Re: [MiNT] New MiNT distribution is n.. ..pro

[joska@nvg.org (Jo Even Skarstein)]

On Sun, 20 Feb 2000 10:51:12 +0200, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:

> > We can't stay stuck to the 680x0 forever.
>
> Please explain what you find so limiting on m68k processors.

Speed?

> IMHO, an m68k clocked around 80 MHz should be more than enough.
> The only reason why people could want anything faster is if they
> don't know how to code efficiently.  The same goes for the "ram

No, people would like something faster because more complex and
demanding software is written or ported. Doom and Quake doesn't need
"fast" 68k's (040 or 060) to run reasonably fast because they're
inefficient, but because they're very complex.

When I got my first ST, it was incredibly fast. Then I had a few more
STs with more RAM and even a harddisk, until I got a MSTE in early '94.
It was fast, very fast, but that didn't last long. In November that year
I got the Falcon, which again was a lot faster. But it also had better
graphics, and the sound-possibilities quickly ate up my entire harddisk.
So I got a bigger harddisk, 14Mb RAM and a screen-expander. Then it
started to get slow, so I added a Speed Resolution Card. I was pretty
happy with this for quite some time, but then I started getting into
MiNT and MiNTOS, and I "needed" more CPU and RAM to be more efficient.
So I got an Afterburner with 64Mb RAM. Now *that* was fast! And with
all that RAM and CPU I could use more graphics-intensive programs, but
what a shame that the graphics was so slow and limited. So I got a
graphics-card. This is where I am today, but now I want both more speed
and better graphics. But I'm stuck, this is the fastest my Falcon can
go. I might buy a Milan060 if it's ever released, but this is still a
pretty slow and overpriced machine. And in a year or so I'd want more
speed anyway, but the 060 is the absolute and definitive limit.4

> A technological argument means absolutely zippo, when the whole
> point is to make something for real-life users who want to surf,
> draw and make music, instead of wasting their day bragging about
> specs and not getting anything accomplished with their machine
> like Amiga and PC people do.

If you want to surf, draw and make music nothing will beat a PC running
Windows. I can't remember the last time I did something productive
with my Atari, it was probably back in '94 or '95 when I wrote some
lab-reports in TeX.

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