Apple II vs Atari 800
Jack Tseng
very terrible... Sound is not good. Atari graphics/sound are better than
Apple II.. Why did many companies make the games for Apple more than Atari?
I attended to the computer class in the elementary school. There were many
Apple computers in the most school. Can anyone tell me a reason why the
school chooses Apple even thought the graphics and music were terrible?
Thanks!
Jack
Michael J. Mahon
> In 1980, Apple II graphics/sound looks limited.. Graphics on the games look
> very terrible... Sound is not good. Atari graphics/sound are better than
> Apple II.. Why did many companies make the games for Apple more than Atari?
I suspect it has a lot to do with the larger size of the Apple II
market. And the broader range of hardware and software available
for the Apple II, which put it into a lot more applications.
> I attended to the computer class in the elementary school. There were many
> Apple computers in the most school. Can anyone tell me a reason why the
> school chooses Apple even thought the graphics and music were terrible?
Education is not about pretty graphics and sound. Educational software
is about *good authoring* and *entertaining* graphics and sound, which
has almost no relation to their objective quality.
-michael
NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."
Mark Bedingfield
Marketing. In Australia and New Zealand Apple struck deals with the
respective boards of education. It still occurs that way, Acer in
Australia for example. Its got very little to do with reliability,
performance or software. I'd imagine its the same overseas.
Mark
N.N. Thayer
To partly answer your question, here is an *awesome* interview that
covers the origins of MECC, who was instrumental in establishing the
Apple II as the K-12 standard:
http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/pdf.phtml?id=177
The interview is done within the larger context of the evolution of
educational computing, and the related financial, technical, and
bureaucratic challenges. Fascinating and informative reading.
Michael J. Mahon
In education as in other application areas, a standard platform
is a wonderful thing.
David Schmenk
You should have seen the graphics and heard the sound on a TRS-80! This
was the route my Jr. High and High School went with. Just not the same
experience. I was learning Apple Pascal while everyone else was
learning how to scroll their names all over the screen and typing in
crappy maze games from magazines in BASIC.
> Thanks!
> Jack
>
>
>
>
Although they were contemporaries, the Atari 800 was over two years
newer. Two years as a lot of time to add hardware features. Even so,
the Atari didn't have slots or the software base the Apple II had. I
think the Ataris were seen as more glorified game machines (especially
the 400) and the Apples were seen as more *serious* computers. The
expandable hardware, deep software library, and adequate graphics/sound
gave the Apple II a leg up on the other platforms of the time.
Dave...
Payton Byrd
first they wanted to make cart games of all their coin-op games and
use the coin-ops as free advertising. The problem was that they
rushed so many games to market that they didn't take advantage of the
capabilities of the system. There's an archive of all the email on
the Atari VAX that sheds volumes of light into the inner workings of
Atari and it's no friggen' wonder they failed so gloriously until
Tramiel took over, who happened to turn a profit for a while, but it
was too little too late.
On Apr 13, 7:36 pm, "Jack Tseng" <tse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Guillaume Tello
"Jack Tseng" <tse...@hotmail.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
CGxMj.105545$Ft5....@newsfe15.lga...
Could it be a problem of development kits: was it so easy to program on
an Atari than on an Apple II ? Were the tools so efficient?
I may be wrong, but the Kyan Pascal was both available on Apple and
Atari: did those tools appear too late?
Guillaume.
N.N. Thayer
And according to the interview, luck as much as anything else
determined that standard. If one accepts that MECC was a catalyst for
the proliferation of micros in schools, then a big reason for the
Apple II entrenching itself was that Apple was the only manufacturer
to take MECC's bidding process seriously:
"MECC dispatched two people out to talk to Steve Jobs and Steve
Wozniak who were the 21-year-old kids with the new Apple computer.
They had already announced their intent to save the world and they
were going to help education using the computer. They had no
information about what we were doing in Minnesota. They didn't know
anybody was using computers in schools. We told them about MECC and
said we'd like to buy five Apple II's at a special price. They gave
us a special price ... Yes, we got a bid from Apple. We also got bids
from other companies. Some of the companies, particularly Radio
Shack, were not enamored with this process and thought it was kind of
hokey - the process being the bid process and the state requirements -
and so they weren't real particular about how they responded. We told
Radio Shack, 'You know, if you don't respond in the right way we can't
accept your bid,' and they weren't willing to change. Everything was
flying high and they were selling TRS-80s like mad. The Atari people
and the Commodore people were late and there were very stringent rules
- if you aren't in by noon on the appointed day, you are [out]."
(One of a few flashpoints in that interview; the whole thing is
captivating, especially to someone who wasn't alive to witness the
transition from centralized service-based computing to local
autonomous computing.)
mmphosis
In 1980, I remember the Apple II/II+ as having the best graphics/sound
at that time, and it had a disk drive! Wow, no more loading from
tape.
The TRS-80's built-in screen was screen black and white. It had
graphics and sound? If it did, Radio Shack certainly didn't market
it, but I do give them big credit for actually selling computers in
their stores.
The Commodore pet was text with crude line/block characters in it's
font, but it came out roughly the same time as the Apple II. The
VIC-20 would show up a LATER, and the C-64 even LATER.
The IBM-PC came LATER and did not have graphics built-in but it did
have slots like the Apple II which meant that graphics cards could be
added.
Other than in coin-op video arcade games and a game consoles, I don't
really remember Atari computers in 1980, maybe LATER in 1981/1982 they
started showing up in stores, but Apple had the market by then. The
graphics and sound looked good in the demos and in the pre-packaged
Atari arcade games. But, could you type:
]HGR : HCOLOR = 5 : HPLOT 0,0 TO 279,159
on an Atari and get a jagged orange line on the screen?
On the Atari, I think you had to write 6502 assembler which had to run
within a limited amount of time to do hi-res graphics, am I wrong
about this?
In the 1980's, I wrote educational software for the Apple II and Icon
computer.
Why schools go with the hardware they choose? I think that it's a
government decision and the process changes. I don't know.
Where I lived at the time, the schools in the province of Ontario,
Canada primarily had Commodore equipment. And, later the government
latched onto putting Icon computers in schools, built by Burroughs /
Cemcorp, later Unisys, later maybe Sperry at the end. In the 90's, I
think they switched to Macintosh and PC. But, by that time the legacy
Apple II still had the of the most educational and games software
going for it. And, my friends and their children to this day still
play Oregon Trail on their modern computers!
Thomas Richter
> Other than in coin-op video arcade games and a game consoles, I don't
> really remember Atari computers in 1980, maybe LATER in 1981/1982 they
> started showing up in stores, but Apple had the market by then. The
> graphics and sound looked good in the demos and in the pre-packaged
> Atari arcade games. But, could you type:
> ]HGR : HCOLOR = 5 : HPLOT 0,0 TO 279,159
> on an Atari and get a jagged orange line on the screen?
No, but you could type
graphics 7
color 1
plot 0,0
drawto 79,79
to get an orange line on the screen. (-:
> On the Atari, I think you had to write 6502 assembler which had to run
> within a limited amount of time to do hi-res graphics, am I wrong
> about this?
I afraid so. The c64 had no graphic support in its rather limited basic.
The ataris did, however, string variable support was an annoyance.
> In the 1980's, I wrote educational software for the Apple II and Icon
> computer.
>
> Why schools go with the hardware they choose? I think that it's a
> government decision and the process changes. I don't know.
It has rarely to do with the hardware capabilities of the systems. The
decision makers rarely had a clue about the hardware in first place, and
other factors are just more important (pricing, discount for education,
long term support,...).
Greetings,
Thomas
Payton Byrd
the 1980's in Florida. They ONLY targeted the school market. He said
that their biggest selling tool was strip clubs.
Michael J. Mahon
As Woody Allen said, "Eighty percent of success is showing up."
Michael J. Mahon
> Atari wanted control over everything, which bit them in the ass. At
> first they wanted to make cart games of all their coin-op games and
> use the coin-ops as free advertising.
Most machines that were designed with a "cartridge slot" were designed
on the "video game principle", and the manufacturers assumed that the
machines would be programmed by *them* not the users, and that software
would be an annuity for them.
Good riddance to them.
Now all we have to do is get rid of their spawn... ;-)
Apple, in contrast, published *everything* needed to make software,
plug-in cards, and even more computers! That was the right vision,
in the sense that it could "start a fire" and seed the computer
revolution. (Note that it was Woz' vision, not Jobs', who rushed
to nail eveything shut as soon as he had the chance.)
Michael J. Mahon
> A former colleague used to be a technical sales rep for Apple back in
> the 1980's in Florida. They ONLY targeted the school market. He said
> that their biggest selling tool was strip clubs.
Salesmen seem to degenerate to the lowest common denominator unless
provided with strict adult supervision--which was never a strong suit
in the early Apple Corp. ;-)
Put another way, since the only metric generally applied to salesmen
is the quantity of sales, if left unchecked they tend to stoop to
anything to get a sale. "Bribery? What's your problem?"
N.N. Thayer
> (Note that it was Woz' vision, not Jobs', who rushed
> to nail eveything shut as soon as he had the chance.)
I'd bet that, for Woz, it was as much a default way of thinking (from
the hobbyist ethos) as it was vision. I get the sense that if someone
had approached him at the time and asked why he was releasing so much
information about a flagship product, he'd have blinked and responded
along the lines of: "Well, yeah... why wouldn't I?"
