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From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth,comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga midi
Message-ID: <559@sugar.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Aug-87 06:50:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: sugar.559
Posted: Mon Aug 24 06:50:09 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Aug-87 01:42:42 EDT
References: <8708191439.AA07072@cogsci.berkeley.edu> <2489@trwrb.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 27
Summary: Facts...?
Xref: mnetor rec.music.synth:1353 comp.sys.atari.st:4919 comp.sys.amiga:7808

In article <2489@trwrb.UUCP>, sansom@trwrb.UUCP (Richard Sansom) writes:
> In article <8708191439.AA07072@cogsci.berkeley.edu> bryce@COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU writes:
> >In article <628@cup.portal.com> Henry_Burdett_Messenger@cup.portal.com writes:
> >> These memory systems are *all* compatible with the new blitter chip, and,
> >> unlike the Amiga, all memory on the ST is created equal (no "fast" and
> >> "slow")
> >Oh, come on!!  If you are going to claim a feature "win" of the ST, pick
> >one of the real feature "wins".  Using the Amiga terminology of "fast" and
> >"slow" memory, *all* Atari ST memory would be defined as "slow".
> I think you got this one wrong.  The ST's memory is clocked at 16MHz - the
> odd cycles belong to the CPU, and the even cycles belong to the DMA chip (or
> the other way around).  In this way, there is never a time when the CPU is

First of all, the man was being nice crediting Atari with a blitter in the
first place... 'cos it ain't soup yet. This has nothing to do with the
existing DMA... this has to do with the as-yet-unseen ST blitter.

Secondly, as the man pointed out, when the Amiga is running in the modes
available to the ST (640 by 200 by 16 colors, or 640 by 400 by 2 colors),
it also runs without having any cycles (unicycles :->) stolen.

When the ST blitter appears, it will steal cycles. But (like the Amiga
blitter) it's still a net win: it makes the machine faster.

Which is the bottom line, isn't it?
-- 
-- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!seismo!soma!uhnix1!sugar!peter (I said, NO PHOTOS!)