927 lines
27 KiB
Plaintext
927 lines
27 KiB
Plaintext
| ROVAC ZMAGAZINE |
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| Issue #160 |
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| June 6, 1989 |
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|Copyright 1989, RII|
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|This week in ZMagazine|
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Atari Announces New Products
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ZBreak #5
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Summer CES Chicago June 3, 1989
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<<<< Kirk >>>>
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Hard Disk Hints (Part 2)
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W. K. Whitton
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The Master Memory Map
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Jerry Cross
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Electronic Mailbox At Home
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Bob Fasoldt
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|ATARI ANNOUNCES NEW PRODUCTS AT CES|
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Z*BREAK #5 EXCLUSIVE CES REPORT
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June 3, 1989
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Copyright (C)1989 Rovac Industries, Inc
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The following report comes direct from
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our ST*ZMAG/Z*Net correspondents Mike
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Letchkun and Brian Wilmoth live in
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Chicago for the annual Consumer
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Electronics Show.
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At noon today, June 3, 1989, Sam
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Tramiel called a news conference and
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announced the release of the first
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Atari portable Color Arcade System.
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This 3 1/2 inch LED video game system
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measures approx 11 X 4 X 2 and weighs
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about 1 pound. 16 colors on a
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160 X 102 screen.
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Retail price is set at $149.95. Atari
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is releasing the product in conjuction
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with Epyx and debuts with the following
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game cartridges: Impossible Mission,
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Blue Lightning, Time Treasure Chest and
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a few others. The unit has 4 channel
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sound and Comlink. Comlink is an
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output via RCA phono jack and allows
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simultaneous play with up to 8 portable
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units.
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The portable game system runs at 16MHZ
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with 6 AA batteries. Another feature
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is the ability to press two buttons at
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the same time to reverse the screen for
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left-handed players. There were 5
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units on hand for show attendees to
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play with. An additional game called
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California Games will be available with
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the full four part version.
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This announcement has been kept secret
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until today's show. Software prices
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will range between $20 and $30.00.
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At the Atari Booth, 8-bit software was
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shown: Deflecktor and Xenophobe, along
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with the first look at MidiMaze from
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Xanth. This configuration consists of
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SIO cables to 3 outputs. Midi I/O is
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dedicated to the game.
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The 7800 was on hand with new releases
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that include Commando, Tower Topple,
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Double Dragon, Jinx, Xenophobe, and
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Shooting Arcade.
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The 2600 was also shown with Road
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Runner, Double Dragon, Rampage, BMX
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Simulator, and Radar Lock.
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The PC4 286 was shown with the 3 1/2
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and 30 meg hard drive. We were told
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that FCC approval is still lacking
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because of the case configuration.
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However, Atari was still making the
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official domestic release at this show.
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Lastly, Spectrum Holobyte announced a
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new missions disk for Falcon. They
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will be released in July. The PC and
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MAC will be getting attention in the
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game area before the ST. The first
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port-over will be VETTE. VETTE is a
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driving simulator which takes you
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through the streets of San Fransisco.
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|SUMMER CES CHICAGO JUNE 3, 1989 |
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|by <<<<Kirk >>>>|
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Atari introduced a new portable COLOR
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game system today. This unit is about
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the size of of VCR tape, yet only
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weighs one pound, and includes a
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built-in 3 1/2 inch color screen. On
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the left side of the unit is a built-in
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8 direction joypad, and on the right
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side is a set of four buttons for game
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control/firing. An additional option
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is the ability to flip the image on the
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screen so that the unit can be held
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with the joypad in either hand,
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allowing for comfortable use by left
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handed people.
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The following is a list of features:
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* 16MHZ (not a typo) 65c02
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microprocessor
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* 16 simultaneous colors from a pallet
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of 4096
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* Game cards as large as 2 Megabytes
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(current cards at 128K bytes) on the
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size of a credit card
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* ComLink: communications port allowing
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up to 8 machines to be linked
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together for simultaneous play
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* Headphone jack for private listening
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* Runs on 6 AA batteries (about 6-8
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hours) or AC adapter
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* 6 games announced for this new
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machine by Eypx
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Suggested price: $149
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Available by September?
