anc@camcon.uucp (Adrian Cockcroft) (10/15/87)
There have been rumours about Atari and Transputers circulating so I
thought that I had better get some hard information out there. I have no
involvement in Perihelion, neither has my employer although I have been
aware of events at Perihelion and know some of the people who work there.
I do want one of their workstations however, I rate it as better than a
SUN 3/260C+fpa for numbercrunching with a single T800.
A presentation was given by Atari and Perihelion at the Cafe Royal in
London on 22/9/87, over 100 software developers, hardware manufacturers and
press people attended and no restrictions were made on the information
presented at the meeting. I attended and this a quick summary of the notes
I took at the meeting.
First a benchmark reported by Inmos: Multivariate regression analysis
IBM PC 45 minutes
T800 18 seconds
T800 x 4 7 seconds
Inmos also had a T800 powered multiuser flight simulator that kept 4 people
at a time happy shooting each other down. 4 T800's per user plus a T4 graphics
card and a load of T2's handling the joysticks. All in an ITEM box together.
The graphics animation was VERY smooth, far better than a SUN3/260C+fpa+gpone
flight simulator I have played with.
Atari and Perihelion have got together so that Perihelion are designing the
hardware and the software for a high performance workstation to be
manufactured and sold by Atari.
Perihelion Hardware
-------------------
Perihelion is headed by Jack Lang in Cambridge, England.
Stage 1 Hardware is a Mega ST add-on system intended for software developers.
Stage 2 Hardware is a compatible single box workstation.
The Mega ST is a front end I/O processor only. The block diagram looks like:
--------- -------------
|blitter| | 4 Mb DRAM |
----------- --------------- --------- --------- -------------
| Mega ST | | Interface | |T800-20| | |
| kbd I/O |---| Link Adaptor|----| |---------------------
| mouse | | SCSI disk | | | | |
| floppy | --------------- --------- ----------- ----------
----------- | | | | |1 Mb VRAM| |Graphics|
4Mb/s|SCSI | | | ----------- ----------
---------- 3 ECL buffered
| 40 Mb | 20 MHz links
| Winch |
----------
The box takes up to 16 Mb on the motherboard (using 4Mbit DRAMS) and has
three expansion slots which can take either 4Mb (1Mbit) or 16Mb (4Mbit)
of DRAM each for a total in the box of 64 Mb. The expansion slots use
a single DIN plug (VME-type) and the 3 ECL buffered links go onto them so
that a slot can contain a board with more transputers on it. Size is enough
for four T800s + 1 Mb each per card. Graphics cards can also be used to
replace the built-in hardware.
The Blitter 2D fills at 128 Mpixels/sec, 2D block copy at 16 Mpixels/sec.
(It has a novel architecture based on work by Phil Willis at Bath University).
Graphics modes:
1280 * 960 * 4 bpp
1024 * 768 * 8 bpp
640 * 480 * 8 bpp 2 screens for animation
512 * 480 * 32 bpp true colour + overlay and tag bits
60 Hz, not sure about interlace.
Probably uses Inmos G170 CLUT giving 256K colour shades.
SCSI disk uses true DMA synchronous SCSI interface to get 4Mbytes/s, 40Mb is
minimum size.
A photo of a completed motherboard in box was shown, smaller than an IBM
PC box with 3 fair sized slots.
Perihelion Software
-------------------
This is based in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England and is headed by Tim King
ex of Metacomco, Amigados fame.
Operating system called Helios written in C to support single processor
workstations, 4 processor workstations, 1000 processor farms or anything
inbetween.
Helios is distributed, multiprocessor, multiuser, sympathetic to the
Transputer and familiar to Unix users. Tim King has listened to the criticism
of Amigados and has avoided a lot of the complaints about that system.
It is based on message passing with transparent passing across processors,
it uses a client/server model, has per-processor protection and capability
based access.
Networking and diskless workstations will be supported via the 3 ECL buffered
links with no extra hardware.
Applications can be written in 3 modes, the traditional single threaded
program, unix-like multiple processes
at a coarse grain level or parallel algorithms using a medium grain level.
Existing TOS/GEM applications can run on the Mega ST front end processor.
User Interface
--------------
X-11 window system standard.
GEM - translating GEM traps on the 68K i/o proc to the T800.
GEM running under X-11 may be provided.
Standard unix like shell command line interface.
Compatibility
-------------
MSDOS floppy disk format
UNIX(TM) hard disk format
UNIX(TM) compatible C library
UNIX(TM) command subset
Languages
---------
C Pascal Lisp
Fortran BCPL Occam
Development Tools
-----------------
Hosted on ST or Unix(TM) or MSDOS or native
Asm/link
C
Debugger
Atari's Position
----------------
They are looking for wider markets and want to go upmarket into workstation
technology. The hardware design will be Atari's property but Helios is already
spreading wider, another 4 companies are likely to use it so far.
It will be launched at COMDEX as a Mega ST add-on for developers.
Development systems available in Dec 87/Jan 88.
The standalone system will be launched at Hannover in March 88.
Product in the shops in June 88 in the UK.
Product in Europe 6 months later and US launch June 89, giving a years
head start to the UK software developers and a chance for the machine to
gather some applications software before it hits the US.
