Proseguimos con nuestro proyecto de leer la revista Byte, cuarenta años más tarde. El resto de entradas de la serie, como siempre, las encontrarás en la etiqueta Byte de obm. En enero habíamos hablado del Atari 520ST y este mes toca el hermano mayor, el 1040ST.
Destaco, en primer lugar, un megaanuncio de Microsoft publicitando sus lenguajes de programación.
Solo pongo la portada, porque se alarga hasta siete páginas más, que el catálogo de Redmond era extenso y su presupuesto para publicidad profundo. Sirve el anuncio, además, para ver cuáles eran los lenguajes que Microsoft consideraba importantes en la época. Arrancan con C («First with the pros«), Macro Assembler («The Quickest. Bar none«), FORTRAN («The overwhelming favorite«), COBOL («The interactive edge«), Pascal («When you’ve outgrown the others«) compartiendo página con QuickBASIC («BASIC just got faster«), que ilustraban, si no me equivoco, con una HP12, y cerraban con LISP («The language of artificial intelligence«), muMATH («Mainframe math on your PC«) y Sort («Versatility without compromise«), compartiendo página también.
¿Quién esperaba ver a FORTRAN y COBOL ahí arriba en 1986? Yo, no. Ni siquiera recordaba que Microsoft hubiese tenido un sistema de álgebra simbólica…
Y de la publicidad de lenguajes saltamos al programa que, en una realidad paralela a la nuestra, ocupa el lugar de Photoshop: el mítico Deluxe Paint (aquí, una carta de amor al Deluxe Paint III), que en aquella época no le sacaba los colores (see what I did there?) a los de Adobe… porque Photoshop 1.0 no llegaría al mercado hasta el muy lejano año de 1990.
Me paro un momento en la sección de libros para recordar al muy mítico (en aquella época) Peter Norton. Si tuviste un PC con MS-DOS, muy probablemente recuerdes sus míticas Norton Utilities (que ¡siguen existiendo!), pero a lo mejor no sabías que era un autor de «best sellers» sobre la programación del PC.
(Si tuviese más tiempo y dinero de los que tengo, seguramente haría por obtener una copia del Computer Law Annual 1985, porque por la crítica parece digno de leer con curiosidad histórica, con artículos sobre los problemas de propiedad intelectual de la ingeniería inversa, o la normativa antitrust, aunque también dicen que está escrito para juristas.)
No me alargaré mucho con el ordenador protagonista del número: a estas horas ya deberíais tener claro que el ST era mejor que el Mac (y del Windows de la época ya ni hablemos)… pero que estaba por debajo del Amiga (con la excepción de las aplicaciones musicales: ¿sabíais que Fatboy Slim sigue usando un ST?).
![The Atari 1040ST
A megabyte of memory for $999
Editor's note: The following is a BYTE product preview. \t is not a review. We provide an advance look at this product because we feel that it is significant. A complete review will follow in a subsequent issue.
Atari's new $999 1-megabyte 1040ST (see photo 1) establishes a price break reminiscent of the Commodore 64's. And, as table 1 shows, the 1040ST will be the first computer to begin its retail life at a price that represents less than one dollar per kilobyte. The 1040ST is clearly a bargain, with over 1 megabyte of RAM (random-access read/write memory), its operating system in ROM (read-only memory), an internal 720Kbyte double-sided drive, an internal power supply, and the same features and functionality that already make the Atari 520ST an attractive purchase. (Editor's note: See "The Atari 520ST" by }on R. Edwards, Phillip Robinson, and Brenda McLaughlin. January BYTE, page 84. |
System Description
Our coverage of the 520ST adequately describes most of the features of the 1040ST (see also the "In Brief" box on page 86). The new computer has the same keyboard, the same ports (although these are now in new locations, see photo 2), and the same architecture. We remain uncomfortable with the keyboard, but the keytops are removable. We suspect that some speedy entrepreneur will provide alternative tapered keys for the ST machines.
