[comp.sys.atari.st] Supercharger problems

depeche@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Sam Alan EZUST) (05/03/90)

Here is a sequel to my original article, now that I have a bit more
information. It is basically a point-by-point breakdown of my
impressions on the package.

Problems:

1] Hercules graphics mode is a little screwy.
  I try it on my mono monitor and about one  inch of the screen's image
  is cut off at the right of the screen. If anyone else experiences
  this, send me mail. I am really concerned about this bug.

  CGA works fine, so I can still do graphics on most programs,
   such as WP with its equation editor.

2] The built-in font is not very pretty. They should've just used the
   system font.

3] The power cord which plugs into the joystick is a stupid idea. I bought
   a transformer. Which is required for STs with more than 1 mb of memory
   (and since I have one, I had no choice).

4] The Supra Clock reader program (and others, so I am told) will bomb
  while running unless the reset button on the Supercharger is held down.
  This means that supra users can't re-enter into IBM mode unless
  they disable the clock., because the hotkey which exits
  out of ms-dos mode reboots the ST.
  This also means that the reset key must be held
  down every time you boot up the ST (if you want the clock) which
  is also a pain.

5] Print spoolers interfere with the MS-Dos printing, so these must
   be disabled before running supercharger.

good points :

1] Factory setup of software and hardware automatically scans for all
  physical and logical drives, and installs them for you, and the
  ibm's clock is set to the same time as the ST's clock.

2] ST disks can be read without any problems. The ST's mouse can emulate
   an MS - Mouse.


-- 
|S. Alan Ezust                                |  depeche@calvin.cs.mcgill.ca|
|McGill University School of Computer Science |  Montreal, Quebec, Canada   |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                     "The mind is a terrible thing...."                    |

jpexg@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (John Purbrick) (05/04/90)

>
>Problems:
>
>1] Hercules graphics mode is a little screwy.
>  I try it on my mono monitor and about one  inch of the screen's image
>  is cut off at the right of the screen. If anyone else experiences
>  this, send me mail. I am really concerned about this bug.

Obviously what they did was just to map the Hercules screen to the ST. Since 
Herc expects 720x348 pixels, you will lose some at the edge. The fact that 
you have a strip at the bottom which isn't used at all is probably not much
consolation.

John Purbrick

Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) (05/05/90)

I owned a SuperCharger for three months and it ran flawlessly.  The
Hercules "bug" is not a bug - its the way SuperCharger handles the emulation,
try the left and right cursor keys to move the screen.  The font is
marginal on mono, but it looks great on color.  The power cord works just
fine on Mega machines - I used it on a Mega 4 no problem!  I also prefer
it to another brick and wasted outlet.  I ran WordPerfect 5.1, FoxBase+,
FoxPro, Norton, PCTools 5.5, ProComm, Lotus, Quattro Pro, SimCity, and
others without a hitch.

Peter T. Szymonik
xorg@cup.portal.com

depeche@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Sam Alan EZUST) (05/05/90)

In article <8261@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu> jpexg@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (John Purbrick) writes:
 > In my original posting about the problems with supercharger:
 >>Problems:
 >>
 >>1] Hercules graphics mode is a little screwy.
 >>  I try it on my mono monitor and about one  inch of the screen's image
 >>  is cut off at the right of the screen. If anyone else experiences
 >>  this, send me mail. I am really concerned about this bug.
 >
 >Obviously what they did was just to map the Hercules screen to the ST. Since 
 >Herc expects 720x348 pixels, you will lose some at the edge. The fact that 
 >you have a strip at the bottom which isn't used at all is probably not much
 >consolation.
 >
 >John Purbrick

Yes, I am replying to myself.

Sincere apologies - I didn't realize that there is a facility for changing
the portion of the screen which is in view at the given time.
The / key on the numeric keypad lets you view the left edge, right edge,
or the center of the screen (cutting off both sides partially).

I stand corrected. It was a two little lines in the manual which i
must have missed the first few times around...

-- 
|S. Alan Ezust                                |  depeche@calvin.cs.mcgill.ca|
|McGill University School of Computer Science |  Montreal, Quebec, Canada   |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                     "The mind is a terrible thing...."                    |