Cost
----
Priced well below Mac II, base level entry price (no winchester or monitor)
aimed at 1000 pounds according to Jack Lang.
For now they will provide a set of 3 manuals, User Manual, Developers Manual
and Technical Manual for 50 pounds, you then become a registered
developer and get a priority place in the queue for developers hardware
in December.
Apply for more information to: Perihelion Software Limited
24 Brewmaster Buildings
Charlton Trading Estate
Shepton Mallet
Somerset BA4 5QE
Perihelions phone number: 0749 4203
--
| Adrian Cockcroft anc@camcon.uucp ..!seismo!mcvax!ukc!camcon!anc
-[T]- Cambridge Consultants Ltd, Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4DW,
| England, UK (0223) 358855
(You are in a maze of twisty little C004's, all alike...)kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) (10/27/87)
Yeowie! I want to see this thing with a 3D joystick, roaming the Mandelbrot set in real time and 16 colors at > 1K x 1K resolution. Whee! What the heck, how about _two_ joysticks, 1, 3D and 1, 2D, and we can take a wild cruise through the Julia sets, or that 4D version of the Mandelbrot set hinted at in the last Scientific American Computer Recreations column. If it's fast enough, and will do NTSC out of that 512 x ? x 32 bpp mode, you could preprogram a cruise and record it in real time without worrying about single frame video. Awesome! I may actually have to work for a living for a few months to scrape together the price. (Naaah, calm down Kent; you're getting irrational again. ;-) Kent, the (totally weird) man from xanth. Running for president on a pound of caffeine, an ounce of sense, and a program of increased exploration and exploitation of space. Support your (probably non-existent - get busy!) local branch of the Birthright Party: "The birthright of mankind is the stars!" Hey, it's better than dwelling on your stock portfolio; at least here you've got a chance for a laugh or two. ;-) Yum! Eat them plastic chickens, brethren! Call me when I'm elected; 'til then, I'm going to take a nap.
ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo L. Schwab) (10/27/87)
In article <986@titan.camcon.uucp> anc@camcon.uucp (Adrian Cockcroft) writes:
:There have been rumours about Atari and Transputers circulating so I
:thought that I had better get some hard information out there. I have no
:involvement in Perihelion, neither has my employer although I have been
:aware of events at Perihelion and know some of the people who work there.
:I do want one of their workstations however, I rate it as better than a
:SUN 3/260C+fpa for numbercrunching with a single T800.
:
: [ Lots of info about Atari's proposed new system. ]
I don't believe this for even a second.
:First a benchmark reported by Inmos: Multivariate regression analysis
: IBM PC 45 minutes
: T800 18 seconds
: T800 x 4 7 seconds
:
This is nothing surprising; an HP calculator can outrun a stock PC
(1/2 :-) ).
:The graphics animation was VERY smooth, far better than a SUN3/260C+fpa+gpone
:flight simulator I have played with.
:
Again, unsurprising. UNIX can really get in the way of real-time
programs. The mockup obviously (?) has no OS in the way of the flight
simulation program.
I saw the same fighter simulation at SIGGRAPH. Fun!
:The Blitter 2D fills at 128 Mpixels/sec, 2D block copy at 16 Mpixels/sec.
:(It has a novel architecture based on work by Phil Willis at Bath University).
:
Can you elaborate? I've heard stories both good and bad about the
Atari blitter design. (Reply to my mailbox, please.)
:A photo of a completed motherboard in box was shown, smaller than an IBM
:PC box with 3 fair sized slots.
:
Have you seen Pixar's poster called "1984"? That looks like a real
photo, too :-).
:Perihelion Software
:-------------------
:This is based in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England and is headed by Tim King
:ex of Metacomco, Amigados fame.
: ^^^^
Fame? I would have chosen a different word....
:Languages
:---------
:C Pascal Lisp
:Fortran BCPL Occam
: ^^^^
Ack! Phft!
:Atari's Position
:----------------
:They are looking for wider markets and want to go upmarket into workstation
:technology. [ ... ]
Sorry, but whatever Atari may be doing now, they will always be
perceived as a toy company (at least as long as the coin-op division
continues to exist). No one buys workstations from a toy company.
:It will be launched at COMDEX as a Mega ST add-on for developers.
There's a strong positive probability that I will be visiting COMDEX
this year. I'll visit the Atari booth in disguise (sans cape) and see what
I can find out.
:Development systems available in Dec 87/Jan 88.
:The standalone system will be launched at Hannover in March 88.
:Product in the shops in June 88 in the UK.
:Product in Europe 6 months later and US launch June 89, giving a years
:head start to the UK software developers and a chance for the machine to
:gather some applications software before it hits the US.
:
Apply appropriate slop factors for time figures given.
:Graphics modes:
: 1280 * 960 * 4 bpp
: 1024 * 768 * 8 bpp
: 640 * 480 * 8 bpp 2 screens for animation
: 512 * 480 * 32 bpp true colour + overlay and tag bits
:60 Hz, not sure about interlace.
:
:Cost
:----
:Priced well below Mac II, base level entry price (no winchester or monitor)
:aimed at 1000 pounds according to Jack Lang.
:
Wrongo! With resolution as quoted above, there is no way you'll
come in under $2000, at present. Bandwidth is not cheap (yet). Add the
cost of a suitable color monitor, and.... well.....
DISCLAIMER: I'm not normally given to unsolicited vaporware product
bashing, but this announcement sounds about as plausible as a rumor I heard
about how the stock market crash was caused by two high-school computer
crackers.....
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\
\_ -_ Recumbent Bikes: dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac
O----^o The Only Way To Fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack")
"Although there are technical differences between the quality of images
created on the Amiga and on our system, we feel that viewers could be misled
to believe otherwise, even with your disclaimers to the contrary."
-- Ralph J. Guggenheim, Pixarpeter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (10/30/87)
You say the ST is just a Front End Processor. Does it do anything more than serve as an expensive terminal? Have they locked the system into the ST or could you use something with higher resolution graphics (such as a Mac, Amiga, or IBM/VGA)? -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.
peter@sugar.UUCP (10/30/87)
In article <4315@well.UUCP>, ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo L. Schwab) writes: > [Atari will be perceived as a game company as long as the coin-op > division exists]. I believe the coin-op division is not part of Atari any more. Has anyone some hard facts? (Atari... power without the price, and without the power). (Hey, *my* Atari was designed by Jay Miner. It's "power for the people"). -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.
anc@camcon.uucp (Adrian Cockcroft) (10/30/87)
This is my second attempt at posting this, the first attempt was just before it got a bit windy around here a few weeks ago, I have not seen any comment on that attempt so I assume it got lost in the hurricane. I have since seen at least one request for info on this machine in comp.sys.transputer so I am posting across amiga (where some dicussion has taken place) atari.st (since this is mentioned below) and transputer newsgroups. | Adrian Cockcroft anc@camcon.uucp ..!seismo!mcvax!ukc!camcon!anc -[T]- Cambridge Consultants Ltd, Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4DW, | England, UK (0223) 358855 (You are in a maze of twisty little C004's, all alike...) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A presentation was given by Atari and Perihelion at the Cafe Royal in London on 22/9/87, over 100 software developers, hardware manufacturers and press people attended and no restrictions were made on the information presented at the meeting. I attended and this a quick summary of the notes I took at the meeting. First a benchmark reported by Inmos: Multivariate regression analysis IBM PC 45 minutes T800 18 seconds T800 x 4 7 seconds Inmos also had a T800 powered multiuser flight simulator that kept 4 people at a time happy shooting each other down. 4 T800's per user plus a T4 graphics card and a load of T2's handling the joysticks. All in an ITEM box together. The graphics animation was VERY smooth, far better than a SUN3/260C+fpa+gpone flight simulator I have played with. Atari and Perihelion have got together so that Perihelion are designing the hardware and the software for a high performance workstation to be manufactured and sold by Atari. Perihelion Hardware ------------------- Perihelion is headed by Jack Lang in Cambridge, England. The hardware division includes Richard Miller, Tim Dunn and ? Biscoe. Stage 1 Hardware is a Mega ST add-on system intended for software developers. Stage 2 Hardware is a compatible single box workstation. The Mega ST is a front end I/O processor only. The block diagram looks like: --------- ------------- |blitter| | 4 Mb DRAM | ----------- --------------- --------- --------- ------------- | Mega ST | | Interface | |T800-20| | | | kbd I/O |---| Link Adaptor|----| |--------------------- | mouse | | SCSI disk | | | | | | floppy | --------------- --------- ----------- ---------- ----------- | | | | |1 Mb VRAM| |Graphics| 4Mb/s|SCSI | | | ----------- ---------- ---------- 3 ECL buffered | 40 Mb | 20 MHz links | Winch | ---------- The box takes up to 16 Mb on the motherboard (using 4Mbit DRAMS) and has three expansion slots which can take either 4Mb (1Mbit) or 16Mb (4Mbit) of DRAM each for a total in the box of 64 Mb. The expansion slots use a single DIN plug (VME-type) and the 3 ECL buffered links go onto them so that a slot can contain a board with more transputers on it. Size is enough for four T800s + 1 Mb each per card. Graphics cards can also be used to replace the built-in hardware. The Blitter 2D fills at 128 Mpixels/sec, 2D block copy at 16 Mpixels/sec. (It has a novel architecture based on work by Phil Willis at Bath University). Graphics modes: 1280 * 960 * 4 bpp 1024 * 768 * 8 bpp 640 * 480 * 8 bpp 2 screens for animation 512 * 480 * 32 bpp true colour + overlay and tag bits 60 Hz, not sure about interlace, has some genlock capability. Probably uses Inmos G170 CLUT giving 256K colour shades. SCSI disk uses true DMA synchronous SCSI interface to get 4Mbytes/s, 40Mb is minimum size. A photo of a completed motherboard in box was shown, smaller than an IBM PC box with 3 fair sized slots. Perihelion Software ------------------- This is based in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England and is headed by Tim King ex of Metacomco, Amigados fame. Operating system called Helios written in C to support single processor workstations, 4 processor workstations, 1000 processor farms or anything inbetween. Helios is distributed, multiprocessor, multiuser, sympathetic to the Transputer and familiar to Unix users. Tim King has listened to the criticism of Amigados and has avoided a lot of the complaints about that system. It is based on message passing with transparent passing across processors, it uses a client/server model, has per-processor protection and capability based access. Networking and diskless workstations will be supported via the 3 ECL buffered links with no extra hardware. Applications can be written in 3 modes, the traditional single threaded program, unix-like multiple processes at a coarse grain level or parallel algorithms using a medium grain level. Existing TOS/GEM applications can run on the Mega ST front end processor. User Interface -------------- X-11 window system standard. GEM - translating GEM traps on the 68K i/o proc to the T800. GEM running under X-11 may be provided. Standard unix like shell command line interface. Compatibility ------------- MSDOS floppy disk format UNIX(TM) hard disk format UNIX(TM) compatible C library UNIX(TM) command subset Languages --------- C Pascal Lisp Fortran