ST News

ATARI 90's SHOW

The board features a modified version of TOS 1.4 (required to make use of the extra capabilities of the 68030). The 68030 runs at 25MHZ. Also included - 128 instruction and data cache - socket for 68882 math co-processor - plain vanilla 68000 to retain compatibility

ATARI SOFTWARE UPGRADES Hyperpaint has been revamped to make better use of the features of the STE. Notable improvements in Hyperpaint 2 include hardware scrolling of IMG screens if a blitter is fitted, access to the STE's 4096 color palette, IMG screens may now be set to any size within RAM constraints, and many other features quickened. It is also possible to run the new version of Hyperpaint without GDOS installed.

Atari has also relaunched their comms package FaSTcomm. Nicely GEM'd, FaSTcomm supports VT100/52 and Viewdata, bachground up/downloading, call log and built-in text and Viewdata editors. Waiting in the wings is "the official Atari hard disk back-up package..." - Archive.
Hyperpaint 2 costs UK$34.95 (UK$10 for the upgrade) and FaSTcomm now retails at UK$49.95 (UK$15 for the upgrade).

NEW PRODUCTS FROM KUMA Kuma has a couple of exciting looking products due for release soon. The first is Polyfiler, an innovative Hypertext style database that has been in the making for sometime. The second, Adimens, has been a very popular database in Germany for a few years now. Kuma will be plugging a gap in the UK market when they launch an English version of Adimens in late September, early October.

DELUXE PAINT ST The ST version of what is generally regarded as the standard paint package for the Amiga is now available from Electronic Arts. Deluxe Paint will read all popular ST picture file formats, plus Amiga IFF files, and boasts 999 animation buffers each of which can hold up to 999 frames. Proportional fonts, font editing, color mixing airbrushes, STE extended palette support, and real-time magnification are amoung st wide array of features available. Deluxe Paint will cost UK$49.99 until the end of November when the price will rise by UK$10.00.

CALAMUS PRICE CHANGES To make room for Calamus SL, the price of the current version will drop to UK$265.00. Calamus SL, which includes full color seperation facilities will retail around UK$500.00.

AT CONFUSION Gasteiner has announced that they are the sole UK distributors of AT Speed at UK$239.99, and that Full Circle Technologies, who had announced they were supplying AT Speed at UK$269.00, are unable to supply the product. AT Speed offers IBM ST emulation with CGA, Olivetti, Hercules and Tandy 1000 display modes as well as full Atari mouse, RS232 and hard disk support. Atari SLM804 support will follow.

DUSSELDORF REPORT - Jim Allen (STREPORT)

were dozens of DTP, CAD, scientific, and business solutions represented. The level of high quality workmanship was very evident. They even had Unix on display running X Windows. TTs were abundant...of course. The speed of the TT made the software demonstrations that much slicker.

host adapter, a "smart" unit that has it's own processor and implements true SCSI. This is considered a professional device and should allow interfacing to a whole world of real SCSI add-ons. They were also showing a neat, totally rewritten TOS. One of ICD's programmers was responsible for it and he has done a SUPER FANTASTIC JOB!!! Atari should really hire this guy. Chock full of neat new features, smaller than the original, and much faster (lots of assembly), it is something Atari should take a loooong look at. I was impressed....can't you tell. Also on display was ICD's accelerator board. The latest in a what is now 8 accelerators for the ST. Where was everyone last year?

I would say the attendance was close to 55,000 people. The problem was the weather...it was great!! So the turn out wasn't as high as it could have been. But that is still one MAJOR crowd. Considering many were dealers, the level of sales was quite high. The German Atari market is quite healthy, wish we could even come close.

and the area around it looked like a war had just happened. The WALL was gone, nothing left but dust. I met a vendor...a new entrepreneur...and had the chance to help him at work. We walked about a mile from the gate to where the wall was still standing, and I help him chip away pieces ..for SALE to the tourists!!! What a neat business, selling free rocks for $10+ each. They had even been sold, by West Berliners, neat little plastic boxes labeled "Berlin Wall" for packaging. Amazing. Of course I have a couple pieces for myself. A little silicon glue, snap the cover on, and presto instant profit. ____________________________________________________

"....I found out two things, one is that the CDAR504 (Ed's Note: Atari's CD Rom player) is really a CHINON DC431. I also found out that the SLM804 is really an Office Automations Systems Inc. printer - the Laserpro 5308. So if you need tech specs, toner, drums, you now have an alternative source."

"The SLM804 uses the TEC LB1301 write white engine, NOT the Ricoh engine.

