From: gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block)
Subject: Re: Atari Falcon Discount Supermachine  Re: Sydnes is gone?!!
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 06:57:20 GMT

hyc@hanauma.jpl.nasa.gov (Howard Chu) writes:
: Higher model will have VME bus, probably full 32/32, but might just be
: A24/D16 like Mega STe and TT. Dunno.

That's really stupid of them.  I'm not giving them a break on this
one.  They're intro machine has practically zero bus, and they're
going to save a real general purpose bus for the higher end.  If
they'd have a UNIVERSAL standard for a bus or something, it would be
much better.  Look at the Amiga line.  There's the 500, and there's
Zorro II.  And the 500 can be made Zorro II compatible.  Zorro III is
fully backwards-compatible with Zorro II.

It would be wiser to introduce an across-the-platform bus to help
their developers get as large a market as possible, as fast as
possible.

That "processor slot" may not be compatible across the line if
different motherboard designs, different chips, or different main
processors are used.

: There's also nothing stopping us from putting a VME master into the
: processor-direct slot. I don't think this is a serious issue.
: (O, btw, sorry for barging in on this little conversation.... }-)

No problem.  It is a serious issue.  Yes, I imagine you could put some
sort of backplane into the processor-direct slot, possibly.  The point
is, it's not there.  It's not being designed with that in mind.  And
that could be a big mistake.

I sure as hell won't buy a computer without a bus.  I didn't like the
fact that the 500 was pretty unexpandable.  I wanted a general purpose
bus with a coupl'a slots.  That's why I picked up the 2000 instead,
plunking down the extra dough.

A lot of people feel the same way.

: Actually, the Falcon's 8-bit DMA stereo is just using the STe's sound chip.
: Nothing new there.

So they DO have the old sound chip and the DSP.  Well, at least I know
now.

: Well, truth maybe somewhere in between here. Given the choice between
: spending $1300 on a hot new Yamaha DSP E-1000 dolby prologic processor with
: 8 channel digital surround, and a $700 Falcon with DSP, I'll take the
: Falcon and write my own dolby decoder (if it comes to that. I'm sure someone
: else will beat me to it.) it doesn't take much DSP horsepower to handle
: dolby surround processing, I'm sure folks will find plenty of other good
: uses for the thing easily enough.

I'm sure they will.  Provided there's some standard way to access the
DSP.  Otherwise, every app will walk all over every other app.  The OS
won't be able to use audio outputs because an application is using the
DSP, only the OS doesn't know it...  Lots of things can go wrong.  If
it's not done "right".

: Heh. Good ol' Apple, always giving ya half of what ya want. }-)
: (Personally, I don't see why the IDE drive is there. It really makes no
: sense at all to me, tho mebbe SCSI drives in that form factor and capacity
: weren't available yet?) What else ya wanna use the DSP for - video? Floating
: point number crunching? There's nothing *preventing* you from doing that in
: the Falcon. I'm sure the sound capabilities are only being touted because

For instance, let's say you have 8 samples you want to play through
one channel.  You can do it.  You have the DSP sum all the samples in
realtime and then have the OS play the summed data...  Oops.  That
doesn't work, because to do that requires that the OS own the dsp.  Or
the OS tries and screws up your realtime-summing.  So basically,
you're forced to having to do the summing AND to play it.  And if any
other application, since this IS a pre-emptive multitasking system,
wants to use the DSP, say, an Engineering program that wants to use
the DSP for some FFT's, well, I don't know what happens.

But it might not be pretty.

: those are what most people will most easily identify with. Many people know
: that the NeXT used the same system for their audio. Most people are being
: exposed to the term in context of home audio. I don't think there's anything
: wrong with riding on that recognition...

Again, it all depends on how they do it.  And there's already some
stiff limitations in it because it's being used for a main function of
the system:  all audio output (that isn't forcing its way into using
ST-compatible sound chips).

: Hm. I have always had a problem with what people have called "the Mac OS."
: Or rather, bundling in features that are rightfully application-level into
: the underlying operating system. I'm pretty certain that MultiTOS (Ok, MiNT,
:whichI've actually worked on)provides more operating-system level capabilities
: than System 7. Things like subscribe/post etc. can be implemented on top of
: that easily enough, but don't properly belong in the kernel, In My Opinion...

No, but features like that DO belong in an operating system.  For
instance, HotLinks is similar.  You publish, and your other apps
subscribe, and they get updates.  However, it's not a part of the OS.
It should be.  Just like clipboards should be.  Just like
interapplication communication should be.  They're basic features that
allow communication between application and application and between
application and user.  They belong in the OS.

The kernel is another story.  ;)

:Multiscan,VGA, composite, and even RF are all supported. Even on my circa-1987
: Mega ST I get 832 horizontal resolution using overscan, even on my Sony TV.
: (Granted, XBR TV, composite input. Not really feasible for RF...)

So it handles at least 15.75-31.5.  At least interesting.  Are all
resolutions available in 15.75 and 31.5?  Or just the old,
compatibility modes.

: I'm undecided on this one. The STe has RCA audio jacks, but for all the
: cables coming out of this box I think I'd prefer the single cable minijack.
: I already have several mini-to-RCA adapters so it's not an issue to me.

: The digital ports are the old-style 9-pin ports. The analog ports are
: 15-pin. There's really no practical way to provide both on one port and
: remain compatible with all the literally millions of digital joysticks
: out there.

It uses 15-pin analog?  Well, that explains the extra two ports,
thanks.  No more arguments from me except to say that it's pretty
brain damaged, you can get 9-pin analog.  For instance, the Amiga's
9-pin offers analog/digital/light-pen input...

: Every machine oughta have room to grow, eh? Not like the MacPlus or PS/1...

Maybe:  Nobody will deny the MacPlus had its place.  However, if you
want to give a system room to grow, keep the features to the lowest
cost necessary ones, (IE probably throw out SCSI II and keep IDE) and
add a real expansion bus.  With several slots.  That way, they can ADD
whatever they want without having to use the One And Only Slot.

: Full resource tracking. I can't conceive of even trying to multitask

I can.  :)

: without it. Geeze, what a nightmare.... Also, while message-passing can
: be implemented simply enough, I think it's faster to go with shared
: memory. (In MiNT, any process can mark a region of its memory as sharable,
: or give it up outright to some other userID. I haven't quite figured out
: when I would want to give some other process some of my memory and give
: up my access rights to it, but the capability is there.)

Oh, there's quite a few reasons...  A certain Russell McOrmond found
out lots of good reasons to pass memory around back and forth and back
and forth...  ;)

: This sounds pretty much like the stock set of entries in a Control Panel
: desk accessory, with the exception of MicroEMACS. I'm not sure if I'd
: package MicroEMACS (or any version of EAMCS, for that matter) with a low
:end system, but it's readily available, as you say. As is the full GNU version

Of course.

: This remains to be seen. My impression was that audio input was not
: dependent on the DSP, which frees up one sticking point. The rest does
: seem like a difficult problem. It would certainly be of little use to
: be unable to support ISDN in concert with various other operations.

Yes, I'd agree.  Of course, the I'm Slow and Dumb network has problems
of its own...  ;)  (it's a joke, you pro-lifers.  ;)

: Depends on what you mean by "teach them unix." If you mean, can I take
: software off comp.sources.unix and compile and run it, the answer is "yes."

It's "Most Likely".  Because it's probably not 100% compatible with
BSD's calls...  99.5 at best.  After all, it's not BSD.  :)

Though it does sound rather interesting, I still refute that the
Falcon has lost much of the glory it was first given...

Greg

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(:	gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu			Gregory R. Block         :)
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