BCPL Occam Development Tools ----------------- Hosted on ST or Unix(TM) or MSDOS or native Asm/link C Debugger Atari's Position ---------------- They are looking for wider markets and want to go upmarket into workstation technology. The hardware design will be Atari's property but Helios is already spreading wider, another 4 companies are likely to use it so far. It will be launched at COMDEX as a Mega ST add-on for developers. Development systems available in Dec 87/Jan 88. The standalone system will be launched at Hannover in March 88. Product in the shops in June 88 in the UK. Product in Europe 6 months later and US launch June 89, giving a years head start to the UK software developers and a chance for the machine to gather some applications software before it hits the US. Cost ---- Priced well below Mac II, base level entry price (no winchester or monitor) aimed at 1000 pounds according to Jack Lang. For now they will provide a set of 3 manuals, User Manual, Developers Manual and Technical Manual for 50 pounds, you then become a registered developer and get a priority place in the queue for developers hardware in December. Apply for more information to: Perihelion Software Limited 24 Brewmaster Buildings Charlton Trading Estate Shepton Mallet Somerset BA4 5QE Phone: 0749 4203 -- | Adrian Cockcroft anc@camcon.uucp ..!seismo!mcvax!ukc!camcon!anc -[T]- Cambridge Consultants Ltd, Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4DW, | England, UK (0223) 358855 (You are in a maze of twisty little C004's, all alike...)
farren@gethen.UUCP (10/31/87)
In article <945@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >I believe the coin-op division is not part of Atari any more. Has anyone >some hard facts? When Tramiel bought out Atari, the coin-op games division was NOT part of the deal, although the home video game division was. Atari Games (as opposed to Atari Corp.) is still around. I believe that they, in turn, were bought out by one of the Japanese game companies, but I don't have hard facts on that. I know the other is true - I tried to get a job there last year but was deemed overqualified :-( -- ---------------- Michael J. Farren "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness unisoft!gethen!farren that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..." gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (11/05/87)
In article <1034@titan.camcon.uucp> anc@camcon.uucp (Adrian Cockcroft) writes: >Cost >---- > Priced well below Mac II, base level entry price (no winchester or monitor) > aimed at 1000 pounds according to Jack Lang. > For now they will provide a set of 3 manuals, User Manual, Developers Manual > and Technical Manual for 50 pounds, you then become a registered > developer and get a priority place in the queue for developers hardware > in December. I was at Comdex and talked to Jack Lang, Tim King, and Jessica Lang at length about this box. What I found out was quite enlightening to say the least, let me say this first, "This is a really neat machine! ", then let me say this second, "It ain't cheap, when you configure it like it Workstation, it costs like a Workstation." So before I go on lets add some numbers to these statements : At the show the Perihelion folks were saying $2K for the ABAQ (Ay-bak) and you had to have a Mega ST as well ($1.5K - $3K depending on which one you have) and a monitor that can display the images your interested in ($.5 - $3K, where 500 gets you a Multisync, and 3K gets you the multisync II plus which can display 1K X 800 pixels), plus you really need a hard drive so add another 1K to 1.5K depending on size (20 - 40Meg) So minimum we're talking $5K to get a low-res color system with a 20Meg hard drive, upto $8K for a 40meg High res systems (which is cheaper than either a Mac II or a Color Sun). When the 'real' machines become available the ST will be optional (and hopefully they will have redesigned the clunky case) but they were murmering $5K sans monitor or hard drive. So for those of you who want a Workstation for the cost of an Amiga or ST will have to wait a few more years for the technology steamroller to get a little be farther down the road. As for the machine it was running some neat demos that primarily showed off it's color capabilities. Since they were 'canned' images being replayed aka ShowAnim or some other framebuffer animator it was not clear how fast the actual machines were. One was running GEM on a 19" 1K X 1K monochrome desktop, unfortunately most GEM applications couldn't really hack the huge screen. I would be interested to know if Atari will be supporting both GEM and Helios on the machines (all the really good questions hit you after you've left the booth. :-)) from the looks of it, it did not appear likely. The Perihelion people were quick to point out that the slaved Mega was only providing I/O services and non of its memory was being used by the ABAQ. So I assume if you wanted to run GEM you would either emulate the 68000 or use a version of TOS in ROM that passed all video requests on to the ABAQ. Other interesting tidbits; the video memory (1 meg of video rams) was separate from the ABAQ's program memory (shown with 4 meg). The internal slots will accept boards with additional Transputers or memory on them so you could continue to beef up this thing. And while some of the Demos were written in Occam (INMOS's transputer language) Perihelion was going to support C as the primary development language (what no BCPL?). It also had a custom blitter that apparently was really fast however only the demos were available so I couldn't really test drive them all that well. Overall it looks like an interesting box and is probably going to excite a lot of graphics folks. I don't see a whole lot of them making it into the mythical home market, or the ever lucrative business market. If Inmos has really conquered its manufacturing problems and Helios lives up to its advance billing this should be worth a look at least. And while there were boxes to play look at, at the show, I know that more than half the work will be in the software. So things to watch for : o How Atari 'positions' this product. Depending on when it gets out the door it will be competing with 386/486 boxes, Mac IIs, and Low end Suns. o What happens to the various ST owners. (In my opinion they should split their product line like the Apple II/Macintosh computers are truely separate.) o Messages from people who have machines to play with of their own (I am of course available for Beta Testing :-)) Sorry it dragged on so long, it was one of the more interesting aspects of an otherwise PC/386/Laser Printer dominated show. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
ANKH@cup.portal.com (11/07/87)
Hey, fellas, why are we using 'K' in speaking about money?? To lazy to type in a few 0's?
