SANTAROS@UWF.BITNET (08/22/89)
For all you who LOVE to show up the others in the computer industry, these
comments about the A-MAX Macintosh emulator for the Amiga will help fuel
the fire.
Being a loyal owner of an A1000 from April 1986, I am well versed in the
horrors of TRANSFORMER. In April of 1988, I purchased an A2000. Later my wife
purchased an 2088 bridgecard. The A2088 is an engineering marvel, and my
hat is off to those Commodore engineers on that design team. The bridgecard
IS the right mix of hardware and software emulation required.
Well here it is 1989 and I sold my A1000 last week to get another A2000.
KRONOS is my favorite controller, SUPER-FAT AGNUS is the name of the game
and 1.4 is in a favoriable disscussion/alpha/play/nice/prommising state.
Also in 1989, ReadySoft released a REALLY HOT emulator for the Amiga, A-MAX.
First of all, let me say that A-MAX IS NOT A TRANSFORMER! This package is
a true life emulator, and in many ways has the power and versitility that is
associated with the Bridgecard. Unlike the Bridgecard however, A-MAX does
take over the entire machine. The reasons for this are obvious. Like the
the bridgecard, A-MAX is the right mix of hardware and software emulation.
Unfortunatly, the hardware part of the A-MAX consist mostly of regular Amiga
hardware. The bridgecard has its own CPU, RAM and disk drive; the A-MAX uses
the Amiga's 68000, Amiga drives and Amiga RAM, not to mention the Amiga's
co-processors and I/O ports. The reason for this use/abuse of Amiga hardware
is because the Macintosh is based upon the same CPU. Thus the A-MAX can run
Mac software as fast, faster, slower, depending on which MAC you compare the
A-MAX to and which Amiga you run it on.
On standard Amiga hardware, the A-MAX seems to be about as fast as a MAC+.
Since the Mac+ runs at 8Mhz, this seems to be reasonable. However running
A-MAX on an A2500 in 68020 mode does add the extra UMPH of that processor.
On the A2500 the A-MAX is slightly slower than a MAC II.
Certain operations on A-MAX seem to be faster than on a normal MAC. Graphic
rendering falls in the catagory of Amiga does it better than a REAL Mac.
Using MacPaint on the A-MAX was a definite joy. On a real Mac, MacPaint can
be extremely jerky. We all have experenced this using paint program on the
Amiga, but usually in extremely high resolutions and high number of colors.
A typical Mac screen is a buffered single bit-plane. The Amiga Blitter and
other processors can handle these screens very well. The higher DMA bandwith
on the Amiga probably accounts for this extra speed, but I won't claim to be
an expert on that.
The Word is: COMPATABILITY
And the A-MAX is just that, compatable. No not your average "I can bring up
the screen" compatable, but you honest, rock solid compatability spoken so
often in the IBM PC clone world. The A-MAX is not 100% compatable but it is
so close that the average Mac user wanting to buy an Amiga and do some work in
MAC_MODE from time to time will be deeply satisfied. The biggest known
incompatabilities are; old mac programs (which wont run on Mac IIs either),
MIDI programs, very old versions of FINDER (MAC OS), and any program which
accesses Mac hardware directly.
What you get:
When you purchase the A-MAX you get two disks, a user manual and a ROM
Cartridge. The disks are a program disk and a utility disk. The program
disk contains the software simulation part, called A-MAX Startup. This program
opens up to a preference screen to allow custom configuration of the A-MAX at
startup. This preference can be saved to disk and can be altered slightly
after the A-MAX has been started. The utility disk contains some Mac programs
in Mac format and some in A-MAX format. This disk is a HALF&HALF, half Mac
half A-MAX, because the normal Amiga cannot read Mac disks without a Mac Drive.
The ROM Cartridge has two sockets to hold the Mac ROMS. Since it would be
a copyright violation for ReadySoft to give us the ROM image on disk, this is
the BEST way for us to get the Mac's low level routines into the Amiga. The
Cartridge has three disk drive connectors on it. Two of the connectors are
standard Amiga disk drive connectors. One of the Amiga connectors is for
adding an external Amiga drive, the other is to plug the A-MAX ROM Cartridge
into the back of the Amiga's external drive port. The third connector is
for connecting an external Mac or Mac compatable drive.
Hardware I recommend:
Amiga with at least 2MByte of RAM. The A-MAX and any regular Mac is RAM
Hungry. No Multifinder running in 178K HERE, eh Dr. Ruben!
Three Amiga drives, without Hard Drive support yet this is a must. Remember
the Mac likes to swap disks MORE than the Amiga does!
The Mac External disk drive. This takes the place of the fourth Amiga drive
but is sooo much simpler to move information from Mac format to A-MAX format.
Things I liked:
+Compatability comparable to that the Bridgecard enjoys. Although the A-MAX
takes over the Amiga, the speed and ease of use makes up for it. Maybe under
1.4 or 1.5/2.0 of Kickstart with machines using MMUs running A-MAX and
AmigaDOS will be possible.
+Speed. Right up there with the Real Thing!
+Mac Hardware support. Using Mac external drive, printer, modems etc.
Things I disliked:
-Design of the ROM Cartridge. It sticks too far back making Amiga stick too
far from the wall. The optional cable should be included.
-Load time of ROMs. This is too long. Thirty seconds is too much when you
lock up the A-MAX doing programming. Add Amiga boot time and its closer to
a minute. Analysis of the Cartridge hardware and loading software suggests
that a slight redesign of cartridge circuits to eliminate look-up table/bit
shifting junk on ROM address lines and data lines would get speeds closer to
disk drives.
-No hard drive support. Given that all Amiga hard drive controllers are
different, and that designing a Mac handler for each one would be a nightmare,
this is understandable. Simond Douglas is said to be working on this problem.
I suspect it will be somthing simmilar to the .SRD ram drive he added and make
some simple code that will patch in certain .devices (i hope CLtd.device) when
the F2 or other key is pressed.
Conclusion:
The A-MAX is a supurb emulation of a Macintosh. Many thanks to Simond R.
Douglas and ReadySoft for bringing this product to the Amiga community.
I strongly recommend this product to those needing Mac support on their Amiga.
Disclaimer:
I have no connection to or with ReadySoft or Simond R. Douglas, although I'd
like to. I am writing this review for fun and to inform the Amiga community.
Reservation: Copyright 1989 by John Preston All Rights Reserved
I do reserve the right to this review to the point that it cannot be printed
in a magazine, book, or any media that is sold commercially without my
concent. And that if published in a non-profit media that this disclamer and
reservation be included therein.
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John Preston Preston Enterprises Pensacola FL (904)968-2232 CBM Developer
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