HIGHSPEED 40 
~TROEP.FIL~
                  'Knowing what right is and not bringing 
                   it in practice, is the same as a lack
                   of courage' 
 
                   Confucius 

-------------------------------------
HIGHSPEED 40 OR A SPAGHETTI INCIDENT ?
-------------------------------------
          By Slimer
 
There are several hardware accelerators available for the Falcon at the
moment. One of them is a '40 MHz' accelerator manufactured by a German
company called 'Digital Data Deicke'. In the Netherlands are several
distributors of this device and the biggest of them is the Atari Computer-
club Nederland(A.C.N.). This commercial 'club' is the biggest distributor
of Atari hard and software in the Netherlands, they also print their own
magazine that somewhat resembles a ordinary newspaper. This newspaper is 
very popular amongst the Dutch Atari community as it is cheap and contains
more or less interesting articles. In the issue dating back from may 1994
was an enthusiastic review about the device standing trial in this column.
On offer was a 40 MHz accelerator for only 279 guilders (about 255 Dmark)
that would speedup your Falcon to TT32 speed !! I decided to order one as
many people did or are planning to do..... 
 
You had to place the order before the end of may to get a 30 guilders
discount (making it 249 guilders). So I did, unaware of the troubles lying
ahead. Several weeks passed and still no accelerator in my mailbox, so a
bit worried I decided to call the A.C.N. They told me that all the High-
speed devices were sold out completely and the manufacturer was working
overtime to keep up with the demand. It would take a little while longer,
so I had to have a little more patience...  I waited another 3 weeks and
called again with the intension to ask for a refund, this is how the
actual phone-conversation took place, 
 
 
( Really Real-time) 
 
T = Telephone
A = A.C.N. 
S = Sietse Postma a.k.a. Slimer
* = My Thoughts 
 
T = Beeeep Beeeeep Beeeep, Beeep, Beeep, Beeep....    
* = 6 F@cking lines and no answer, lets try again..... 
T = Beeepp, Beeep, Klick  
 
A = Hello with the A.C.N., Henny speaking..... 
 
S = With Postma calling from Drachten. 
 
A = I'm sorry I can't hear you..... 
 
* = Are you deaf or something..... 
 
S = WITH POSTMA FROM D R A C H T E N !!!! 
 
A = Hello mister Postma. 
 
S = I ordered an accelerator about two months ago, and I still haven't     
    seen anything ! 
 
A = We called the firm that produces these devices in Germany and they     
    promised us to send them. 
 
* = Yeah sure, that's what they all say ! 
 
S = So when can I expect it to come !? 
 
A = We have called them several times and they promised us everytime to    
    send them. They couldn't keep up with the demand, they had to produce  
    much more to keep up. But they will come soon now, maybe even tomorrow 
    or next week ! 
 
* = I will hope this for you, or you have to prepare for fullscale war !! 
 
S = Well I will wait another week, goodday... 
 
A = Goodday. 
 
T = Klick. 
 
This piece of really real-time phone-conversation was initially done for
another article but things sometimes take another direction in time and
space. Anyway, several days later I opened my mailbox and found completely
unexpected a parcel in it. Ofcourse it was unexpected as I already had
given up hope to ever receive the bloody thing. After opening the parcel
with trembling hands I'd stumbled upon tree tiny black boxes all rapped up
in plastic. There were lots of wires hanging out them, enough to drive the
average electronics expert completely out of his skull. This was a job for
a professional, this was a job for 'K.G.E.' as the E stands for electro-
nics. We arranged a meeting to install the plastic bag of spaghetti into
my computer. This became one of the strangest operations ever performed 
inside a computer.... 
 
The whole operation was planned at 'Bonus' his house where K.G.E. would
perform his magic. K.G.E. was planning on a smooth operation as he dropped
by a hour late with a confident expression on his face. He examined the
tree black boxes and mumbled something like 'is this all' !? In the
meantime Bonus started to undo my Falcon from all his screws. His room
started to look more and more like a hardware store. The Falcon was soon
taken apart and it's pieces and bits were chattered all over the place. My
heart was beating almost out of my chest and sweat was coming from every
hole in my skin. 
 
Will my Falcon survive all this doctor ?!? Well ofcourse son, he's in very
capable hands, now where did I leave my hammer !?? 
 