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Also at the show were the 80286 8MHZ PC
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clone from Atari as well as several
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'Portfolio' hand held computers
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(however, the portfolio had no specific
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display for themselves--they were being
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carried by some of the Atari
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representatives).
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Other than that the display was
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composed mainly of 2600s, 7800s, and
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XEGSs, and a display of Atari brand
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calculators. A demo of MidiMaze was
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being shown on the XEGS, as well as a
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version of Tower Toppler.
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|HARD DISK HINTS (PART 2)|
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|W.K. Whitton|
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Reprinted from ST-ZMagazine #23
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The Ins and Outs of Interleave
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or
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-A Thousand and One Practical Uses For
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Thin & Crispy Pizza-
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Although there is an abundance of
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computers complete with various and
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sundry operating systems, one thing is
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common to them all. They all use
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magnetic media of some sort (CD systems
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notwithstanding!). They rotate the
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media at speeds from 300 rpm all the
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way up to 3600 rpm, and disks can
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readily be found in sizes from 3 1/2
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inches up to 8 inches in diameter.
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These systems store their data on these
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disks by means of flux changes in the
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magnetic coating on the surface of the
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media.
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The most common material used in the
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construction of a floppy disk is
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-Mylar-, and has a coating of
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ferro-magnetic particles implanted on
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both sides. The data is written to
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this media in circular patterns, much
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the same way a record album is written.
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It does does differ somewhat though as
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the data on an LP is more like a
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spiral, while the data on a disk is
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comprised of smaller and smaller
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concentric circles. Another difference
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between the two is that the LP spins at
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33 R.P.M.; the floppy disk spins at 300
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R.P.M. (or in some systems, 360 R.P.M.)
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The floppy disk, depending on several
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factors, can save from 160 thousand
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bytes (called 160K) to almost a million
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and a half (1.44 Megabyte).
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Another popular storage medium for
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computers is the hard drive. Hard
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drives use platters, which are round
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just as floppies are, and likewise
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contain data on both sides of the
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magnetic media. But, these spin at a
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much faster rate (3600 rpm on the
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average), possess the ability to hold
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quite a bit more data (5 Meg on up to
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over 600 Meg), and are not flexible nor
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removable as the floppies are.
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In the late 70s and early 80s it was
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common to see hard drives which had the
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capacity of 5 Meg. These technical
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marvels of the day were single platter
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mechanisms, and a paltry 160 tracks
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compared to today's standard. Hard
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drive technology has greatly advanced
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since that time, and it is commonplace
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to see advertised multi-platter,
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thousand track drives. These massive
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storage devices are ordinary rather
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than extraordinary both in price and
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availability. We can safely say that
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the computers we now have to use,
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abuse, and enjoy, with their -Megs- of
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RAM, multiple -Megs- of hard drive
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storage space, and much faster CPUs,
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such as the Atari Mega ST computer
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system with optional hard drives, in
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many ways rival the large commercial
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systems of the late 70s in cost,
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performance, and storage capacity.
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In order to understand a little better
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what we are going to discuss, you will
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need to visualize what the sectors
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appear to look like on a disk. Imagine
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going to your local Pizza Hut and
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holding a user group lecture. You
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order a large thin and crispy pizza
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with everything on it (stop drooling!)
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for your demonstration, and tell the
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waitress to not cut the pizza. Take
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the pizza cutter and divide the pizza
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into 17 equal slices, but leave them in
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the tray as they were. Now, you pull a
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bag from under the table. In it you
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have donut cutters you swiped from the
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local donut shop. You proceed to recut
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the pizza, starting at the middle with
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a tiny round cutter, and proceeding
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with a larger diameter cutter each
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time. What we have done thus far is
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slice the pizza (into sectors), and cut
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it with the donut cutters (into
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cylinders or tracks depending on your
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vocabulary), and ended up with quite a
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few pieces of pizza that resemble
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miniature half-moons. Let us say these
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little half-moons of heavenly cuisine
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are equal to 512 bytes on your hard
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disk. You could then easily calculate
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the total storage capacity of your
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storage device by multiplying and using
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this formula: storage capacity = 512 x
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total # of sectors. Now if you really
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wanted to go all out, you could have
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purchased 4 or 5 pizzas, stacked them
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on top of each other, and ended up with
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a true approximation of what a
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multi-platter hard drive looks like.
