| The
Future of Atari Computing
by Christoph
Brincken
Hopefully, the
Atari ColdFire Project machine will arrive in the near
future. It will ship with the Déesse sound card
- which is a freely programable DSP card. This
would bring the new Atari clone as a sound machine
to the market. Many musicans who still use Atari
ST computers might like it - as well as "freaks"
like me. The Déesse card will make the
transformation from a "Nice to have"
computer into a "Must have".
But for the rest
of the Atari fans the ColdFire might remain
as a nice to have computer, which is good for
making music and power users who work with Calamus.
That's it? Really? What about other applications?
I like, for example, watching videos and exchanging
them with a client/server system like Hotline
or Carracho.
What about software?
Little has happened on the ST market during
the last few years. There might be a solution
- how about running a 68K Linux on the new machine.
Have you ever seen Linux running on a PC with
windows in which WINE, a complete Windows emulation,
runs as fast as usual? Why not do the same as
this new Atari clone? One could use all Atari
and Falcon programs directly and all software
available on Linux, too.
Even client/server
file exchange systems like KDX could run on
a machine like that. With a 333 MHz ColdFire
it might be even able to do video stuff - with
a little DSP help maybe.
And it would
be a real 68K machine with DSP, parallel port
and MIDI! I would be the first to sell my Power
Mac!
christopher@myatari.co.uk
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