Michael J. Mahon
Exactly--I didn't say it was calculated. I think it was his
image of himself as providing a foundation for the contribution
of others.
This was, BTW, the engineering ethos of HP, as well.
microlo...@yahoo.com
figuring something out about the Apple II. I was a die-hard Atarian
throughout the 80s, and I figured that was a completely logical choice
because, well.. let's face it, Performance-wise, the Atari beats the
Apple hands-down. In stock form, anyway. But there's the rub.. with
all the expansion slots and room for cards in that cavernous shell and
with all the technical data that every Apple II shipped with, it
practically begs to be modified and expanded. I just got my hands on
"The Apple II Resource Directory", summer 1981 edition. Good god,
there was a lot of expansion cards available, way back in '81! This
appeals to me. Whatever the limitations are of the base hardware,
can be overcome with a clever expansion card.
Now, as much as I love the Atari, you just can't do that with them.
Sure, the 800 has slots, but they're tiny and most of them are spoken-
for with RAM and ROM. And they're damned hard to connect with the
outside world. Yeah, the 800XL had an expansion slot, but I guess by
that point people weren't interested in making expansion cards.
you know what I want to know? How does the apple interface to a
floppy drive with so little hardware?
heuser...@freenet.de
<micrologix1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> you know what I want to know? How does the apple interface
> to a floppy drive with so little hardware?
In short:
Atari drives as you surely know are intelligent - with a 6502-
variant, ROM, RAM and interfaces.
Apple drives are "dumb" - most of the "digital stuff" happens
inside the Apple on a small but very, very clever interface card.
Read the respective chapter in the seminal Apple hardware
explanation book "Understanding the Apple II" which you can
do here: http://victa.jamtronix.com/display/page/4313
If you don't recognize the wizardry of Woz here, then you'll
never will ;-)
Some other bits:
The Apple drives peak at around 11KB/sec and - because of
their design - very flexible to program for. A multitude of DOSses
exist but there are really only two standards: DOS 3.3 and ProDOS.
I don't know if the Apple drives & controller were cheaper but
they surely were cheaper to produce and made good profits.
The Atari drives for all their complexity were flawed from the
beginning: Shitty interface with 2KB/sec which was planned for
tape recorders and modems only, low capacity compared to
nearly all competitors, the need for a DOS in the Atari's RAM
in spite of the ROM in the drive (the Commodore 1541 saved
much memory - other flaws aside).
The only real technical advantage I see for the Atari drives is
that they can be used to stream data into RAM and the
application runs mostly undisturbed (display list interrupts
have problems, IIRC) while the Apple has to "stop" the game,
loads and then continues.
bye
Marcus
aiia...@gmail.com
> the need for a DOS in the Atari's RAM
> in spite of the ROM in the drive (the Commodore 1541 saved
> much memory - other flaws aside).
I was thinking it might be neat to make a card with co-processor
(6502) that kept prodos in it's own RAM... the MLI could be patched
to JMP to the RAM on the interface card, and there'd be a bunch
more space for programs for Contiki...
Also would be cool to have a spot for plugging in the IPdragon
unit from the Uther card... then TCP/IP could be put on the
card as well, and free up even more RAM...
The CPU on the card could run at high speed, and increase
data transfer rates for disk and ethernet access...
Rich
Russg
<heuser...@freenet.de> wrote in message
news:408ecbae-5123-4571...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
interface/controller was a major reason Apple ][
could be made/sold for the price. ie. Floppy controllers
were very expensive and Woz made one from
cheap parts.
I read the article, sorta, up to page 43 or so.
I don't know the speed of a Apple ][ floppy,
I do know the basic speed was 10 times faster
than a Commodore 1541. Seems I remember
that the Atari can go about 52K baud, which is
about 5K bytes/sec. The bus speed of an Atari
is 115K cps I think, so that is a limit on its
I/O. The Atari PBI with hard drive interface
goes at about that 115K bit/sec rate, I think.
I'm a hardware wannabe, but not.
Rick Cortese is a hardware man, and maybe
Rick Detlefsen (A8Maestro).
For instance, does Apple ][ have a serial,
parallel or USB interface disk drive emulator
for the PC? or Mac? Atari has a very useful
interface that allows using a PC for a hard or
floppy drive.
aiia...@gmail.com
> For instance, does Apple ][ have a serial,
> parallel or USB interface disk drive emulator
> for the PC? or Mac? Atari has a very useful
> interface that allows using a PC for a hard or
> floppy drive.
There are a few, I think.
http://apple2.boldt.ca/?page=terserialdrive
There was also another fellow who was trying to write
a ProDOS driver to access a HD in a PC through the
serial port, I have not been able to contact him, but
you can find his message on csa2.programmer
Don
Jack,
A small history lesson for you. Apple II graphics and sound, over the
years hardly changed. From when the Apple II was introduced in the
late 1970's until the advent of the Apple IIe, the "high resolution
graphics" on the Apple II never changed. The only improvement before
the introduction of the Apple IIGS in 1986 was the use of "double high
resolution" graphics.
As far as the number of games available on the Atari vs the Apple II,
I doubt any of us can ever get an exact count. The Apple II did have
a head start and technically the 8 bit Apple II's were manufactured
much longer than their Atari counterparts. However, in the early to
mid 80's, I'm pretty sure that any major game that appeared on the
Apple II was also on the Atari. The 8 bit Atari's soon gave way to
the Atari 520ST/1040ST and that may have slowed the development of
games for the older Atari's in it's later years. You could say that
about the 8 Bit Apple II's as well when the IIGS came out.
As far as education went, I remember using the Apple IIe in 1983 or
1984 at school. I was probably in 3rd or 4th grade at the time. I
didn't think about the graphics or sound. I was just fascinated with
the computer and the programs I could run. Why Apple choose to focus
on education, we'll never know (maybe to get an early influence on the
kids to buy Apples in the future).
However, it was a sound business decision. The Apple IIe was still in
use at my high school through my graduation year (1992) and presumably
a few more years after that. That's a solid investment for school's
who may have to change machines way more often these days with the way
technology changes. Despite the decline of the Apple II in the
commercial market in the 90's, the Apple II was still entrenched
heavily in education and that came it going longer than the Atari's
and Commodore's.
Don
Michael J. Mahon
Right--and virtually every system sold had a floppy
controller and at least one floppy drive.
Not only was the controller very simple, inexpensive
hardware, but the drive was a "gutted" Shugart SA390,
with the complex Shugart logic board replaced by the
very simple Apple analog board.
Making the Apple II completely responsible for control
of the drive reduced the cost of the disk subsystem
substantially--*while significantly improving performance*!
This was a principle that Woz seemed to understand
almost intuitively--and his experience with "algorithmic
state machines" in HP calculators certainly helped.
> I read the article, sorta, up to page 43 or so.
> I don't know the speed of a Apple ][ floppy,
> I do know the basic speed was 10 times faster
> than a Commodore 1541. Seems I remember
> that the Atari can go about 52K baud, which is
> about 5K bytes/sec. The bus speed of an Atari
> is 115K cps I think, so that is a limit on its
> I/O. The Atari PBI with hard drive interface
> goes at about that 115K bit/sec rate, I think.
Any "smart" drive will wind up reading the disk data
into an internal buffer and then transferring the data
to the host computer when requested. This double move
performed by a single processor guarantees that a smart
drive cannot move data at the rate the disk can support.
Most other computer manufacturers seemed to put disk I/O
in the "slow" category, and so did not devote much effort
to speeding up transfers. In the case of the C=64 and
the Ataris, the transfer speed on the link to the computer
was a small fraction of the speed supported by the drives.
Apple drives communicate directly with the disk controller
which communicates directly with the Apple's processor bus.
Data transfers are controlled by software, but it runs at the
speed of the disk, and the bus connection is not a limiter.
The raw speed of a single-density 5.25" drive is 250kBits/sec.
The "standard" single-density encoding required at least 16
bit times per byte of data, so they could support about 15KB/sec.
Commodore and Apple both used Group Code Recording, which uses
fewer "overhead" bits per byte.
Apple 16-sector formats encode 3 bytes of data in 32 bits,
increasing density and speed by a factor of 1.5 compared to
single-density encoding. This is all done in software running
on the Apple II--another piece of Woz' cleverness.
Practical disk speeds will, of course, be affected by many other
factors, including seek and rotational latency and the computer's
ability to sustain data transfers over multiple sectors.
In Apple's DOS 3.3, data was doubly buffered on its way to
memory, cutting transfer speed and requiring sector interleaving
to achieve respectable speeds (still the fastest in the PC world
at the time). With the introduction of ProDOS, the double-buffering
was eliminated and the interleave factor was cut substantially,
providing significantly faster floppy I/O.
> I'm a hardware wannabe, but not.
> Rick Cortese is a hardware man, and maybe
> Rick Detlefsen (A8Maestro).
> For instance, does Apple ][ have a serial,
> parallel or USB interface disk drive emulator
> for the PC? or Mac? Atari has a very useful
> interface that allows using a PC for a hard or
> floppy drive.
Such devices are a "natural" for Commodore and Atari systems,
since they function normally as a drive connected to the computer
by a data link.
They are much more challenging for the Apple II, since the drive
is interactively controlled by the Apple II in real time--and
many copy-protection schemes used this control in novel ways to
achieve their ends. So the only really "compatible" interface
to a Disk ][ is a real-time faithful emulation of an Apple II
running the actual code that accesses the disk.