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If realism was extremely important,
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then you could instruct them to put the
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toppings on BOTH sides of the pizza
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(weird!). In a real hard drive, each
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of these separate platters is read by
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its own individual head. The only
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thing I would recommend here is
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instructing the Pizza Hut crew to put
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your -data concoction- in the
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microwave, and order a LARGE pitcher of
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pop...while you are waiting, you may
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wish to calculate the total storage
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capacity of the -crispy drive- you just
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constructed. The formula is: capacity
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(in bytes) = sectors per track X tracks
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on each platter X total number of
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heads.
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Let us leave our pizza analogy behind.
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As the hard drive merrily spins along
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at 3600 rpm, the sectors are passing by
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the read/write head. The speed at
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which the bits pass by is found by
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calculating 17 sectors, and 512 bytes
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per sector, at a speed of 3600
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rpm...hmmm...that comes out to
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31,334,400 data bytes per minute, or
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4,177,920 data bytes per second. One
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thing you should note is that each
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sector contains -control information-
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which is in addition to the data you
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stored on the device. Its purpose is
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to allow the controller to actually be
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able to access the data, so the
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real-time data transfer rate is
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actually a little higher than what you
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calculated (5 Megabits per second is a
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very safe guess).
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Interleave can be best expressed as the
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the sequence of physical sectors on a
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hard disk as it relates to the logical
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sequence of the sectors. The
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interleave factor (such as 1:1, 4:1
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etc.) can be defined as the number of
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times the disk must revolve in order to
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read all the sectors on the disk, in
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order, from the first sector to the
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last. An interleave of 1:1 is the
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fastest possible, meaning it reads one
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entire track in one revolution of the
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platter. Lets us take a typical
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WordWriter II text file, such as the
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one comprising this very article. An
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average short article by yours truly is
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usually about 5K long. This means that
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this file takes up 10 sectors on the
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hard drive, as each sector is 512 bytes
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wide. What is known as the first
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logical sector is that part that
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contains the first part of our file in
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question, while the last logical sector
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of course contains the last part of our
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text file. Let us, for illustrative
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purposes, say that the first logical
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sector happens to be 4,50. The next
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record won't necessarily be 4,51 as you
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might suppose, but rather, this is
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determined by the interleave of your
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hard drive. If the interleave is 1:1,
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then this means the physical sectors
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are laid out in such a manner as to
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make them equal to the logical sectors.
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This means the data would be laid out
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like this:
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1_2_3_4_5_6_7_8_9_10_11_12_13_14_15_16
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If the interleave is set at 2:1, then
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the second logical sector would appear
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at 4,52 , the next at 4,54 and so
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forth. The data on an -interleaved
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drive- is laid out a bit differently
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than 1:1, one drive had the data laid
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out like this:
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1_10_2_11_3_12_4_13_5_14_6_15_7_16_8_17
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Can you guess what interleave this
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represents?
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Now, if we wrote after sector one,
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sector five, and after two we placed
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sector (an interleave of 4:1), it will
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take 4 revolutions of the platter to
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read in all 17 sectors of the drive.
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This is not a data rate of 500K, but it
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is much, much faster than attempting to
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read the same data one sector per
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spin!!! The optimal placing of data on
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your hard drive for fastest data
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transfer rates is what interleaving is
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all about.
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Since some computers and controllers
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cannot reliably read and write data as
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fast as the current interleave is set,
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and an interleave that is set wrong
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will drastically slow your I/O down,
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and in some extreme cases the integrity
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of your data may be threatened, this is
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an important factor you must give some
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thought to in order to get peak
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performance from your system. A good
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case is a clone that was just in the
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shop I am employed at. After
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completing the repair, I noted the hard
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drive acted as if it was extremely
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sluggish. After a few investigative
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tricks, I determined that that
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interleave, currently at 6:1 or
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thereabouts, was not proper for an
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optimized system. I used a fine
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utility I received from GEnie, called
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Interleave (strange as it may seem), to
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change the current value on this
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system. The utility will actually
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change the interleave, a sector at a
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time, and then replace it on the newly
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laid out track. After 4 hours or so,
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that task was completed, and the owner
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of the system called back to thank us
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for the unbelievable speed increase he
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noted! I remember the words -Better
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than new!- Of course, his drive
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formatting software did not attempt to
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find out what interleave was best for
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his system when the hard drive was
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lasted formatted. Please note that the
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program mentioned is for the IBM-type
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machines--no similar interleave changer
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is available for the ST.
