sidic1@watale.waterloo.edu (James Parker) (06/20/88)
I have a few questions concerning the Atari ST and using it for CAD/engineering work. I have heard lots of talk about coprocessors, accelerator boards and 68020/68881 boards for other 68000 micros (ie. the AMIGA) but I haven't heard of anything for the ST (1040 or Mega). First of all, does anyone know if anything is out there and what kind of price/performance can be expected.. Secondly, I have a bunch of software written in Fortran and currently running on IBM PC's. I would be interested in porting the software for the ST and I was first wondering if anyone has any idea of the speed I could expect from the ST compared to an XT and/or an AT? The software is basically number crunching and not graphics intensive and a typical job takes about 20 minutes to run on a garden variety 8088 PC but only 4-5 minutes with an 8087 math chip...which initially made me think about math chips for the ST. The ST seems to have some nice features (one of them is price) and it seems to me that with a 68000 it should be at least as fast as the XT but I have never seen or heard anyone talking much about the Atari for scientific/engineering use. I would appreciate any comments or pointers to reviews I might look at. Thanks in advance...
Harry_Wallace_Waddell@cup.portal.com (06/26/88)
I am most certainly not an expert on the hardware side, i.e. the coprocessor, chip, but I have been told by "reliable sources" that it is very difficult to iterface the existing ST hardware with such a device. The Motorola 68020 user manual alludes to sofware emulation of the interface for the family of chips on the whole. Hopefully one of you hardware experts out there in ST land can enlighten us :-). I do on the other hand have some experience with mathematical program- ing on the ST. About a year ago I wrote some optimized Discrete Fourier Trans. routines.(i.e. w/ graphics and a few bells and whistles) My results were both encouraging and discouraging. 1. I write in C. I did a fair amount of research attempting to find some PD code to assist me in my work. To put it bluntly, you are very much on your own! 2. If you like fortran you can plagarize (adapt) with impunity, but, as we all know, real mathematicians don't use FORTRAN :-). 3. Since those of us in ST land are running at a full 8 MHZ w/ a mess o' registers code optimization is "easily achieved". Even without a coprocessor life ain't all that bad if you use the tricks o' the trade i.e. intelligent mappings to lookup tables in memory, ect.. I have and do prefer personally to use my 8 MHZ machine, having it all to myself(wring hands and snicker greedily), as opposed to waiting for people with ridiculous time consuming processes to get out of my way so I can get some REAL work done. BUT, when the 16MHZ board comes out I'll install it ASAP, w/ out hesitation! No software mods needed! Also, one of my summer projects is to write a few math utils. If someone out there has some pd C code for mathematical programming please post them! :-) Harry Waddell III Harry_Wallace_Waddell@cup.portal.com
leo@philmds.UUCP (Leo de Wit) (06/28/88)
In article <6861@cup.portal.com> Harry_Wallace_Waddell@cup.portal.com writes: [many lines deleted]... >Also, one of my summer projects is to write a few math utils. >If someone out there has some pd C code for mathematical programming please >post them! :-) Accidentally I'm working on 3D projection and motion for the ST right now (rotation, reflection, translation etc.). I use 4D homogene coordinates to achieve things, so each movement can be presented by applying a matrix multiplication to an object (in fact to the 4x4 matrix that puts the object in space). Apart from one function that is in assembly (matrix multiplication) all stuff is in C. If there is enough interest, I'll post it. It works already, but I want it to be faster still (speed++), although it can handle wire models real-time. Anyone interested, send me a mail, specifying where I should put the stuff (this newsgroup, comp.sources.atari.st or e-mail). Leo (the mathemagician).