n8742883@unicorn.WWU.EDU (Perry Pederson) (06/06/90)
I am thinking of purchasing spectre GCR to emulate a MacIntosh on my Atari 1040ST. I believe that the GCR cartridge is capable of allowing the Atari's internal drive to read Mac disks, and that (most likely) a second drive is needed as the Mac needs one drive for its system and finder disk, and a second drive to run the application. I would like to buy a hard drive for my ST to use for both my ST and the Mac Emulator. Looking in the most recent issue of STart (7/90), a mail-order firm named Computability is selling a 49 Meg Segate hard drive for an incredible $295! Is this price for real (i.e. no "additional" hardware is needed for the drive), and has anyone out there had any problems with the Segate drives? The next lowest price offered by any other hard drive manufacturer is Supra, which is selling a 30 Meg drive for $499! My other question deals with the Spectre GCR: I have never seen this product in action, and I am wondering if anyone out there has had any experience with this emulator-- either positive or negative. Would Spectre be able to run off of the Segate (or any other) hard drive without too many problems? Thanx in advance, Perry Pederson n8742883@unicorn.WWU.EDU
hcj@lzsc.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) (06/06/90)
In article <1039@unicorn.WWU.EDU>, n8742883@unicorn.WWU.EDU (Perry Pederson) writes: > I am thinking of purchasing spectre GCR to emulate a MacIntosh on > my Atari 1040ST. I believe that the GCR cartridge is capable of > allowing the Atari's internal drive to read Mac disks, and that The MAC and ST are M 68000 based computers. Spectre utilizes the MAC OS ROMS, and patches in changes for machine dependent features (like the screen). The result is an 8 Mz MAC with a larger screen. 1. Spectre 128 is the software. 2. Spectre GCR includes a device to read MAC floppies on the ST drives. This requires roughly 1.44 MB performance from the ST 720 K drives. Most of them work ok. Some don't. 3. Spectre, like a MAC works best if there is a hard disk. All ST HD are almost the same, so there is little problem of compatibility. (Re: MINIX: not as much compatibility!). 4. The result is BINARY. A MAC program either works (perfectly) or not at all. Most of the useful ones run. Howard C. Johnson ATT Bell Labs att!lzsc!hcj hcj@lzsc.att.com
Christopher@cup.portal.com (Chris Jay McBride) (06/07/90)
Well that $295 for a 49meg Seagate hard drive is an amazing price. In fact I doubt that dealers can buy them at that price... That is what makes me suspicious about this ad. If you want to connect a SCSI or IBM MFM type d you will need to add extra hardware, there is no ands, ifs, nor buts about it You will need a host adapter, a power supply, and a case to put it all in. Most hard drives you can buy through ST sources only carry SCSI drives so yo the above is all you should need. Seagate make pretty good drives - usually. If you put one together yourself you might save a little money, but not much, and it would probably be easier to just by a Supra or ICD hard drive. (or one by another company (not Tech-Specilities though), if they use the ICD Host Adapter.) I put together my own 20meg, and it ran me about $450 (using used components) and 2 dead Host Adapters (killed by my own hand - but dont tell ICD), and some large headaches....
csbrod@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Claus Brod ) (06/11/90)
n8742883@unicorn.WWU.EDU (Perry Pederson) writes: >I would like to buy a hard drive for my ST to use for both >my ST and the Mac Emulator. Looking in the most recent issue >of STart (7/90), a mail-order firm named Computability is >selling a 49 Meg Segate hard drive for an incredible $295! Is this >price for real (i.e. no "additional" hardware is needed for the >drive), and has anyone out there had any problems with the Segate >drives? The next lowest price offered by any other hard drive >manufacturer is Supra, which is selling a 30 Meg drive for $499! The Seagate ST157N which is most probably the one you're talking about is 46.3 MB only and comes in two flavors: 28 and 40 ms average access time. (ST157N-1 means fast version, ST157N-0 means youknowwhatitmeans.) I think $295 is a stand-alone price without controller, housing and things like this. >negative. Would Spectre be able to run off of the Segate (or any >other) hard drive without too many problems? Yep. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Claus Brod, Am Felsenkeller 2, Things. Take. Time. D-8772 Marktheidenfeld, West Germany (Piet Hein) csbrod@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de ----------------------------------------------------------------------
bointon@kcl-cs.UUCP (Marcus Barnaby Bointon) (06/13/90)
In article <1835@lzsc.ATT.COM> hcj@lzsc.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) writes: >2. Spectre GCR includes a device to read MAC floppies on the ST drives. > This requires roughly 1.44 MB performance from the ST 720 K drives. Sorry, this is not true. GCR stands for Group Code Recording and is a form of RLL encoding. The hardware problem Dave Small has overcome is that GCR uses constant data density, and hence it varies the speed of the disk (listen to a Mac formatting) to keep this so. The ST drives are not variable speed, so something like varying the speed of the floppy controller has to be done, which is very clever. (Congrats. to DS!!) I don't think the spec of the ST drive is *too* important (though I would not be surprised if a bad one didn't work) the capacity is not that much greater and can be accounted for by the use of GCR. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<=Marcus Bointon=>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> << Consultant, Campaign for the Reduction of Entropy (C.R.E. Group(U.K.)) >> << Campaign HQ: JANET%ZDAC810@UK.AC.KCL.CC.OAK or bointon@kcl.cs.UUCP >> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> << Disclaimer: This message has been treated with flame-resistant chemicals >> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>