Atari TT030
Encyclopedia
History
Atari CorporationAtari Corporation
Atari Corporation was a manufacturer of computers and video game consoles from 1984 to 1996. Atari Corp. was founded in July of 1984 when Warner Communications sold the home computing and game console divisions of Atari to Jack Tramiel. Its chief products were the Atari ST, Atari XE, Atari 7800,...
realized that to remain competitive, they needed to begin taking steps to exploit the power offered by other processors in the Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
68000 series. At that time, the best option was the 68020. It was the first true "thirty-two bit bus/thirty-two bit instruction" chip from Motorola. Unlike the original 68000 used in the STs, the 68020 was capable of fetching a 32-bit
32-bit
The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory....
value in one cycle, while the older STs took two cycles to fetch a 32-bit value.
The TT was initially designed around the 68020 CPU, however as the project progressed, Atari Corp. realized that the 68020 was not the best option for the TT. The 68020 still lacked certain important features offered by the next successor in the 68000 line, the new 68030. The new 68030 featured a full 32-bit address/data bus and internal registers; separate Supervisor, User, Program, and Data virtual memory
Virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...
spaces; built-in memory-management hardware; and 256-byte on-chip instruction and data caches.
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) could not handle anything over 16 MHz. Some software also had 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 of cache
Cache
In computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
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-fated Macintosh IIvx
Macintosh IIvx
The Macintosh IIvx was the last of the Macintosh II series of Macintosh computers from Apple. The IIvx included either a 40, 80, 160 or 400 MB hard drive, three NuBus slots, and a Processor Direct Slot. It was the first Macintosh to have a metal case and the first case design of any personal...
and later employed by makers of PCs with an Intel 80486DX2
Intel 80486DX2
The Intel 80486DX2 is a CPU produced by Intel that was introduced in 1992. The i486DX2 was nearly identical to the i486DX but for the addition of clock multiplier circuitry. It was the first chip to use clock doubling, whereby the processor runs two internal logic clock cycles per external bus cycle...
CPU.
TOS 3.01 was the operating system that came with the Atari TT. It was a 512 kB
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
ROM specifically designed for the TT. However, it did not feature pre-emptive multitasking. Another variant, known as TT/X, used Unix System V R4 and WISH (motif extension).
The TT030 was first introduced at CeBIT
CeBIT
CeBIT is the world's largest and most international computer expo. CeBIT is held each year on the world's largest fairground in Hanover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology...
in Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and launched in 1990. It retailed for $2995 with 2 MB RAM a and 50 MB hard drive. The US release came the following year. In 1993, Atari Corp.'s exit from the computer business marked the end of the TT. A number of TT machines were built as developer systems for Jaguar
Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar is a video game console that was released by Atari Corporation in 1993. It was the last to be marketed under the Atari brand until the release of the Atari Flashback in 2004. It was designed to surpass the Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Panasonic...
.
Details
The TT featured a number of devices that had previously been unavailable for Atari Corp. systems. For example, an AppletalkAppleTalk
AppleTalk is a proprietary suite of protocols developed by Apple Inc. for networking computers. It was included in the original Macintosh released in 1984, but is now unsupported as of the release of Mac OS X v10.6 in 2009 in favor of TCP/IP networking...
network port (unfortunately, there never was a driver for it, maybe due to license problems), VME
VMEbus
VMEbus is a computer bus standard, originally developed for the Motorola 68000 line of CPUs, but later widely used for many applications and standardized by the IEC as ANSI/IEEE 1014-1987. It is physically based on Eurocard sizes, mechanicals and connectors , but uses its own signalling system,...
expansion bus, new VGA video graphics modes, and a true SCSI
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
port. Existing ST features such as MIDI ports, a cartridge port, and the ASCI/DMA port were retained in this system.
One device that was left out was the BLiTTER
Blitter
In a computer system, a blitter is a circuit, sometimes as a coprocessor or a logic block on a microprocessor, that is dedicated to the rapid movement and modification of data within that computer's memory...
graphics chip, which first appeared in the Atari Mega ST
Atari MEGA STE
The Atari Mega STE was Atari Corporation's last ST series personal computer, released in 1991. The MEGA STE was essentially a late-model 680x0-based STE mounted in the case of the otherwise unrelated Atari TT computer, although a number of TT features were also blended in...
systems four to five years earlier. Apparently, Atari Corp. felt that the Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
68030 was enough power to drive the graphics, so one was not included.
