kis@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Kris Iskandar) (01/20/89)
Hello again STers,
First of all I would like to thank all of you who replied to my questions on
the earlier posting. I am now a proud owner of a 1040ST. I guess I'll be
frequenting this newsgroup now. As promised below is the summary of answers
to my previous questions.
1. The Atari ST as a graphics machine.
- The ST displays 640 by 400 resolution in monochrome (better than
Macintosh), 640 by 200 resolution with four colors and 320 by 200
resolution with 16 colors. The color pallette allows for a selection
of 512 colors. It's not the best available, but it is workable.
A program called Spectrum 512 allows for display of 512 colors per
screen and 48 colors per scan line at 320 by 200 resolution.
2. The Atari ST and UNIX
- MINIX is available for the ST. Sells for around $80.00, add ~$40.00
if you want the textbook (it was designed for college courses).
A more professional version of UNIX(tm) is also available, I think
it sells under the name IDRIS. Be forewarned, it is fairly expensive,
at least by Atari standards.
3. Magic Sac, Spectre and Apple MacIntosh
- Those things are Macintosh emulators (plug into the cartridge port).
Spectre 128 is the more recent one,
and it allows the user to plug in the 128K apple roms. You will need a
monochrome monitor on your ST (You can use a color monitor,
but you would not want to), OS roms from Apple
(available through local distributors or mail order), and some way to
transfer files from a Mac to an ST (Translator One is a device by Data
Pacific which will allow the ST to read disks directly, else you have
to transfer with a Mac directly).
David Small wrote both products. The Magic Sac handles only 64k apple roms,
and is sold by Data Pacific (price including roms should be ~$150-200, if
I remember correct). Data Pacific also sells the Translator One for ~$270.
Gadgets by Small (owned by David Small, who is no longer associated with
Data Pacific) sells the Spectre 128 (price ~$150-175, about the same again
for 128k apple roms = ~$350 total).
The Address and Phone # of Gadgets by Small:
Gadgets by Small
40 W. Littleton Blvd. #210-211
Littleton, Colorado 80120
(303)-791-6098
4. IBM PC (MSDOS) emulator.
- To run IBM software, you can use the classic pc-ditto, a software-based
IBM emulator for the ST. (Costs only $70!) There are other emulators
which are hardware based. (But after you start using the ST, you
wouldn't want to switch back to the Big Blue).
- Since PC Ditto is an emulator it will run much slower than the actual
IBM PC (about 25% the speed of an XT).
5. C compiler for the ST
C compiler? Here's some favorites:
Megamax(now Laser), Aztec, Lattice, Manx, Mark Williams, Alcyon(Atari's),
there's more, including some pretty good public domain ones(Sozobon is
one of them).
6. 1040ST and Mega ST
- The Megas have a blitter chip, a supposed cleaned-up TOS, and a clock.
- 1040 ST is a closed 1 megabyte system whereas the Mega (2 or 4)
has 2 or 4 megabytes and has ONE slot for adding boards, and a
detached keyboard and a built in clock...
7. Genlock and Framegrabber
And yes, the ST now has genlock capability. There are several framegrabber
for the ST too.
That's all folk. Bye.
--
|-^-~--v^v--^^~v~---^-- Kris Iskandar ---^-~~v^-v^---~--v^v^-~v^---~~v^^----
Electrical Engineering Dept. | INTERNET: kis@beach.cis.ufl.edu
University of Florida | BITNET : iskand@ufeng
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