Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!blake!a360ad
From: a360ad@blake.acs.washington.edu (Gnurr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: ATW
Message-ID: <1404@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Date: 31 Mar 89 00:00:48 GMT
Organization: Univ of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 49

Just read a very convincing article in April Computer Shopper
confirming the existence of the ATW..... 1800 hours of use so far.

While I fully appreciate ATARI Sunnyvale's "reasoning" for non-disclosure
of a product "before its time", I have to say that there must be a point
in time when it is at least SAFE to say that products x and y will do this
and that and will be available when.....

There is no doubt in my mind that ATARI is loosing a lot of the market
by keeping their mouths shut.  A friend recently bought an SE030 for
$3500 (university discounted) that "appears" to fall far short of the
ATW.... had he even heard of the possible existence of the ATW, i am sure
he'd have hesitated and probably waited.  I myself am anxious for a
faster, more powerful machine..... was pert near going to do the same....
until i read the article referred to above.  I would like to believe the
following:

( cat Computer Shopper U. K. > Computer Shopper U. S. (April) )

INMOS T800 transputer central processor (32 bit 10Mips/1.5MFlops)

The processors have built-in serial communications channel, each
of which is able to operate at about 2.5MB/sec concurrently with
the CPU (and on-board floating point unit). The T800 has four
such links and this makes it ideally suited to parrallel processing
applications.  Internally, the ATW is able to hold 13 of these (along
with anything up to 64MB of memory - using 4Mbit chips) and through
two buffered links can address any number externally.  This gives
the ATW the capability of being a 130Mip supercomputer in it
own right.....

Blossom pixel power  1280x960 - 16colors out of palette of 4096
(3 other possible resolutions)


Entry level machines:  Helios multi-user OS               
                       1 MB dedicated to video
                       4 MB user RAM
                       SCSI hardware support
                       built-in 40MB hard drive
                       68000 I/O controller (modified Mega ST board)
   
                       
                             $2,500


I highly recommend reading the excellent article written by

            Mike Charnley Fisher