Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!execu!sequoia!uudell!fquest!mspacek From: mspacek@fquest.fidonet.org (Mark Spacek) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Amiga ST Emulators (was Re: TT's and NeXT) Keywords: Junk Message-ID: Date: 31 Dec 90 17:05:58 GMT References: <17097@brahms.udel.edu> Organization: Future Quest BBS 512-834-1992 1:19/23 Lines: 61 don@brahms.udel.edu (Donald R Lloyd) writes: > From p.109 of the Feb 1991 (!) issue of Amigaworld: > brainSTorm > The MAST Atari emulator > Runs approx 98% of ST s/w, including MIDI support. Only programs > which should have problems are those doing direct DMA or > programming the MFP. > Supports all ST resolutions incl. color, 8 meg fast & 2 meg CHIP > RAM (Amiga side, not really related to Atari side) > Full page monitor emulation w/scrolling (by this I assume it's > talking about the Moniterm monitor, for which an Amiga version > is also available). > Uses amiga par & ser ports & all floppy drives (no mention of HD > support) > Two ST's at same time on Amiga > "Almost ST speed, text is 120% faster, disk 108%" > sockets for ST ROMS, hw emulation of Atari custom chips > The above is paraphrased from MAST's ad. Cost is $99. No mention of > whether it will work on accelerated Amigas, no mention of HD support. MAST > has been around for a while, but their products, from my observations, > have a mediocre reputation, and their record for getting products out on > time is terrible (Their Infinity Machine is second only to the Video Toaster > (which BTW, is finally shipping, & is incredible!) in the "Biggest Amiga > Vaporware of the decade" category). > In Germany there are supposedly several ST emulators. This is apparently > based on one of them. Sounds pretty interesting. There has been lots of discussion on ST emulators on Fidonet and on of the local Austin boards. I've seen a couple of the software-only ones. One of them actually worked to some degree. Got Chessmaster running on it in both low and high res. I've heard of one that sounds very similar to the one you posted about, I have to wonder if its not the same one. But the price was 195$, which seems a little more realistic, and it would only work on a 2000 or 3000, not a 500. Did the AmigaWorld article say which models it worked on? You say the article stated that text speed was 120% of an ST and disk I/O 108% of an ST. I would be curious to know how the numbers would compare if you used one of the inexpensive 'software blitters' like Quick ST or Turbo ST and used disks with a 'twisted' sector skew in the tests. Many, if not most ST users do these things and thus increase their performance greatly without spending much. I'd be curious whether you could do this on the emulator and how it would compare to an ST then. Also, the software emulator I saw working worked at a decent speed when in high-res monochrome mode (flicker often got pretty bad though). But, in medium and low res modes, the speed was significantly slower - not anywhere near what the high-res was. I guess that was it having to keep up with the color planes. I'm not saying that the others are this way to, it just makes me wonder. In Germany it wouldn't matter so much, as the migh-res monochrome mode is the most popular way to set up STs there, and most of the software will run in that resolution. You said that there were several ST emulators in Germany and this was based on one of them. Perhaps its not the same one I read about then, but I had only read about one confirmed ST emulator in Germany. It had been demonstrated at a computer show over there. Of course, I could have easily missed the others, I don't subscribe to German computer mags.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The following opinions are my own and not those of anyone else who might be registered on fquest.fidonet.org. All flames can be sent to alt.flames since we don't read that here. ----------------------------------------------------------------------