mitchell@janus.Berkeley.EDU (Evan Mitchell) (09/02/89)
Has anyone read what they're saying about the Atari TT over in the ST newsgroup? The description reminds me an AWFUL lot of an '030 based Amiga, especially the graphics modes. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... -Evan _______________________________________________________________________________ | Evan Jay Mitchell EECS/ERL Industrial Liaison Program | | mitchell@janus.berkeley.edu University of California at Berkeley | | Phone: (415) 643-6687 | | "Think, it ain't illegal...yet!" - George Clinton | |_____________________________________________________________________________|
don@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Donald R Lloyd) (09/02/89)
In article <31063@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> mitchell@janus.Berkeley.EDU (Evan Mitchell) writes: >Has anyone read what they're saying about the Atari TT over in the ST >newsgroup? The description reminds me an AWFUL lot of an '030 based >Amiga, especially the graphics modes. > Yeah, I've read what they're saying.... "...it's a shame and I'm quite sure the TT will be the slowest 68030 machine that will ever exist....I won't buy it." Etc... It has a 4096 color pallette, and can only 512 colors on screen at once. The higher-res mode are only B&W or small #s of colors, if I remember correctly. > >-Evan > >_______________________________________________________________________________ >| Evan Jay Mitchell EECS/ERL Industrial Liaison Program | >| mitchell@janus.berkeley.edu University of California at Berkeley | >| Phone: (415) 643-6687 | >| "Think, it ain't illegal...yet!" - George Clinton | >|_____________________________________________________________________________| -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- Don Lloyd El Campeador don@vax1.acs.udel.edu | | |Gibberish is | DISCLAIMER: don@pyr1.acs.udel.edu | | |spoken here. | My employers are idiots. They wouldn't understand | | --------------- my babbling even if they WERE literate enough to read it. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kuan@iris.ucdavis.edu (Francisco Kuan) (09/02/89)
Can that Atari TT MULTITASK??
kuan@iris.ucdavis.edu (Francisco Kuan) (09/02/89)
Let's not get harsh about Atari's. They may suck, but they have their uses. The Amiga 500 was a response to the ST. If it weren't for the ST, Commodore might still be charging 1500$ for an Amiga 1000. Hopefully, the new Atari's will serve the same purpose...
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (09/05/89)
in article <5251@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, kuan@iris.ucdavis.edu (Francisco Kuan) says: > Can that Atari TT MULTITASK?? Any '030 based system can multitask. Some '030 systems are designed for this better than others. The question to ask is, can TOS 1.whatever multitask. The answer is most likely no; TOS, GEMDOS, MS-DOS, and the Macintosh OS weren't designed to multitask. The main problem with such systems is [1] operating system routines that aren't re-entrant, and [2] global task information (eg, when I'm thinking of an OS with only 1 task, why would I place the information this execution stream depends upon in a dynamic structure that can be easily swapped during a context switch). Another problem in such systems are the lack of resource locking (eg, assuming you manage to get two tasks running, the OS can't keep both from writing simultaneously to the same file, or has no resource manager for simultaneous access to the same hardware). And even if you get past that point, you still don't have a real multitasking OS -- there's no IPC, for instance. Taking the Mac OS as a model, some of these thing might be worked around in a future TOS, depending on how well it was written (Mac software tends to be pretty good; I'd expect TOS is in much worse shape). Apple's Multifinder kinda-sorta multitasks -- they get around reentrancy issues by making tasks only swap during a certain function call, never while in an arbitrary OS call. This tends to make the multitasking something a programmer must worry about far more than under AmigaOS or UNIX, and only as functional as the least well-written program you're trying to run. On the other hand, you'd presume that an Atari TT machine, like other '030 machines, would run UNIX just fine. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Too much of everything is just enough