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| Manufacturer | Atari Corporation |
|---|---|
| Type | Personal computer |
| Release date | 1990; 35 years ago (1990) |
| Introductory price | US$2,995 (approximately US$7,200 today) |
| Discontinued | 1993; 32 years ago (1993) |
| Operating system | Atari TOS 3.0x, ASV (Atari System V) |
| CPU | CPU:Motorola 68030 @ 32MHz (system bus @ 16 MHz) FPU:Motorola 68882 @ 32MHz |
| Memory | 2/16MB |
| Storage | 1.44 MB (later version) or 720 KB (first TT version) 3½"floppy disk drive 50 MB hard drive |
| Display | VGA Monitor (analogRGB andMono) |
| Graphics | TT Shifter; Six Display modes Color: 320×200 (16 colors), 320×480 (256 colors), 640×200 (4 colors), 640×480 (16 colors), palette of 4096 colors Duochrome: 640×400 (2 colors) Monochrome: 1280×960 mono TT high withECL 19 in (483 mm) monitor[1] |
| Sound | Yamaha YM2149 + Stereo 8-bitPCM viaDMA, same as in theSTe |
| Input | Keyboard (detachable) 94 Key 2 button Mouse |
| Backward compatibility | Atari ST |
| Predecessor | Atari MEGA STE |
| Successor | Atari Falcon |
TheAtari TT030, more commonly known as theAtari TT, is a member of theAtari ST family, released in 1990. It was originally intended to be a high-endUnixworkstation, but Atari took two years to release aport of UnixSVR4 for the TT, which prevented the TT from ever being seriously considered in its intended market.
In 1992, the TT was replaced by theAtari Falcon, a low-cost consumer-oriented machine with greatly improved graphics and sound capability, but with a slower and severely bottle-necked CPU. The Falcon possesses only a fraction of the TT's raw CPU performance. Though well priced for a workstation machine, the TT's high cost kept it mostly out of reach of the existing Atari ST market until after the TT was discontinued and sold at discount.
The nascentopen source movement eventually filled the void. Thanks to open hardware documentation, the Atari TT, along with theAmiga andAtari Falcon, were the first non-Intel machines to haveLinux ported to them. However it was not until after the TT had already been discontinued by Atari that this work resulted in stable versions of the kernel and theGNUuserland software to enable a fully featured operating system and software development environment on the machine. By 1995,NetBSD had also been ported to the Atari TT.
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Atari Corporation realized that to remain competitive as a computer manufacturer, they needed to begin taking steps to exploit the power offered by more advanced processors in theMotorola 68000 series. At that time, the highest performance member was the68020. It is the first true "thirty-two bit bus/thirty-two bit instruction" chip fromMotorola. Unlike the 68000 used in the original STs, the 68020 is capable of fetching a32-bit value in one memory cycle, while the older STs need two cycles.
The TT was initially designed around the 68020 CPU, but as the project progressed, Atari Corp. realized that the 68020 was not the best option for the TT. The 68020 still lacked some features offered by the next successor in the 68000 line, the new68030. The new 68030 features built-inmemory-management hardware that provide separate Supervisor, User, Program, and Datavirtual memory spaces, and provides a 256-byte on-chip data cache.
When the decision was made to switch from a 68020 to a 68030 CPU, it presented a whole new set of problems. The original specifications for the TT's clock speed was 16 MHz, which was selected to maintain backward compatibility. The existing ST chips used in the TT (DMA and video chips for example) cannot handle anything over 16 MHz. Some software also has problems running at faster speeds. To make the system work with a 32 MHz 68030, Atari Corp. had to scale back their plans somewhat, and add a large amount ofcache to the system. As a result, the processor runs at 32 MHz, while the system bus runs at 16 MHz. This is similar to the tactic employed by Apple with the ill-fatedMacintosh IIvx and later employed by makers of PCs with anIntel 80486DX2 CPU which runs at double that of the system bus speed.
TOS 3.01 is the operating system that Atari bundled with the TT. It is a 512 KB ROM specifically designed for the TT. However, it does not featurepre-emptive multitasking. Another variant, known as TT/X, uses Unix System V R4 and WISH (Motif extension).
The TT030 was first introduced atCeBIT inHannover,Germany[2][3][4] and launched in 1990. It retailed for $2995 with 4 MB RAM and a 40 MB hard drive. The US release came the following year.[5]
In 1993, Atari Corp.'s exit from the computer business marked the end of the TT, as well as the entire ST family. A number of TT machines were built as developer systems for theJaguar.
The TT features a number of devices that had previously been unavailable for Atari Corp. systems. For example, anAppleTalk network port (there never was adriver for it, possibly due to license problems),VME expansion bus, newVGA video graphics modes, and a trueSCSI port. Existing ST features such asMIDI ports, acartridge port, and the ASCI/DMA port are retained in this system.
One device that is left out is theBLiTTER graphics chip, which first appeared in theAtari Mega ST systems four to five years earlier. Using the existing 8 MHz chip would have only served to bottleneck the TT's performance. To be useful, a new 32 MHz blitter chip would have had to have been designed for the TT, however Atari chose not to do so.
A developer system version of the TT was available, supplied with Atari System V (ASV), Atari's version ofUnix System V Release 4, and the WISh2 windowing or graphical shell,[6]: 1 adesktop environment running on OSF/Motif supplied by Non Standard Logics,[7] as well as a collection offree software utilities includingGCC.[8]: A-1 In the boot screen for Atari System V, the operating system's kernel identifies itself as "UniSoft UNIX (R) System V Release 4.0".[8]: B-1 To support application development, the Atari System V software distribution included alibrary, AtariLib, to facilitate compliance with the Atari Style Guide, along with XFaceMaker 2, a graphical user interface builder for OSF/Motif,[9] intended to assist in porting GEM-based applications.[8]
Initially, UniSoft UniPlus+ V Release 3.1 formed the basis of the Unix product on the TT.[10]: 4 Having evolved to become a System V Release 3.2 product, Atari delayed the release of ASV to target the more recent System V Release 4. A developer release of ASV was made available in November 1991, but a final release of ASV was not ready until mid-1992. However, by the end of that year, Atari Corp. had dropped all Unix development.[11]
All TTs are made up of both custom and commercial chips:
The (at least) two versions of the TT can be distinguished by:
Atari has announced its new TT 68030 based Computer at COMDEX and Hannover in recent months.
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