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From: cel@CIT-HEX.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari
Subject: 256K memory expansions, etc.
Message-ID: <851206181749.00m@CITHex>
Date: Fri, 6-Dec-85 21:20:01 EST
Article-I.D.: CITHex.851206181749.00m
Posted: Fri Dec  6 21:20:01 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Dec-85 20:23:17 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 33

There's been discussion of 256K upgrades for 800XL's and 1200's, but some
of it misses the mark for those of us with "old" 800's.   The real question
is how to get maximum advantage from memory upgrades.  So far, I know
of five schemes for 64K+ memory expansions:

        Axlon ramdisk 128K     ... don't know how it works ...
        Atari 1200 (other XL?) extra 16K swapped with O.S., PORTB selected
        Mosiac Select          4K banks at $C000, non-PORTB select scheme
        Atari 130XE            16K banks at $4000, PORTB selected
        Byte's 800XL 256K "dog"  ??

The problem comes when you realized that NONE of these is standard. Yeah,
sure, Atari themselves came out with the XL's and the 130XE, but the two
aren't compatable and (worse) have little to no support from the O.S.
software.

So: how to get the best use out of add-on memory?  Shall we take the
130XE as the new standard, and junk all of our old stuff?  I know it's
a little late in the game to be talking about standardizing 800 add-ons,
but isn't there something we can do about it?

Now the suggestion (are you listening, C. Dave Young?):  how about some
kind of software "standard" which would let you use the extra memory
regardless of what Atari it's on and how it got put there.  Hide the
differences between the above systems in some sort of low-level
"extra memory" handler.  Ramdisks address part of the problem, but
there are many applications for which you want memory, not emulated
disk files.


....anybody have some ideas about this?
                    --Chuck Lane
                            cel@cit-hex.arpa