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How is the optimal interleave
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determined for your system? If you
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purchased your hard drive system
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already assembled, such as those
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systems from Atari, Supra, and ICD,
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then they have determined what is best
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for your system. If you pieced your
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system together from various
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components, whether purchased locally
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or the mail order route, then you were
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the one who did it, although quite
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possibly, unknowingly!
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Finally, since we can not at this time
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change the interleave on the Atari ST
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(or 8-bit systems, either) other than
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by totally reformatting the drive, and
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thereby losing all your data, >please<
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plan the layout and interleave of your
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drive before proceeding with your
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original formatting of your hard
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drive. You'll save a lot of time later
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on! (The ST is quite capable of 1:1
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interleave...and this setting is used
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by ICD and other interfacing
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equipment.)
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Note: As a matter of information, some
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RLL drives does not conform to the 17
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sector format, but rather they do
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things a bit differently on these
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drives/controllers, so not all of the
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above information is totally correct in
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the case of a few drives of this type.
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I'll spare you the details to avoid
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confusion!
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|THE MASTER MEMORY MAP|
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|by Jerry Cross|
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Reprinted from the June
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Great Lakes Atari Digest
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While stumbling around the Disneyland
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World of Atari show, I came across an
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interesting book at the BEST
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Electronics booth. Big deal, another
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Atari book you say?
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Have you taken a trip recently to your
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local book store in the area mall?
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Ever look at the computer book section?
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Atari books are extremely scarce. If
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you look really close, stuck someplace
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near the top of the shelf, in the
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middle of a bunch of Apple books, you
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just MIGHT find a manhandled copy of
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one of the COMPUTE! books still
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available, but I wouldn't bet on it.
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If you do find an Atari book, it
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usually falls into one of three
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categories: -Strictly Beginner-, where
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the author simply took common
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information from the Atari Basic
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handbook and added a few samples;
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-Topic Specific- such as machine
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language, graphics, or some other topic
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that is pretty worthless to a beginning
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programmer; and -Hard Core Handbooks-
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like Mapping the Atari, De Re Atari, or
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other technical handbooks. This
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category goes way over the heads of
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beginners.
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There are very few good books for an
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intermediate programmer, one who is
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more than a beginner, but not ready yet to probe the -internals- of computer
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programming. That's why I was so
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impressed with this book.
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-The Master Memory Map- is very similar
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to Mapping the Atari. Basically, it
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looks at how a beginning programmer can
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use the POKE command to enhance their
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programs to include some of those
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special effects and -nifty-keen- tricks
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like turning off the break key or
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protecting your software. But unlike
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Mapping the Atari, this book was
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written in very easy to understand
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language, so that beginning programmers
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can understand it.
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Ask a beginner what a -vector- is. How
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about a -buffer-. No, it's not a naked
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swimmer. The problem with most of the
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reference books on the market is that
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they assume you already know what these
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terms are. But The Master Memory Map
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assumes you don't, so you will get a
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lesson each time you come across one of
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these strange terms. This is
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especially true in the beginning of the
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|
book, but as you work your way through
|
|
the book they slack off the -lessons-
|
|
and get into the real use of the
|
|
particular memory location.
|
|
|
|
This book will take the beginning
|
|
programmer through most of the
|
|
important (and useful) memory
|
|
locations, and explain in simple
|
|
lessons how they can be used to enhance
|
|
their programs. It will tell you if a
|
|
location is for the more advanced user,
|
|
but still explains it's use. By doing
|
|
this, the beginner learns how that
|
|
memory location is used by the
|
|
operating system. This was not done
|
|
with Mapping the Atari, which simply
|
|
gave you a brief description of that
|
|
memory location. This can be an
|
|
extremely useful lesson for those folks
|
|
who plan to move on to machine language
|
|
in the future.
