[rescue] A bit of Fun

[Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.]

>From: Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
>
>On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 12:26:42AM -0400, Steve Pacenka wrote:
>
>> complicated video card architectures.  A limited IRQ count constrained
>> the number of devices that could have dedicated interrupts, again
>
>...or put another way, a limited ability to share IRQs.
>
>The real problem was in requiring one per device in the first place.
>
>A combination of both a number of IRQs and the ability to share them is
>nice.
>
>> In contrast I like the simplicity of early Mac hardware.  No need for
>> parallel; fast serial can serve for modem, printer, and even light-duty
>> networking; and SCSI is there for high speed interfacing of internal and
>> external mass storage as well as scanners.  Multiple HIDs connect
>> through one lightweight serial daisy chain.
>
>The 8-bit Atari line beat them to this. For all practical purposes,
>Atari had USB in 1979.

I loved the Atari 8-bit line... still have all mine.  It did indeed 
have a serial peripheral bus that you would daisy chain.

The "turbo" speed floppy upgrades did part of their magic by increasing
the speed on the serial bus (that and adding a track buffer if one didn't
exist on the drive in the first place).

The C64's floppy drives (and other devices ?) also worked on a serial
bus.

One thing I liked about C64 hard drives were that programs could be
downloaded to them... that was a cool feature the Atari lacked...
(although if Atari users thought floppy access was slow on Atari...
eek... C64 floppies must be lined with Molasses ! :-) ).

Don't suppose anyone out there has a hard drive setup for 8bit Atari's
they would want to part with ?  How about for C64s ???

>
>-- 
>UNIX/Perl/C/Pizza____________________s h a n n o n at wido !SPAM maker.com
>_______________________________________________
>rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

-- Curt

Curtis Wilbar
Hawk Mountain Networks
rescue at hawkmountain.net

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