The accelerator was supplied with a German manual which contained some
remarkable information. It stated that the 'highspeed' wouldn't work with
R.G.B. monitors anymore, even if it was switched off !! This very impor-
tant information isn't mentioned in the advert or review article of the
A.C.N. paper!  The review also contains a Dutch description of the install
procedure described by the author of the article. He claims that from a
certain IC, the first two feet had to be cut. Our German manual however 
states that feet three and four have to be cut !! An incredible fault that
could have enormous consequences for people who rely completely on this
review article. 
 
The German manual also stated that there was a slight possibility that the
"40 MHz Highspeed" wouldn't work. You could return the device in such a
case to get it replaced by a 32 MHz version instead. So after K.G.E. had
installed the thing in the Falcon it was time for a test run. The Falcon
would boot normally with the 'highspeed' switched off but would refuse any
action switched on... Closer examination revealed that the processor
couldn't keep up with accelerator. All seemed lost but K.G.E. managed to
get the Falcon working at 32 MHz. Two of the three tiny blackboxes had no
use anymore and got removed again from the computer. Although I was a 
bit disappointed about the drop in speed, I gained one advantage, the
Falcon would now work properly on R.G.B. monitors ! I think that most
people would gladly trade some speed against the possibility to use R.G.B.
or T.V. ! Otherwise you never could watch cool demos anymore and that 
would be a disaster !


Okay time for some Benchmark tests with 2 different programs,

NVDI GEM-Test v2.00 and Quick Index V2.1 (Warp 9) !


*NVDI GEM-Test V2.00  (c) 1991-1993 
    by Sven & Wilfried  Behne
*
* Aufl”sung     :  640 X, 400 Y
* Farbebenen    :  1
* Farbstifte    :  2
* Farbpalette   :  4096 Abstufungen
* Betriebssystem:  TOS 4.02
* Referenzsystem:  TOS 4.01/ST-Hoch
* NVDI-Version  :  nicht installiert
* GDOS-Version  :  nicht vorhanden
* Blitter       :  an
* CPU           :  M68030
* FPU           :  nicht vorhanden
* Rechner       :  ATARI Falcon 030
*  


WITHOUT ACCELERATOR (16 Mhz.)
-----------------------------

Textausgabe        : 99    %   
Linien             : 98    %   
Rechtecke          : 98    %   
Polygone           : 97    %   
Kreise/Ellipsen    : 98    %   
Rasteroperationen  : 99    %   
Attributfunktionen : 96    %   
Auskunftsfunktionen: 95    %   
ESCAPES            : 97    %   
BIOS-Ausgabe       : 99    %   
GEMDOS-Ausgabe     : 95    %   
AES-Objekt-Ausgabe : 98    %   


WITH ACCELERATOR (32 Mhz.)
--------------------------

Textausgabe        : 113   %  
Linien             : 117   %  
Rechtecke          : 103   %  
Polygone           : 113   %  
Kreise/Ellipsen    : 126   %  
Rasteroperationen  : 101   %  
Attributfunktionen : 102   %  
Auskunftsfunktionen: 102   %  
ESCAPES            : 102   %  
BIOS-Ausgabe       : 104   %  
GEMDOS-Ausgabe     : 102   %  
AES-Objekt-Ausgabe : 106   %  

------------------------------------------------------------
 
QUICK INDEX V2.1

Test mode: TT LOW

                      16 MHz.       32 MHz.


CPU memory          : 285   %       407   %
CPU register        : 201   %       402   %
CPU divide          : 112   %       226   %
CPU shifts          : 112   %       228   %

TOS text            : 152   %       169   %
TOS string          : 136   %       151   %
TOS scroll          : 103   %       105   %
GEM dialog          : 131   %       141   %

------------------------------------------------------------

Draw your own conclusions from these tests. I must say that 32 MHz. is
very useful. Packing will go a lot faster, this also goes for games and
the editing of graphics. I did some tests with the Ice Packer, the increa-
se in packing speed will be around 70 % ! Quite handy if you have to pack
lots of files like I sometimes do (for the magazine). It also means that
the Backup from your Harddrive (with compression) will go a lot faster as
well as the packing and depacking of .ZIP and .ARC files ! Games and demos
that support accelerators will go a lot smoother like the Boompreview from
N.P.G. and Lasers and Men ...

I would recommend an update to 32 MHz., if everybody would do this than we
would be able to produce better and faster software for the Falcon.

