c184-au@holden.Berkeley.EDU (Dan Filner) (04/25/89)
I myself just got back from the World of Atari fair and wanted to mention some things : I saw PC Ditto II at the fair : it's not what I expected. There is NO 8088 on the board, in fact no microprocessor at all! It's not just a PC installed inside the ST : the software just makes use of the board for certain operations involving "graphics and computation", according to the PC-Ditto rep. The net result is a CGA PC that runs a bit faster than a 10 mhz PC clone. I myself am gonna buy one when it's finally out there. (I am NOT associated with whatever company (Avant-Garde??) makes PC-DITTO) To clear up a misstatement I read by another fair-goer, the JRI 4096 Color Board (released at the fair) does not allow 4096 colors on the screen at once. (I wish!!) What it DOES do is allow 4-bit control over the RGB components of your color palette. That is, levels of color 0-15 instead of 0-7. This brings the ST's palette control up to the level of the Amiga and allows for direct ports of Amiga pics without loss of color info. (list price $49.95 + you need an atari Shifter Chip ($25) ) Programs such as Spectrum 512 will be supporting this board in the near future, so then 4096 on the screen at once would be possible... (No-solder installation) Call JRI or get your Dealer to. (I AM associated with JRI.. but someone had the facts wrong) Dan Filner Software Developer John Russell Innovations
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (04/25/89)
It concerns me that the most exciting things people can find at an Atari ST show are two systems that make the ST emulate other computers. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
rjung@sal55.usc.edu (Robert allen Jung) (04/25/89)
In article <3141@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >It concerns me that the most exciting things people can find at >an Atari ST show are two systems that make the ST emulate other >computers. Really? I thought that Ultrascript and WordFlair were really exciting. The hardware emulators did nothing for me. (Where was the LGS booth? Alice Pascal for the ST would be really worth getting if there was a compiler attached. As it is, one would have to buy $200 worth of software to get the friendliness of Alice with the functionality of a compiled language) --R.J. B-) ============================================================================= Disclaimer: This message was written with my authorization # ## # # ## # Mailing address: rjung@nunki.usc.edu ## ## ## (It's easier to just use the reply function, tho) #### ## ####
saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) (04/26/89)
In article <3141@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: > It concerns me that the most exciting things people can find at > an Atari ST show are two systems that make the ST emulate other > computers. > -- Remember that people using comp.sys.atari.st are mostly techies--the kind of people who know that it's hard for one computer to emulate another, and who admire a neat hack. For the outside world, the availability of desktop publishing systems ranging from personal to production-class, Moniterms, evidence of continued development of professional word processing programs and the musical promise of STacy are more exciting. As for the portfolio, we'll have to see what market it finds. Steve J.
Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) (04/27/89)
And what about Seymour-Rand's VCR tape backup cartridge?? That has got to be the best 'hack' to appear for any machine in many many years! A caridge that connects to the cartridge port and sends signals to a standard VCR for tape back-ups of hard drive data - each VCR tape holds 360Megs - incredible - and at a price under $300! Peter Szymonik Xorg@cup.portal.com
dlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) (04/28/89)
in article <17646@cup.portal.com>, Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) says: > And what about Seymour-Rand's VCR tape backup cartridge?? That has > got to be the best 'hack' to appear for any machine in many many years! > A caridge that connects to the cartridge port and sends signals to > a standard VCR for tape back-ups of hard drive data - each VCR tape > holds 360Megs - incredible - and at a price under $300! What is so amazing about it? Companies have been selling VCR based backup systems for years. When I was working at Synapse Software (in '82) they backed up their accounting system to a VCR. Several companies sell them for PClones. Of course you can buy a QIC-40 (40 meg floppy interfaced tape, 2 meg per minute write speed on an AT) for $300. VCR backups are fairly cheap, if you already have a VCR and are willing to put up with the problems they have. (NOTE: these are generic problems to VCR tape systems; I haven't looked at S-R's unit, they may be better or worse.) VCR systems aren't completely computer controlled, normally the computer can't rewind or advance the tape. That means you can't really do a completely unattended backup, you have to press record on the VCR first. They are moderatly fast, faster than the floppy interfaced tapes, slower than the true SCSI tapes. They are moderatly reliable, VCRs aren't designed to store digital data with no errors. If you use a good VCR with high quality tapes and some sort of ECC (Error Correcting Code) they are acceptable. I'd still create 2 different backup tapes every time I backed up (assuming the data is reasonably important). VCR backups do tend to put a lot of data onto a reasonably cheap tape, their $$$ per meg ratio is pretty good. If I was serious about keeping backups I'd get a dedicated computer tape system (eg. ICD's 150 Meg SCSI tape drive). If it was low importance data I'd either backup to floppies or maybe a VCR. Dan Moore AT&T Bell Labs Denver dlm@druwy.ATT.COM