INFO-ATARI16 Digest Wed, 6 Dec 89 Volume 89 : Issue 759 Today's Topics: Atari ST as video edit controller Dear Rich Covert Geez, gimme a break INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 #746 Just Wondering . . . . . . . . . Mono Games?????? Once again: Seagate ST296N and Interleave 1:1 Prototyping board for the ST cartridge port unsuscribing VT100 emulator cartridge Who owns the ROM code? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 05 Dec 89 20:08:00 PST From: EESD11O%CALSTATE.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Ed Krimen) Subject: Atari ST as video edit controller Mike Russell writes: > Does anyone have info on a new software product for the Atari > ST that turns it into an edit controller? I'm sure I saw something > posted recently on this. Antic has something called Cyber VCR which is supposed to allow the ST to control a Sony 8mm or Beta VCR. You may be able to find it in their Catalog in STart magazine (but someone said that they don't put it in there anymore). Or you can give them a call at 1-800-234-7001 or 415-957-0886. Their address is 544 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. I hope that's what you were looking for. > Mike Russell ucbvax!pixar!mike ~~~~~ You work at Pixar? You guys do some REAL nice stuff! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Dec 1989 23:19 EST From: Greg Csullog <01659%AECLCR.BITNET@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Dear Rich Covert I agree with the netter who wondered whether or not dear old Rich actually understands Laser printing speed. Hey Rich, for your benefit I'll rephrase an earlier posting. 1. I digitized a photo of my daughter with the Migraph Hand Scanner. 2. I printed the .IMG file from a Mega 2 to an SLM804 and it took less than 1.5 minutes. 3. I printed the same file from an AT at 10 MHz with an 80287 also at 10 MHz (overall NORTON SI = 12.4). and the pic took just over 44 minutes printing from GEM Paint. <<< Yeah, 44 MINUTES >>> The difference is due to transmission speed. Hey, if you really believe in this 11 ppm, 8 ppm, 6 ppm stuff, that lakefront property in Canada's Arctic is still for sale and has your name written all over it! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Dec 1989 23:29 EST From: Greg Csullog <01659%AECLCR.BITNET@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Geez, gimme a break Hey Marcelino, lighten up! If your version of VP Pro has Kermit server then I'm glad to hear about it. However, skip the dragging down the competition crap. I am allowed to make a mistake. Hell, Rich Covert is allowed to make a dozen in each posting. Geez! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Dec 89 18:05:38 EST From: Marcelino Bernardo Subject: INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 #746 Jan Ameij mentioned that he had been having problems using Uniterm with VAX Kermit-32 when transfering binary files. The problem is on VAX Kermit-32. If you select file type binary, it insists of changing the binary file's record length. As you have discovered, the fix is to set file type to fixed in Kermit-32 and set Uniterm's file type to binary. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 06 Dec 89 00:56:34 EST From: Marcelino Bernardo Subject: Just Wondering . . . . . . . . . I was thinking. How can people who write pages and pages of messages on their own OPINION on various matters manage to find time to do other things: like work? It takes me many precious seconds just to skip over them is this slowwwww IBM VM/CMS mainframe. A word of advice: The more you talk, the less people listen. Regards, Marcelino Bernardo mbernar@erenj.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Dec 89 20:05:47 PST From: EESD11O%CALSTATE.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Ed Krimen) Subject: Mono Games?????? Eric Hobbs writes: > Hey Peoples, > > Can anyone out there in net land give me a list of good PD games > that can run in monochrome? Oh, BTW, tell me where I can get them. Bolo is a great Breakout-type game. It was written in Megamax C, I believe. I only have the single-sided disk version on my BBS (916-894-1261), but there is a double-sided version that is supposed to play great music while the game is loading. The game also works in medium resolution. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Dec 89 04:41+0100 From: Ritzert%DMZRZU71.BITNET@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU Subject: Once again: Seagate ST296N and Interleave 1:1 Message-ID: <891206034145.728957@DMZRZU71-UNI-MAINZ--GERMANY> Recently, I had the opportunity to attach a Seagate ST296N with ROM8 and Firmware 12 to my Supra host adaptor instead of my own 296 with ROM 8 and Firmware 11. Here the results I obtained with ICD's ratehd and quickdex 1.0. Driver software was Supra's version 3.30. a) Interleave 1:1, 21.23 MB partition (d:), empty ratehd: 20 ms, 57 k/s quickdex: DMA: 509 % Gemdos: 2486 % b) Interleave 1:2, else same configuration as above ratehd: 28 ms, 407 k/s quickdex: DMA: 4290 % Gemdos: 2463 % c) Interleave 1:2, partition size 14.15 MB (d:), empty ratehd: 26 ms, 408 k/s quickdex: DMA: 4355 % Gemdos: 2419 % The system has TOS1.4 in ROM. With AHDI 3.01, the drive was slower, DMA gave c3800 %, Gemdos c1600 %. My own 296 with Firmware 11 nearly reproduces these numbers. On OS/9 with its 256 Byte sectors the drive doesn't run correctly at interleave 