A new version of TOS
Atari TOS
TOS is the operating system of the Atari ST range of computers. This range includes the 520 and 1040ST, their STF/M/FM and STE variants and the Mega ST/STE. Later, 32-bit machines were developed using a new version of TOS, called MultiTOS, which allowed multitasking...
was developed for this system. An Atari Corp. version of Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
was also released (System V).
This machine marked Atari Corp.'s last big push into the workstation market. The MEGA STe and the Falcon030 were released after this system, but they weren't aimed at business quite the same way that this system was. The TT was doomed almost from the beginning. A 50 MHz 68030 was already on the market at the time, and the 68040
Motorola 68040
The Motorola 68040 is a microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060. There was no 68050. In keeping with general Motorola naming, the 68040 is often referred to as simply the '040 ....
wasn't too far off. A 32 MHz Processor/16 MHz bus system just didn't sound powerful enough to the workstation market. Multitasking
Computer multitasking
In computing, multitasking is a method where multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for...
was the big buzz word in 1990/1991, and this system was not designed to handle it. Multitasking was offered by Atari Corp. in 1993, with the release of MultiTOS. This multitasking version of TOS
Atari TOS
TOS is the operating system of the Atari ST range of computers. This range includes the 520 and 1040ST, their STF/M/FM and STE variants and the Mega ST/STE. Later, 32-bit machines were developed using a new version of TOS, called MultiTOS, which allowed multitasking...
took advantage of the TT's MMU
Memory management unit
A memory management unit , sometimes called paged memory management unit , is a computer hardware component responsible for handling accesses to memory requested by the CPU...
, which offered multitasking as well as memory protection.
Another problem was that Atari Corp. didn't release Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
for the TT until mid-1992. By the end of that year, Atari Corp. dropped all Unix development.
A special version of the TT, the TT/X, was designed to be a UNIX station. It was supplied with UNIX System V R4 and WISH (an extension of OSF Motif).
Technical specifications
All TTs were made up of both custom and commercial chips:- Custom chips
- TT Shifter "TT Video shift register chip" — Enabled bitmap graphics. Featured a 64-bit wide bus with interleaved access to ("dual purpose") system memory and on-chip buffers for high bandwidths. Contiguous 32 KB memory for ST modes, 154 KB for TT modes.
- TT GLU "Generalized Logic Unit" — Control logic for the system used to connect the STs chips. Not part of the data path, but needed to bridge chips with each other. Used in TT and MEGA STE.
- DMA "Direct Memory Access" — Three independent channels, one for floppy and hard drive data transfers, one for the SCSI port and one for 85C30 SCC network port. Direct access to ("dual purpose") system memory in the ST. 2 chips used.
- MCU "Memory Control Unit" — For system RAM.
- Support chips
- MC6850P ACIA "Asynchronous Common Interface Adapter" — Enabled the ST to directly communicate with MIDI devices and keyboard (2 chips used). 31.25 kBaud for MIDI, 7812.5 bit/s for keyboard.
- MC68901 MFP "Multi Function Peripheral" — Used as an interrupt controller, timers and RS232C ports (2 chips used).
- NCR 5380NCR 5380The NCR 5380 is an early SCSI controller chip developed by NCR Microelectronics. It was popular due to its simplicity and low cost. The 5380 was used in the Macintosh Plus and in numerous SCSI cards for personal computers, including the Amiga and Atari TT...
"SCSI Controller" — 8-bit asynchronous transfers up to 4 MB/s. - WD-1772-PH "Western Digital Floppy Disk Controller" — Floppy controller chip.
- Zilog 85C30 SCCZilog SCCThe Zilog Z16C01 SCC was introduced in the early 1980s and provided the ability to do both standard UART style serial communications along with the HDLC protocol for a reasonable price. It was a descendant of the earlier Zilog SIO, and its main enhancement was the inclusion of a built-in baud rate...