The most obvious changes are cosmetic: The keyboard/computer unit is 2 inches deeper and 4'/2 pounds heavier than the 520ST and the keyboard provides a much more substantial feel. The mouse/joystick ports are now located under the bottom right front of the unit, a significant improvement for left-handed users.
A number of changes are more than cosmetic. The internal power supply eliminates two of the external power supplies needed by the 520ST (wire haters rejoice). We left the unit on for five days and experienced no difficulties with overheating. There is no internal fan, but the unit appears to adequately dissipate heat. The internal disk drive supports both single and double-sided disks. An RF (radio frequency) modulator will allow you to hook up the 1040ST to a television set; you might, therefore, obtain the high-resolution monochrome system for word processing and programming without sacrificing the use of low- and medium-resolution color. However, we received a preproduction unit lacking the RF modulator that will accompany the final product; therefore, we were unable to test the television quality of the computer's output.
The megabyte of RAM in the 1040ST isn't crammed into the case. The 520ST uses a custom Memory Controller chip to handle its sixteen 2 56K-byte dynamic RAM chips. The 1040ST uses the same Memory Controller. Because the controller can handle 32 RAM chips at a time, the Atari engineers simply had to find room for 16 more 2 56K-byte dynamic RAMs on the 1040ST circuit board to pump RAM capacity to a full megabyte (see photo 3). In fact, the Memory Controller can also govern 1 -megabit dynamic RAM chips. Atari should have little difficulty designing an ST with 4 megabytes of memory. Undoubtedly, the most interesting addition to this computer, apart from the extra memory, will be an empty socket for a graphics coprocessor. Our preproduction unit also did not include the socket, and it may not be offered with the first releases of the 1040ST Phil Robinson discussed this and Atari's future plans with Shiraz Shivji, vice president of research and development for the company (see the text box "An Interview with Shiraz Shivji" on page 90).
TOS IN ROM
With TOS (the operating system for both the 520ST and the 1040ST) in ROM, the 1040ST boots more quickly than the 520ST. [Editors note: Atari is currently supplying the ROM chips to 520ST developers and will be making the chips available through users groups.] Booting with a nonsystem disk takes less than 6 seconds, down from 37...](https://i0.wp.com/obm.corcoles.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image-4.png?resize=840%2C583&ssl=1)
Los de mirada afilada habréis notado que en la portada, además del ST, había un segundo tema, el «homebound computing». ¿Que qué es eso? Nos lo cuenta el primer artículo del tema, que comienza recordándonos que el teletrabajo no lo inventó el COVID, y que ya se hablaba de ello hace cuarenta años, pero que anuncia que el tema se va a centrar en la informática como ayuda para las personas que, por el motivo que sea (una discapacidad, por ejemplo), no pueden desplazarse.
Me salto el artículo sobre síntesis de habla a partir de imágenes para pasar directamente al e-learning, que me toca la fibra especialmente.
Y es que en 1986, el año en que los módems de 2400 baudios nos parecían lo más, la educación a distancia ya no era necesariamente por correspondencia, gracias a la Electronic University Network de Telelearning. Hay más sobre el tema en Tedium.co y en eLearning Inside, pero el artículo nos explica que la cosa no era ni siquiera «lo último de lo último», porque se había fundado en el lejano 1983 y tenía programas de grado oficiales desde 1985, con 17 000 estudiantes matriculados hasta entonces. Eso sí, los materiales de aprendizaje no eran en línea: te enviaban el libro a casa. Tecnología necesaria: un IBM PC o PCjr, un Apple II o un (cómo no) Commodore 64 (el 35% de los matriculados no tenía ordenador al apuntarse). ¡Y había hasta mensajería instantánea!
Pasar a otro tema del que también, oh sorpresa, seguimos hablando hoy: envejecimiento y tecnología.
