Ataris

From: Lawrence Walker <lwalker_at_mail.interlog.com>
Date: Tue Aug 25 01:20:02 1998

On 24 Aug 98 at 21:02, Uncle Roger wrote:

> At 11:45 AM 8/24/98 PDT, you wrote:
> >Today I saw an Atari 5?0ST and an 800XL. As I understand, the ST ran
> >GEM. Is this an interesting computer at all? What about the XL? Was
> >this one of the BASIC computers?
>
> 520ST does indeed run GEM; it's about equivalent to a Mac Plus or so.

 Not to start a flame-war or anything but I have a 4 meg Mac+ and there's no
way it is the equivalent of an ST. The only thing they had in common was the
68000 processor. In productivity applications, games, music programs, graphics,
and ease of use it is vastly superior. The proper comparison would be the
Amiga, which excelled in graphics versus the ST which excelled in music. Their
capabilities IMHO exceeded the later 386 and with the various add-ons is
still my machine of choice when not on the net. It's just a pleasure to use.

> 512K RAM, (unless expanded) 68000 CPU.

  Of course very few ST users use the unexpanded ST much less the early SS
FDDs. And unlike MSDOS you can actually use that memory without
workarounds. With an adapter plug it uses SCSI with all the various SCSI
devices. HDD, scanners, zip disks, CDRom, and there are also various graphic
cards and accellerators. There are net programs now also but the earlier
versions were problematic and I use this 486dx100 as my dedicated inet mchn.
But when I'm not sussing out some new acquisition I'm on the ST.

> What it does have that other machines in
> the same class (early Mac's, early Amigas) don't have is built-in MIDI
> ports for connecting to musical keyboards and synthesizers.
>
> That's what I (would) use in my studio (if I had it all set up) for
> composition and sequencing. (Doncha just hate moving?)
>
 I have friends that use it in live performance and it is still used
extensively in studios, especially in Europe, tho the Atari Falcon or one of
it's clones are now preferred because of thier built-in DTD capabilities.

> The 800XL is an updated version of the venerable 800. Has BASIC built-in
> and only one cartridge. Nice machine.
>
 There's a local BBS that uses 8-bit Ataris he even has an Inet feed.

 BTW, I read somewhere that the ST prg. Fastcopy Pro could format
Rainbow RX50 disks. It can format SS, various sector sizes,etc. You'd
have to use a 5 1/4 fdd of course. Anyone tried this ?

ciao larry
  
lwalker_at_interlog.com
Received on Tue Aug 25 1998 - 01:20:02 BST

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