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From: kiki@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jack W. Wine)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Glendale Conference Impressions
Message-ID: <12733@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Date: 30 Apr 91 02:11:49 GMT
References: <2610@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU>
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First of all, thanks for the interesting report!

>plinio@curtiss.seas.ucla.edu (Plinio Barbeito/) writes:

>- Inmos H1 processor will be used in the ATW.  I thought I heard
>something about a change in the operating system, but I didn't catch
>the name.  Mach, I hope.

This is surprising because I thought that someone posted an article stating
that the ATW was no longer in production.  If the ATW is still alive and will
be H1-based, won't the principle market be research-oriented institutions?
A detailed description of the H1 was recently posted by an Inmos engineer to
comp.sys.transputers, btw.

Some specs of the H1 (T9000) are: two million transistors on a 180 sq.-mm
die, 50Mhz, 200 native Mips peak, 50-80 native Mips sustained, operates
on up to 40 instructions simultaneously.  Expected volume production in
mid '92.

>- Factory in Israel is being built because Western Digital would not
>supply Atari with the controllers it needed, and Atari decided to
>build its own.  Israeli techs reverse engineered the WD1772(?) and the 
>resulting chip can be revved up to higher clock rates to support the 
>higher density floppies.

This is really puzzling news!  If Atari built a factory in Israel, it can't 
possibly be dedicated to only floppy controller chip production.  I may be
mistaken, but aren't all those chips becoming extinct because of the prolifer-
ation of the SCSI bus in systems and peripherals? 

Atari might be better off ordering 10,000 or so SCSI floppies and offering them
to Mega STe and TT owners for $100 and their 720K drives.  They could also off-
er older ST systems owners an upgrade which includes a 2.88MB SCSI floppy and a
SCSI host adaptor for $200-250.  This would standardize all ST owners around 
the SCSI bus and a relatively-fast, high-capacity floppy drive.  I'm not sure,
but I think that a SCSI floppy is also able to remap bad sectors of a disk to
good sectors so that you probably won't have to throw any disks away.

It seems like a short-term and expensive decision, because many people believe
the benefits of the SCSI intelligence would cause manufacturers to leave out the
floppy controller chip in future systems.

>- Atari looking into a 1 GByte 3.5" disk for the TT (next year).  No 
>word on Unix pricing yet...

The TT-Unix combo will probably be too expensive for most people and I wish
Atari would license OS/68K from Microware and package it with TT and ST lines.
If Atari can put together a software/hardware bundle with Microware that includ-
CD-I support, this might give TT developers advance info about CD-I, which is  
supposed to debut this fall.  Then they could program for a couple of dozen
million CD-I users!

>- Long discussion about the memory system in the TT (I left to move 
>my car -- when I was back, they were still talking about it).  You 
>can upgrade the ST memory in the TT to up to 10Meg (total of 23 Meg 
>possible, I think).  They were treating it as if no-one would 
>ever need that much memory.  Ha!  I've already used machines with 32
>that didn't have enough (a Unix server). 

I don't know about the upgrade options on the TT, but does anyone know
if the Mega STe is capable of addressing 16 megabytes?  If it supports
the VME A24/D16, then that would be true(?)  Could someone check in their
machines and count the number of pins on the Mega STe MMU and compare it
with a ST MMU?  

The new Atari User magazines listed the specs the the ST(e) Notebooks and
it stated that there were two 4MB ramcard slots.  Along with the max. 4MB
drams and 512KB rom, that adds up to 12.5MB.  This means new MMUs (at least
for the Notebook) probably support 24-bit addressing.  Does the Mega STe
have this MMU (and the regular STe) too?  Could someone please check?

>I also had a chance to ask J. Tarpinian (local user group VIP) about 
>ST sales.  He said that they were actually picking up in the U.S. 
>due to their popularity with music dealers and customers.  In the 
>LA area, these dealers mention Atari in their radio commercials 
>right next to fast-paced talk about Fender Guitars.  Music dealers are
>also advertising in the print media here, with big, full-page ads.

I noticed the Atari logo on some ads from dealers that previously sold
Amiga and IBM compatibles.  It seems that Atari is laying the foundations
for a strong and lasting resurgence.  Thanks for the good news!


Jack