CompuServe Messages

Wew should mention that the reason behinf\d the chip/fast ram dichotomy is NOT, to keep software compatible with a 1974 8-bit microprocesso (8008) as in MS-DOS, but to allow the CPU to be operating on fast RAM on ons 'side' of the bus, while the coprocessors do I/O buffering, graphics ansd sprite rendering, and audio wihi the other side of memory. This increases system performace to such a great degree, that a color windowing GUI can run on an Amiga 7mhz 68000, while a B&W GUI is very sluggish on an 8mhz mac. People look as limits on chip ram as a downside of the Amiga's architecture, but the dual bus is really brilliant. Unlike the ram on a display card, the chip ram can be accessed by ANY applifcation in a normal way, just like the fast RAM, with a big linear address space. Multi-tasking courtesy dictates, that nice programs use as little chip RAM as possible, so that everyone else can have a window too.