Suzy B Software 2/Suzy B Software CD-ROM 2 (1994).iso/textfile/txt_a2k/gem3_bas/bas_gem3.rtc

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=========================================================================
(C) 1993 by Atari Corporation, GEnie, and the Atari Roundtables. May
be reprinted only with this notice intact.  The Atari Roundtables on
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==========================================================================



                      Wednesday Night Real Time Conference

                               August 18, 1993

                          Host - Brian H. Harvey

                      Guest Speaker - Darek Mihocka
                         BRANCH ALWAYS SOFTWARE


<[Host] BRIAN.H> On behalf of the Atari ST Roundtable, I welcome all
of you to this BRANCH ALWAYS SOFTWARE Round Table Conference. Tonight
I would like to welcome Darek Mihocka to the ATARI ST RTC!

Welcome Darek, do you have a few words to begin this evening RTC?

<BRASOFT> Thank you for coming to the BraSoft Gemulator RTC. I'm
Darek Mihocka of Branch Always Software and the creator of Gemulator,
ST Xformer, and Quick ST. Gemulator 3.0 is an Atari ST emulator that
runs on DOS, Windows, and OS/2 based PCs, and emulates virtually 100%
of the Atari ST: the 68000 chip, 4096 color graphics, sound, 300-9600
baud modem port, printer port, mouse, keyboard and numeric keypad,
real time clock, floppy disk controller, hard disk controller, MFP
chip, and TOS. Gemulator can run Calamus SL, Pagestream, Pha$ar, GFA
Basic, etc. and most other Atari ST software.

Gemulator is an alternative to buying a real Atari computer and it
also provides enhancements over a real ST, such as higher disk
capacity, a larger memory limit, and much better graphics. So if
you're curious about Gemulator, now is the time to ask me. Gemulator
3.0 goes on sale in about 2 weeks and will also be shown and sold at
the Glendale show next month.

After this CO you can also download file #29642 with more information,
or write to us at:


                         Branch Always Software
                         14150 NE 20th St. #302
                         Bellevue, WA 98007

to receive a newsletter with Gemulator 3.0 info. But everybody feel
free to ask me questions about it now!


<[Host] BRIAN.H> First question, Darek, PMC is not the sole
distributor for your product anymore? Who should dealers contact?

<BRASOFT> PMC handled most North American distribution of Gemulator
for the 11 months it has been on the market so far. But I've just
recently picked up additional dealers like Toad Computers, Rising
Star, Floppy Wizard, Xanth, and others who will all be carrying
Gemulator 3.0. Dealers interested in carrying should contact me
directly now. Until the Glendale show (one month from today) most of
the dealers I just mentioned will have an introductory price on
Gemulator 3.0 for $199 (including TOS 2.06 ROMs).

<[Host] BRIAN.H> What are you doing to get other developers to have
their products GEMULATOR compatible?

<BRASOFT> Last summer and again this summer I'm doing a product swap
with many Atari ST developers. I give them a Gemulator and they give
me the latest copies of their software. This has been one way that
Gemulator's compatibility has been made very high. About 20
developers, including DMC, Gribnif, Codehead, Fair Dinkum, Dave
Beckemeyer and others have participated in this. By Glendale I will
have a newer compatibility list of software. The one I uploaded has
about 70 programs listed currently, but that is by far not a complete
list of compatible ST software.


<[Host] BRIAN.H> Thanks Darek! Up next to the podium is Doug Hodson.
GO Doug!

<D.HODSON> Is GEMULATOR compat with DOS 6.0 and Double Space?

<BRASOFT> Yes on DOS 6 and yes on Double Space. You can store ST files
on a double spaced or "stacked" drive. You can't perform direct sector
I/O to a stacked drive, but almost no ST software does this anyway.


<[Host] BRIAN.H> Next in line to the mike is T.Jones. Come on down
and ask away!

<T.JONES21> How much hard disk space does Gemulator 3.0 require? And
how about ICD drivers (your press release only mentions SUPRA and
HDX)?

<BRASOFT> Gemulator requires 1.3 meg of hard disk space, plus any hard
disk space you use to store your ST files of course. Gemulator can
access your C: D: E: and F: hard disk partitions giving you total
online storage of up to 128 meg. The press release mentioned the Supra
and HDX drives. I just haven't recently tested with the Supra driver,
so that's why I didn't include it. Any driver, whether Supra or HDX
will work equally fine.


<[Host] BRIAN.H> Nice question. Ok, up next is Tim.

<[Tim@TWP] P-DIRECT2> I was just wondering... does ANSITerm work on
the Gemulator?  It does quite a number of 'illegal' things, but it
works just fine on the Falcon, amazingly enough.