|
|
|
|
Here's an example. Here is how both
|
|
books describe memory location 124
|
|
(HOLDCH):
|
|
|
|
Mapping the Atari
|
|
|
|
A character value is moved here before
|
|
the control and shift logic are
|
|
processed for it.
|
|
|
|
Master Memory Map
|
|
|
|
A character that has been typed in from
|
|
the keyboard goes here so the OS
|
|
(operating system) can check out just
|
|
what kind of character it really is
|
|
(CTRL, SHIFT, etc.)
|
|
|
|
Now, if you were a beginning
|
|
programmer, which version would be
|
|
easier to understand? It's like this
|
|
throughout the entire book! Sources
|
|
for much of the information comes from
|
|
such famous books as DE RE Atari, DOS
|
|
Listing, Inside Atari DOS, Hardware
|
|
Manual (from Atari, Inc.), Mapping the
|
|
Atari, and OS Listing (also from
|
|
Atari). The authors have taken the
|
|
best examples from all of these books,
|
|
and compiled them into an excellent
|
|
textbook for the beginning programmer.
|
|
|
|
And just like Mapping the Atari, this
|
|
book covers nearly all of the operating
|
|
systems, CIO routines, and much, much
|
|
more. However, this book seems to be a
|
|
little out of date, and does not
|
|
include some of the memory locations
|
|
used with the XE series of computers.
|
|
It does cover some of the special
|
|
memory locations of the 1200XL if you
|
|
are one of the unfortunate people still
|
|
using this -white elephant-.
|
|
|
|
I do not know if your local book store
|
|
can order this book. I made a call to
|
|
the local B. Dalton book store and was
|
|
informed that none of their suppliers
|
|
had it. I suggest you contact Best
|
|
Electronics or the book's publisher.
|
|
The cover price is $15.95 but might be
|
|
cheaper from Best.
|
|
|
|
The Master Memory Map
|
|
Craig Patchett and Robin Sherer
|
|
Reston Publishing Co, Reston, Virginia
|
|
|
|
Best Electronics
|
|
2021 The Alameda, Suite 290
|
|
San Jose, CA 95126
|
|
408-243-6950
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|ELECTRONIC MAILBOX AT HOME|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|by Bob Fasoldt|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reprinted from the June
|
|
Great Lakes Atari Digest
|
|
|
|
|
|
More and more people are buying
|
|
personal computers and a fair
|
|
percentage of them are purchasing
|
|
modems. Electronic mail is not just a
|
|
thing of the future or just for the
|
|
wealthy. You can set up your own
|
|
-electronic mailbox- and receive mail
|
|
while away from home or sleeping! Let
|
|
me explain...
|
|
|
|
I live in Florida and the rest of my
|
|
family is scattered across the Eastern
|
|
United States. Many of my family
|
|
members own personal computers and
|
|
modems so we send text files to each
|
|
other instead of letters...and the best
|
|
news is that it is often less expensive
|
|
than the mail service. I have been
|
|
communicating with my family for about
|
|
two years in this fashion and find it
|
|
highly reliable and rewarding, plus it
|
|
is immediate! When I get up in the
|
|
morning, the first thing I do is turn
|
|
on the monitor to see if any E-mail has
|
|
come in. If so, I immediately save it
|
|
to floppy, even before I read it so
|
|
nothing can happen to it.
|
|
|
|
At first, we were using MPP 1000's
|
|
because their software supported
|
|
unattended downloading. But soon I
|
|
grew tired of 300 baud and purchased
|
|
the Supra 1200AT which also supports
|
|
unattended downloading. That software
|
|
however did not support the 512K
|
|
RAMdisk on my XE, so I began to look
|
|
for other software for this purpose.
|
|
|
|
In my opinion, Keith Ledbetter's
|
|
Express! is by far the best
|
|
telecommunications program available.