Que sí, que hace cuarenta años ya nos interesaba si las tecnologías digitales podrían ser una ayuda para una sociedad que envejecía cada vez más. Y a continuación viene el tema en que nos paramos cada vez en obm: ordenadores y discapacidad visual.
El primer párrafo se podría haber escrito hoy… Cuarenta años más tarde, las tecnologías son 10 000 veces mejores, pero los problemas, o son los mismos o hemos introducido barreras nuevas para compensar las que (afortunadamente) hemos tirado abajo.
Y una vez cerrada la sección, nos pasamos a la guerra que se mantenía entre los ordenadores con CPUs Motorola 68000: el Mac, el ST y el Amiga (en orden rigurosamente creciente). Bruce Webster, uno de los autores estrella de la revista, hacía una comparativa que se alargó tanto que en este número solo cabía la primera parte, cuya conclusión es que el Mac está más maduro (llevaba mucho más en el mercado9, el 520ST es una ganga y el Amiga se veía lastrado por los problemas de Commodore, pero era el que apuntaba más maneras…
En nuestra sección habitual, temas que ni por casualidad encontraríamos hoy en una revista de informática… ¡las ecuaciones diofánticas!
![Diophantine Equations
A man buys some x's at $154 each and some y's at $69 each. If he spends a total of $5000, how many of each did he buy?
Although this problem appears to be from a first-year algebra text, we find that the techniques required are not usually found in a "mainstream" course in mathematics. The equation 1 54x + 69y = 5000 has infinitely many solutions. However, assuming the man bought whole-number quantities, we want integral solutions [x,y] for the equation, and now we need a method for solving such equations.
Diophantine Equations
Equations of the form ax + by = c, for integral a, b. and c and integral solutions (x.y). are called Diophantine equations. No one is certain when or where Diophantus of Alexandria was born. Sources vary from "born about A.D. 50" to "flourished about A.D. 2 50." He is called "the father of algebra," having promoted algebraic notation and algebraic treatment of mathematical problems. Previously, such work was done by "rhetorical algebra" or geometric proofs.
A variety of methods are available for solving Diophantine equations. One of these is modulo arithmetic, a powerful and fascinating concept that 1 may explore more closely in a future column.
A very simple method of solving our original problem comes to mind. Since the equation is equivalent to y = (50001 54x)/69, we can simply try consecutive values of x (from 1 to 32 only) until we get an integral value for y.
Since we are mathematically inclined, such an inelegant approach may not sit well with us. Rather, we may prefer to look for a method of solution based on general principles of mathematics. What can we say in general about integral solutions for an equation of the form ax + by = c?
First, we can readily see under what conditions the equation would have no solution. Consider the greatest common denominator (GCD) of a and b. We will call it d. If d is not a factor of c, the equation will have no integral solutions. Why? Since aid is, by hypothesis, an integer and bid is also one, the value (ald)x + (bld)y will be an integer if x and y are integers. That is, the integers are closed under addition and multiplication. Thus, if eld is not an integer, either x or y must not be an integer.
Diophantus Meets Euclid
This leads us to Euclid's algorithm, which was the subject of my last column in January (page 397). If we employ Euclid's algorithm to determine the GCD of a and b, we can immediately determine whether there are integer solutions to the Diophantine equation by dividing the GCD into c. But we can use Euclid's algorithm for much more than that. To see how, let us reexamine the algorithm with an eye toward solving Diophantine equations. Figure 1 outlines the way the Euclidean algorithm finds the GCD of 1 54 and 69. Their GCD is 1, meaning that the two numbers are relatively prime. Now, to begin our examination of the way to solve Diophantine equations, let's modify our original equation to 154x' + 69y' = 1. That is, we will begin with the case where c is equal to the GCD.
In figure 2, I have rewritten the divisions of figure 1 as equations. In order to find integer values of x' and y' that solve the equation 154x' + 69y' = 1, all 1 need to do is substitute 154-2(69) for 16 in equations 2 and 3 and 69-4(154-2(69)) for 5 in equation 3. After collecting terms, I find that 1 = 13(154)-29(69). Thus, x = 13, y — 29 will satisfy the equation 154x' + 69y' = 1. We will call (13,-29) the basic solution to 154x' + 69y' = 1. Is it the only solution?
Let us write our equation in the general form again: ax + by = c. Now, let n be any integer and d be the GCD of a and b. If we add to the left-hand side of the equation, we haven't changed it...](https://i0.wp.com/obm.corcoles.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image-13.png?resize=729%2C1024&ssl=1)
(Y, para que no digáis que abuso del tema, me he saltado un artículo que comienza con «Windows can be implemented on almost any system with a memory-mapped display»…)
Me paro en la sección de BIX (ya recordaréis: el extracto en papel que hacía Byte de las conversaciones en su servicio en línea) para contemplar el nacimiento de IFF, el metaformato de archivos presentado por Electronic Arts que debería ser la base de cómo trabajamos hoy, y que permitía encapsular múltiples tipos de información (texto, gráficos y audio, para empezar) en un único archivo.
![IFF Graphics Protocol
amiga/softw.devlpmt #157, from gregr [Gregg Riker, Electronic Arts]
TITLE: IFF (Information Format Files) Is Available!
I mentioned that I used IFF files with the SlideShow. Allow me to elaborate.
Electronic Arts has a general interest in promoting standards, so we knocked heads with some people at Commodore-Amiga and came up with IFF.
IFF is intended to be used by any and all interested developers. It offers a convenient way of allowing programs to exchange data with one another.
For example, Graphicraft will be able to exchange files with Deluxe Paint and other EA products. The design is extensible, in that you may add your own types to the standard. There are programs available in C (public domain!) that will read and write graphic images in IFF format.
If you're interested in a copy of the spec, please contact Rob Peck at Commodore-Amiga. He can supply you with a copy. If you have any problems or need more information, please contact Jerry Morrison at Electronic Arts, (415) 571-7171.
P.S.: IFF covers graphics, audio, and text and is expandable!](https://i0.wp.com/obm.corcoles.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image-14.png?resize=726%2C1024&ssl=1)
Y cierro con una curiosidad. A estas alturas deberíais estar tan enamorados y enamoradas de las ilustraciones de Byte como yo… y esto es tan claro que ya en aquella época la revista vendía ediciones limitadas de sus portadas:
Y hasta aquí la Byte del mes. Si queréis hacer los deberes para el mes que viene, como siempre, aquí tenéis los archivos de la revista Byte en archive.org.
Pero, como venimos haciendo últimamente, no nos iremos sin darle un repaso a los episodios del mes de Computer Chronicles…
El primero no es especialmente apasionante, y se dedicaba a las carreras profesionales en informática, incluyendo la emprendeduría… Una cosa a destacar es que no era totalmente necesario tener un grado en informática para encontrar trabajo en el campo: bastaba con unas cuantas asignaturas desde otros grados. Por cierto, que ya hablaban de la importancia de las competencias comunicativas… y ya se comentaba que las mujeres se iban a computer science y no a computer engineering. Tremendo, eso sí, en los breves del final del episodio, cómo AT&T presentaba un sistema de correo electrónico «de bajo coste»: ¡40 céntimos por enviar una página de texto! (Un sello costaba 22). Y con servicio de entrega en mano para personas sin correo electrónico por… ¡siete dólares y medio! ¡De la época! Todo ello mientras IBM presentaba un procesador experimental con 93 000 transistores (el procesador del iPhone 16 tiene… quince mil millones)
En el segundo episodio se hablaba de la computación en paralelo. Solo por ver un superordenador Cray de la época ya vale la pena darle al play. El H. T. Kung al que se entrevista a medio programa, por cierto, está a un grado de separación de Deep Blue, de unos de los primeros «gusanos» de internet, de la fundación de Y Combinator (una de las empresas de capital de riesgo más importantes del Silicon Valley)… y de las TPUs de Google. Se dice pronto. Y el Craig Mundie que sale justo después lideró la investigación y estrategia de Microsoft de 2006 a 2012.
Y para cerrar, dos episodios dedicados a los ordenadores y sus usos militares, otro tema del que seguimos hablando hoy. En esta primera parte se repasa la larga historia de esos usos militares, ya desde el ENIAC, y el enorme papel de DARPA en la investigación en el campo. No os perdáis las demostraciones de simuladores de vuelo de altísima tecnología que palidecen al compararlas con lo que podemos correr hoy en básicamente cualquier PC. Y la investigación en armas autónomas ya había comenzado, con el eventual premio Turing Raj Reddy.
Y en la segunda parte, sistemas informatizados en los barcos de la Armada de los Estados Unidos, capaces de disparar autónomamente (y el rechazo que provocaba la idea entre al menos parte de los militares de la época), o las «star wars» de Reagan… y menciones a coches autónomos.
Os diría que avanzaseis los deberes para anticipar el mes que viene… pero marzo fue el último mes de la temporada 85-86 del programa, y la siguiente temporada no llegaría hasta septiembre.
Y eso es todo por marzo… de 1986. El mes que viene, más.
![Permite los anuncios para apoyar el periodismo
Parece que tienes un navegador, extensión, conexión o antivirus que bloquea la publicidad en nuestro sitio. La publicidad es la única forma de que nuestro trabajo sea posible. Desactiva el bloqueo de anuncios en [nombre del medio censurado]](https://i0.wp.com/obm.corcoles.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/imagen-1.png?ssl=1)
![COMPUTER SCIENCE CONSIDERATIONS
CONDUCTED BY G. MICHAEL VOSE AND GREGG WILLIAMS
Donald Knuth speaks on his involvement with digital typography
Text processing as a computer science problem has consumed a major portion of the time and energy of Stanford professor Donald Knuth over the past eight years. Knuth authored and placed into the public domain a highly regarded typography system that he calls TeX {pronounced "tech"), along with a font creation language called METAFONT. \n conjunction with the completion of T^X, Knuth and Addison-Wesley are publishing a five-volume work entitled Computers and Typesetting. Volume I is The TeXbook, volume 2 is the source code for TeX, volume 3 is The METAFONT Book, volume 4 is the METAFONT source code, and volume 5 is Computer Modern Typefaces.
To discover what so intrigued Knuth about this subject. BYTE senior editors Gregg Williams and Mike Vose conducted the following interview with Professor Knuth at Addison-VJesley's offices in Reading, Massachusetts, on November II, 1985.
BYTE: Dr. Knuth. how did you become involved with digital typography and the publicdomain system known as Tj:X? Knuth: I got interested because I had written books and seen galley proofs, and suddenly computers were getting into the field of typesetting and the quality was going down.
Then I was working on a committee at Stanford planning an exam, and we got a hold of some drafts of Patrick Winston's book on artificial intelligence. We were looking at it to see if we should put it on the reading list for a comprehensive exam. It had just been brought in from Los Angeles where it had been done on a digital phototypesetter. This was the first time that I had ever seen digital type at high resolution. We had a cheap digital machine at Stanford that we thought of as a new toy. But never would I have associated it with printing a book that I'd be proud to own. Then I saw this type, and it looked as good as any I had ever seen done with metal. I knew that it was done just with zeroes and ones. I knew that it was bits. I could never, in my mind, ever, conceive of doing anything with lenses or with lead, metallurgy, and things like that. But zeroes and ones was different. I felt that I understood zeroes and ones as well as anybody! All it involved was getting the right zeroes and ones in place and I would have a machine that would do the books and solve all the quality problems. And, also, I could do it once and for all. I still had a few more volumes to write [of his seminal work. The Art of Computer Programming, a seven-volume series of which three volumes are finished] and](https://i0.wp.com/obm.corcoles.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image-23.png?resize=749%2C1024&ssl=1)
![Machine Reading of Metric Verse
by Paul Holzer
A computer can definitively scan a line of poetry for its stress pattern principally in one of two ways: (I) an algorithm can deduce the syllabic structure and the stressed syllables from analysis of the letters that make up the word, or (2) the computer can look up every word in a dictionary database that holds the syllabification and accentuation of every word. The lookup method requires a large database, and the algorithmic approach is complex and requires a deep analysis of English phonetics and spelling.
One of the features of a poetry processor is that the poet-user can specify the meter of every line of a poem (see photo A). For example, the string .-/.-/.-/.-/.-/ represents iambic pentameter. Dots (.) indicate an unstressed syllable and dashes (-) represent a stressed one. The slash (/) indicates the end of a foot, the basic metric unit. The first line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18
shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer's DAY?
is an example of a line of iambic pentameter. The stressed syllables are in uppercase.
After writing a poem, users might request a metric scan of the poem. I will describe here a method fordoing this that is not based on one of the two general solutions I mentioned in the first paragraph. Instead, the processor will break each word into its syllables and then redisplay each line, with each syllable in uppercase or lowercase according to the position of the dots and dashes in a user-specified metric form. So. were Shakespeare trying to compose trochaic pentameter, with the metric pattern -./-./-./-./-./. the processor would reply with
SHALL i COMpare THEE to A sumMER'S day?
He would read this to himself, trying to put the stress on the uppercase syllables. Noting the rhythmic clumsiness, he might rewrite his line as follows:
To a summer's day I shall compare thee
and the processor would respond:
TO a SUMmer's DAY i SHALL comPARE thee.
Sounds better!
The main task for the computer is to break each word into its syllables. The algorithm is based on a systematic application of what appear to be the general rules by which English words break into syllables. Of course, there are no fixed rules, as evidenced by the fact that different dictionaries give different syllabifications for the same word.
The following is a simple version of the algorithm:
1. Break the word up into a sequence of alternating vowel and consonant groupings. Thus microcomputer becomes micro computer. Wherever there is a vowel or group of contiguous vowels, there will be a syllable. We need only assign the neighboring consonants to the syllable on the right or to the syllable on the left.
2. If the first vowel group has a consonant group to its left, then assimilate this consonant group to the vowel group. This leads, in our example, to microcomputer.
3. If the final vowel group has a consonant group to its right, then assimilate this consonant group to the vowel group. We now get microcomput er.
4. For the remaining unassigned consonants, do the following:
. a. If the consonant stands alone, attach it to the following vowel. Thus we get mi cr ocompu ter.
b. If there are two consonants, split them. We get mic ro com pu ter.
c. If there are three consonants, then i. If there is a doubled consonant, split the pair; thus apply becomes a ppl y and finally ap ply.
ii. If there is no doubled consonant, but the first of the three consonants is n, r, or [, then split between the second and third consonants.
iii. In all other cases, split between the first and second consonants.
Before applying this algorithm, however, we must preprocess the initial string of letters in order to take into account certain peculiarities of English orthography:
1. Final e is silent (with certain exceptions); treat it as a special consonant. Thus compute becomes compu te, then compute, and finally compute.
2. Translate many two-letter sequences into special single consonants, e.g.. sh, th, gu, qu. and ck.
3. Identify common suffixes. For example, the algorithm applied to blameless would yield blameless and then bla me less. However, when less is removed as a suffix, then the e in blame to thinking of the program as something for me to use— the relational table of contents was so the user could access my work. The program was originally to have been just a floppy solution to my table-of-contents dilemma. But you don't get that involved in a software application without elaborating and generalizing. In that way software is very much like'
poetic forms. You use it for the sake of using it. It generates its own kind of trance. Poetry and programming, once you look at them in context were just made for each other.