<BRASOFT> I've never tried ANSITerm so I can't say for sure, but I can
verify that Flash, Interlink, Stealth, and the VT52 emulator accessory
all do work right up to 9600 baud. It doesn't matter that a program
does "illegal" thing. Gemulator emulates the ST hardware, it is not
just a TOS emulator. So you can run programs that access hardware
directly, or write to screen memory directly etc. Gemulator takes
those "hardware peeks and pokes" and converts them to real hardware
accesses on your PC.  A lot of programs might not run on the Falcon
due to hardware differences and differences between the 68000 and
68030. But Gemulator emulates the 68000 chip giving you maximum
compatibility.

<[Tim@TWP] P-DIRECT2> Thanks.


<[Host] BRIAN.H> Next in line to the mike is Ed from Vancouver,
CANADA. Come on down and ask away Ed!

<[Ed] E.MUI> Does Gemulator require any special partition of it's own
or can you use the IBM hd just as if it was an ST hd? Also the max
baud rate is 9600?  Why can't it go faster?

<BRASOFT> Gemulator _does_ not require its own partition. Since MS-DOS
and GEMDOS format disks the same way, you can freely put ST files on
any ST floppy or hard disk partition smaller than 32 megabytes. Beyond
32 megabyte partitions, MS-DOS and GEMDOS do use different formats, so
Gemulator provides a feature called "virtual partitions" to allow you
to use 32 megabytes of any hard disk partition, large or small. Thus
the 128 megabytes of possible storage: 4 partitions * 32 meg = 128.
As for the baud rate, how much higher would you like to go? 19200 is
about the standard max on PCs.

<[Ed] E.MUI> Recently I've heard about Geneva, will that work as well
on the Gemulator?

<BRASOFT> Yes, Gribnif is one of the developers that provided us with
their software. I have the Geneva beta up and running no problem.  In
the Gemulator newsletter you'll see a screen dump of Geneva.

<[Ed] E.MUI> May I get a copy of the newsletter?

<BRASOFT> Sure. After the CO just email me your mailing address.

<[Ed] E.MUI> Ok, thanks a lot and I can't wait to see the Gemulator.


<[Host] BRIAN.H> Thanks Ed. I liked those questions! Next we have the
honour of having Charles Smeton to ask a thought provoking question or
two.  Please speak Charles!

<C.S.SMETON> Darek, you just sort of touched on my question. FAX
operation requires 19200 baud. This is a hardware thing that can't be
changed in the FAX Modem.

<BRASOFT> I've personally tested XMODEM transfers at 9600 baud. 19200
is definitely possible on a PC, and I'll need to test that out with a
null modem cable since I don't have a 19200 baud modem. So don't take
the fact that I said "300-9600" as meaning it won't do 19200, I just
haven't tried it. I'll let you know in a few days when I get a chance
to do that.

<[Host] BRIAN.H> Go again Charles!

<C.S.SMETON> The PC BIOS supports 9600 directly, 19200 requires some
hardware fiddling... Any V.42bis type of Modem should auto baud up to
19200, even a 2400 with V.42bis..

<BRASOFT> Hardware fiddling is what Gemulator does. <grin> We should
talk about a product swap.

<C.S.SMETON> Sounds good.I have another question...  Any chance of a
Hybrid between a Gemulator and Spectre ?

<BRASOFT> Dave Small and I had a long discussion about that at the
Glendale show last year. Apparently he decided against it and as you
may have seen has been posting messages on the Gemulator topic here on
GEnie making sure SPectre doesn't even RUN on Gemulator. I  don't know
why Dave would want to prevent his customers from running Spectre, but
I am abiding by his wishes and Gemulator is crippled in the sense that
you cannot run Spectre on it. I do allow you to run other Mac
emulators like Magic Sac, and Dave hasn't had a cow about that.

<C.S.SMETON> OK, one last question...  How about porting NT to the
Atari hardware -- that would even out do Gemulator.

<[Host] BRIAN.H> hehe. Comment Darek?

<BRASOFT> I guess. For what purpose though? A PC is cheaper than an
ST, so if you need an NT platform, it's cheaper to just use a PC.


<[Host] BRIAN.H> Thanks Charles. Me again. This goes along with
Charles hybrid question. Are there any other products planned for BAS?
What about Amiga emulation? What about your own MAC emulator?

<BRASOFT> If you've been reading the previous newsletters, you will
know that I am working on an emulator for the PC to emulate something
other than an ST. That's still in the works but not ready for prime
time, so that's all I'll say for now. Maybe at next year's Glendale
show (probably sooner) I"ll have a working product to demo.


 <[Host] BRIAN.H> Thanks Darek. Up again is T.Jones. Go!

<T.JONES21> Your press release states that there are 8 ROM sockets on
the card. Are these in addition to the sockets used by the included
TOS 2.06  ROMs?

<BRASOFT> 8 ROM sockets on each card. TOS 2.06 occupies 2 of those,
leaving 6 more sockets free for other ROMs.  This can be a 6-chip set
of TOS 1.0, TOS 1.2, or TOS 1.4, or 3 2-chip sets. You can also plug
in up to 4 Gemulator cards into your PC for a total of 32 ROM sockets.
Gemulator will detect them automatically and give you a menu of ROMs
that it detected. Then you simply  pick from the menu and it boots up
using that TOS version. This allows you to VERY easily switch from
running TOS 2.06 to some other version for software that doesn't' run
on TOS 2.06.

<T.JONES21> Wow! That's really versatility! With the Gemulator
currently running on Intel hardware, are you giving any thought to a
version which will run on the upcoming PowerPC RISC chip?

<BRASOFT> That all depends on whether PowerPC machines will have
similar slots to regular PCs. From what I just read in this month's
issue of BYTE, it's looking like the PowerPC will emulate the 486 and
so I can envision a PowerPC based PC that has regular PC style slots
and offers full 486 compatibility. But that's up to Apple and IBM and
Motorola to decide.

<[Host] BRIAN.H> anymore T.J.?

<T.JONES21> Also, are you going to do 68030 TOS code emulation?

<BRASOFT> At the moment probably not. There isn't really any 68030
specific software out there, and the 68030 TOS (like TOS 3.06 or TOS
4.02) doesn't really provide anything that you don't get using TOS
2.06 and MultiTOS/Geneva. (actually, if you want 3-D dialog boxes like
on the Falcon, just use Geneva on your ST)

<T.JONES21> Thanks for all the good information. I'm excited about the
Gemulator and I don't even have a PC but I'm going to go see TOAD
tomorrow!

<BRASOFT> Good. Toad does have a beta of Gemulator 3.0 that you may be
able to look at. They'll have the real product in about 2 weeks.

<[Host] BRIAN.H> Thanks. You even asked questions that other in the
line were going to ask! Thus real good questions [grin]. Up next is
Doug Hodson again.  Go Doug!

<D.HODSON> Does the Gemulator support higher resolutions than a
standard ST?

<BRASOFT> Yes. Because the PC's VGA card supports 640x480 color
graphics standard, Gemulator lets you take advantage of that. So in
addition to 320x200, 640x200, and 640x400, Gemulator lets you do
640x480 in color and monochrome. IF you have a VESA compatible
SuperVGA card, you can also do 800x600 mono and color. That's twice
the resolution of regular ST monochrome and 7 times the resolution of
ST 16 color mode. It makes for really kick butt desktop publishing,
and is fully supported by Pagestream and Calamus SL. Most other GEM
based software also supports 800x600.

<D.HODSON> Thats all, thanks.

<[Host] BRIAN.H> What is your vision of the future of Atari ST(E)/
Falcon? Can it be a positive future? I know I hope it is. You must
have hope in it to sell an ATARI emulator

<BRASOFT> Well certainly there are still a lot of developers out there
putting out some very nice software. That's why I'm working with
developers to make sure their software can be certified as Gemulator
compatible. But Gemulator on a PC is an Atari ST clone, so I am
competing with Atari in the area of hardware. You can buy an ST, or an
STE, or Mega ST, or TT, or a Falcon, or a "gemulated" PC. It's just
another hardware platform. Since we are up to almost 600 Gemulator
users already, I believe this already exceeds the number of Falcons
out there and is catching up closely to the number of TTs. So in the
future I would hope that people will treat a PC with Gemulator as just
another model of the Atari ST.

With such wide availability of PCs and their cheaper and cheaper
prices, it's an economically good decision to buy an ST clone. And the
more of these there are out there, the larger a market Atari
developers will have to sell to. Atari themselves have not done such a
great job of expanding the market and is on their way to choking their
own market by never having machines ready or available. So, the future
for Atari the company may not be so bright (has it ever been) but
that's no reason people can't be using Atari software 10 or 20 years
from now on a PC.


<[Host] BRIAN.H> I would like to know what changes are planned for the
future for GEMULATOR? I know you are just releasing version 3.0,
however I am really interested in its future. You mention a few thing
already but what else?