jafischer@tiger.UUCP (11/07/87)
Many thanks to Chuck McManis for his informative posting about the
show. I thought I'd post Antic's online repors from Compuserve as well.
Permission to reprint or excerpt is granted only if the following line
appears at the top of the article:
ANTIC PUBLISHING INC., COPYRIGHT 1987. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION
ATARI MEANS BUSINESS
A REPORT FROM THE 1988 COMDEX
By Anita Malnig, START Editor
Las Vegas, November 2, 1987 --
Atari intends to give the likes of Sun Microsystems and Apollo
Computers a run for the money with Abaq (the root word for abacus), the new
transputer-based workstation that the company is showing here.
By using RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture, the
workstation will operate at 10 MIPS (million instructions per second). The
latest graphics hardware and the IMS T-800 -- the Inmos Company's 32-bit
microprocessor -- combine to form affordable, powerful personal
workstations. A single transputer can deliver over ten times the power of
an IBM PC AT. However, there's even greater strength in numbers. You can
connect two, 10, 100 or even MORE transputers to create a relatively
low-cost computer workstation with the power of a supercomputer. (Talk is
that the price will be in the $5000 range.) When attached to a transputer,
the ST or Mega acts as the input/output device for the system. Transputers
can be linked via a built-in high-speed serial port to form a
multiprocessor array or a local area network.
Helios, the Unix-like operating system, was developed by the
Perihelion Company in Great Britain, as was the transputer board itself.
The Helios operating system encourages the use of many small programs which
work together to create a final product.
Shiraz Shivji, Atari's vice president of research and development,
expects that the transputer will be used primarily in engineering and
science applications. Included with Abaq will be a very high resolution
monitor, capable of four graphics modes: 1280 X 960 in 16 colors or
monochrome; 1024 X 768 in 256 colors; 640 X 480 in 256 colors with two
screens; and 512 X 480 in 16 million colors plus overlay. No firm delivery
date is set, but late 1988 seems to be the most talked-about time frame.
From a first-hand view, the crisp, vibrant graphics (such as four separate
pictures running simultaneously) were drawing crushing crowds.
CD-ROM FOR ATARI
The exciting CD-ROM player introduced at Comdex can read up to 540
megabytes of data or play music. It connects to Atari's ST and Mega
computers through the DMA (direct memory access) channel, a communications
port that transmits data at up to 10 million bits per second. At 540Mb,
the player can store more data than 1,000 floppy disks or 200,000 printed
pages.
Demonstrated at the show is an English and French visual dictionary
from Facts on File. It is categorized by topics such as transportation and
food: click on the transportation theme and choose from an array of topics
such as ferrys, container ships, airport terminals and so on -- all items
illustrated. Speech output identifies each image in French and English.
Grolier's Encyclopedia also runs on this CD-ROM, as do audio CDs. Atari
has a task force at work now developing more products for this player,
which will be available at computer specialty dealers and retail outlets in
February, 1988, at a suggested retail price of $599.
DO ATARI DESKTOP PUBLISHING
G.O. Graphics, in conjunction with Atari, will bring to market a
sophisticated desktop publishing program called Deskset. This works as a
front end to the CompuGraphics typesetting equipment, offering the use of
1,800 fonts. This is not just a desktop publishing program for four-page
newsletters and the like: it could design entire publications such as
Antic and START. It will output to such laser printers as the striking
Atari laser printer, also being demonstrated with Deskset. (Look for the
next Comdex installment for additional desktop publishing programs for the
ST.) Deskset, which works only on a Mega, will work within the GEM
environment and offers all the standard features of the most sophisticated
desktop publishing programs -- features such as character compensation,
kerning, columns, boxes, rules and the ability to merge text and graphics.
Look for this product mid- to late 1988.
AND. . . ATARI PCS
The Atari PC1, introduced earlier this year, can be used as a local
area network workstation or as a standalone personal computer. It runs at
a top speed of 8 Mhz, with a software switch to set the clock speed to 4.77
when needed. The PC1 works with any CGA, MDA, EGA or multi-frequency
monitor. Maximum color screen resolution is 640 X 350. The PC1 has a
64-color palette, with a maximum of 16 on the screen at a time. It is
expected to retail at $800.
