Conference 7.286::atarist

  RE: < Note 618.0 by PEOVAX::LEWIS "RONCO makes the best board popper..." >

     I ordered a PC-Ditto II, and when I receive it, I will post a
review in here.

Bill Powers

	(I dont think this info has been mentioned before)
    
    2 New Products are available in the field of PC Hardware Emulation...
    
    Supercharger
    
    and
    
    PC Speed
    
    Both are German products, both priced at 299.00 UK pounds, both
    are based on the NEC V30 chip, both give about 4 x XT performance.
    
    The differences?
    
    Supercharger is a disk sized box that plugs into the cartridge port,
    has its own memory (512K as standard, 1Mb for extra 50 pounds).
    This memory is available to TOS for use as a RAM disk! Emulates
    MGA/CGA, uses Atari Mouse. Also has slot for maths coprocessor.
    Has a hot key facility to allow you to flick between DOS/TOS applications.
    
    PC Speed needs to be soldered onto existing 68000 chip. Uses ST
    Ram, has more graphics emulations Hercules, Olivetti, EGA coming....
    
    Look in ST World Magazine for full comparison of products...
    
    Both are available now!!!
    
    Supercharger is being sold at the Computer Shopper Show at Ally
    Pally this weekend at an introductory price.
    
    Jon.
                                                                              

    Has anyone tried PC-DOS 5.0 with PC-Ditto II (or does anyone else
    HAVE PC-DITTO II for that matter).  I bought it and am going to try
    unless someone else has already tried and failed.
    
    Thanks...
    
    Tom
    

Article 39899 of comp.sys.atari.st:
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From: [email protected] (Gerald Greenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: MSDOS 5 warning!
Summary: Be careful about installing it on hard disk!
Keywords: msdos 5, hard disk, format
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 26 Jun 91 18:57:09 GMT
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Lines: 19

I got MSDOS 5 and installed it on my hard disk for my ATSpeed.
After doing this, however, I could not reboot my
ST...evidently the new DOS rewrites the FAT on the hard disk,
or something like that (which I later read on an msdos
newslist posting).  I was able to install the DOS on a
partition of my removable cartridge without affecting my ST
boot partition...so, I'm actually not in such bad shape.

If you have an IBM emulator, be careful installing DOS 5.  I'm
not sure what is actually going on, but I do know it caused me
quite a bit of grief...If someone else knows what is going on,
I'd be happy to hear about the details and to know if it is
possible to have DOS 5 share a fixed disk with an ST boot
partition on it.  Until then, I will be leaving it on my
removable ...

I'd be interested to hear others' experiences.
Gerry
[email protected]

    Re .5:

>   If you have an IBM emulator, be careful installing DOS 5.  I'm
>   not sure what is actually going on, but I do know it caused me
>   quite a bit of grief...If someone else knows what is going on,
>   I'd be happy to hear about the details and to know if it is
>   possible to have DOS 5 share a fixed disk with an ST boot
>   partition on it.  Until then, I will be leaving it on my
>   removable ...
    
    FWIW, I installed MS-DOS V5 without incident on my ATonce-equipped
    Amiga 500 (in an 18MB partition set aside on my Quantum 100 drive). 
    Since ATonce started out as an ST product, I'd like to think that the
    ST version would support DOS5 likewise.  Of course, I'm not trying to
    share hard disk partitions between the (fundamentally incompatible)
    MS-DOS and AmigaDOS file systems.  Several users have successfully
    mounted their DOS-formatted partition via CrossDOS in order to gain
    access to MS-DOS data from the AmigaDOS side.

MSDOS and the Atari use the SAME boot block checksum to indicate a
bootable disk - the problem comes in when you realize that they don't
share the same instruction set.  68000's don't execute 8086 boot code
very well.

For this reason, you should clear the boot block of an ST hard drive before
giving it to an MSDOS friend, because 8086's don't execute 68000
instructions any better than the 68000's execute 8086 code.

Has anyone tried Windows 3.0 on PC-DITTO II?  I'm a little confused by 
what I've read about the requirements.  I had heard that Windows 3 required
286 or better, but a book I was ready mentioned that it would run on 8088.

Since PC-DITTO II uses a NEC chip, which I think has some 286 features it
sounds like it may work.  

Windows 2 seems to work (runtime versions from Microsoft Pageview)..hmmm

Anyone know for a fact that it doesn't work before I go to Egghead?

Tom

  re: .8

   PC-Ditto II uses the NEC V30 chip, which is an equivalent to the 8086
  The NEC V20 was equivalent to the 8088.  The difference being the data
  bus size.  16bit vs 8bit.  8086/V30 being 16 bit.  It does not have the
  extended addressing of the 80286 or the protected mode.  I don't know
  for sure, but I'd bet it doesn't do windows,  :-)  Windows 3 that is.

  bill powers

 I believe that some of the display drivers use '286 instructions and that's
what determines whether it runs. AFAIK, the original packaging/docs for W3
said it'd run any any DOS machine but that's been changed to specify a 286 or
above.