Of course, if you are willing to settle for read-only access only
to normally formatted disks, then there are several hardware (and
even one software) solutions for doing so. Read/write access is
more difficult, and access to copy-protected disks is not available,
in general.
Rick Cortese
> <heuser...@freenet.de> wrote in message
> news:408ecbae-5123-4571...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>
>>On Apr 15, 3:22 pm, "micrologix1...@yahoo.com"
>><micrologix1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I read the article, sorta, up to page 43 or so.
> I don't know the speed of a Apple ][ floppy,
> I do know the basic speed was 10 times faster
> than a Commodore 1541. Seems I remember
Commodore were actually pretty nice drives from a hardware POV.
Essentially the same type of built in 6502<7> smart box but with built
in power supply instead of wall wart/pig in snake type. They had fast
loaders too like we had Warp and USD.
> that the Atari can go about 52K baud, which is
> about 5K bytes/sec. The bus speed of an Atari
> is 115K cps I think, so that is a limit on its
> I/O.
Right, derived by dividing the system clock down from the 3.57954 mHz
crystal. Goes something like system clock 1.78977 mHz but with a divide
by 16 prescaler to 111.86 kBAUD. We have a POKEY register that can
divide that down further to get our other frequencies. I seem to recall
it is a 16 bit register so we can go pretty slow and accurate the slower
you go. Certainly the 1 mHz 6507 we have in our drives would be pushing
it to do the timing right at 112 kBAUD!
IMO you are ultimately slaved to just what a 6502 can do. Even a RAM
disk is limited to ~25k/sec.
Rick
Ensor
> Apple, in contrast, published *everything* needed to make
>software, plug-in cards, and even more computers!
So, you're saying that the Atari Technical manuals I have not 6 feet away
from me are figments of my imagination? :-)
True they weren't shipped with the machine, but had to be bought seperately,
but they contain full schematics, operating system listings etc....
By the time of the XL/XE series machines Atari had stopped publishing such
manuals, but then again so had Apple etc.
TTFN - Pete.
Ensor
>....Shitty interface with 2KB/sec which was planned for
>tape recorders and modems only, low capacity compared to
>nearly all competitors....
And in practice it was quite usable.
Don't forget, it was some 64 times faster than the CBM serial bus which ran
at what, 300bps?
>....the need for a DOS in the Atari's RAM....
Which to my mind (and those of the designers of the vast majority of
computers) is a great ADVANTAGE.
TTFN - Pete.
Thomas Richter
> The Atari drives for all their complexity were flawed from the
> beginning: Shitty interface with 2KB/sec which was planned for
> tape recorders and modems only, low capacity compared to
> nearly all competitors, the need for a DOS in the Atari's RAM
> in spite of the ROM in the drive (the Commodore 1541 saved
> much memory - other flaws aside).
The speed is the problem of the serial interface. Of course, one can do
it even worse than that, see the 1541. As far as the DOS is concerned, I
never really got that. At least in the XL series enough ROM space was
available, but they used it for supporting future hardware that never
saw the light of the day. (Side remark: The atari++ emulator ROM has its
DOS exactly there, one could burn this and use it.) Of course, a ROM
based DOS would have set the DOS structures in stone.
> The only real technical advantage I see for the Atari drives is
> that they can be used to stream data into RAM and the
> application runs mostly undisturbed (display list interrupts
> have problems, IIRC) while the Apple has to "stop" the game,
> loads and then continues.
Problem is with sound. It uses two sound channels for communications,
and the other two are only available if you bypass the Os.
So long,
Thomas
N.N. Thayer
> As far as the number of games available on the Atari vs the Apple II,
> I doubt any of us can ever get an exact count. The Apple II did have
> a head start and technically the 8 bit Apple II's were manufactured
> much longer than their Atari counterparts. However, in the early to
> mid 80's, I'm pretty sure that any major game that appeared on the
> Apple II was also on the Atari.
The best way to get a picture of the computer gaming market is by
examining very early issues of Computer Gaming World, which are here:
http://cgw.vintagegaming.org/galleries/index.php?year=0&pub=0&id=500
They contain a wealth of data, including game rankings and other
statistics that specifically show what computers their subscribers are
using. For example:
http://shackpics.com/files/13_5gxxj2bdh6e20mwtzs1q.png
They show that the Apple II utterly dominated computer gaming from
1981 to 1982, ceding some exclusivity in the next couple of years but
still staying the preferred platform. Later issues show that
Commodore ramped up too quickly to let Atari have a shot at
frontrunner status. There was some Apple/Atari overlap, but much of
it was not simultaneous - Apple would be the first release, with Atari
arriving later. Of course, this changed before too long.
As Chris Crawford wrote in the April 1984 issue: "Three years ago,
life was simple: you designed for the Apple, period."
Payton Byrd
> Don't forget, it was some 64 times faster than the CBM serial bus which ran
> at what, 300bps?
That's just plain silly. Even the stock IEC speed was much faster
than 300bps. When equipped with JiffyDOS the 1541 is capable of
speeds equivalent to the Apple II using ProDOS. With a good protocol
such as JiffyDOS, the IEC bus was not the bottleneck, the drive was.
The 1541 also used a 2mhz 6502 which was very well suited for pulling
data from the drive as fast as the drive could read it, once the IEC
protocol problems were solved it was an extremely fast and effective
drive.
>
> >....the need for a DOS in the Atari's RAM....
>
> Which to my mind (and those of the designers of the vast majority of
> computers) is a great ADVANTAGE.
Since the Commodore has been thrown into this discussion by others, I
guess it's fair to point out that Commodore gave you the best of both
worlds: a complete DOS in ROM that is shadowed in RAM (if wanted) as
well as the ability to completely replace the DOS in both the computer
and peripherals if wanted (such as for JiffyDOS).
Payton Byrd
Actually, Atari jealously guarded the secrets of the chipset in the
400/800 until it was obvious that the system would only survive with
3rd party software support. By then it was too late. Even the Atari
Assembler cartridge comes with horrible documentation that doesn't
even scratch the surface of what you need to create usable software.
BluPhoenyx
IIRC, Apple Oasis has support for this. I seem to recall a disk server
and using floppy images/drives to/from the PC. Been a while though.
Cheers,
Mike T.
--- Synchronet 3.14a-Win32 NewsLink 1.85
A2Central.com - Your total source for Apple II computing.
Russg
I only briefly ventured into Commodore 128D.
I had a 1541, and it was very slow, cassette
speed it seemed.
I take it JiffyDOS fixed that. What is JiffyDOS?
A cart, or a plug in item? Atari had/has
speedup DOSes and disk formatting, but I
never liked them as I got errors with my drives
with the speed ups.
If we're talking plug in adapters, the Atari had
hard drive interfaces that worked on a parallel
bus at 115Kbaud.
Russg
What is JiffyDOS? A card/adapter for to
connect to the 1541?
I only briefly had a 128D and don't remember
how the 1541 connected to it. It seemed to
be cassette speed loading a commercial floppy.
Payton Byrd
The 1541 is many, many times faster than cassette even without any
speed ups. Yes, it's slow, but not that slow. JiffyDOS is a ROM
solution that replaces the KERNEL ROM in both the computer and the
drive. It still uses the IEC bus, but it uses two lines
simultaneously for data, thus doubling the theoretical bandwidth of
the IEC bus. Unlike the DOSs for Atari, the stock CMD Kernel calls
are all intact except for the cassette routines, which honestly aren't
used by anyone using JiffyDOS. JiffyDOS provides complete support for
the standard CBM DOS commands, so programs that use the normal KERNEL
calls and the CBM DOS commands are 100% compatible with JiffyDOS.
Michael J. Mahon
They *never* stopped making all info available on the Apple II line.
It was automatically included with the Apple II and II+.
Around the time of the //e (1984+), as the typical user profile shifted
toward "application users" instead of "programmer/enthusiasts", the
provided documentation became more "user manual"-oriented--but full
technical documentation was still available separately.
So for the Apple II, the details and examples were there from the
beginning (the Red Book and the WozPak, for example)--just when
they needed to be there.
I've often said that the Apple II was the last personal computer
for which all the documentation needed to completely understand
its hardware and software weighed less than the machine. ;-)
(The Apple //e shipped into the 1990s.)
heuser...@freenet.de
> Ensor wrote:
> >
> > True they weren't shipped with the machine, but had to be bought seperately,
> > but they contain full schematics, operating system listings etc....
When were these manuals published? I ask, because I always
read that De Re Atari was the first publicly available programming
documentation around 1981/2. That would be a cool two years
after the machines were launched - and De Re Atari isn't even a
hardware manual.
> I've often said that the Apple II was the last personal computer
> for which all the documentation needed to completely understand
> its hardware and software weighed less than the machine. ;-)
> (The Apple //e shipped into the 1990s.)
Well, a TTL data book already is half the rent ;-)
bye
Marcus
David Empson
> Ensor wrote:
> > "Michael J. Mahon" <mjm...@aol.com> wrote:
> > > Apple, in contrast, published *everything* needed to make
> > >software, plug-in cards, and even more computers!
> >
> > So, you're saying that the Atari Technical manuals I have not 6 feet away
> > from me are figments of my imagination? :-)
> >
> > True they weren't shipped with the machine, but had to be bought seperately,
> > but they contain full schematics, operating system listings etc....