Marriages like this one, made in heaven, often are so because they are marriages of convenience. One of the impediments to formal verse writing is the inconvenience of having to
make repeated book accesses for rhymes, just when the form has prompted some involvement. You stop and look and lose something. That's one reason people have tried to do without forms. But that's throwing out the baby with the bathwater. You don't stop measuring and sounding things out, and you don't abandon would be recognized as silent, yielding blame less.
4. Identify some prefixes. For example, if en is recognized as a prefix, then enact becomes en act, rather than e nact.
It seems to be impossible to come up with a reasonably small set of rules and preprocessing steps to guarantee correct syllabification of all words. Two examples will illustrate some of the inherent difficulties:
1. Compound words: The algorithm will not detect the silent e in snake within the compound word snakebite unless the fragment bite is recognized as a word or treated as a suffix. Avoiding the problem would require either extensive word or prefix table lookups.
2. Successive vowels in different syllables: In reach, the ea is a single vowel sound, and the algorithm would treat it correctly. In react, we pronounce the e and a separately and the correct syllabification is react. Were the algorithm modified to isolate re as a prefix, it would treat react correctly, but turn reach into re ach.
Where ambiguities can arise, the best approach is to formulate a rule that leads to the smallest number of cases requiring table lookups for resolution. The present algorithm is not perfect, but it produces a readable, if not dictionary-perfect, syllabified word 95 percent of the time.
I have provided a Pascal program that implements the syllabification algorithm and illustrates how The Poetry Processor "reads" a user's poem according to a user-specified metric scheme. Editor's note: The Microsoft Pascal source code and executable version are available from BYTEnet Listings, telephone (617) 861-9764. as SCANPOEM.PAS and SCANPOEM.EXE. The executable version requires any MS-DOS or PC-DOS machine] To run the program, prepare two files. TESTPOE must contain the lines of poetry. You can write TEST.POE as a text file with each line of the poem on a separate line. A second text file. TESTFRM. should have a line containing a string of dots (.) and dashes (-) indicating the accentual scheme that each line of poetry is supposed to follow. Slashes indicating the end of a foot are optional.
As an example, a Shakespearean sonnet (iambic pentameter) will have a TESTFRM file consisting of 14 lines of .-/.-/.-/.-/.-/. Each line in TESTFRM must end with an asterisk. After editing the TESTFRM and TESTPOE files, you can run the program by entering its name, SCANPOEM. The computer will "read" the poem, printing in uppercase the appropriately stressed syllables.
Note that the program is a prototype version of the algorithm. It will not handle text with capital letters, apostrophes, or punctuation, so be careful not to include these features in TEST.POE. When using this demonstration program, you will undoubtedly find that some words are not properly syllabified.](https://i0.wp.com/obm.corcoles.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image-25.png?resize=840%2C430&ssl=1)
![Best of BIX
AMIGA
Commodore's introduction of the Amiga has produced a flurry of activity among professional developers and personal computer users within the Amiga conference. The summary this month includes discussion on cables, monitors, printers, and software fixes. One of the hottest topics in the Amiga conference is on the subject of improving the performance of the Amiga by removing the 68000 and replacing it with a 68010 or 68020.
68010/68020 Upgrade
amiga/amiga68000 #22
An Amiga conference member asked if he could just drop a 68010 into the 68000 socket. This would give a 10 to 80 percent boost in performance! He had one, just sitting up to its bottom in black foam, on the shelf. But there were all these warnings about what would happen to his warranty if he opened the case.
amiga/amiga68000 #26, from rickross [Richard Ross, Eidetic Imaging]
M68010 works! A 68010 plugs directly into the Amiga and no problems were detected in the operation of the system software. Also, for everyone like me who has been trying to judge from the BYTE review photos, the microprocessor is socketed. The performance increase gained by the switch is not phenomenal, and no benchmarks are available, but it did run perceptibly faster. The M68020 has also been tried and seems to work as well.
