wls@suns.UMD.EDU (William L. Sebok) (07/24/89)
I have posted this artice one before from stsci.edu but I think it probably did not get out. I am fairly new reader of this group and have a dumb basic question: I am considering buying an Atari ST. How much do I gain by spending the extra money to purchase a Mega 2 rather than an ST 1040, especially since I am not sure that I can afford the difference? I am aware of 1) an extra meg. of memory 2) a blitter chip. For example, what fraction of software won't run without the extra memory or how necessary is the blitter chip? My intended use for this machine is 1) music and 2) a bit of word processing. I own an Ensoniq ESQ-1 synthesizer and would like a librarian for my patches and sequences and perhaps later, a bit of music typesetting software. I will probably have to build up software a bit of a time as I can afford it. -- Bill Sebok now at: Space Telescope Science Institute though often posting from: Univ. of Maryland, Astronomy internet: sebok@stsci.edu uucp: uunet!stsci.edu!sebok still reachable at internet wls@suns.umd.edu
jansen@atari.UUCP (Mark O. Jansen) (07/26/89)
in article <5125@umd5.umd.edu>, wls@suns.UMD.EDU (William L. Sebok) says: > > I am fairly new reader of this group and have a dumb basic question: I am > considering buying an Atari ST. How much do I gain by spending the extra > money to purchase a Mega 2 rather than an ST 1040, especially since I am not > sure that I can afford the difference? I am aware of 1) an extra meg. of > memory 2) a blitter chip. For example, what fraction of software won't run > without the extra memory or how necessary is the blitter chip? > > My intended use for this machine is 1) music and 2) a bit of word processing. ... Memory is a nice thing to have, and will give you more options, like if you want to edit big samples or something. The Mega's keyboard has a nicer "feel", so if you're a touch-typist, you may find it more to your liking. Since it's detached, you can put the computer out of the way and just have the keyboard and monitor in front of you. The BLiTTER is a nice thing to have, and you may find the expansion connector handy later for a big screen monitor, or math coprocessor, or whatever. There isn't too much that won't run on a 1040ST in my experience; there are a lot of them out there. Hope this helped. -- "Question" Mark Jansen UUCP: ...ames!atari!jansen Atari Corporation BIX/GEnie: mjansen These views do not necessarily reflect those of Atari Corporation. "No fire exits...that's a BAD PARTY." - Bill Spooner