Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!dinghy.cis.ohio-state.edu!david_r_watters From: david_r_watters@dinghy.cis.ohio-state.edu Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Nasty letter from Atari backer! Message-ID: <79126@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Date: 11 Apr 90 21:05:52 GMT References: <10447.261b26d5@zeus.unomaha.edu> <5642.261f5626@uwovax.uwo.ca> Sender: usenet_news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: david r watters Organization: Ohio State University Computer and Information Science Lines: 62 Trying to have a fact filled discussion with a hot head is impossible but I will try to clear up some errors. >> Date: Wed, 4 Apr 90 20:47:25 -0400 (EDT) >> From: John Knight >> To: fh007@zeus.unomaha.edu >> Subject: Re: Amiga/Atari help >> >> 1 It'll be a cold day in hell before C= gets a real '030 box w/ UNIX out the >> door. At least Atari has announced a UNIX '030 box. C= is too embarrased >> about their latest "creation" to even show it to the outside world. This is a "foot in mouth" waiting to happen if I ever saw one. CBM has Unix up and going in Europe, and isn't released yet here for a few good reasons including the need to have dealers that are able to support it. From the people that have gotten their hands on it, they have said it is one of the nicest implimentations out there. Certainly better than Apple's. Since the few places I know you can get ST stuff are mail order, do you think any company or College is going to buy a Un*x workstation, which needs constant support, from a Crazy Fredy's mail order house. >> 2. The Amiga chipset is nothing to brag about. When in use, they just bog down >> the CPU with bus contention. In addition, they are *much* slower than the >> equivalent ST chips. The ST blitter, for example, is about 2 times faster >> doing equivalent operations. The ST DMA chip does floppy and HD access from >> 2 to 10 times faster than anything C= an put out. Also, Atari has seperate >> chips, so accessing the HD won't slow down the blitter. This is totally incorrect. My 68030 hums along at 25MHz without any knowledge that there are coprossesors, while they are performing advanced system/graphics/IO processes. This paragraph is nothing but lies. The CPU in an Amiga has NOTHING to do with what the co-processors do. I have heard from CBM and Atari developers that the Amiga Blitter is much more powerful then the Atari, however since I am not 100% learned on them BOTH I will leave that discussion to people who know what they are talking about. >> One last thing, the ST double sided drive can hold 900K, not the lesser 880K >> that Amiga holds. At least get your facts and figures right. Also, you might >> get a more responsive audience on comp.sys.amiga than on comp.sys.atari.st. Sure you can use a hack that dumps raw data onto a floppy and get's 900K on your ST. You can also use the FastFileSystem and others on an Amiga floppy that get almost 1Meg with about a 200% increase in speed. This is not important. What IS important is that all the Original 520ST's had Single Sided drives, so unless developers what to exclude those, they have to release all their software in the SSDD ~360K format. The original Amiga where equipted with the same drives that they are using now. >> Jack Knight >> flames -> /dev/null ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Stupid users get flamed no matter what, so you can get rid of this if you want.. and I would strongly suggest you do. I would hope that when The Amiga UN*X Workstations start selling, and you sell all you ST stuff for the most you get get for it in order to pay for part of a $100 internal Floppy drive for YOUR new Amiga, that you would post a note saying how foolish you had been all this time.