w-darekm@microsoft.UUCP (Darek Mihocka) (10/28/89)
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Press release for immediate distribution to all Atari ST Users in the
United States and Canada.
Friday, October 27, 1989
Quick ST 1.6 -- Shareware by Darek Mihocka and Ignac A. Kolenko
TOS 1.4 is now available. TOS 1.4 is great for speeding up file operations
on hard disks, but compared to earlier versions of TOS it does very little
to speed up screen operations. Regardless of which TOS you have, the
program Quick ST 1.6 is for you.
Quick ST 1.6 increases the speed at which the ST performs screen
operations, such as printing text to the screen, scrolling the screen,
drawing windows and dialog boxes, and reducing the overhead of other
graphics operations, such as desktop redraws.
Printing of text strings to the screen is sped up by 1510% in medium
resolution and 1240% in monochrome. Character by character printing is
three times faster. Screen scrolling is at blitter chip speeds. This all
means that your .TOS and .TTP programs will run faster. Line drawing is
twice as fast, which makes zoom boxes and windows draw much faster.
Graphical text is printed much faster, which means that your desktop
windows will update faster and your GEM programs will operate faster.
The result is that your Atari ST appears to run faster and smoother than
before. You spend less time waiting for the screen to scroll or redraw.
Quick ST 1.6 does not physically make your ST any faster. It simply makes
TOS more efficient at manipulating the screen display. In some cases, it
will make your ST perform better than an equivalent ST equipped with
hardware enhancements like a blitter chip, 16 MHz board, or even TOS 1.4.
And all this is done in software, so installation is as simple as copying
a file.
Quick ST 1.6 runs from the AUTO folder and so does not use the already
overcrowded desk accessory menu, or require interaction with the user. It
is completely transparent to most applications. It uses under 20K of RAM,
and automatically installs either the color or monochrome version and
throws away initialization code to save memory.
Quick ST 1.6 runs on any Atari ST or Mega ST using a standard SC1224 color
or SM124 monochrome monitor. A blitter chip is optional, as is an
accelerator board. All official releases of TOS are supported.
The following screen resolutions are supported:
- 320x200 low resolution
- 640x200 medium resolution
- 640x400 monochrome
Here are some benchmark results using the Quick Index 1.6 program, running
on a TOS 1.4 1040ST, in monochrome, with no blitter chip:
BIOS text 325%
BIOS string 1240%
BIOS scroll 134%
GEM draw 193%
These numbers are greater than those obtained for an ST not using Quick ST
1.6, but equipped with TOS 1.4, blitter chip and 16MHz board. When used
with Quick ST 1.6, such a system is amazingly fast.
In another benchmark, the entire Quick ST source code (9000 lines of 68000
assembly language) was loaded into ST Writer 3.4 and scrolled from top to
bottom. Without Quick ST, this takes 90 seconds. With Quick ST, this takes
49 seconds, almost 100% faster. And ST Writer can keep up with your typing
now when used with Quick ST.
Using the ZOOMTEST program supplied with Codehead's G+PLUS program, 50
repetitions take only 10 seconds in monochrome and 15 seconds in medium
resolution, twice as fast as normal!
But don't take our word for it. Try Quick ST 1.6 for yourself...
Quick ST is shareware, and is NOT public domain. It is available for a $15
shareware registration, far less than the cost of a hardware upgrade, or
even the TOS 1.4 upgrade. Because we believe strongly in the shareware
concept, which allows users to freely distribute and copy software so that
it may be tried out on the user's own system, we have made available a
demo version of Quick ST 1.6. It can be found in the Atari ST libraries of
Compuserve, GEnie, Delphi, BIX, and is currently also available on Usenet
in comp.sys.atari.st.
If after trying the Quick ST 1.6 demo, you feel that it is of no benefit
to you, simply delete the files and forget about it. If you do appreciate
the benefits of using Quick ST 1.6, simply send in your shareware
registration fee (made payable to Darek Mihocka) and an updated disk
contaning the full version of Quick ST 1.6 will me mailed to you. Quick ST
1.6 is not copy protected and installs on any standard boot disk.
Because we believe in and support user groups, we are offering Quick ST to
all full time members of Atari ST user groups for only $12. We ask that at
least 5 people from the same user group register, and you must provide
proof of membership (i.e. photocopy of membership card, official member
list, etc). There is no time limit on this, so please take the time to
demo Quick ST at your user group so that every member can try it.
If you are already a registered user of the Quick Utilities or Quick ST
(version 1.5 or earlier), simply mail your disk back along with $3, and
the updated Quick ST 1.6 disk will me mailed to you. Do not bother to
download the demo.
Our mailing address for shareware registrations, questions, comments,
demos and updates is:
PO Box 2624, Station B
Kitchener, Ontario N2H 6N2
CANADA
Phone (in Canada): (519)-747-9452.
If you prefer to contact us by email, we can be reached at the following:
Compuserve: 73657,2714
BIX, Delphi, GEnie: DAREKM
UNIX: uunet!electro!ignac
If you are unable to obtain the Quick ST 1.6 demo by modem, simply mail us
a blank disk and $3 (or no disk and $5) and we'll send you the demo disk.
This shareware offer is valid until the next Quick ST update.
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