cacsc083@mx.csun.edu (Paul Wick) (11/19/90)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: 68030/memory Summary: 68030 and Mac sound and Configuration Page References: <68883@bu.edu.bu.edu> Reply-To: cacsc083@secs.csun.edu (Paul Wick) Followup-To: comp.sys.atari.st Keywords: help, sound, 68030, Spectre, GBS Organization: School of Engineering and Computer Science, CSU Northridge In article <68883@bu.edu.bu.edu> selick@bucsf.bu.edu (Steven Selick) writes: >I just heard a rumor that David Small will be coming out with a 68030/8 meg >upgradable board for the 1040st. Has anybody seen a demo version of the >board at a trade show? What have you heard about it? Also, with Spectre GCR >(2.65) I invariably get a system lockup when I hit <help>. Is this a known >problem? Or am I having problems? Can it be fixed? > >-steve ><selick@bucsf.bu.edu> The <help> problem is on 1040STs with one meg of RAM, because the help page is not supported in the 832K mode. GBS Newsletter number 4 mentions this, but has no solution. The simplest fix is to upgrade your memory to 4 (or 2.5) meg. I did this with the JRI simm board. You will need more memory any way for sounds, which take up lots of room on the system heap. Print spoolers like Multispool and ram caches for ATM eat up RAM as well. Finally, many programs just will not fit in the 832K space. Mathematica wants at least 3MB and even then I've run out of RAM with it. The 832K mode is kind of a kludge and should be avoided, if possible. Features like the fading in of the first Mac screen are gone in the 832K mode. Note that these features are only missing in the 832K mode, and if you can do with less memory, they are there for the 512K mode. There have been questions about sound with the Spectre here. I know I was confused at first. Programs with sound will work, have been working since Spectre 2.3K. The only sound problem is the System beep, in the Mac's system software, which will be fixed in Spectre 3.0. To have sound like the System beep, but fancier, use SoundMaster. SoundMaster is a freeware cdev; beware of it tho, as sounds can eat up a half meg of system heap very easily. Note that some earlier sound formats, like the SoundMover sounds, are incompatible with SoundMaster --this is what caused my problems, as I had only some of these incompatible sounds to test SoundMaster with. If you use a lot of INITs and cdevs you may need to use a program like HeapFixer (don't know the PD counterpart) to increase the memory allocation to the system heap. The 68030 board is still in development, as far as I know, and it will be for Mega STs, not 1040STs. There is not enough room in the 1040 for the 8 simms, I hear. Latter there may be a 1040 version. GBS licensed TOS 1.62 from Atari for the board, so it would work with ST software. cacsc083@secs.csun.edu P.WICK Paul Wick