> >
> >
> > By the time of the XL/XE series machines Atari had stopped publishing such
> > manuals, but then again so had Apple etc.
>
> They *never* stopped making all info available on the Apple II line.
>
> It was automatically included with the Apple II and II+.
>
> Around the time of the //e (1984+), as the typical user profile shifted
> toward "application users" instead of "programmer/enthusiasts", the
> provided documentation became more "user manual"-oriented--but full
> technical documentation was still available separately.
Apple started to reduce the level of detail by the time the IIgs was
released (1986). There are no official ROM listings for any part of the
IIgs firmware, nor for the IIc+, but they did publish schematics and
most other technical details.
The second edition of the IIc Technical Reference doesn't contain any
ROM listings (even for the original IIc), but the first edition did have
ROM listsing for the "UniDisk" IIc firmware, and I think I've seen a
supplement which lists at least one other revision.
(None of Apple's published firmware listings include Applesoft BASIC,
since that code is copyrighted by Microsoft.)
I'm not sure what their policy was with the Apple /// and Lisa, but I'm
not aware of any publically available ROM listings or schematics of any
Mac (no point - it wouldn't fit with the general philosophy).
> So for the Apple II, the details and examples were there from the
> beginning (the Red Book and the WozPak, for example)--just when
> they needed to be there.
>
> I've often said that the Apple II was the last personal computer
> for which all the documentation needed to completely understand
> its hardware and software weighed less than the machine. ;-)
> (The Apple //e shipped into the 1990s.)
The IIgs certainly wouldn't qualify on that measure. I needed a
moderately large shelf to hold my nearly complete set of IIgs technical
documentation.
--
David Empson
dem...@actrix.gen.nz
Rick Cortese
Right company, right action, wrong product. It was the 2600 that Atari
kept secret. John Harris cleared this up a while back along with several
other errors that were perpetuated/started by the book Hackers.
I can't recall the exact time line but I think it was within ~6 weeks of
getting his hands on a 800 when the technical reference became available
to him. It was probably fairly late considering the birth of the Atari
computer was sorta 1979, sometime around 1980 or 1981 I think. There
were a few problems with the tech ref, I think it listed OS rev A vs. B
and I'm not sure if it is the CTIA or the later GTIA chip. De Re Atari
was copyright 1981.
*BUT* all this does make sense to me on at least one level: Atari
patented the custom chips. What happens in the patent process is if you
or someone else releases the information in the patent before it is
granted, the application is denied. The ANTIC creators, Jay Miner Et Al,
were granted the patent in 1981.
Rick
Michael J. Mahon
Actually, the limitation is that the patent application must be *filed*
prior to public disclosure.
Michael J. Mahon
Good point--the absence of proprietary ICs was a big plus.
Michael J. Mahon
I think the mid-1980s marks the turning of the "open" tide at Apple,
for numerous reasons related both to market changes and management
changes.
> (None of Apple's published firmware listings include Applesoft BASIC,
> since that code is copyrighted by Microsoft.)
Of course, Applesoft was one of the first things that the community
reverse-engineered and documented, so the fact that Apple was bound
by licensing agreements did not seriously hamper its exploitation.
> I'm not sure what their policy was with the Apple /// and Lisa, but I'm
> not aware of any publically available ROM listings or schematics of any
> Mac (no point - it wouldn't fit with the general philosophy).
Both were extremely "closed" in comparison the the Apple II.
The Apple /// was apparently kept closed in the mistaken hope that
it would encorage only "legitimate" developers of "business" apps,
as opposed to the free-for-all in the Apple II world.
So much for that idea...
As it turns out, volume is volume. ;-)
>>So for the Apple II, the details and examples were there from the
>>beginning (the Red Book and the WozPak, for example)--just when
>>they needed to be there.
>>
>>I've often said that the Apple II was the last personal computer
>>for which all the documentation needed to completely understand
>>its hardware and software weighed less than the machine. ;-)
>>(The Apple //e shipped into the 1990s.)
>
>
> The IIgs certainly wouldn't qualify on that measure. I needed a
> moderately large shelf to hold my nearly complete set of IIgs technical
> documentation.
Exactly...
Quincy
> It has rarely to do with the hardware capabilities of the systems. The
> decision makers rarely had a clue about the hardware in first place, and
> other factors are just more important (pricing, discount for education,
> long term support,...).
An Atari salesman would have sounded something like this:
"This 'Apple' company will go bankrupt within a few years,
Atari is a billion dollar company and will dominate the personal computer
industry. IBM is too late to the game. Apple will soon be forgotten and
have no impact on the future of personal computing."
The Atari 800 had terrific support chips for ye olde faithful 6502,
scanline based interrupts, sprites and a sane coloration scheme.
Woz's budget color scheme is best suited for those times when
you are drawing a picture of an ORANGE cat sitting on the
GREEN grass, against a BLUE sky, smelling a
MAGENTA colored flower.
nyder
for elementary, middle school, and 2 years of high school had all
jumped on the TRS-80 bandwagon, I don't think we had an Apple computer
in our school. Had an IBM, TRS-80 Mod 2, a bunch of Mod 3's, then Mod
4's.
But we did get to try out Acorn computers for a small bit, and at the
time, 83ish, they seemed pretty cool. Built in speach, graphics.
While the person was trying to show us how to use them, I was
programming it to say swear words, and other fun things (hey, i was
like 15, give me a break!).
Of course, we didn't keep them. =)
It wasn't tillI hit my last high school, that i got exposed to apples,
but buy that time, IBM PC had started to make it's stranglehold...
sfahey
On 4/16/08 4:28 PM, in article
2427e044-54ec-4523...@m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com, "nyder"
<nyde...@gmail.com> wrote:
> While I went to a few different High Schools, the district I was in
> for elementary, middle school, and 2 years of high school had all
> jumped on the TRS-80 bandwagon, I don't think we had an Apple computer
> in our school. Had an IBM, TRS-80 Mod 2, a bunch of Mod 3's, then Mod
> 4's.
Texas by chance? TRS-80s were big in TX, Tandy's backyard.
Mike Willegal
generation machines show just how strong a design that the Apple II was.
Keep in mind that you rarely see the same arguments made for any
earlier generation computer against the Apple II.
A fair technological evaluation of the Apple II design can only be made
against contemporary designs which reached the market around the 1977
timeframe.
The SOl-20 - you needed to buy several extra components to match the
Apple II capabilites in graphics and Apple's built in BASIC, which drove
up the price. This is the machine that came closest to getting my money
instead of the Apple II. However, the SOL was really a previous
generation S-100 machine in disguise. Once the Apple II became
established, there was no compelling reason to buy an S-100 bus machine.
The Apple II had similar expandability, with built in color and built
in basic for a lower overall cost. If the Apple II was anything, it was
the S-100 bus killer. I'm sure that is what Jobs and Wozniak had
designed it to be, and they hit the bullseye.
The Commodore Pet and the Radio Shack TRS-80 are two other contemorary
machines to compare the Apple II against. Neither had color or anything
near the expandability. To counter this, the Apple II, cost more money,
but many customers were willing to pay the price to get color and the
expansion capabilities.
Ohio scientific challenger - poor busines practices and poor software
killed this one.
There were many other machines around, but these were the main contenders.
By the end of the 1970's, the Apple II hardware design wasn't current.
Apple knew it and was fevorishly working on the ill-fated Apple III.
However, the Apple II system was expandable enough to outlast many
contemporary and later machines. Having a large customer base and
tremendous application software support, didn't hurt.
Regards,
Mike Willegal
Alex Freed
>> patented the custom chips. What happens in the patent process is if
>> you or someone else releases the information in the patent before it
>> is granted, the application is denied. The ANTIC creators, Jay Miner
>> Et Al, were granted the patent in 1981.
>
> Actually, the limitation is that the patent application must be *filed*
> prior to public disclosure.
>
AFAIK the US is unique: you can file a US patent application up to one
year AFTER the "public disclosure". And also selling the patented object
starts the clock even without any publications.
-Alex who is NOT a lawyer.
Rick Cortese
> Rick Cortese wrote:
<snip>
> Actually, the limitation is that the patent application must be *filed*
> prior to public disclosure.
I have two friends that are patent lawyers, well one died on me
recently, and they have both told me otherwise. More along the lines of
the patent *is* the disclosure that you are getting exclusive rights
because of. Once any public disclosure is made, the patent office well
see no need to give you any rights to reveal how you did something.
It was/is a bit of a problem because of the "Publish or Perish" and
trying to drum up business by telling other companies about the latest
greatest you just came up with. We could cover some problems with non
disclosure agreements but we still couldn't let info out into a public
forum.
Rick
heuser...@freenet.de
>
> The Atari 800 had terrific support chips for ye olde faithful 6502,
> scanline based interrupts, sprites and a sane coloration scheme.
If only they had marketed their VCS-Upgrade differently.
But it's always easier to have a certain opinion in hindsight.
> Woz's budget color scheme is best suited for those times when
> you are drawing a picture of an ORANGE cat sitting on the
> GREEN grass, against a BLUE sky, smelling a
> MAGENTA colored flower.
You forgot the WHITE clouds!
;-)
bye
Marcus
David Wilson
> Ohio scientific challenger - poor busines practices and poor software
> killed this one.
As far as I can recall, the OSI floppy disk controller was pretty
funky - it used an ACIA to read/write the serial bitstream.
Michael J. Mahon
Yep, that's my understanding of US law, too, which allows even more
lead time to get documentation out (if you're confident of your
filing schedule).
And you only have to "offer" something for sale that is described
as incorporating the patented IP to start the clock.
Michael J. Mahon
> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>
>> Rick Cortese wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> Actually, the limitation is that the patent application must be *filed*
>> prior to public disclosure.
>
>
> I have two friends that are patent lawyers, well one died on me
> recently, and they have both told me otherwise. More along the lines of
> the patent *is* the disclosure that you are getting exclusive rights
> because of. Once any public disclosure is made, the patent office well
> see no need to give you any rights to reveal how you did something.
Not so, assuming he was talking about the US.
In most countries, publication closes the door to application, but
in the US it starts a 1 year clock.
> It was/is a bit of a problem because of the "Publish or Perish" and
> trying to drum up business by telling other companies about the latest
> greatest you just came up with. We could cover some problems with non
> disclosure agreements but we still couldn't let info out into a public
> forum.
And even nondisclosure is no good if you are trying to make a sale!
Revealing any of the IP in an effort to commercially advance the
invention starts the US clock--one year to file.
In any case, the point is that US patent considerations are not in
any way affected by revealing the details of an object already being
sold. Offering it for sale *is* publication--as any reverse-engineer
will attest. ;-)
Michael J. Mahon
I should have clarified that I was talking about the 8-bit Apples,
not the GUI- and tool-based IIgs.
Michael J. Mahon
I never really played computer games, so for me it was more
like having a 5-color palette for drawing graphs, plotting
orbits, etc.
It was the first computer to offer hi-res color graphics out
of the box, and that changed the game--and the expectations--
for future designs.
But something always has to give, since more resolution means
more pixels and more colors means more bits per pixel. DRAM
was expensive in the beginning. Squeezing 140/280 x 192 pixels
and five colors out of 8KB was quite an accomplishment for
nothing but a few LS TTL parts.
Michael Black
Well yes. But that always seemed irrelevant because it was all
too expensive anyway, and other factors too.
My first computer was a KIM-1 in 1979. Two years later, I got an
OSI Superboard II (minor changes from the original Superboard), because
I could afford it, and not really any of the alternatives. I sort of
thought of it as a runner up to the Apple II, ie I would have gotten
an Apple II at the time if I could have afforded it, but I couldn't so
the choice was the Superboard. (I've seen other people say that in
recent years, too.)
The hardware was fairly accessible, and the computer did come with
schematics, though expansion wasn't easy since all you had was a 40pin
DIP socket that brought the bus lines out.
But it was a 6502 based computer, and cheaper than the rest. That
wave that came in 1977 (and the OSI Superboad first came out that year
too), was mostly about making computers easy, so you put them in a case
and they had all the common things you'd need like a keyboard and video
interface, and they were generally more expensive. The S-100 and SS-50
computers were expensive too, so the OSI filled a gap.
But, commercial software was limited, and expensive (at least here
in Canada). I paid $500 for the Superboard, but I can't remember the
price of the disk interface or any of the other hardware, it was so
expensive it was completely out of my range. By 1981 when I got it,
the company was starting to fade anyway. It was a good computer for
me at the time, that video interface, the ascii keyboard, the 8k of
RAM, even the Microsoft BASIC in rom, all were a big step up from the
1k KIM-1, and I spent a lot of time learning about the computer and
programming things that never really went anywhere but were useful
as exercises in themselves.
Michael
Rick Cortese
> Rick Cortese wrote:
>
>> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>>
>>> Rick Cortese wrote:
>>
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> Actually, the limitation is that the patent application must be *filed*
>>> prior to public disclosure.
>>
>>
>>
>> I have two friends that are patent lawyers, well one died on me
>> recently, and they have both told me otherwise. More along the lines
>> of the patent *is* the disclosure that you are getting exclusive
>> rights because of. Once any public disclosure is made, the patent
>> office well see no need to give you any rights to reveal how you did
>> something.
>
>
> Not so, assuming he was talking about the US.
We are talking about the USA.
You obviously have a misconception about the language used.
From the US Patent/trademark web page
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#patent
In order for an invention to be patentable it must be new as defined in
the patent law, which provides that an invention cannot be patented if:
“(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or
patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign
country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent,” or
“(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in
this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country
more than one year prior to the application for patent in the United
States . . .”
>
> In most countries, publication closes the door to application, but
> in the US it starts a 1 year clock.
No. It is either [described]<immediate grounds for not granting>, [in
public use]<immediate grounds for not granting>, *OR* [*SOLD*... for a
year].
There is a provisional type patent that you have to file if you want to
go to other parties. I have an acquaintance who didn't do this and took
engineering drawings to a machine shop to have one of his inventions
made. The machine shop stole/patented his device and he didn't have the
documentation to prove it. I think I recall the time limit on these as
being one year before you have to renew it or file the real patent, but
this is just considered round one of the process.
<snipped part that should stand corrected now>
Rick
Mike Willegal
the HW was through Apple supplied drivers. Almost no HW documenation
was needed. The software was a modern design that relied on API's.
The combination was intended to provide Apple with the opportunity to
update SW and HW without having to worry about breaking existing
applications. They only needed to support legacy APIs. A lot of this
was driven by the trouble Apple had in maintaining backward
compatibility in the II series. There were litterally dozens of "well
known" routines in the Apple II ROM that had to stay at a specific
address or any number of applications would break.
The original "Inside Macintosh" documentation for these APIs was
extremely well done. Basically the "Inside Macintosh" documentation set
the state of the art for technical documention. There was no need for
ROM listings, and in fact ROM listings would have enabled software
engineers to bypass the APIs and create all kinds of problems with
backward compatibility for future generation machines.
Time would prove that the closed system concept had some merit as can be
seen by the success of the I-MAC line. However the original
implementation, without SCSI, USB and Firewire technology, was way too
restrictive.
Regards,
Mike Willegal
Michael J. Mahon
> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>
>> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>>
>>> David Empson wrote:
>>>> I'm not sure what their policy was with the Apple /// and Lisa, but I'm
>>>> not aware of any publically available ROM listings or schematics of any
>>>> Mac (no point - it wouldn't fit with the general philosophy).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Both were extremely "closed" in comparison the the Apple II.
>>>
> The original MAC had very limited HW expansion capabilities. Access to
> the HW was through Apple supplied drivers. Almost no HW documenation
> was needed. The software was a modern design that relied on API's. The
> combination was intended to provide Apple with the opportunity to update
> SW and HW without having to worry about breaking existing applications.
> They only needed to support legacy APIs. A lot of this was driven by
> the trouble Apple had in maintaining backward compatibility in the II
> series. There were litterally dozens of "well known" routines in the
> Apple II ROM that had to stay at a specific address or any number of
> applications would break.
>
> The original "Inside Macintosh" documentation for these APIs was
> extremely well done. Basically the "Inside Macintosh" documentation set
> the state of the art for technical documention. There was no need for
> ROM listings, and in fact ROM listings would have enabled software
> engineers to bypass the APIs and create all kinds of problems with
> backward compatibility for future generation machines.
>
> Time would prove that the closed system concept had some merit as can be
> seen by the success of the I-MAC line. However the original
> implementation, without SCSI, USB and Firewire technology, was way too
> restrictive.
I certainly agree that there are wonderful benefits to a strong
architectural interface, as opposed to a "free-for-all" ROM listing
and schematic!
But, given the state of the art in the late-1970s-to-mid 1980s, it
was more important to throw open the doors and windows and see what
came of it than to presume that one had intuitively arrived at the
proper set of functionality and restrict users' creativity.
The result was a wonderful blooming of hardware and software
advances for personal computers--and more importantly, a bloom
of visions of what personal computing could become (besides storing
recipes and printing mailing lists ;-).
As is to be expected in the rhythm of things, the period of carefree
experimentation was followed by a period of dying off of virtually all
early "dead end" platforms and consolidation on a (slightly) newer but
evolvable standard that permitted the growth of a huge market in PCs.
Today we live on the high plateau attained by the creative momentum from
that volatile, expansive era--but a plateau nonetheless, constrained by
the many standards and complexities that enable the market.
As evolution continues, we can expect another revolution in computing,
in which the PC platform will play the role of the rigid mainframe in
the previous scenario, and new visions will emerge to reseed creativity
and make our "high plateau" seem like a valley.
The average life of a plateau seems to be 20-40 years, so it might be
soon. ;-) Of course, we don't have a sequel to Moore's "Law" to power
the engines this time--though perhaps massive parallelism might be
enough to do the trick...
Michael J. Mahon
> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>
>> Rick Cortese wrote:
>>
>>> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>>>
>>>> Rick Cortese wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>> Actually, the limitation is that the patent application must be *filed*
>>>> prior to public disclosure.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I have two friends that are patent lawyers, well one died on me
>>> recently, and they have both told me otherwise. More along the lines
>>> of the patent *is* the disclosure that you are getting exclusive
>>> rights because of. Once any public disclosure is made, the patent
>>> office well see no need to give you any rights to reveal how you did
>>> something.
>>
>>
>>
>> Not so, assuming he was talking about the US.
>
>
> We are talking about the USA.
>
> You obviously have a misconception about the language used.
>
> From the US Patent/trademark web page
> http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#patent
>
> In order for an invention to be patentable it must be new as defined in
> the patent law, which provides that an invention cannot be patented if:
> �(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in
> more than one year prior to the application for patent in the United
There you have it--exactly as I was saying!
Obviously publication cannot preceed the *invention* (unless you were
perhaps publishing about a time machine ;-), but it can precede the
*patent application* by one year.
>> In most countries, publication closes the door to application, but
>> in the US it starts a 1 year clock.
>
>
> No. It is either [described]<immediate grounds for not granting>, [in
> public use]<immediate grounds for not granting>, *OR* [*SOLD*... for a
> year].
Remember, we're talking about publication *by the inventor*, so there's
no issue about the invention not being novel as a consequence of the
publication.
Clearly if someone *other* than the inventor published the invention
prior to the "inventor" filing, that would bar the patent, since the
filer did not invent anything novel. This has no bearing on publication
by the actual inventor or his agent.
Rick Cortese
> Rick Cortese wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> Obviously publication cannot preceed the *invention* (unless you were
> perhaps publishing about a time machine ;-), but it can precede the
> *patent application* by one year.
Are you just the kind of ego who can't admit when he is wrong? It could
be a problem with your reading comprehension but I seriously doubt you
bothered reading the post from US Patent Office.
You still don't know what a patent is. Ignorance is curable but I am
afraid you kind of stupidity is forever. Even when confronted with the
official US Patent office release on what can be patented, you still
persist.
I kind of want to ask just what makes you think that you know better
then a guy who spent 35 years in R&D, two patent lawyers with a combined
80 years of experience, and the official web page of the US Patent
Office but I am afraid you may answer.
I give you on you.
PLONK!
Rick
Scott Alfter
Ensor <none@localhost> wrote:
> > Apple, in contrast, published *everything* needed to make
> >software, plug-in cards, and even more computers!
>
>So, you're saying that the Atari Technical manuals I have not 6 feet away
>from me are figments of my imagination? :-)
>
>True they weren't shipped with the machine, but had to be bought seperately,
>but they contain full schematics, operating system listings etc....
>
>By the time of the XL/XE series machines Atari had stopped publishing such
>manuals, but then again so had Apple etc.
My copy of the Apple IIe Technical Reference Manual is dated 1987, and I
think volume 3 of the IIGS toolbox reference came along some time after
that.
The programming info, schematics, etc. were dropped from the owner's manuals
that shipped with later Apple II equipment (the Super Serial Card manual,
for instance was printed in two forms: the original edition, which looked
like it was printed with a daisy-wheel printer and included source code for
the ROMs and a schematic, and a "lobotomized" edition, which looked like it
was typeset on a Mac with a laser printer and had little more than
installation instructions and maybe some simple programming info), but it
was usually still available in the tech references.
_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ rm -rf /bin/laden >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?
Michael J. Mahon
What you accuse me of seems to apply perfectly to yourself.
*You* try reading your quote again:
"In order for an invention to be patentable it must be new as defined in
the patent law, which provides that an invention cannot be patented if:
�(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or
patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign
country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent,� or
�(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in
this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country
more than one year prior to the application for patent in the United
States . . .�
In (a), publication may not occur "before the *invention* thereof",
*not* before the application.
In (b), publication, sale, etc. must not occur "more than one year
prior to the *application* for patent".
It's really not that hard.
Jason Harmon
"Jack Tseng" <tse...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:CGxMj.105545$Ft5....@newsfe15.lga...
> In 1980, Apple II graphics/sound looks limited.. Graphics on the games
> look very terrible... Sound is not good. Atari graphics/sound are better
> than Apple II.. Why did many companies make the games for Apple more than
> Atari?
>
> I attended to the computer class in the elementary school. There were many
> Apple computers in the most school. Can anyone tell me a reason why the
> school chooses Apple even thought the graphics and music were terrible?
>
> Thanks!
> Jack
I must say, I've actually found this thread very interesting. It's one of
the few platform comparison discussions that isn't "My platform is great and
yours sucks and was created by incompetent low lifes."
Reasonably objective comparisons of these classic platforms, taking into
account the strengths and limitations of each, and the differences of when
they were designed (something few people seem to account for), could
actually strengthen the appreciation of all of them.
-Jason
Russg
I can't understand the US Patent office statement.
And I can't really understand the argument here.
There was a guy who could make glass flowers
like no-one else. They were beautiful. People
wanted him to patent it so they could find out
how he did it. He didn't patent it. It increased
the value of his work before and after he died.
So, the moral is, don't patent stuff that can't
be reverse engineered, it doesn't do you any
good.
Michael J. Mahon
I largely agree with you about the utility of patents--a very
mixed bag.
The discussion here had to do with someone proposing that the
Atari technical details were not released with the machine because
of patent concerns--a position clearly not justified by law.
Rick Cortese
> I see it as a problem with legaleze.
> I can't understand the US Patent office statement.
> And I can't really understand the argument here.
Russ, a patent grants you rights in exchange for ~telling the secret. If
you have already told people how to do the trick, i.e. published, it
isn't a secret anymore is it?
The gist of Sphincter Boy's argument is he thinks you can pantent
something after been published/become common knowledge. He could not be
more wrong.
He is just a troll, ignore him and his BS. I killfiled him already and I
can safely say he nothing intelligent to offer on the topic.
Rick
sicklittlemonkey
> The gist of Sphincter Boy's argument is he thinks you can pantent
> something after been published/become common knowledge. He could not be
> more wrong.
>
> He is just a troll, ignore him and his BS. I killfiled him already and I
> can safely say he nothing intelligent to offer on the topic.
Steady on there Rick. I hope this isn't how you converse face-to-face.
I count at least 11 patents from Michael's career at HP & Burroughs.
Cheers,
Nick.
Charlie
"Rick Cortese" <rico...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:p8ednSTt4dX6kpTV...@earthlink.com...
You couldn't be more wrong about Michael.
Charlie
David Schmenk
My guess is that Rick is used to be wrong, a lot. Probably doesn't have
many friends, either.
http://www.bpmlegal.com/pattime.html
Dave...
Rick Cortese
He couldn't be more wrong about this. Remember the topic and the
position that Atari was secreting information which resulted in it being
less successful.
John Harris in a post to comp.sys.atari.8bit July 1993 snipped to the
pertainent part.
************************
It took me a long time, about 6 months after I got it, to read the book.
Mostly because others who read it first said I wouldn't be very thrilled by
what got written. I was dissappointed. Steve Levy spent a lot of time
with me and the other programmers at On-Line, took notes, and absolutely
new the real stories. Why do journelists need to rewrite things to make
the story more interesting? If they're going to make it up anyway, why go
to the trouble and expense to gather real data?
While I did disassemble Super-Breakout and BasketBall, and discover PMG and
some other machine secrets, bootleg copies of the Harware manuals showed up
just a few months later. It was a strange because I thought I had
information that no one else was going to know, and could use it to really
have an edge in 3rd party Atari games. I couldn't help but feel
disappointed that my 'edge' was taken away. Of course, that didn't last
too long, because there was a whole world inside those manuals that I never
would have found. After reading them, I was very happy to have that info
available for myself, and everyone else. Instead, Levy told the story
of the 'Wonder Boy' who figured it all out on his own.
**************
I pointed out he was correct about the 2600. I and others said he was
wrong about the Atari computers. He's been nitpicking ever since. BTW: I
just looked at my technical reference and it is copyrighted 1982.
Rick
Rick Cortese
While that is wonderful for him and I am sure he is a bright guy, the
way he drifted the thread was masterful, it means nothing in this
debate. IMO: The only thing that does matter is John Harris and what he
experienced since he was the one given credit for reverse engineering
the Atari. You will find a quote from one of his posts in the reply I
made to Charlie below.
John also had some comments on the topic of relative success of the
Apple II vs. Atari 800 elsewhere. IIRC he blamed it on marketing not
wanting to ~ruin the image of the Atari as a game machine. This
obviously helped kill it in education and business. IMO it was dead in
the water with respect to business anyway. Those were the days of
"Nobody ever gets fired for buying an IBM."
Rick
Linards Ticmanis
> Any "smart" drive will wind up reading the disk data
> into an internal buffer and then transferring the data
> to the host computer when requested. This double move
> performed by a single processor guarantees that a smart
> drive cannot move data at the rate the disk can support.
Just to go entirely off-topic, this isn't quite right as the Commodore
PET/CBM drives had two 6502s in interleaved operation, one for talking
to the host computer and one for talking to the actual drive hardware.
Those drives were reasonably fast though expensive.
But then when they ported their DOS code to a single-CPU design for the
cheaper home computer line they kept this logic around (one CPU now
alternately impersonating the two CPUs of the old design), which made
the DOS really weird (the two "personalities" didn't simply call each
other as needed but rather communicated via command lists in RAM) and
contributed to its slowness.
--
Linards Ticmanis
Michael J. Mahon
> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>
>> Any "smart" drive will wind up reading the disk data
>> into an internal buffer and then transferring the data
>> to the host computer when requested. This double move
>> performed by a single processor guarantees that a smart
>> drive cannot move data at the rate the disk can support.
>
>
> Just to go entirely off-topic, this isn't quite right as the Commodore
> PET/CBM drives had two 6502s in interleaved operation, one for talking
> to the host computer and one for talking to the actual drive hardware.
> Those drives were reasonably fast though expensive.
