Re: [MiNT] minimal support base

[atari@bright.net (Lonny Pursell)]

On Fri, 3 Dec 1999 12:17:53 +0200 (EET), Martin-Eric Racine wrote:

>> >> if you have too little memory to run MiNT properly then it's
>> >> your bad luck.  Why hold back the entire platform?
>
>> If others want to be stuck in a timewarp with limited machines
>> and not upgrade at all, then how can the software improve?  I
>> think sometimes people expect to much from an old ST.  ;-)
>
>This is why I asked.  What can we expect from an ST?

I don't know the amount of work it takes to maintain a kernal,
but I'd guess it's quite alot.  I know from my own work that
one program along can be much work in itself.  I don't see
the FPU as kernal related, far as I know the kernal only
reports if it's there, not actually using it.

Only someone into development can answer this.


>On one hand:
>
>"There are enough second-hand TT's and Falcons out there that we
>should only support 030 and up, possibly with FPU, since people
>can upgrade to better machines for cheap."
>
>On the other:
>
>"My STE has a Veloce+ accelerator which uses a 020 but it can be
>switched back to the 68000 for compatibility.  It also came with
>4 MB of TT-RAM, for a total of 8 MB (ST+TT ram)."
>
>Then again:
>
>"My second-hand TT came with 4 MB of ST-RAM and 4 MB of TT-RAM.
>The TT-RAM seemed to be the older type with fixed memory chips;
>it isn't the model which uses SIMMs, so I'm stuck with 8 MB."
>
>Last, but not least:
>
>"Last time I tried hunting down an FPU for my Falcon, they asked
>me how many hundreds I wanted.  Once I explained I only need one,
>their price hit the roof, so there's no way I'm buying any FPU."
__________________________________________________________________
Atari Computer User: Lonny Pursell        E-Mail: atari@bright.net
WWW: http://www.bright.net/~atari/       IRC: lp @ #Atari @ IRCnet