From: saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs)
Subject: Re: Falcon 030 specs released!  No more rumor...
Summary: All in the way you read it
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 17:00:03 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.080612.12515@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jyoung@nyx.cs.du.edu (Jeff Young) writes:
>
>Is Kent Dalton telling TRUTH of Multi TOS and Falcon??  What Atari
>experts say? 
>
>In article <KENTD.92Aug5151644@zappa.FtCollins.NCR.com> kentd@FtCollins.NCR.com (Kent Dalton) writes:
>>
>>No. MultiTOS is the gross/disgusting ST-TOS with Eric Smith's PD MiNT
>>package (ironically, it stands for MiNT is Not TOS) hacked in. MiNT
>>replaces the ST's BIOS with traps to it's own multitasking BIOS
>>routines. Programs must be linked with MiNT to multitask and last time I
>>used an ST (admittedly a long while ago), it only could run 1 GEM app at
>>a time regardless of how it was linked. In a word, when compared to an
>>actual OS, MultiTOS SUCKS. Even if it were better integrated, it would
>>still be suck when compared to much more featureful OSes such as
>>
>>The UNIX babble above probably refers to the UNIX emulation type link
>>libraries available for MiNT for use with C compilers (specifically
>>GCC). It's really no different than ixemul.library for the Amiga (except
>>ixemul is a shared library which TOS/MiNT does not support.)
>>
>>Aside from the DSP and the 15bit 320x200 (ugh) mode the Falcon doesn't
>>offer anything special, SCSI-2 is no big deal for a "budget" machine
>>given that SCSI2 peripherals that actually use the real SCSI-2 features
>>will cost several X more than the Falcon box. 
>>
>>So, for $700 (current rumored price) you get a 16MHz 68030/68881 box
>>that: is limited to 16Mb RAM, has a putrid OS, has a SINGLE proprietary
>>expansion slot, NO Hard Disk, and NO monitor, in that gross ST case.
>>Wheee. By the time you add a decent size disk (external if you want
>>SCSI2 (way expensive) internal is IDE 2.5" *only*), and decent multisync
>>monitor it's up there in price with 33MHz 386 and 25MHz 486 VGA boxes
>>which just *crush* the 16MHz in raw performance.
>>
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The tone of the above is obviously baiting, and can be ignored.  Just take 
out all the adjectives.  Multi-TOS isn't really on view yet, but the 
intention clearly seems to be to permit multiple GEM applications.  The
word preemptive was used in the description of it last night.  It will
certainly be better than MiNT running over native TOS....we'll have to
see it to know how much better.

Atari's genuine UNIX should run on the Falcon, although the windowing
environment would require add-on display enhancements (=$$$).  It doesn't
seem like an attractive thing to do, though.  The generally UNIX-compatible
MiNT libraries aren't really all that bad, and the various shells available
should give a comfortable environment (for a home machine).

The native video of the Falcon 030 seems to be a little better than what
Windows 3.1 supports without the use of OEM add-on drivers.  A little more
resolution and bandwidth would have been nice, but what's there should be
good enough for many users.

As for pluses and minuses of SCSI 2: I could make a little list of CD ROMS,
page printers and disk drives that will benefit.  They're affordable if you
need them, and looking forward sure beats looking backward with only ACSI.

All-in-all, a nice machine, that'll be able to run lots of existing 
software better than existing hardware, and that opens some new possibil-
ities for home software (yeah, that DSP and its DMA channel.....).
                               Steve      saj@chinet.chi.il.us
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy