|
Mint Cover 03-28-10
MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaAES graphical user interface widgets, and TeraDesk file manager, MiNT provides a free TOS compatible replacement OS that can multitask. History Work on MiNT began in 1989, as the developer Eric Smith was trying to port the GNU library and related utilities on the Atari ST TOS. It turned out quickly, that it was much easier to add a Unix-like layer to the TOS, than to patch all of the GNU software, and MiNT began as a TOS extension to help in porting. MiNT was originally released by Eric Smith as "MiNT is Not TOS" (a recursive acronym in the style of "GNU's Not Unix") in May 1990. The new Kernel got traction, with people contributing a port of the MINIX Filesystem and a port to the Atari TT. At the same time Atari was looking to enhance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open-source Software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative public manner. Open-source software is a prominent example of open collaboration, meaning any capable user is able to participate online in development, making the number of possible contributors indefinite. The ability to examine the code facilitates public trust in the software. Open-source software development can bring in diverse perspectives beyond those of a single company. A 2008 report by the Standish Group stated that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year for consumers. Open source code can be used for studying and allows capable end users to adapt software to their personal needs in a similar way user scripts an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Widget (GUI)
A graphical widget (also graphical control element or control) in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through direct manipulation to read or edit information about an application. User interface libraries such as Windows Presentation Foundation, Qt, GTK, and Cocoa, contain a collection of controls and the logic to render these. Each widget facilitates a specific type of user-computer interaction, and appears as a visible part of the application's GUI as defined by the theme and rendered by the rendering engine. The theme makes all widgets adhere to a unified aesthetic design and creates a sense of overall cohesion. Some widgets support interaction with the user, for example labels, buttons, and check boxes. Others act as containers that group the widgets added to them, for example windows, panels, and tabs. Structuring a user interface with widget to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Application Environment Services
GEM (for Graphics Environment Manager) is an operating environment released by Digital Research (DRI) in 1985 for use with the DOS operating system on Intel 8088 and Motorola 68000 microprocessors. GEM is known primarily as the graphical user interface (GUI) for the Atari ST series of computers, and was also supplied with a series of IBM PC-compatible computers from Amstrad. It was also available for the standard IBM PC, at a time when the 6 MHz IBM PC AT (and the very concept of a GUI) was brand new. It was the core for a small number of DOS programs, the most notable being Ventura Publisher. It was ported to a number of other computers that previously lacked graphical interfaces, but never gained popularity on those platforms. DRI also produced X/GEM for their FlexOS real-time operating system with adaptations for OS/2 Presentation Manager and the X Window System under preparation as well. History GSX In late 1984, GEM started life at DRI as an outgrowth of a more gene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motorola 68040
The Motorola 68040 ("''sixty-eight-oh-forty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 series, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060, skipping the 68050. In keeping with general Motorola naming, the 68040 is often referred to as simply the '040 (pronounced ''oh-four-oh'' or ''oh-forty''). The 68040 was the first 680x0 family member with an on-chip Floating-Point Unit (FPU). It thus included all of the functionality that previously required external chips, namely the FPU and Memory Management Unit (MMU), which was added in the 68030. It also had split instruction and data caches of 4 kilobytes each. It was fully pipelined, with six stages. Versions of the 68040 were created for specific market segments, including the 68LC040, which removed the FPU, and the 68EC040, which removed both the FPU and MMU. Motorola had intended the EC variant for embedded use, but embedded processors during the 68040's time did not need the powe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hatari (emulator)
Hatari is an open-source emulator of the Atari ST 16/32-bit computer system family. It emulates the Atari ST, Atari STe, Atari TT, and Atari Falcon computer series and some corresponding peripheral hardware like joysticks, mouse, midi, printer, serial and floppy and hard disks. It supports more graphics modes than the ST and does not require an original TOS image as it supports EmuTOS. The latest version has no reported issues with the ST/STe/TT applications emulation compatibility and also most of the ST/STe games and demos work without issues. Development Hatari uses source code from several other emulators: WinSTon (Atari ST peripherals), UAE (Motorola 680x0 CPU), WinUAE (more accurate Motorola 68030 CPU + MMU), STonX (BLiTTER), ARAnyM (Motorola 56001 DSP, Videl, NVRAM). Hatari uses the SDL library for graphics, is developed on Linux and has been ported to many OSes such as AmigaOS 4, AROS, BSD, BeOS, RISC OS, MorphOS, macOS, AmigaOS, Windows Windows is a group of se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
