Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!think!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!quiche!calvin!depeche From: depeche@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Sam Alan EZUST) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: TT's VME-slots Message-ID: <1741@calvin.cs.mcgill.ca> Date: 10 Nov 89 15:30:42 GMT References: <1189@cc.helsinki.fi> <2202@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> <4699f8e3.14a1f@force.UUCP> <2207@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> Reply-To: depeche@calvin.cs.mcgill.ca (Sam Alan EZUST) Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Lines: 52 In article <2207@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> gl8f@astsun8.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: >In article <4699f8e3.14a1f@force.UUCP> covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) writes: > >>> >Internal high speed modem?? Nope. >>> >>> Why internal? Get it on RS232 and then it doesn't have to be VME or TT >>> specific. >> >>Because internal IBM modem cards are cheaper then external modems. Just >>price them yourself. > >A VME slot isn't like a PC-BUS slot. It's faster and more expensive. You >put quite different things in them. > >> Furthermore, wouldn't it be nice for Atari to sell a truly open >> system and let the Marketplace decide what to add to it. > To Richard E. Covert and others of your philosophy: Expansion cards in computers were quite popular back in the early 80s for computers such as the IBM and the APPLE. Expansion was a desirable thing because a computer without any cards in it was USELESS! you needed a focking expansion slot in your computer to run your bloddy disk drive. Serial port? Buy a card! Parallel port? What kind? There ain't no standard (with the Apple's anyway). one card isn't really that bad anymore - we already have enough ports built-in, and that was the primary purpose of one of these interface cards anyway - for simple i/o. Any analog-digital converter SHOULD be designed to plug into a DMA, SCSI or some other fast port. This way, it won't be computer specific. In general, computer specific hardware addons will be a thing of the past. I mean, shit - if we have a DMA port which can transfer data at 10 megabits per second on our old clunking 1040sts, guess how obsolete a card slot which works with IBMs will be (I wish I had some numbers, but I bet that those card slots in the IBMs aren't much faster if they are at all). The only things we would need slots for nowadays is for accelerators, graphics enhanceors, and perhaps emulators. But maybe even these won't need to take up a VME slot if the computer is designed well enough. Taking up a VME slot for a stupid graphics enhancer is like using a steam roller to kill a spider... -- S. Alan Ezust aka "Depeche Modem" depeche@calvin.cs.mcgill.ca McGill University Computer Science Disclaimer: I claim everything! Montreal, Quebec, Canada (je pense que.... ) je me souviens "This kind of pornography is a matter of artistic creativity"