|
|
I began to wonder if this fabulous
|
|
program could possibly be set up to
|
|
autosave to buffer or to disk
|
|
unattended. Nowhere in the 850
|
|
Express! docs was there any mention of
|
|
this so you can imagine my excitement
|
|
and happiness to discover that 850
|
|
Express! could indeed download and save
|
|
while no one was around! And...wow, is
|
|
it easy to do! Here is how:
|
|
|
|
==>Boot up your 850 Express! modem
|
|
program (I use version 3.0--I don't
|
|
know if earlier versions will support
|
|
this) and turn on your modem. From the
|
|
main menu hit <ESCAPE> (which forces
|
|
the program to think you're on line)
|
|
and then press OPTION (which saves
|
|
anything that comes in to buffer. Set
|
|
up this way, as soon as a call comes
|
|
in, the modem will autoanswer and save
|
|
to buffer any incoming text. To check
|
|
to see if any file has come in, simply
|
|
turn on your monitor (I also hit the
|
|
<SPACE> bar at this point to prompt the
|
|
computer out of the attract
|
|
mode--i.e. changing colors, etc.). If
|
|
text is on the screen, hit <START> to
|
|
go the menu and save the buffer to
|
|
floppy. This will clear the buffer so
|
|
now just view that file from the
|
|
floppy or read your mail from a word
|
|
processor.
|
|
|
|
This has been tested on the Supra
|
|
1200AT, Avatex 1200 and Avatex 1200hc
|
|
and should work the same on most Hayes
|
|
compatible modems. To test your modem
|
|
to see if it will indeed work in this
|
|
fashion, turn your computer and modem
|
|
off, turn your disk drive off and your
|
|
computer back on so only the READY
|
|
prompt of BASIC is showing. Turn your
|
|
modem back on as if you were going to
|
|
use it. Now have someone call your
|
|
number. If your modem answers the
|
|
phone without having a program to tell
|
|
it to do so, then it will work
|
|
perfectly as described. If, however,
|
|
your phone rings and your modem does
|
|
not respond, you may have to command it
|
|
to auto answer in this way:
|
|
|
|
==>From the main 850 Express! menu,
|
|
choose ASCII (not ATASCII) translation.
|
|
Now hit <ESCAPE> and with your modem
|
|
turned on and ready to receive data,
|
|
type ATAA. Then hit <RETURN>. (This
|
|
in all Hayes compatible modems commands
|
|
the modem to autoanswer.) Now, hit
|
|
<OPTION> to save any incoming info to
|
|
buffer and you're all set.
|
|
|
|
[GLAD Editor's note: Most -standard-
|
|
modems have a switch or permanent
|
|
internal command setting to place the
|
|
modem into auto-answer mode on powerup,
|
|
but the ATAA is fine if done every time
|
|
you want it.]
|
|
|
|
Remember, in this configuration you are
|
|
saving to buffer so the size of your
|
|
buffer depends on the DOS you are
|
|
using. Here are my experiences:
|
|
|
|
ATARI DOS 2.0, 2.5 gives you 3328 bytes
|
|
|
|
SpartaDOS 3.2 gives a buffer of 4608
|
|
bytes
|
|
|
|
SpartaDOS 2.3 gives the largest buffer
|
|
of 8064 bytes, big enough for most all
|
|
your letter capturing needs.
|
|
|
|
For those of you who expect great
|
|
volumes of incoming text, you'll want
|
|
to save direct to RAMdisk or floppy
|
|
disk. In order to do this with
|
|
Express!, you must fool the program
|
|
into thinking it is on line while you
|
|
set this up. Here is how you do this:
|
|
|
|
==>Most Hayes Compatible modems have
|
|
dip switches. On the Avatex and Supra
|
|
modems you would push switch #7 down.
|
|
This is the CD (forced carrier
|
|
detected) switch. On the above
|
|
mentioned modems, the down position is
|
|
the -on- position. With the CD switch
|
|
activated, the Express! program thinks
|
|
it is on line. It seems to do no harm
|
|
to leave this switch on while waiting
|
|
for a file to come in. Just be sure
|
|
you return the switch to the off
|
|
position before making your next call
|
|
or you'll get a false -connected-
|
|
indication. Keep in mind that this
|
|
switch need NOT be turned on when auto
|
|
saving to the BUFFER only in Express!.