You can interchange the toner/drum with the Oaysis LaserPro series without problem and usually at noticeable savings I might add." Toad Computer (From Genie)

"There's a rumor of a new upgrade from ICD that makes their host adaptor compatible with both Talon's SuperCharger and fixes the STe hard disk problem." - from Gregg Anderson

"We just added some capacitors to smooth out noise on the DMA bus that was a real problem on the STE. That fixed 99% of our STE problems and doesn't cause any problems on other computers (which is always a danger). The other 1% which is not fixed is the mysterious data shifting that we have seen only once in our office. I would guess that is caused by defective DMA chips and is not very common." - Tom at ICD

effective way to multitask ST applications. While Beckemeyer Development's MT C-Shell and VSH Manager provided an effective combination for running Desk Accessories and TOS programs concurrently, it could not multitask GEM applications. As such, the prospect of a complete system that would multitask TOS and ST/GEM programs was still just a dream.

to multitask GEM-compliant ST MIDI programs, ST Users believed their hopes realized. However, Atari has said that while MIDI-Tasking can be used for multitasking other types of ST/GEM programs, that such use is not recom- mended. And with some ST/GEM programs (such as Pagestream or ISD's Master Plan spreadsheet) can be run under MIDI-Tasking, many ST MIDI programs are incompatible with it. This situation has left the spectre of ST multitas- king hanging just out of the reach of the ST Community.

have appeared. Atari Germany has apparently developed an X/Windows Server for the ST, which uses a "TOS Compatible" multitasking system called X/ST/Multi. Below is a Usenet message that describes the X/Windows Produ- cts developed by Atari Germany, and some information on X/ST/Multi:

In article roarment.650147785@faui09,roarment@faui09.informatik. uni-erlangen.de (Roberto Armenti) writes:

I once heard about such a thing named X/ST/Window or something like this, but I never could get some info on that.

Some months ago I asked Atari Germany about X/ST/Window. They sent me a high-glossing paper with some info. In short:

• X/ST/Window is an X-Windows server for the Atari ST, TT and ATW.

• The whole X Windows System runs on an Atari TT under ATX (Atari Unix) and on the ATW (Atari Transputer Workstation) under Helios.

• X/ST/window is based on X/ST/multi, "a multitasking operating system which is totally compatible with the TOS of the Atari ST" (literal translation from German). It allows discoupling of the time critical protocol processes from the graphical software.

• The ST monitor acts as a window and shows only a part of a virtual screen. The dimensions of this virtual screen is limited by memory only.

• Network access is done via TCP/IP

(Note: TCP/IP is a LAN networking protocol standard created by the US Government, commonly used in Local Area Networks).

Ah yes, and then they said it would be available at special computer stores by end of June 1990. Hmm, actually they said "90", not "1990". They don't mean 2090, do they? :-)

-- Dipl.-Inform. Rainer Klute klute@unido.informatik.uni-dortmund.de Univ. Dortmund, IRB klute@unido.uucp, klute@unido.bitnet Postfach 500500 |)|/ Tel.: +49 231 755-4663 D-4600 Dortmund 50 ||\ Fax : +49 231 755-2386

I was contacted today by the GFA gebruikersgroep (GFAgg) of the Netherlands. What a fantastic setup they have! They publish a thick bimonthly newsletter (60 pages!) filled with programming tips and code samples. They have their own pd and low-cost commercial library which generates funds for the group. They supply educational software developed by members to some 600 schools. They have between 600 and 700 active members.

Write (English works for me) to: Lou Meijers GFA-gg Frankrijklaan 14 2034 BA Haarlem THE NETHERLANDS

For the really adventurous, the telephone number is 011 31 23 336 946. I haven't tried that, so I don't know if Lou answers it. Lou and two other group members have called me and they've all had excellent English skills so we have not needed to stumble around in Dutch or German. Their news- letter is in Dutch though. Their software is largely in Dutch, but not exclusively so. (From Dorthy Brumleve - Genie)

Path: bdt!unisoft!mtxinu!ucbvax!agate!apple!portal!atari!mui From: mui@atari.UUCP (Derek Mui) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: TT desktop & prices Message-ID: <2300@atari.UUCP- Date: 14 Sep 90 19:50:39 GMT References: <1914@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca- Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA Lines: 36

in article <1914@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca-, jhenders@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) says:

Summary:TT window limit?

AES to handle X number of window easily. But if we change it to handle X number of window, then people will ask for X+1 number of window. It will go on forever!

generally quite enough for most of the applications. Moreover, changing the AES to have unlimited ( dynamic ) number of window is not an easy job :-(

should definitely have the dynamic window feature. Agree?

in article <2685@cernvax.UUCP-, dougie@cernvax.UUCP (douglas mclaggan) says:

I suppose that with this new policy of Atari's, if you're busy coding up the new STE desktop, you won't be able to let us know 'til it's finish and shipping. Right? :-)

to squeeze the new desktop into the ST ROM. Someone suggested to use the cartridge port and most of the others suggested to put it on the disk. Technically, they are all O.K, and I will reflect all the opinions to management people.

From article <2287@atari.UUCP-, by mui@atari.UUCP (Derek Mui): in article <2286@atari.UUCP-, mui@atari.UUCP (Derek Mui) says: