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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watrose!jafischer
From: jafischer@watrose.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Some Questions
Message-ID: <8408@watrose.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Jan-87 23:46:01 EST
Article-I.D.: watrose.8408
Posted: Tue Jan 27 23:46:01 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Jan-87 21:57:43 EST
References: <8701270644.AA04473@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: jafischer@watrose.UUCP (Jonathan Fischer)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 59


>    1.What have people been hearing about the Ms. Em MS-DOS emulator from
>Paradox?  Does it work well?  Slow or fast?  Does it support any IBM graphics?
>Does it work wit DOS 3.2 on a 3 1/2" drive?  How about software compatibility?

	This will probably be one of many responses, but here goes:
	Ms.Em is Utter.Garbage!  The program has potential, I suppose (if it
would really run most programs, then its incredible slowness wouldn't be
a big deal), but from my attempts to work with it, well... it makes a good
coaster.  If you've ever _really_ wanted to know just how well floppy disks
stand up to having milk spilled on them, then this is a good one to try it
on.  You could also use it for prying open paint cans...
	Okay, to be more specific: my experience is limited to using Ms.Em with
the internal 3 1/2" drive (you need DOS 3.x for this setup).  Results: the
only files I could get the thing to execute were batch files!  And these
seemed to take about 2 seconds per line.  *ALL* of the dozen or twenty programs
that I attempted resulted in "EXEC failure" or some such message, right
after the program loaded from disk.  E.g.:
A> ws		;; Attempt to run wordstar
EXEC failure

A> 
Thank goodness I didn't buy the thing; these attempts were at my parttime job
at a local computer store.  Apparently, the store owner was able, later, to
get WordPerfect running - for about 5 minutes.
	Note that I mentioned the need for DOS 3.x.  Word has it that earlier
DOS versions give much better results.  But you need to buy Paradox's 5 1/4"
drive to run DOS 2.x or (gads) 1.x.  I have no experience with these, as
we _still_ haven't received any drives at the store.
	Ms.Em is another example of a program that was released WAY too early.
Never mind using the customers as beta testers.  Anybody who buys this program
is more like a pre-alpha tester.  As I said, it has potential, but...

>    4.  I've heard that there are two pd emulators floating around now--one for
>the Apple II, and one for the Atari 8-bits.  I don't know anything about the
>apple one, but I'm told that the Atari one emulates Atari BASIC and some of the
>graphics modes, and is also slow.  Any other words on these two items?

	Neither are much good.  We have them on the hard drive at the afore-
mentioned store.  Kind of interesting to see, as a novelty,
but that's it.  Neither of the emulators that we have are in finished
form, so there's no point in my posting them.  Again, if these were complete
products that would run 80% or more of the software, they would be worth it.

>    6.  Regarding the Mega machines, if you by a 1- or 2-meg model, will you be
>able to upgrade to 4 megs (or to 2 megs from 1 meg) on the motherboard, or will
>you have to use that internal slot for memory boards?

	As far as I know (via Compuserve), all of them will be upgradable to
the full 16 Megs (new MMU).  I don't know about the method, but for the
full 16M you'd probably have to use the expansion slot (if it would fit) or
the (?) bus connector which is supposed to be in the back.  (Correct me if
I'm wrong).

-- 
				- Jonathan Fischer 	(jafischer@watrose)
		or:   	watmath!watrose!jafischer
		or:   	jafischer%watrose@waterloo.csnet
		or:  	jafischer%watrose@waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa