btb@ncoast.UUCP (Brad Banko) (04/16/88)
i want a math chip standard for the 1040/520 ST's!!! I want something that Mark Williams will support. i want something that ISD will support in their VIP Spreadsheet, and I want it NOW. Any comments? (i want something that i can buy cheap ($100-200) and that i can plug into my (otherwise useless) cartridge port.) Brad Banko Columbus, Ohio (formerly ...!decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!btb) btb%ncoast@mandrill.cwru.edu "The only thing we have to fear on this planet is man." -- Carl Jung, 1875-1961 -- Brad Banko Columbus, Ohio (formerly ...!decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!btb) btb%ncoast@mandrill.cwru.edu "The only thing we have to fear on this planet is man." -- Carl Jung, 1875-1961
hase@netmbx.UUCP (Hartmut Semken) (04/21/88)
In article <7613@ncoast.UUCP> btb@ncoast.UUCP (Brad Banko) writes: >i want a math chip standard for the 1040/520 ST's!!! >I want something that Mark Williams will support. >and I want it NOW. hihi 8-) >Any comments? (see above) > >(i want something that i can buy cheap ($100-200) and that i can plug >into my (otherwise useless) cartridge port.) I have a ROM for your cartridge port: It gives You a NULL at any byte, word or longword adress... 8-) [Hmm, get serious Hartmut!] It is difficult to operate a math chip without writing to it; writing to the ROM port is tricky (but possible..). It would be possible to make a cartridge with a 68 881 or anything like it. But the chip ist expensive and is it worth the effort? Atari did a great job in building obstacles to math chip use (they used the reserved F-Traps for operating system calls instead of math chip acces). The chip can only be used as some kind of a weird peripheral. The application must now about it, not just the operating system: everything must be recompiled.... Everything that *could* be done in hardware (like number crunching, memory management, disk or other I/O) *must(!)* be managed by the operating system (look at the Macs floating point lib) not by the application or compiler (like the 8087/80287/80387 in Mama Blues machines). There will be no standard for the ST, right? hase -- Hartmut Semken, Lupsteiner Weg 67, 1000 Berlin 37 hase@netmbx.UUCP I think, you may be right in what I think you're thinking. (Douglas Adams)