I'm impressed! I would have expected a little more cost-cutting
than that. ;-)
> But then when they ported their DOS code to a single-CPU design for the
> cheaper home computer line they kept this logic around (one CPU now
> alternately impersonating the two CPUs of the old design), which made
> the DOS really weird (the two "personalities" didn't simply call each
> other as needed but rather communicated via command lists in RAM) and
> contributed to its slowness.
A curious design history--thanks for the info!
Michael Black
>> Just to go entirely off-topic, this isn't quite right as the Commodore
>> PET/CBM drives had two 6502s in interleaved operation, one for talking
>> to the host computer and one for talking to the actual drive hardware.
>> Those drives were reasonably fast though expensive.
>
> I'm impressed! I would have expected a little more cost-cutting
> than that. ;-)
>
Remember, the original PET, had the IEEE-488 bus for expansion, aka
GPIB. A parallel bus that allowed multiple devices. WHen the PET came
along, it was basically the cheapest computer that had the bus, which I
seem to recall got it a lot of attention in labs and such that had
peripheral equipment like test equipment that had the bus and suddenly
they could buy cheap computers to control the equipment.
So presumably it was worth spending money on the drives that connected
via that bus. I seem to recall they were expensive, though on the other
hand given one main reason the 6502 saw a lot of use in those all in one
computers was because it cost $20 in single quantities, a second 6502
likely didn't add that much to the cost.
Remember, the C-64 drives that were previously discussed used a serial
bus, which slowed things down considerably. A parallel transfer
would make a big difference.
Michael
heuser...@freenet.de
>
> I seem to recall they were expensive, though on the other
> hand given one main reason the 6502 saw a lot of use in those all in one
> computers was because it cost $20 in single quantities, a second 6502
> likely didn't add that much to the cost.
And Commodore owned MOS so they surely got the chips
a bit cheaper anyway.
bye
Marcus
Rick Cortese
Another cross post with nothing to contribute.
Did you even read the web page you cite?
"This time line applies to utility patents filed in 2001 or later, and
assumes that you will start with a"
We are talking about 1979-1982. Patent law has changed since then. You
can even patent plants now for the first time in 200 years. Once more,
this is BS drift that just clouds the issue of relative discussion of
the two platforms. If you want to talk patent law not specific to the
computers in question, go to alt.patents or something. I would say take
it to email if you have anything about it to say to me, but I am pretty
sure the kill file you are now going in will delete those.
Did you even check my reply to Charlie quoting John Harris? John is the
person given credit in the popular press with reverse engineering the
Atari computers and *HE* says it didn't happen. He says he had the
manual just like a number of people here said was available.
On one of your points, yes, I am wrong a lot and I admit it. The problem
here is: I am not wrong this time and a couple of people are being
intellectually dishonest in trying to bully a 'win'.
Your opinion is of no consequence to me. People in comp.sys.Atari.8bit
have known me for close to 20 years and some of my most frequently used
expressions are "Thanks for the correction", "I stand corrected", and
"IIRC". I seriously doubt standing up for what is the correct and shared
view by most people in the group is going to change their view. But
heck, you an Michael have done a pretty good job of rewriting history so
far so who knows?
Rick
Scott Alfter
Rick Cortese <rico...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>David Schmenk wrote:
>> Charlie wrote:
>>> "Rick Cortese" <rico...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>>> news:p8ednSTt4dX6kpTV...@earthlink.com...
>>>> and I can safely say he nothing intelligent to offer on the topic.
>>>
>>
>> many friends, either.
>
...while here in comp.sys.apple2, most of us don't know you from Adam.
Whatever you might happen to know on any given topic is largely nullified by
your arrogant, condescending attitude. Maybe Atari users find that
acceptable; I would hope not, but since I haven't used one of those since
1986, I wouldn't know. I think I'm fairly safe in saying it won't get you
far at all among Apple II users.
Maybe this opinion, like the others further up-thread, is also "of no
consequence" to you. The reverse is rapidly becoming true, and you have
only yourself to blame.
(WTF is it with other 8-bitters coming in here and trash-talking everybody
and everything in sight lately? First it was the Aztec C vs. cc65 thread
instigated by a Commodore user; now it's this. I would've thought the Apple
vs. Atari vs. Commodore "wars" were long since ended, and not in anyone's
favor. I could make reference to my posting history in comp.sys.apple2, but
I have better things to do with my time than to get sucked into a Usenet
d*ck-size contest.)
nem
> I afraid so. The c64 had no graphic support in its rather limited basic.
That's because it used a BASIC originally written for the PET, a machine
with no sound or actual graphics. To draw an orange line (like in your
example) on the C64, you'd have to do this:
5 ba=8192:poke53272,peek(53272)or8
10 poke53265,peek(53265)or32
20 fori=batoba+7999:pokei,0:next
30 fori=1024to2023:pokei,128:next
40 pokeba,128:pokeba+1,64
50 pokeba+2,32:pokeba+3,16
60 end
This just draws a few pixels in the upper left corner of the screen, but
should give you an idea of what's involved.
Russg
"nem" <> wrote in message news:
> Thomas Richter <> wrote in news:
and you're poking into that memory.
That can be done on the Atari. The Atari screen
memory can be moved, as can the display list,
which is a small program for the graphics chip
to execute.
heuser...@freenet.de
>
> Seems like the C=64 has a fixed screen memory,
> and you're poking into that memory.
You can set the frame buffer of the C64 to various locations.
Page flipping is possible, of course.
> That can be done on the Atari. The Atari screen
> memory can be moved, as can the display list,
> which is a small program for the graphics chip
> to execute.
That's right - and funny things are possible with these display
lists: The start of the frame buffer can be set for each line -
organizing the frame buffer "backwards" in memory, a different
video mode for each line, a horizontal display interrupt on each
line (if one can spare the CPU cycles ;-) and so on.
It's apparently even possible to change the video mode mid-line!
The power of ANTIC (the video processor) was astonishing for
its time.
But the C64 has one single feature that is much more practical
for many applications:
The 1KB large "Color RAM" area which allows for two independent
colors for each character block (40x25 matrix) - even in high
res mode.
This not only gives you colored text but a good compromise
between colors and resolution whereas the Atari either can't
utilize that many colors on a single line or has a lower resolution.
bye
Marcus
nem
> Seems like the C=64 has a fixed screen memory,
> and you're poking into that memory.
Nope. The video memory on the C64 can be moved all over the place. In this
example, the video bank is at $0000-$3FFF (the default setting). We're
using bitmap graphics here, where the pixel data resides at $2000-$3FFF and
the color data at $0400-$07E7.
Michael J. Mahon
> David Schmenk wrote:
<snip>
>> My guess is that Rick is used to be wrong, a lot. Probably doesn't
>> have many friends, either.
>>
>> http://www.bpmlegal.com/pattime.html
>>
>> Dave...
>
>
> Another cross post with nothing to contribute.
>
> Did you even read the web page you cite?
>
> "This time line applies to utility patents filed in 2001 or later, and
> assumes that you will start with a"
>
> We are talking about 1979-1982. Patent law has changed since then.
Of course, Rick won't see this reply, since he's in the corner with his
fingers in his ears going "La, la, la..." (that's what a killfile is,
after all), but...
US patent law in this area (publication by author as a bar to
application) has *not* changed.
I frequently used this provision of law to determine what I could
say to customers and when I could say it--with advice of counsel,
of course. It also determined when we filed international applications,
since *their* rules are "no window".
winston...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> In article <WLOdncxgjbp_rZHVnZ2dnUVZ_jKdn...@earthlink.com>,> >>> "Rick Cortese" <ricor...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> >>>news:p8ednSTt4dX6kpTV...@earthlink.com...
> >>>> He is just a troll, ignore him and his BS. I killfiled him already
> >>>> and I can safely say he nothing intelligent to offer on the topic.
>
> >>> You couldn't be more wrong about Michael.
>
> >> My guess is that Rick is used to be wrong, a lot. Probably doesn't have
> >> many friends, either.
>
> >Your opinion is of no consequence to me. People in comp.sys.Atari.8bit
> >have known me for close to 20 years...
>
> ...while here in comp.sys.apple2, most of us don't know you from Adam.
> Whatever you might happen to know on any given topic is largely nullified by
> your arrogant, condescending attitude. Maybe Atari users find that
> acceptable; I would hope not, but since I haven't used one of those since
> 1986, I wouldn't know. I think I'm fairly safe in saying it won't get you
> far at all among Apple II users.
>
> Maybe this opinion, like the others further up-thread, is also "of no
> consequence" to you. The reverse is rapidly becoming true, and you have
> only yourself to blame.
>
> (WTF is it with other 8-bitters coming in here and trash-talking everybody
> and everything in sight lately? First it was the Aztec C vs. cc65 thread
> instigated by a Commodore user; now it's this. I would've thought the Apple
> vs. Atari vs. Commodore "wars" were long since ended, and not in anyone's
> favor. I could make reference to my posting history in comp.sys.apple2, but
> I have better things to do with my time than to get sucked into a Usenet
> d*ck-size contest.)
I used to subscribe to comp.sys.atari.8bit, until I was basically
jumped by them just for voicing an opinion.
I much prefer the Apple crowd, even though the computer that shares my
desktop with my Mac is a TI-99.
This group has been a source of inspiration. There is a lot going on
here. And less in-fighting. I also enjoy hanging out on comp.sys.cbm,
even though there is more in-fighting there.
MSXers seem to share some of the less desirable traits with the
Atarians as well...