|
|
|
|
So, to auto save to disk, turn on your
|
|
CD dip switch, hit <ESCAPE> from the
|
|
main menu to force terminal mode, hit
|
|
<START> to re-enter main menu, type -T-
|
|
to capture to disk. You'll be asked to
|
|
give it a file name and as soon as you
|
|
do and hit <RETURN>, you'll be all set
|
|
to save to disk. Do not hit <OPTION>
|
|
to auto save to disk, autosave is
|
|
already turned on by choosing the -T-
|
|
function. Plus, you can always tell if
|
|
autosave is on just by looking at the
|
|
border color of your screen.
|
|
|
|
Things to keep in mind:
|
|
|
|
1) Whenever you are sending directly
|
|
to another computer, you MUST use HALF
|
|
DUPLEX. Use full duplex only when
|
|
communicating with a BBS. If you are
|
|
setting up to auto receive, it is
|
|
preferable to be in half duplex but it
|
|
is ABSOLUTELY necessary for the sending
|
|
modem to be in HALF DUPLEX.
|
|
|
|
2) It is probably best to use the
|
|
standard ASCII translation unless you
|
|
know for sure that only ATARI computers
|
|
will be sending you files. In that
|
|
case use ATASCII. No harm will come,
|
|
however, if someone sends a text file
|
|
to you in ASCII and you are receiving
|
|
in ATASCII, as long as it is just text.
|
|
You could not send inverse characters
|
|
and CONTROL characters unless both
|
|
sending and receiving terminals were in
|
|
ATASCII.
|
|
|
|
3) If you don't have a copy of 850
|
|
Express! version 3.0, ask your SysOp to
|
|
post it for you. If he doesn't have
|
|
it, contact me and I'll get it to you.
|
|
|
|
4) I only know for sure that this
|
|
method of auto saving works with 850
|
|
Express! version 3.0. I know it does
|
|
NOT work with MPP Express! version 1.0.
|
|
I haven't tried it with 1030 Express!
|
|
although I feel it probably would not
|
|
work since the 1030 does not come with
|
|
a ring detector. [GLAD Editor's note:
|
|
Other software would allow the use of
|
|
an XM301, as it DOES have an answer
|
|
mode.]
|
|
|
|
5) I truly recommend SpartaDOS 2.3
|
|
because of the large buffer it gives
|
|
and it will read and write to most any
|
|
other DOS.
|
|
|
|
I sincerely hope I didn't make this
|
|
sound difficult to set up...it's not.
|
|
In MOST cases you simply turn on your
|
|
modem, boot the program, Hit <ESCAPE>
|
|
and then hit <OPTION>. And that's all!
|
|
If you have any questions, comments, or
|
|
just want to try it out, you can call
|
|
my autosaving 850 Express! at
|
|
813-393-0173, between the hours of
|
|
1:00am and 8:30am, 300 baud HALF
|
|
DUPLEX, ATASCII (ASCII will work fine
|
|
if you don't have ATASCII). I auto
|
|
receive at 300 baud because not all
|
|
my family members have 1200 baud
|
|
yet...but I have a feeling that it
|
|
won't be long!!! Remember also that
|
|
when you call another modem set up to
|
|
autosave, you receive no prompts when
|
|
the modem answers the phone. As soon
|
|
as the connection is made, you are
|
|
-live- with the other computer. You
|
|
may then type your message or send a
|
|
pre-typed file from disk. DO NOT SEND
|
|
XMODEM to me since I do not set up my
|
|
program to receive that way.
|
|
|
|
I sincerely hope you receive some
|
|
enjoyment out of this information.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Rovac Industries, Incorporated |
|
|
| P.O. Box 74, Middlesex, NJ 08846 |
|
|
| (201) 968-8148 |
|
|
|Copyright 1989 All Rights Reserved|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CompuServe: 71777,2140
|
|
GEnie: ZMAGAZINE
|
|
Source: BDG793
|
|
|
|
ZMagazine Headquarters BBSes:
|
|
Centurian BBS--(314)621-5046
|
|
(618)451-0165
|
|
Chaos BBS--(517)371-1106
|
|
Shadow Haven--(916)962-2566
|
|
Stairway to Heaven--(216)784-0574
|
|
The Pub--(716)826-5733
|