achilles@unixland.uucp (David Holland) (05/18/91)
*** FORWARDED MESSAGE -- REPLY TO AUTHOR ***
Date: 91May07 2:02 am
From: JACS!Roger_Heller@mast.moundst.mn.org
Organization: Jersey Atari Computer Society
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
X-Citadel-Gateway: moonsweep.UUCP (Portcullis 0.5)
Message-id: <91May072:02_am@JACS.citadel>
Subject: [What is the Atari 400]
Today we have many standards: the PC ROM BIOS, The AT bus
(called ISA), RS232 serial prts, Centronics parallel ports, the
EISA bus, the MCA bus, the modes of the 8080, the 80286, the
80386, etc., etc.. What we forget is that When Nolan Bushnell
was inventing the Atari computer these standards weren't nearly
the standards they are today ... they were in the future. Atari
was in the midsty of CPM, Osbornem Kaypro, and a newcomer called
the IBM PC. He invented a few wheels of his own - the SIO
(serial input/output) is remarkably like SCSI - just slower.
but it served (and serves) the needs of the Atari quite well.
It ties together a lot of peripherals - disk drives, modems,
printers, plotters, and the Atari 850 which ties in all the
other RS232 and Centronucs peripherals. Today, Nick Kennedy is
producing a product called the SIO-2-PC which allows the Atari
8-bit to use a PC as a huge ramdisk - even booting from it. it
also allows the Atari to print on the PC's printer. (do you
remember the Rocky and Bullwinkle show -Mr. Peabody, the dog who
had a pet boy, Sherman? The SIO-2-PC allows your 8-bit Atari to
have its own pet PC!)
Membrane keyboards are peanut-butter and jelly-proof, but
they're Hell to type on. Why do you think I gave away my
Sinclair/Timex? I'm out of gas -more next time
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