Article-I.D.: aero.167
Posted: Tue Dec 24 10:59:48 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 23:28:51 EST
References: <342@unmg.UUCP> <840@h-sc1.UUCP> <352@well.UUCP> <382@pedsgd.UUCP> <973@ecsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: mendoza@aero.UUCP (Lee Mendoza)
Distribution: net
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Lines: 32
Keywords: memory bus structure, miscellaneous pontificating
Xref: watmath net.micro.amiga:1282 net.micro.atari:2101

{traditional offering to line-eater goes here}

In a reply to [yet another] posting comparing the ST and Amiga, the following
appears:

[color=blue]> Yes BUT the bus speed of the Amiga is 14.4 MHz as opposed to the[/color]
[color=blue]> ST which is 8MHz. The Amiga's 68000 runs at 7.2 MHz while the[/color]
[color=blue]> Co-processors use the other 7.2 MHz.[/color]
[color=blue]> [/color]
[color=blue]> Mike Gingell   ...decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!mjg[/color]

Mr. Gingell probably represents the Amiga side of the "debate" accurately, but
not the Atari ST side.  At the risk of fanning more ST vs Amiga debate, I would
like to correct the information above.  The Atari ST has a separate bus for the
processor which does indeed run at 8 MHz; but the main memory bus, used to
service the graphics chip and memory management unit runs at 16 MHz.  Further,
the graphics chip runs at 32 MHz (I don't know why, it's in my schematics -- you
did get schematics with your development kit, didn't you?).  The Atari uses the
same sort of time multiplexing that the Amiga does, but has only one type of
memory which can be expanded to 4 MByte in two banks (using 32 1Meg RAMs).

Now I would like to ask that both sides of this mock debate cool down a bit and
move on to more meaningful issues.  Most computer owners (and also those who
have made up their minds) would rather fight than admit the other guy's is
better.  I admit that for some applications the other guy's (Amiga) is better,
just not for my applications.  Now that should settle things, let's move on or
move this discussion to net.flame (or /dev/null) where it belongs.

Lee Mendoza  (The Aerospace Corporation, ARPAnet:  mendoza@aerospace.arpa)

{note:  these views do not represent The Aerospace Corporation, or maybe anyone
	else for that matter}