New to the Atari PC family is the PC2, a dual-speed XT compatible with
five slots and hard-disk support. The PC4 is an 80286 microprocessor-based
IBM PC/AT compatible machine. It has clock speeds of either 8 or 12 Mhz,
VGA-compatible video, four AT-style expansion slots, up to one megabyte of
system RAM and is ready for an 80287 numeric coprocessor.
Additionally, Atari is announcing "Moses PromiseLAN," a local area
network that can connect up to 17 PCs using off-the-shelf telephone wire.
They will also be developing Moses PromiseLAN adaptors for its Mega and ST
computers. Thus, the Mega and Atari laser printer will be able to share
data with PCs and Apple Macintoshes.
COMING NEXT UPDATE. . .
Watch for more third-party desktop publishing programs from Soft
Logik, Timeworks, Migraph. . . Multiuser, Multitasking programs with the
Idris operating system. . . desktop video from Antic Software. . .
products galore from MichTron, Spectrum Holobyte, Word Perfect, Abacus, ISD
Marketing, B.E.S.T. and lots more.
Permission to reprint or excerpt is granted only if the following line
appears at the top of the article:
ANTIC PUBLISHING INC., COPYRIGHT 1987 REPRINTED BY PERMISSION.
ST SOFTWARE SHINES AT COMDEX:
Multi-user, Multitasking on the Mega
By Anita Malnig, START Editor
Las Vegas, November 3 --
At the very crowded Atari press conference at the Desert Inn on Monday,
November 1, Atari announced its entrance into the serious business
market with an array of multi-user, multitasking products. The Atari booth
itself was crowded with exciting products, interested spectators and busy
software personnel. Here's a run-down of what we saw at the Atari booth.
MULTI-USER, MULTITASKING
Along with high-quality third-party developers, Atari will offer
multiuser, multitasking and serious vertical applications on the Mega using
a Unix-like operating system called Idris (developed by Whitesmiths Ltd.).
The company, Computer Tools, was and still is instrumental in finding
companies whose programs can be ported over from the Unix environment to
Idris and porting those programs.
Jefferson Software is now releasing a version of their Modula-2
Development System for the Mega to run under Idris, offering a powerful
language to complement the multi-user, multitasking operating system.
American Network's Cash Register Plus, the first of the multiuser,
multitasking applications, is a point-of-sale program that lets you store
and search up to 3,000 items. It supports a Star 8340 printer -- small to
print out receipts -- and an actual cash drawer. It includes a customer
and inventory database and backs up all information to disk. It can
support four terminals with all cables attached to the Mega. This is
expected to be on sale mid-January 1988 for about $700 for all the
components.
During your inventory search, you may want to do some word processing.
There are several word processors to choose from in this Idris
environment. From the Tigera Corporation comes Word Era, a feature-rich,
high-performance word processing package on single- and multiuser systems.
It has a Wang-compatible interface and document conversion capabilities.
Word Era has the features of leading word processing software and more,
including a window environment, voice recognition and voice annotation. It
can also set up menus in French, German, Italian and Spanish, and supports
a four-user system. Available during the first quarter of 1988, the
multiuser price begins at $895.
Another word processor is CrystalWriter Plus from Syntactics,
providing a library of model documents for frequently used formats such as
letters, memos and reports. An organization can define its own "style
sheet" for documents. The program has "plain English" commands and can be
useful for writers, editors, secretaries, managers and engineers.
Also ported from the Unix world is Lex, a combined word processor and
database, from Trajectory Software. Its indexed file structure lets you
retrieve the 10,000th record as quickly as the first. You can design your
own forms and screen layouts, create short and more extensive glossary
items, and do list processing and mail merges. It also comes with a
built-in calculator which you can use concurrently as you write or edit.
Also available is Lexet, which lets you interface the word processor and
database with laser printers.
Atari Corp. is handling the networking capabilities through an
agreement with Network Research Corp. With FUSION, Network Software will
give the Atari Mega a complete set of TCP/IP protocols and allocations
which have been tested for compliance with DDN/DARPA Internet Protocol
specifications.
MORE DESKTOP PUBLISHING
From Timeworks comes the Timeworks Desktop Publisher ST. Retailing for
$129.95 this GEM-based program will offer WYSIWYG display, over 1,200
possible type-style combinations, ability to import graphics, and laser
printer compatibility. Desktop Publisher ST will be available in the first
quarter of 1988.
Soft Logik Corp. announced a new version of its desktop publishing
program, Publishing Partner Professional. New features include automatic
textflow around graphic images, automatic hyphenation and kerning, the
ability to import documents from other word processors such as WordPerfect,
First Word and Word Writer, more fonts and font manipulation. It will
retail for $149.95.
From ISD Marketing comes Calamus, a page-layout and typesetting
application. It allows outline fonts and vector graphics that until now
could only be processed by expensive Postscript laser printers. Calamus
uses these features on both the printer and screen. The screen output can
be enlarged up to laser printer resolution. The program offers a spelling
checker and hyphenated dictionary, object-oriented graphics, chart forms,
and font editors using Bezier curves for designing or changing fonts.
