sarnila@tukki.jyu.fi (Pekka Sarnila) (11/25/90)
TT 030 is now available to ordinary customers in Germany. The basic package
includes:
- CPU 32 MHz (not 16 Mhz as in the prereliese)
- 4 Mb ram (all slow ST-ram)
- 68882 32 MHz is included
- Hard disk ST157N-1 46,3 Mb 28 ms
- VGA monitor
- DEM 7298,-
Available memory options (ST-ram+FAST-ram):
- 2+4 Mb
- 2+6 Mb (otherwise as above DEM 7998,-)
FAST-ram can be upgraded to 26 Mb.
Other options:
- 110 Mb, 15 ms, 32Kb hard disk cashe (with 8 Mb memory DEM 8798,-)
- 21" B/W monitor (1280x969) (with above DEM 11298,-)
Other configurations are available.
While price is higher then anticipated, the shift from 16 to 32 MHz,
2 to 4 Mb ram and 30 to 46 Mb hardisk is significant.
Still with 33MHz 386 PC prices coming down the price seems too high.
It is about 4 to 10 times faster then ST. A lot of ST programs (the clean
ones) run as such (Calamus works fast and nice).
Next year the Unix version will have A32/D32 full size VME/Eurocard slot.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Pekka Sarnila, University of Jyvaskyla Finland
sarnila@tukki.jyu.fi
-------------------------------------------------------------------
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Pekka Sarnila, University of Jyvaskyla Finland
sarnila@tukki.jyu.fi
-------------------------------------------------------------------cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Christopher M Mauritz) (11/26/90)
In article <SARNILA.90Nov24182244@tukki.jyu.fi> sarnila@tukki.jyu.fi (Pekka Sarnila) writes: > >TT 030 is now available to ordinary customers in Germany. The basic package >includes: > - CPU 32 MHz (not 16 Mhz as in the prereliese) Yawn....Can someone explain to me what this 32mhz figure is all about? The DRAM is far too slow to take advantage of it and I'm sure that Atari's custom chips can't keep up as well. Is it just hype? > - 4 Mb ram (all slow ST-ram) Expected... > - 68882 32 MHz is included Surprise! And a pleasant one at that. > - Hard disk ST157N-1 46,3 Mb 28 ms Ho hum.... > - VGA monitor A little wimpy IMHO. How about some REAL graphics? > - DEM 7298,- Reality check: that is US$4900 folks. You could buy a MacII ci system for that and have FAR better graphics capabilities (not to mention a HUGE software base). >FAST-ram can be upgraded to 26 Mb. How? Using 4 meg SIMMs? > >Other options: > - 110 Mb, 15 ms, 32Kb hard disk cashe (with 8 Mb memory DEM 8798,-) This is more like it. However, it will cost you an additional US$1,000. Is it worth it? Probably cheaper to upgrade yourself I suspect. > - 21" B/W monitor (1280x969) (with above DEM 11298,-) A little better, but at US$7550????? That could easily get you a Mac IIfx system or a SPARCstation SLC or a NeXT 68040 box, etc... >While price is higher then anticipated, the shift from 16 to 32 MHz, >2 to 4 Mb ram and 30 to 46 Mb hardisk is significant. While it may be "significant" to you that Atari is finally switching away from a 16mhz 68030, every other manufacturer has done so a LONG (in computer hardware terms) time ago. Sticking with the 16mhz version would have been a virtual guaranty for failure. 15mb extra of HD space is hardly significant. I suspect, anyone willing to pay THAT much for a PC will want more. >Still with 33MHz 386 PC prices coming down the price seems too high. Agreed. If Atari wants to cultivate the Power Without the Price buyers, then they will have to live up to that slogan. >It is about 4 to 10 times faster then ST. A lot of ST programs (the clean >ones) run as such (Calamus works fast and nice). Ah, but many of them aren't. There are still a lot of programs that break on a NORMAL ST when switching to TOS 1.2/1.4!!! >Next year the Unix version will have A32/D32 full size VME/Eurocard slot. Forgive me if I'm a little skeptical. I'll beleive it when I see it. >------------------------------------------------------------------- >Pekka Sarnila, University of Jyvaskyla Finland >sarnila@tukki.jyu.fi >------------------------------------------------------------------- Best regards, Chris ------------------------------+--------------------------- Chris Mauritz |D{r det finns en |l, finns cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu |det en plan! (c)All rights reserved. | Send flames to /dev/null | ------------------------------+---------------------------
