🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <207@bridge2.UUCP>, pvf@bridge2.UUCP writes:
> Hooray, I finally saw a hard drive in the store.  Looks pretty good
> to me, but I have a few questions (for Neil@Atari, I suppose).
> 
> 1) Will there be a version of TOS in ROM that will know how to access
>    the hard disk as the boot drive?

Surprise!  It's already in the ROMs.  All you need is the program that
writes a boot sector on the hard disk.  We're using beta versions of the
program here at Atari and if we have no disasters, we'll let it out the
door.

> 2) (I forgot to check) are desk accessories fetched off the floppy or
>    the hard drive?

Off the hard drive.

> 3) What is going on between the cartridge-port clock device and the
>    hard disk?  (I recall a recent posting from Atari.)  Incidentally,
>    will Atari ever put a battery (or other type that will hold time
>    across powerdowns) clock in the ST family?  Given that the machine
>    is really good now, this feature would give it a load of class.
>    It is one of the convenience features that every serious computer
>    should have.

I lost 2 of the 3 partitions in my hard disk within days of adding the
Logikhron clock card to my ST.  They sent us the source code to the clock
boot program, which we're examining to find the cause of the problem.

In the meantime, there's a company called "No Solder Required" that makes
a clock gizmo that I like much better.  It looks like a ROM socket, and to
install it you remove the U2 ROM (TOS ROM in the closest socket to the rear
of the ST), plug in the clock gizmo, then plug the ROM into it.  There are
batteries inside it, supposedly good for 10 years.  The disk that comes
with it contains a program to initialize the clock and another one that
goes into the AUTO folder to set the system clock at bootup.

Caveat -- there's no clearance over the ROMs in a 1040ST, so I couldn't 
install it there, only in a 520ST.  Someone handy with a soldering iron
ought to be able to desolder the original U2 ROM socket and install this
in its place.

I don't know the price, it's called the Timesaver and the company is in
Cambridge, MA.

-- 
--->Neil @ Atari

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