GEM is written mostly in C. GEM is designed to work on both the 8086 and 68000 processors. Unlike the Mac ROM, which had application programs (Finder, MacPaint, MacWrite, File, and Multiplan) developed concurently, GEM is un-tested as an environment. There are an assembler, an editor, a linker, and a C compiler that run under CP/M-68K. Many of these programs require 512K to run. People who use these tools have said that they are slow and buggy, but that they work, after a fashion. This means that developers can work on the machine, which will no doubt speed up the development process. Is the Mac in trouble? Probably not. Apple managed to sell loads of Apple IIs when Commodore and Atari had better hardware at lower prices. -------