Re: TOS platform (Re: Opera)

[Jo Even Skarstein <joska@nuts.edu>]

On Tue, 27 Jan 1998, Konrad Kokoszkiewicz wrote:

> 2) active ST users who would like to get a better Atari, but have no
>    money. They mostly end-up with a PC, but some of them get second
>    hand Falcons or TTs instead. Our rule would be to convince them to
>    stay in the Atari world. Of course, we can do nothing about prices
>    :) but we can make the Falcon/TT platform more attractive.

This is the main target, not even the loud-mouthed Amiga-people has
managed to convert Wintel-addicts :-) This is also a large group of
people, and the ones most likely to invest in new TOS-hardware.

However, in addition to the things you mention (better
MiNT-distribution etc.) there is one big, HUGE problem: There isn't
any new hardware to buy... Try getting a TT, it's close to impossible
these days. It's easier to get a Falcon, but impossible to get any
decent hardware (e.g. graphics-cards or 040/060 accelerators) for it.
And so far the only clone that's turned out to actually work is the
Hades which is much too expencive. Let's just hope that Milan will be
as good as they promise. Atleast Falke Verlag is a decent and serious
company, unlike a couple of other I could mention (like Centek and
Wizztronics).

If the Milan actually works and the price is as estimated it will be a
huge success. This can be the break for MiNTOS! Does anybody feel
competent to start assembling a new distribution?

> 1) A good, fast, MiNT-only WWW browser, what you Jo were talking about. As
> far as I know, Odd Skancke is developing something like this. Perhaps it
> should be a larger project, but its up to him to make sources available
> for more developers experienced in 68030 assembler and networking.

I know that Odd has been playing with the idea, but I don't know how
much he has done yet. I know he has been working on a very
interesting thread-lib for MiNT and Fenix though. Odd, are you there?

> 2) An ethernet card for Falcon & TT, for a reasonable price. It may
> be just a connector for a PC ethernet. These days its a need.

...and MiNTnet-drivers for various ISA/PCI ethernet-cards for the new
clones.

> 3) A PC and Mac emulator for TT, Hades and Afterburner machines (perhaps
> for Falcon too). I was considering starting such a program, because I
> think I got enough experience with emulation while developing the EmuXL
> for Falcon. But I am lacking PC & mac knowledge.

A PC-emulator would require extra hardware, a Mac-emulator is far more
interesting. Has anybody looked at the Shapeshifter-sources? It should
be perfectly possible to port it to MiNT.

> 5) New memory management for the MiNT kernel (mainly to avoid the annoying
>    memory fragmentation effect).

Yes! I suggest (like I've done a million times) that we page all
alternate RAM, that should be sufficient. Are there any good reason
*not* to page TT/fastRAM?


/*
** Jo Even Skarstein    http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~josk/
**
**    beer - maria mckee - atari falcon - babylon 5
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