68030
The Motorola 68030 ("''sixty-eight-oh-thirty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with general Motorola naming, this CPU is often referred to as the 030 (pronounced ''oh-three-oh'' or ''oh-thirty''). The 68030 is essentially a 68020 with a memory management unit (MMU) and instruction and data caches of 256 bytes each. It added a burst mode (computing), burst mode for the caches, where four longwords can be loaded into the cache in a single operation. The MMU was mostly compatible with the external Motorola 68851, 68851 that would be used with the 68020, but being internal allowed it to access memory one cycle faster than a 68020/68851 combo. The 68030 did not include a built-in floating-point unit (FPU), and was generally used with the Motorola 68881, 68881 and the faster Motorola 68882, 68882. The addition of the FPU was a major d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
68000
The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector. The design implements a 32-bit instruction set, with 32-bit registers and a 16-bit internal data bus. The address bus is 24 bits and does not use memory segmentation, which made it easier to program for. Internally, it uses a 16-bit data arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and two more 16-bit ALUs used mostly for addresses, and has a 16-bit external data bus. For this reason, Motorola termed it a 16/32-bit processor. As one of the first widely available processors with a 32-bit instruction set, and running at relatively high speeds for the era, the 68k was a popular design through the 1980s. It was widely used in a new generation of personal computers with graphical user interfaces, including the Macintosh 128K, Amiga, Atari ST, and X68000. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floppy Disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive (FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device. The first floppy disks, invented and made by IBM, had a disk diameter of . Subsequently, the 5¼-inch and then the 3½-inch became a ubiquitous form of data storage and transfer into the first years of the 21st century. 3½-inch floppy disks can still be used with an external USB floppy disk drive. USB drives for 5¼-inch, 8-inch, and other-size floppy disks are rare to non-existent. Some individuals and organizations continue to use older equipment to read or transfer data from floppy disks. Floppy disk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari Falcon
The Atari Falcon030 (usually shortened to Atari Falcon), released in 1992, was the final personal computer product from Atari Corporation. A high-end model of the Atari ST line, the machine is based on a Motorola 68030 CPU and a Motorola 56001 digital signal processor, a feature which distinguishes it from most other microcomputers of the era. It includes a new VIDEL programmable graphics system which greatly improves graphics capabilities. Shortly after release, Atari bundled the MultiTOS operating system in addition to TOS. TOS remained in ROM, and MultiTOS was supplied on floppy disk and could be installed to boot from hard disk. The Falcon was discontinued in late 1993–a year after its introduction–as Atari restructured itself to focus completely on the release and support of the Atari Jaguar video game console. The Falcon sold in relatively small numbers, mainly to hobbyists. Hardware The heart of the system is the 32-bit Motorola 68030 clocked at 16 MHz. It run ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari TT
The Atari TT030 is a member of the Atari ST family, released in 1990. It was originally intended to be a high-end Unix workstation, but Atari took two years to release a port of Unix SVR4 for the TT, which prevented the TT from ever being seriously considered in its intended market. In 1992, the TT was replaced by the Atari 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 nascent open source movement eventually filled the void. Thanks to open hardware documentation, the Atari TT, along with the Amiga and Atari Falcon, were the first non-Intel machines to have Linux ported to them, though this work did not stabilize until after the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recursive Acronym
A recursive acronym is an acronym that refers to itself, and appears most frequently in computer programming. The term was first used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book '' Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'', in which Hofstadter invents the acronym GOD, meaning "GOD Over Djinn", to help explain infinite series, and describes it as a recursive acronym. Other references followed, however the concept was used as early as 1968 in John Brunner's science fiction novel ''Stand on Zanzibar''. In the story, the acronym EPT (Education for Particular Task) later morphed into "Eptification for Particular Task". Recursive acronyms typically form backwardly: either an existing ordinary acronym is given a new explanation of what the letters stand for, or a name is turned into an acronym by giving the letters an explanation of what they stand for, in each case with the first letter standing recursively for the whole acronym. Use in computing In computing, an early trad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