Calamus for the Mega will be available in December 1987 for $349.95.
MichTron offers GFA Publisher, a GEM-controlled program with
full-featured text editor, automatic text flow and paging, expandable font
library and an integrated driver for PostScript.
From Migraph comes the supercharged Easy Draw. And Supercharger, a
companion product to Easy Draw, makes it easy to load graphics from popular
paint programs. While not a desktop publishing program, these two combined
products let you create newsletters, reports, brochures, etc. You can work
with ASCII files, have justified and non-justified text, use onscreen grids
and rulers and output to the Atari laser printer.
LET'S EMULATE
Turn your ST into a Mac with The Magic Sac Professional
from Data Pacific. The Professional consists of three products: The
Magic Sac Plus, the Translator One and the Magic Epson Printer Driver. The
Translator One allows the existing Atari disk drive to read and write Apple
Macintosh disks and convert data between Mac, ST and IBM PC diskette
formats. The Professional is shipping this month with a suggested retail
price of $449.95. Typical Mac programs you can run are Macpaint, Macdraw,
Excel and Pagemaker.
PC-Ditto is a software-only utility which taps the power of your Atari
ST to imitate an IBM PC XT. Programs you can run include Lotus 1-2-3,
Enable, Sidekick, Framework and Symphony.
WORD PROCESSING -- ALIVE AND WELL
WordPerfect for the ST is out and is called by some the Cadillac of
word processors. In addition to a built-in thesaurus and spell-checker,
the program has math functions anc can create indexes,and tables of
contents. There are also macros, merge functions and onscreen columns.
The product is shipping now for about $395 list.
From Microsoft comes the long-awaited Write, marketed by Atari Corp.
It handles complex business reports as well as memos and letters. It has
all the standard text generation, editing and formatting features such as
cut-and-paste, creating footnotes, automatic pagination, different font
styles and sizes, and it works in conjunction with the Atari Laser printer.
MORE CAD PROGRAMS
Drafix, from Foresight Resources, is now on the market and drawing
critical acclaim. It's identical to the 1.00 IBM PC version, supports pen
plotters, and runs on color and monochrome Atari monitors.
Coming soon from Migraph is M/CADD, a professional engineering
graphics design system for the Atari Mega. M/CADD outputs directly to
HPGL-compatible plotters and saves in GEM format for output on 9- and
24-pin dot-matrix printers. M/CADD files can be loaded into Migraph's Easy
Draw, and you can add more text and either bit-mapped or object-oriented
graphics. Suggested price is $499. M/CADD should ship the end of
November.
With MichTron's Master CAD, you can produce object in 2-D and 3-D
using its exclusive concepts of Projection Planes. It uses pull-down
menus, dialog boxes, mouse and very few keyboard commands. Expect to see
this in early 1988.
DESKTOP VIDEO
From Antic Software in conjunection with Sony comes a desktop video
package. Sony's low-cost 8mm video hardware and Antic's video sequencer
software create professional-quality 3-D computer-graphics videotapes of up
to two hours. The Antic software controls nine functions of the Sony VCR,
then adds its own special visual effects such as fades and auto
assemble/editing. The 8mm video sequencing software (including custom
parallel cables) will be available in January 1988 from Antic Software.
The Sony video equipment is available from Sony.
MORE GRAPHIC FUN
From Neriki Computer Graphics PTY Ltd. in Australia comes the
ZImagemaster, software with a hardware box to attach to your ST. Hooking
up the Polaroid Palette can output DEGAS pictures as Polaroid pictures, And
you can hook up a 35mm camera to the Palette. The package yields overhead
transparencies and printouts. It will retail for $400.
Antic Software is also showing Spectrum 512, its 512-color paint
program, which expands the ST's normally limited palette of 16 colors to
512. Spectrum 512 can load and enhance pictures from existing ST software
as well as from Amiga picture files. Available now for $69.95.
Animation comes from Antic Software as well with Cyber Paint, also
$69.95. It emulates the functions of a $100,000 Quantel Paintbox -- but
for computer graphics instead of live video. Cyber Paint is a member of
the Cyber family of desktop video products. Its many features include
smooth raster tweening along any 3-D path, professional optic effects with
planar rotations through 3-D space, and moviola-style cut-and-paste.
MORE BUSINESS BITS
The Informer from Regent Software is a multi-table database with
presentation graphics. Easy-to-use point and click functions let you
create and manipulate up to four databases at once. You can import
graphics from DEGAS and NEOchrome... From SBT comes the Database
Accounting Library, menu-driven with options to confirm, change or cancel
entries... Hi-Tech Advisors announces Super Sales Pro, a full-featured
point-of-sale inventory control software system for the ST. It will
accomodate medium- to larger-sized wholesale, retail or mail order
businesses. The company will provide free technical support... From
Progressive Peripherals comes Superbase Personal, a relational database,
and the Logistik time/project management system... B.E.S.T Inc. offers
B.E.S.T. Business Management, an integrated accounting system offering
general ledger. Available now, suggested retail price is $395... ISD
Marketing, which brings you the well-known VIP, now has the MasterPlan
financial spreadsheet featuring the GEM environment with pull-down menus,
icons, scroll bars and column grabbers. It offers graphics features as
well. Also from ISD is an update to STAccounts, the integrated accounting
package... From Royal Software comes additional low-cost business programs
such as Help Calc, templates for their E-A Calc and VIP. Coming soon will
be Inventory Master for $99.95.
