kegel@JULIET.CALTECH.EDU (Dan R. Kegel) (06/19/86)
Neil has spoken: > The new thingamajig will be real fast, have its own memory, but > will use a current-model ST for I/O, via the DMA port. > Please don't ask me any more questions. All right; I'll just flame a little bit. 1. Won't using the DMA port for graphics I/O conflict with, or at least slow to a crawl, hard disk I/O? Or will the box have its own SCSI port for a hard disk? 2. Atari seems to be targeting this thing for compute-intensive, but graphics and I/O -nonintensive applications. Do such applications really exist? I was under the impression that the attraction of 68000- based micros like the ST was their ability to manipulate graphics with ease; for other purposes, you may as well get an IBM clone. At any rate, I have an insatiable hunger for fast graphics, as my interests are mainly in affordable data analysis and CAD workstations. (And for that reason, I can't use the ST; its resolution in color mode is simply too poor. Atari is being left in the dust in that regard by the wave of 16-color, 350 line graphics that is taking over the IBM world.) - Dan (kegel@juliet.caltech.edu, kegel@citjulie.bitnet)