1:1, too. This has been verified on industry systems (Eltec, latest OS/9 version) and not on STs. During the experiments with OS/9 it turned out that the drives were not true SCSI. Completely new driving software had to be developed to make this special HD work at all with the small sectors. Conclusions: - Even the 8/12-versions of the st296n cannot be expected running at interleave 1:1. - In contrast to assumptions issued in earlier postings on this subject, the host adaptor does not affect the transfer rate of the drive. Why should it? Its only task is to convert the ASCI commands to their SCSI equivalents and to pass the data 8 bit parallel with handshaking both toward the HD controller and the computer. And all host adaptors for the ST can be used with much faster harddisks at their full speed. (I know that the SCSI protocol is more complicated than the ASCI protocol. But either it works or it doesn't. Nothing in between.) So, if You are looking for a cheap and big harddisk and don't mind running it at interleave 1:2, the 296 might be interesting. But the st277n, 65 MB, is cheaper and faster (to my knowledge, the st296n is the only Seagate SCSI drive which has problems at interleave 1:1). So I really would recommend not to consider the st296n anymore unless You get a VERY excellent price (You should figure out how much the size advantage of the 296 over the 277 compensates for its speed disadvantage in Your opinion.) Quite recently, Fujitsu has released a series of very interesting SCSI disks. They are nearly as fast as the Quantums and much cheaper. There is a 180 MB version at about the price of the 80 MB Quantum, a c130 MB thing, a drive with about 80 MB priced similar to the st296n, and a small one of some 40 MB. (I am writing from Germany !!!). I don't have the precise specs at hand so I cannot be more precise on that subject. When I have sold my st296 I will probably have a very close look at it in the future. Maybe I have the opportunity to check one of them (the 180 MB) in the next days. Any interest in a further benchmark? Michael Ritzert mjr@dmzru71.bitnet P.S.: I remember a "test" including both the 180 MB Fujitsu drive and the ST296N in one of the last issues of the German ST Magazin. It confirmed the benchmarks above. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 06 Dec 89 00:14:48 EST From: Marcelino Bernardo Subject: Prototyping board for the ST cartridge port Ignac A. Kolenko asks if there are prototyping boards available for the ST's cartridge port. In the June 1987 issue of Byte, there was an article by Tim G. Hunkler on building an interface board for the cartridge port. In it, he used a used a board from Douglas Electronics. Proto board Part number 33-DE40 Douglas Electronics 718 Marina Blvd. San Leandro, CA 94577 (415)483-8770 Hopefully this place is still around. Let me know how it works out. Regards, Marcelino Bernardo mbernar@erenj.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Dec 89 00:21:58 EST From: Martin Lacasse Rm015 Subject: unsuscribing Message-ID: <8912060521.AA13207@frodo.physics.mcgill.ca> unsuscribe ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Dec 89 18:35:43 EST From: Marcelino Bernardo Subject: VT100 emulator cartridge Andrew Semple wondered whether he should buy a VT100 emulator cartrige that was collecting dusts in a dealer's shelf for $10. Don't. The dusts alone should give a hint on how much demand there is for such a beast. For free, you could get yourself a wonderful PD software, Uniterm 2.0e. (Maybe $4 from PD disk archives). This not only does VT100 but also Tektronics 4010, VT220 and other terminals. Regards, Marcelino Bernardo mbernar@erenj.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 06 Dec 89 12:11:27 GMT From: Chris Ridd Subject: Who owns the ROM code? Message-ID: <8912061211.aa03001@benjamin.Cs.Bham.AC.UK> A slightly off-beat question, but I've been wondering for a while. Who owns the object and source codes to the parts of the Atari ROMs? ie, the BIOS, XBIOS, Line A, GEMDOS, VDI, AES? My own thoughts are: BIOS : Atari written XBIOS : Atari written and altered as time passed (blitter call) Line A: Atari written and altered to handle blitters GEMDOS: DRI written, but Atari altered in TOS 1.4 VDI : DRI written, has Atari ever altered it? AES : DRI written, Atari HAS altered it with new calls (eg fsel_exinput) What claims does Digital Research have on the VDI, AES and GEMDOS? From the Hitchhiker's Guide et al, I thought that DRI wrote GEMDOS, if so how can Atari alter it? For a fairly simple enhancement to GEM, how about allowing more windows, like 16, instead of the current meagre 8? This would allow all the DAs a window, and lots for the App (encouraging the use of modeless dialogues). If I ever designed something like the AES, I would have written #define NWINDOWS 8 or some such-like, so would be able to change it later. Shades of the MS Write discussion earlier this year! /* * Snail mail address: * Chris Ridd, "Wave after wave, each mightier than the last * School of Computer Science, 'Til last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep * Birmingham University, And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged * UK Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame" * */ ------------------------------ End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #759 *****************************************