<BRASOFT> Well, as I add more and more features that emulate more
chips and ports of the ST, it raises the compatibility of Gemulator.
Right now the big gaps are joystick port support and MIDI port
support.  You'll probably see those in a future release. I'm also
always working on speeding up the emulator and improving its limits.
Already it double's the ST's 4 meg RAM limit to 8 (EIGHT), doubles the
floppy disk capacity to 1.44 meg, double the screen resolution, but
those can all be pushed more. 1024x768 is something I'd like to
support in the future, especially if people start writing more and
more software for the Falcon's and TT's higher graphics modes. So
those are a few things. But a lot of features I add to Gemulator are
as a result of existing Gemulator users giving me suggestions or ideas
to improve it, so who knows.  As an example, people hated the fact
that when you ran Gemulator 2.1 you had to always specify the TOS
version and the amount of ST RAM you'd like to emulate. So I automated
that in the form of an INI file and preset settings. You can now
literally turn on your PC and a minute later have the Atari ST desktop
(or an program) running on the screen without any typing on your part.
So it's like turning on a real ST!


<[Host] BRIAN.H> Thanks. Ok, Offy will take his turn at questioning
Darek about GEMulator. Go Offy!

<OFFY> How do you use things like Spectre GCR, digitizers, and scanner
carts?

<BRASOFT> You don't. As I explained Gemulator specifically prevents
you from running Sprectre as per the wishes of Dave Small. But other
than cartridge ROMs, you can't plug in non-ROM cartridges like
digitizers. That could be a possibility for a future version but would
require additions to the card. Possibly a higher priced version of
Gemulator.

<OFFY> Ok. In realistic figures, what PC is required to emulate my
Mega STE in 16Mhz/cache mode, cycle for cycle?

<BRASOFT> The emulation works such that for every 3 clock cycles of
the 486 you emulate 1 clock cycles of the ST. So to emulate an 8 Mhz
ST, you need a 25 Mhz 486 or 486SX. To emulate a 16 Mhz Mega STE you
need a 50 Mhz 486. The 3:1 ratio is a good rule of thumb. On the 386,
which is a slower chip, it is a 5:1 ratio. So a 40 Mhz 386 is roughly
equivalent to a 25 Mhz 486SX, meaning it emulates roughly an 8 Mhz ST.

<OFFY> Finally, how are you handling the sound of a normal ST or STE?
Do you utilize the Soundblasters, etc to at least provide the true
sound of the ST machines?

<BRASOFT> Yes, actually any AdLib compatible card (and the Sound
Blaster is a clone of the AdLib) will work. Gemulator emulates the 3
voices of sound of the ST and Mega ST. It does not emulate the stereo
sound of the STE, but that's a possibility on the Sound Blaster Pro
for a future version. Let me just add that when buying Gemulator, a
lot of ST dealers now also sell PCs and will even allow you to trade
in an ST for a PC. Those of you who read ST Informer have probably
seen the ads from Rising Star about that. Last I heard, they sell a 33
Mhz 486 with Gemulator and a 200 meg drive for about $1500, less if
you trade in an ST. So check around, keep the 3:1 and 5:1 formulas in
your head and buy yourself a good system.

<[Host] BRIAN.H> OK, Offy, anymore?

<OFFY> What feedback do you get from ST or STE owners that have
switched to PC and purchased a GEMulator to get back to the feel of a
real computer?  Do they miss the features that you are still working
on implementing? MIDI, stereo sound, etc?

<[Host] BRIAN.H> good question!

<BRASOFT> Joystick support and MIDI are the big ones. I know last year
at the Glendale show there were a lot of musicians interested and
asking about MIDI, but at the time there were more urgent issues like
improving the hard disk support and graphics. Not many requests for
stereo sound yet, but if more really cool stereo sound programs come
out then that's a possibility. It's surprising, but a lot of Gemulator
users buy it to run some specific program. Perhaps they keep all their
records in a specific database, or do all their desktop publishing in
Calamus and don't want to start from scratch when they buy a PC. I
myself use Gemulator all the time when I'm on the modem because for 6
years I've used FLASH and have yet to find anything half as decent on
the PC. I"m doing this RTC right now in FLASH and can't imagine doing
it in WinTerm or Procomm or anything like that. That's one of the
reasons I added modem support. <grin>


<[Host] BRIAN.H> Up next is DMJ owner and operator, Damien (Splat!).
Go Damien!

<[Splat!] DMJ> I just joined the conference, Darek, so if I ask
something that's already been covered, please forgive me.  <g>  What's
the GEMulator's current compatibility with GEM programs?

<BRASOFT> Glad you could join us Damien. Not including software that
uses MIDI ports or the joystick or is timing dependent (typically copy
protection schemes), Gemulator should run 100% of your GEM programs,
whether they use "legal" TOS/GEM calls or whether they access hardware
directly. Talk to me later about the product swap deal I have for
developers like yourself.