qralph@dna.lth.se (Ralph Haglund) (11/26/90)
The 32MHz cpu of the TT sits on a little card on top of an otherwise 16MHz machine as far as I know, not even with cache memory on that card. Some mag reported a 40% speed increase over the 16MHz machine. I'm waiting for what Dave Small will produce with his 030 card for the ST. Ralph
mboen@nixdorf.de (Martin Boening) (11/27/90)
In <1990Nov25.161636.13259@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Christopher M Mauritz) writes: >In article <SARNILA.90Nov24182244@tukki.jyu.fi> sarnila@tukki.jyu.fi (Pekka Sarnila) writes: >> >>TT 030 is now available to ordinary customers in Germany. The basic package ^^^^^^^^ >>includes: >> - CPU 32 MHz (not 16 Mhz as in the prereliese) >Yawn....Can someone explain to me what this 32mhz figure is all about? [stuff deleted] >> - DEM 7298,- >Reality check: that is US$4900 folks. You could buy a MacII ci >system for that and have FAR better graphics capabilities (not >to mention a HUGE software base). Doing that kind of price comparison is going to get you looking really stupid someday. As a matter of fact you already look stupid about it. Pardon me. Just pipe that to /dev/null :-). However,... Here's another reality check, this time for you: in Germany, and that's what we were talking about last time we met on the subject and what we're talking about here, Apples are more expensive than Ataris by a lot. Your MacII ci currently (c't, November issue) costs 14480 DM (40MB hard disk, 4MB RAM). They just lowered the price, BTW, from a whacking 18100 DM) (A DM is a Deutsche Mark and the $ exchange rate currently is 1.46 DM/$.) That is to say, your Mac, by your reasoning, costs $ 9917.81. Now tell me what great machine you could get at THAT price - will you buy a SPARCstation now? The whole pricing thing for Apple boils down to this (an article which appeared in c't [a computer magazine from Verlag Heinz Heise]): \fBMac educates at discounts\fR This is good news: Apple in Munich has extended their support program for the educational sector to the 68030 SE/30 and the LaserWriter SC. Against submitting an enrolement certificate (ger: Immatrikulationsbescheinigung) students (in addition to schools and teachers) buy the SE/30 (2/40) for 5724 DM (list price: 7632 DM) and the LaserWriter SC for 3263 DM. The standard SE (1/40) is still offered for 2900 DM. Wouldn't it be nice to be twenty again... By way of a 'European pricing alignment' Apple has also lowered the list price for the high end modell Mac IIci: equipped with 4 MByte RAM and a 40MB hard- disk it now costs 14480DM (used to cost 18100 DM), the version 4/80 with fast 80 MB harddisk goes for 15840 DM. Three new machines have been announced in the US already: for one 2 color Macs with 68020/030 processors named Mac IIs and LC as cheap versions of the modular Macs and the at $1500 US pretty cheap Mac Classic which will replace the Mac Plus and SE machines sooner or later. -end_of_article-- Well those are nice facts but the prices won't induce anybody on a low budget to go for the Macs. >>FAST-ram can be upgraded to 26 Mb. >How? Using 4 meg SIMMs? Well, 4MB DRAMS in any case. BTW, if i read the TT test in c't correctly, the low end version sports not 4 MB ST RAM but rather 2MB ST- and TT-RAM. The DRAMS reside on 2 PCBs. The first carries 2 or 4 MB ST RAM (the old ST limit still exists) depending on your TT version. At addresses higher than 16MB there's the fabled TT RAM, 2MB by default. Those two MB are on the motherboard. They can be upgraded using another board to up to 16MB it says (that works out to 22 MB max. for me [4MB ST + 2 MB TT motherboard + 14 MB TT additional board] so I must be missing something. Then again maybe not. The test editor also figures out 22 MB at the maximum). The TT RAM has (according to the article) a 32 bit data bus and the CPU shares it with the DMA for the REAL SCSI only. Except for the 16MHz layout that should be reasonably fast. As you and everybody else around have noticed, the motherboard, RAM and peripherals drivers are all designed for 16MHz system clock. Only CPU and coprocessor are currently tuned to 32 MHz there. God knows when there'll be a full-blown 32Mhz version. Some more facts from the test: The VME slot didn't exactly make the testers scream with joy. Seems it isn't ready to drive cards drawing lots of current. Also, the holders are solid metal so cards with active elements close to the edges might produce lots of short circuits in there. To make a long story short: the benchmarks, the programs that run (or don't) the test summary: a) Quick Index 2.1: ---------------------- ST TT TT ST+Hyperchache030 processor 68000 68030 68030 68030 clock 8MHz 32 MHz 32 MHz 25 MHz cache - off on on TOS 1.4 3.1 3.1 1.4 modified res. ST high TT med. ST high ST high remarks - - read TT used 4 caches RAM QI figures: CPU memory 100% 159% 719% 497% CPU register 100% 204% 827% 642% CPU divide 100% 768% 1024% 792% CPU shifts 100% 2050% 3534% 2697% DMAreadFloppy 100% 160% 160% 159% GEMDOS files 100% 100% 100% 100% TOS text 100% 68% 238% 256% TOS string 100% 87% 219% 245% TOS scroll 100% 44% 298% 145% GEM dialog 100% 111% 257% 361% Moral: Never work without cache. I won't explain Quick Index (cause I don't have it) The figures are taken from c't! They say that the slow TOS screen update figures have to be put into relation to the video RAM, which is now 5 times as big. b) Programs VIP 1.4 - no mouse pointer, no reaction to keys OMIKRON-BASIC 3.0 - GFA-BASIC 2.0 - gets into the Editor. produces errors on RUN (Bus error) GFA-BASIC 3.07 - Bus error c't-View + (GFA Basic Compiler product!) Messwert (?) - Bus Error Calamus SL + Megapaint 2.3 - Alert box: Megapaint only works with module Leonardo + Sagrotan 4.14 (Virus checker) - Bus error Fastcopy III + Signum 2! - CPU halts Larry 2 + doesn't even care about screen res. Tetris + STAD 1.3+ + Edison 1.0 + Skyplot plus 5 + 1ST Terminal 1.03 + Retouche 1.11 + only in ST high res mode Supercharger 1.4 + Problems doing graphics (fixed in new vers) LHarc 5.21 + HDU 2.2 + LDW Powercalc + Word Perfect 4.1 - 1ST Word PLus 3.15 - Text twice as large as usual. + Runs - doesn't run on the TT Short test summary: positive negative + many external interfaces - misconstructed, tight casing + equipped pretty good - RAM slows CPU down, 16MHz motherb. + keyboard OK - just a 720K floppy disk drive + eye-saving monitor - VME bus not up to strain + the new TOS Well, not to bore you any longer - that's it folks. For more details read the C'T, Nov. 1990. It features a test. BTW, NEVER compare prices between the westcoast of the US and the middle of Europe - it just dosn't work. Martin Disclaimer: My company doesn't even know what I said, so how can they stand behind it? -- Email: in the USA -> mboening.pad@nixdorf.com outside USA -> mboening.pad@nixdorf.de Paper Mail: Martin Boening, Nixdorf Computer AG, SNI STO SI 355, Pontanusstr. 55, 4790 Paderborn, W.-Germany (Phone: +49 5251 146155)
Patrick_Dubbrow@imagine.ms.sub.org (12/06/90)
sarnila@tukki.jyu.fi (Pekka Sarnila) writes: > TT 030 is now available to ordinary customers in Germany. The basic package > includes: > - CPU 32 MHz (not 16 Mhz as in the prereliese) > - 4 Mb ram (all slow ST-ram) > - 68882 32 MHz is included > - Hard disk ST157N-1 46,3 Mb 28 ms > - VGA monitor > - DEM 7298,- The actually official price for the TT030-4 without VGA monitor is DM 4298,-. Some other stuff: TT030-6 DM 4798,- TT030-8 DM 5298,- PTC 1426 VGA colour monitor DM 998,- TTM 194 19" monitor DM 2198,- kind regards, Patrick Dubbrow (Muenster, FRG)