Scott Alfter
winston...@yahoo.com <winston...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Apr 21, 1:42 pm, sc...@alfter.DIESPAMMERSDIE.us (Scott Alfter)
>wrote:
>> and everything in sight lately? First it was the Aztec C vs. cc65 thread
>> instigated by a Commodore user; now it's this. I would've thought the Apple
>> vs. Atari vs. Commodore "wars" were long since ended, and not in anyone's
>> favor. I could make reference to my posting history in comp.sys.apple2, but
>> I have better things to do with my time than to get sucked into a Usenet
>> d*ck-size contest.)
>
>I used to subscribe to comp.sys.atari.8bit, until I was basically
>jumped by them just for voicing an opinion.
>I much prefer the Apple crowd, even though the computer that shares my
>desktop with my Mac is a TI-99.
Funny that you'd bring up the TI-99/4A, as discussion around those (mostly
on a Yahoo mailing list, not so much on Usenet) also tends to stay fairly
civil IME.
(One of those was my first computer. With only 16K, no printer, no disk,
and an expensive upgrade path to get to those, it was sidelined after a
couple of years by a better-equipped IIe. I no longer have my original
99/4A, but I picked one up cheap on eBay a few years ago, along with a PEB
with a floppy drive, serial port, and 32K RAM expansion. It's set up on one
desk, and my stealth IIGS (upgraded from the aforementioned IIe) is set up
next to it on another desk.)
Polymorph
From what I can tell by reading old c.s.a2 posts, the Apple ][ crowd
had its period of in-fighting in the late 90's in which several high
profile (and somewhat controversial) figures left the Apple ][ scene
forever.
I would like to think that those who weathered the storm in the 90's,
in addition to those returning (or joining) the Apple ][ community,
are much more mature and less prone to the kinds of erratic behaviour
exhibited by the individuals in question, and that we can have
discussions that don't dissolve into purile p1ssing contests. ;-)
As Dirty Harry once said, "Opinions are like @ssholes; everybody's got
one."
BTW, please pardon my purile language. ;-)
Cheers,
Mike
N.N. Thayer
The focus here is incredible. csa2 is way too concerned about
creating, discovering, tinkering, and exchanging information to be in
the same galaxy as caring about childish system wars or other Internet
drama - in the best tradition of the old regional Apple II user
groups. :) It is, appropriately enough, the polar opposite of a
typical Mac forum.
winston...@yahoo.com
Umm - yes, you are absolutely right!
I joined a Mac forum back when I got my mini a year ago, and left
frustrated a few months later. A lot of that same "my computer is
better than yours" between Mac and PC types drove me away...
mdj
> On one of your points, yes, I am wrong a lot and I admit it. The problem
> here is: I am not wrong this time and a couple of people are being
> intellectually dishonest in trying to bully a 'win'.
I assure you Sir, no 'bullying' is taking place. The conclusion
Michael has drawn is supported by the available information, and yours
is falsified. If you care to bring new information to the fore that
supports a different position, you'll find that the majority here will
be happy to listen. If instead you present indignant denial and a
series of infantile personal attacks, you will no doubt receive
nothing but contempt.
One of the things that makes this forum great (indeed, much of this
thread is a testament to it) is that egotistical ad hominem sabre
rattling is mostly lost in the noise. In its place you'll find
respectful (if sometimes heated!) discussion which will derive what is
correct not through authoritarianism, but through reason.
If you're content to operate within the aforementioned guidelines, I
look forward to your contributions. If not, well, at least the
rebuttals will be moderately entertaining.
Good day,
Matt
mdj
> On one of your points, yes, I am wrong a lot and I admit it. The problem
> here is: I am not wrong this time and a couple of people are being
> intellectually dishonest in trying to bully a 'win'.
I assure you Sir, no 'bullying' is taking place. The conclusion
super_...@yahoo.com
laws from 2008 :)
But getting back to the earlier topic of Atari tech documentation,
it's well known that the architecture of the Atari 8-bits were *very*
closed the first year or 2. Nolan Bushnell speaks of how he was
opposed to this approach by Warner management, in the "Stella At 20"
documentary, and why the closed arch. was the reason why major
software titles like VisiCalc appeared on the Apple II first. Owen
Rubin has also publicly talked about the first time he got an Atari
800 (while working at Atari), and how he received no tech docs for it
(because they hadn't been written yet!). Until the book, De Re Atari,
there was very little info.
I think after the courts ruled in Activision's favor (regarding 3rd-
party software for the VCS), they realized it was impossible to keep
the software market all to themselves. Whether or not they realized
that 3rd-party software only helped hardware sales, I don't know (but
I doubt it since the 7800 and later systems used software encryption),
but the correct approach had to be forced upon them. Nintendo
actually succeeded in locking out 3-rd party software (except for
"rogue" companies who circumvented the lockout chip, like.... Tengen/
Atari! Maybe they did finally understand it. lol).
Ensor
>>....CBM serial bus which ran at what, 300bps?
>
> That's just plain silly. Even the stock IEC speed was much
>faster than 300bps....
Yep, it is plain silly that CBM chose such a slow speed. But was THAT slow!
If you happen to check the following web page:
http://www.viceteam.org/plain/drive_info.txt You'll see that the 1541
transferred data at a hideously nippy 0.4KB per second....
>....When equipped with JiffyDOS....
Totally irrelevant, the majority of users didn't use such upgrades and were
stuck with "stock" speeds.
TTFN - Pete.
Ensor
> The 1541 is many, many times faster than cassette even
>without any speed ups....
In some freaky parallel universe perhaps....
Ensor
>....were a few problems with the tech ref, I think it listed OS
>rev A vs. B and I'm not sure if it is the CTIA or the later GTIA
>chip...
Mine came with the OS rev A listing. I had to buy the rev B listing
seperately.
TTFN - Pete.
Ensor
> Actually, Atari jealously guarded the secrets of the chipset
>in the 400/800 until it was obvious that the system would only
>survive with 3rd party software support....
The technical reference manuals were available pretty early on, in the UK at
least (though we got the machines a couple of years after the US). On top of
that they even went to the trouble of creating the "Atari Program Exchange"
(APX) to encourage the creation and distribution of user generated software.
Plainly the actions of a company "jealously guarding" it's secrets.
The technical details of their consoles (VCS/7800/Jaguar) were always kept
secret, but the micros were "open books".
Some of us actually lived through those years....
>....Even the Atari Assembler cartridge comes with horrible
>documentation that doesn't even scratch the surface of what
>you need to create usable software.
First piece of software I bought for my Atari....
The documentation assumes you have the technical reference manuals, and as
such is more than sufficient for its intended audience. I certainly had no
trouble with it!
TTFN - Pete.
Russg
"Ensor" <> wrote in message news:
..
heuser...@freenet.de
>
> .4 kb/s ? That's 400 bytes /sec or about 4000 bits/sec?
Yes. As Ensor says it's hideous. It's more like a tape recorder
without the need to spool to the sections to load from.
Without a fast loader you can literally *see* the bytes being
transfered.
*With* a fastloader the thing is quite usable.
bye
Marcus
Michael Black
> On Apr 26, 2:36 am, "Russg" <russg...@MUNGEsbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>> .4 kb/s ? That's 400 bytes /sec or about 4000 bits/sec?
>
> Yes. As Ensor says it's hideous. It's more like a tape recorder
> without the need to spool to the sections to load from.
>
Of course, that's an actual big step up. Having to find the start of a
program on a cassette was as much a problem as the slow loading. I used
ten minute cassettes, and kept one important program on each (maybe a
backup later on the tape), but I gather most people used 30 minute or
longer tapes and multiple programs per cassette, making the search issue
worse.
So having direct access to files with a disk drive actually is a big
improvement. Slow transfer only counts once you've had something
better. Which is the same thing with cassettes; I don't recall them
being much of a problem other than finding the start of the program,
but the minute I got a floppy drive in 1984 I never wanted to use
cassettes again for programs.
There was one early commercial floppy drive system, and it was
treated as a faster cassette system. They didn't bother with
a real operating system, which made it easier to adapt the system
to multiple computer types, so you saved at a specific location on
the floppy, and when loading had to specify where it started (and
maybe ended, I can't remember). At the time, at least thirty years
ago, it was still better than cassettes.
Michael
heuser...@freenet.de
>
> So having direct access to files with a disk drive actually is a big
> improvement.
For non-sequential data access inside files a tape isn't too
useful, either.
> Slow transfer only counts once you've had something better.
Of course - but the thing was nearly as expensive a a C64 in
some countries. And for that kind of money I would *at least*
expect the speed of the Atari 8-bit computer's floppy drive
which gets the job done, too, but isn't exactly a speed demon.
> Which is the same thing with cassettes; I don't recall them
> being much of a problem other than finding the start of the
> program, but the minute I got a floppy drive in 1984 I never
> wanted to use cassettes again for programs.
Totally understandable and most people interested in a "real"
computer used floppies sooner or later.
What I really find funny though, is that there are several "turbo
tape" solutions for the C64 out there that give the user higher
speeds than a (standard) floppy drive ;-)
> There was one early commercial floppy drive system, and it
> was treated as a faster cassette system. They didn't bother
> with a real operating system, which made it easier to adapt
> the system to multiple computer types, so you saved at a
> specific location on the floppy, and when loading had to
> specify where it started (and maybe ended, I can't remember). > At the time, at least thirty years ago, it was still better than
> cassettes.
Sounds like those old drum memories.
bye
Marcus