MPCOHAN@UMass.BITNET (Michael P. Cohan, UMass/Amherst) (05/20/86)
Atari has definitely licensed UNIX from AT&T. If nothing else, that
convinces me they have a machine in the works, because presumably it
cost them money, and ol' J.T. isn't going to spend ten cents unless he
has to, from what I've seen! The rumors I've heard say that the machine
will be an add-on box to the ST and will use the ST as a front-end
processor. It will have a 68020, the blitter chip mentioned in the March
BYTE article, and an enhanced, faster version of the ST video shifter
chip. I seem to remember reading someplace that the V.shifter can run at
32 MHz instead of 16. If so, that would double the amount of data it can
get from memory, and double the number of bit planes, which would give:
256 colors in low-res 16 in medium, and 4 in high. Coincidentally, or
perhaps not so coincidentally, I've heard in a few places that the 32-bit
Atari will do 256 colors in low-res. Perhaps this is what they are doing?
I don't know THAT much about hardware so if this isn't possible someone
please tell me.
Also, have people read the editorial in the June issue of COMPUTE? Looks
like they are going to be starting an ST magazine or something.. how fine..
--Michael Cohan, just your basic Computer student at UMass/Amherst..
MPCOHAN@UMASS.BITNET
(UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Labs, and all that mumbo jumbo)