MIDI
Hybrid Arts was showing ADAP and ADAP 2, the digital editing system.
ADAP 2 works directly with a hard disk. Also just released is Easy Score,
Hybrid Arts' new scoring program.
NEW HARD DRIVE
In mid-December ICD will ship its new 100 megabyte hard disk for
$1,699.
--
- Jonathan A. Fischer
jafischer@lily.waterloo.edu
...{ihnp4,allegra,decvax,utzoo,utcsri}!watmath!watdragon!watlily!jafischerdillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (11/10/87)
> ANTIC PUBLISHING INC., COPYRIGHT 1987. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION > > ATARI MEANS BUSINESS > A REPORT FROM THE 1988 COMDEX > By Anita Malnig, START Editor An Amusing report. Note the general trend... people are giving up TOS altogether. -Matt
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (11/12/87)
In article <4059@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jafischer@tiger.waterloo.edu (Jonathan A. Fischer) writes: > > Many thanks to Chuck McManis for his informative posting about the >show. I thought I'd post Antic's online repors from Compuserve as well. > > > Permission to reprint or excerpt is granted only if the following line >appears at the top of the article: > [darn that line eater] > > ATARI MEANS BUSINESS > A REPORT FROM THE 1988 COMDEX > By Anita Malnig, START Editor > > Las Vegas, November 2, 1987 -- > > Atari intends to give the likes of Sun Microsystems and Apollo >Computers a run for the money with Abaq (the root word for abacus), the new >transputer-based workstation that the company is showing here. Hardly. What they showed was a prototype. When they finally get this turkey to market, Sun and Apollo will have something, err, uhh, rather interesting. Sorry. Not a contender. [other boring rehash of ST hype deleted] > - Jonathan A. Fischer -- Richard J. Sexton INTERNET: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard "It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition..."
klm@munsell.UUCP (11/13/87)
In article <2258@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: > >Hardly. What they showed was a prototype. When they finally get this turkey >to market, Sun and Apollo will have something, err, uhh, rather interesting. > >Sorry. Not a contender. > >[other boring rehash of ST hype deleted] >-- >Richard J. Sexton Yup. Sun already has something, err, uhh, rather interesting. It's called the Sun 4. It's competing with big Vaxen. I don't know what Apollo is doing, but I'm sure that they have something up their corporate sleeve. Atari's "Sun killer" is going to be just so much line noise to Sun. Tramiel, as usual, is blowing smoke out his you know what. Isn't Jack *Special*? Good choice of words, Richard. "Turkey" and "Not a contender." Add "Mongrel" and "Freak" to that list. I've got an Amiga and a good C compiler. Why the hell would I want to write programs in OCCAM??? -- Kevin McBride, the guy in the brace // | Your mind is totally controlled Eikonix - A Kodak Co. // | It has been stuffed into my mold Billerica, MA \\ // Amiga | And you will do as you are told {encore,adelie}!munsell!klm \X/ Rules! | until the rights to you are sold
alex@.UUCP (Alex Laney) (11/18/87)
In article <4059@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, jafischer@tiger.UUCP writes: > > Many thanks to Chuck McManis for his informative posting about the > show. I thought I'd post Antic's online repors from Compuserve as well. > Did absolutely EVERY product announced for the ST have to mentioned? -- Alex Laney alex@xicom.UUCP ...utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!xios!xicom!alex Xicom Technologies, 205-1545 Carling Av., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada We may have written the SNA software you use. The opinions are my own.
richard@gryphon.UUCP (11/22/87)
In article <477@.UUCP> alex@.UUCP (Alex Laney) writes: >In article <4059@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, jafischer@tiger.UUCP writes: >> >> Many thanks to Chuck McManis for his informative posting about the >> show. I thought I'd post Antic's online repors from Compuserve as well. >> > >Did absolutely EVERY product announced for the ST have to mentioned? Uh, no. They missed one. "Atari Inc announces the product introduction of yet another in a long line of support devices designed to enhance the productivity of the world best/ cost effective/most powerful without the price, 68000 based, full color, non flickering home computer. The Atari ST-1556-j Printer cable allows virtually ANY model of Epson printer to be connected directly to the serial port of all ST model computers. [125 lines deleted for brevity] ... The cable was originally to be shipped with all Mega systems, and made available as an upgrade to 1040ST owners, but technical infeasabilities prevented this. It is now finally available as an extra cost item from both Atari dealers for $49.95. Unfortunatly, last minute technical changes prevent this cable from being used on any color model of Epson printer. ------------------------------ Mail bounced time. ------------------------ Chuck: cant get there from here Leo: Cant talk to you either. 'decvax' arrrrrgggggggg ! ` > > >-- >Alex Laney alex@xicom.UUCP ...utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!xios!xicom!alex >Xicom Technologies, 205-1545 Carling Av., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada >We may have written the SNA software you use. >The opinions are my own. -- Richard J. Sexton INTERNET: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard "It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition..."