amiga/amiga68000 #32
A BIX user provides the following:
The company that markets the 68020 piggyback board is Computer System Associates Inc., 7564 Trade St., San Diego, CA 92121, (619) 566-3911. The prices are:
Board only $ 575
Board plus 68020 975
Board plus 68020 and 68881 1480
For more information, contact Patricia Chouinard at the address above. I believe that 68000/68010 supervisor code that handles exceptions and certain other privileged functions will have to be modified. User code should work as is.
amiga/tech.talk #39
An Amiga owner describes his adventure in opening his computer and replacing the CPU:
You just got your Amiga and it's already the slow boy on the block, right? You can plug a 68010 into an Amiga (there goes my warranty) and it does go faster My Sieve benchmark is down to 5.8 seconds from 6.1.
Note: Your warranty will most likely be dead after you do this. Also, there is a lot of RFI shielding inside the Amiga. You get to undo a lot of screws, bend a couple of tabs, and pray a lot. If you aren't a tech type, don't even think about doing this yourself. The 68000 is socketed, but it is partially under the micro-disk drive, so you have to lift it from one end and kind of levitate out the other end (use of your CHI helps). Also, you only take out the screws in the deep wells on the bottom (five in all). Then there are four places where the top grabs the base at the four corners (there were already marks on mine from where it was put together, I guess). Once you have the top off there is a big surprise waiting for you... Another big surprise is that big RFI shield. Yes, it is a $#%+& to get off! There are screws on three sides and two tabs of metal to untwist. Once the shielding is out of the way, your first sight is of the WCS [writable control store] daughterboard. The custom chips and two parallel I/O chips are made with MOS technology.
The CPU is made by Motorola. The main board looks pretty much like the BYTE review photos. The boot ROMs are 27256s! This gives a 32K-byte by 16- bit boot ROM! What are you guys hiding in there? I could put a BASIC interpreter in that much space!
If you attempt to change your CPU, don't blame me if you muff it! If you don't know about how to make yourself static-free, you could really buy yourself some trouble of the worst kind.
Compatibility: I've run all of the Workbench demos. Everything seems fine, but I'm not making any promises. . .
amiga/tech.talk #41
The adventurous Amiga owner says that yes, his Amiga boots up, squeaks and everything! All the software he has runs and works great. The only potential problem at this point is how many times the MOVE SR.dest op code is used. This is the only active op-code difference. There is a whole host of new goodies, though, some that make a . desire for an MC68881 easier to satisfy.
amiga/tech.talk #43: a comment to 39
Another BIX subscriber replied that the upgrade produced only a 5 percent increase in throughput. Perhaps fortunate, because the descriptions of the hardware here have indicated that bus bandwidth consumption by the 68000 is low enough to allow other custom DMA chips to steal enough cycles to get their work done. It would appear that inserting a 68020 in the socket would require faster bimmers, etc.
amiga/tech.talk #44: a comment to 43
Wouldn't think just putting in a 68020 would affect DMA. Same clock speed. Or does the '20 do something different cycle-wise?
amiga/tech.talk #45: a comment to 44
The author of message 43 replied that the 68020 at the same clock speed will finish an instruction or series of instructions internal to the CPU in less time and start requesting the bus for some ROM or RAM access. He assumed that the DMA chips hold a higher bus priority, so the result will be that the 68020 will often be sitting there in idle awaiting the BUSACK signal. Waste of a 68020. Perhaps that explains why there is only a 5 percent 68010 edge over the 68000.
amiga/tech.talk #46: a comment to 45
Somebody said that the 68000 only uses every other clock cycle (for memory access, that is). The DMA hardware is fast enough to do four accesses during every clock cycle. Most of the DMA accesses the bus during periods when the 68000 doesn't. If the 68020 doesn't have these quiet periods then there could be problems.
amiga/tech.talk #47: a comment to 46
Actually, there is a counterargument to that, which is that the 68020, but not the 68010, has an instruction-only cache, which would mean...](https://i0.wp.com/obm.corcoles.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/image-28.png?resize=774%2C1024&ssl=1)