<[Host] BRIAN.H> anymore Damien?

<[Splat!] DMJ> More questions in a bit, but for now, I assume anything
that writes directly to the video hardware wouldn't run too well.

<BRASOFT> no, no, that's not what I said. It's perfectly ok for a
program to write to video hardware. Gemulator DOES NOT emulate TOS. It
just runs the TOS ROMs as straight 68000 code, just like any other
program. It traps all accesses to hardware and converts them to PC
hardware references. So you can peek and poke to screen memory, to the
hard disk controller, sound chip, whatever.  Gemulator takes care of
all that.

<[Splat!] DMJ> After doing some Windows programming myself, I've
gained a new appreciation for TOS and I can imagine how much trouble
GEMulator must have been to put together.  About how much does the
card & software cost?

<BRASOFT> First, Gemulator is not a Windows specific program, so you
can run it just fine from DOS. The card with emulation software and
TOS 2.06 ROMs has a list price of $229 although the street price is
$199 at most of the mail order Atari dealers. See file #29642 in the
ST library for a list of dealers.

<[Splat!] DMJ> Thanks, that's all for now... but if I get a chance
I've got a few more, for later.

<BRASOFT> Ask now. The RTC will be over soon!

<[Splat!] DMJ> There's more people waiting to ask questions, I don't
want to shut them out.


<[Host] BRIAN.H> up next is Doug from ... Rising Star. Go Doug.

<D.HODSON> How long before MIDI support?

<BRASOFT> Whenever I get to it. I don't know when the next Gemulator
after Gemulator 3.0 will be, and I don't like to set expectations by
giving dates. That's Atari's practise, and it's bad. I have released 4
versions of Gemulator in 11 months, so probably not too long into the
future.

<[Host] BRIAN.H> anymore Doug?

<D.HODSON> Understand, just was thinking of a PC/ST portables.


<[Host] BRIAN.H> Have the planned audience for your product been
smaller or larger than expected? Also, has BRANCH ALWAYS SOFTWARE been
a success in your opinion? That is, Darek did you believe you would be
where you are today? (The two questions tie together.)

<BRASOFT> Well, the potential audience is each and every single Atari
ST user out there. 600 is obviously not all of them. <grin> But about
18 months ago when I first started demoing Gemulator at shows, I
figured I'd do well if I sold 100 units. All of the original pricing
was based on the cost manufacturing and shipping 100 Gemulator boards.
That's why originally I was talking about a $300 or $400 emulator. But
as you know, the more hardware you make the cheaper it gets, and when
over 200 advance orders for Gemulator came in before it even shipped,
I knew that was a good sign! 600 is more than I expected by this
point, and with all the new dealers signing on to sell it, I have no
doubt it will sell thousands of units over the next few years. That
definitely makes me happy! <grin> I have no regrets about what I did
18 months ago, which was to sell off the Quick ST product to Codehead.
Codehead has made some nice improvements to it and at $229 instead of
$24.95, I can't complain about the profit margin on Gemulator either.
<grin>

<[Host] BRIAN.H> Glad to hear it Darek! If it helps ATARI developers,
it helps all of us. Last question of the night, Darek, what is the
upgrade policy for owners of older versions of GEMULATOR?

<BRASOFT> It's a very inexpensive upgrade. $30 from any earlier
version if you upgrade by September 3. By that date we'll already
start shipping the product to dealers and be shipping the upgrades.
After September 3 the upgrade cost will be $60 and you may have to
wait as I"ll be headed for Glendale. So the sooner you upgrade the
sooner you get to use 800x600 graphics, sound, modem, and all the
other new cool features!


<[Host] BRIAN.H> We're drawing to a close for the formal portion of
the BRANCH ALWAYS SOFTWARE RTC.  Before I put the room into Frenzy
Mode, do you have any closing words, Darek?

<BRASOFT> Well, I just want to thank everyone for coming! Email me if
you have any questions. Don't be afraid to ask. Thanks.

<[Host] BRIAN.H> I wish to thank you Darek for making it here tonight.
I also wish to thank all the attendees for their questions and
patience. In frenzy mode ...now!


                              End of Formal RTC

****************************************************************************

Be sure to stop by on Wednesday, Aug. 25th for our next RTC with Bob
Luneski of Oregon Research Associates. Bob will discuss the exciting
new disk doubler DATAlite. Setting a new standard for transparent real
time disk compression on the Atari, be sure to attend for the chance
to take one home as a DOOR PRIZE! For more information, type "ST" and
go to CATegory 33, TOPic 16.  Your host will be Brian Harvey. See you
then.