"Zilog Serial Communications Controller" — Two high-speed SDLC serial ports. - YM2149F PSGGeneral Instrument AY-3-8910The AY-3-8910 is a 3-voice Programmable Sound Generator designed by General Instrument, initially for use with their 16-bit CP1610 or one of the PIC1650 series of 8-bit microcomputers...
"Programmable Sound GeneratorProgrammable sound generatorA Programmable Sound Generator is a sound chip that generates sound waves by synthesizing multiple basic waveforms, and often some kind of noise generator, and combining and mixing these waveforms into a complex waveform, then shaping the amplitude of the resulting waveform using...
" — Provided 3-voice sound synthesis, also used for floppy signalling and printer port. - HD6301V1 "Hitachi keyboard processor" — Used for keyboard scanning and mouse/joystick ports.
- MC146818A "Motorola Real Time Clock"
- CPU: Motorola 68030Motorola 68030The Motorola 68030 is a 32-bit microprocessor in Motorola's 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 .The 68030 features on-chip...
@ 32 MHz (system bus @ 16 MHz) - FPU: Motorola 68882 @ 32 MHz
- RAM:
- System RAM ("dual purpose") 2 MBMegabyteThe megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
ST RAM expandable to 12 MB - TT RAM ("single purpose") expandable to 256 MB TT RAM on daughter board using either 30-pin or 72-pin SIMMSIMMA SIMM, or single in-line memory module, is a type of memory module containing random access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module , the most predominant form of memory module today, in that the contacts on a SIMM are redundant...
s
- System RAM ("dual purpose") 2 MB
- Sound: Yamaha YM2149 + National LMC 1992, same as in STe
- Drive: 1.44 MB (later version) or 720 KB (first TT version) 3½" floppy diskFloppy diskA floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
drive - Ports:
- MIDI In/Out
- 3 x RS-232RS-232In telecommunications, RS-232 is the traditional name for a series of standards for serial binary single-ended data and control signals connecting between a DTE and a DCE . It is commonly used in computer serial ports...
- Serial LAN RS-422
- Printer
- VGA Monitor (analog RGB and MonoMonochromeMonochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
) - Extra Disk drive port
- ACSI and SCSISCSISmall Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
port - VMEbusVMEbusVMEbus is a computer bus standard, originally developed for the Motorola 68000 line of CPUs, but later widely used for many applications and standardized by the IEC as ANSI/IEEE 1014-1987. It is physically based on Eurocard sizes, mechanicals and connectors , but uses its own signalling system,...
inside case - cartridge (128 KB)
- keyboard (detachable)
- Joystick and Mouse ports (on keyboard)
- Operating SystemOperating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
:- Atari's TOSAtari TOSTOS is the operating system of the Atari ST range of computers. This range includes the 520 and 1040ST, their STF/M/FM and STE variants and the Mega ST/STE. Later, 32-bit machines were developed using a new version of TOS, called MultiTOS, which allowed multitasking...
with the Graphical Environment ManagerGraphical Environment ManagerGEM was a windowing system created by Digital Research, Inc. for use with the CP/M operating system on the Intel 8088 and Motorola 68000 microprocessors...
(GEM) graphical user interfaceGraphical user interfaceIn computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
(GUI) TOS versions: 3.01, 3.05 or 3.06 in ROM. Four socketed 1 MbMegabitThe megabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix mega is defined in the International System of Units as a multiplier of 106 , and therefore...
ROMs providing 512 KB of ROM space. - MiNTMiNTMiNT is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST and its successors. Together with the free system components fVDI , XaAES , and TeraDesk , MiNT provides a free TOS compatible replacement OS that is capable of multitasking.MiNT was originally released by Eric Smith as...
- MagiC!
- NetBSDNetBSDNetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...
- Atari's TOS
- Display modes:
- Color: 320×200 (16 color), 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 with ECLECLECL may stand for:*ECL programming language, an extensible programming language developed at Harvard*ECL, data-centric programming language for Big Data, a declarative, data centric programming language used for data intensive supercomputing...
19 in (483 mm) TTM195 monitor
- Case: Two-piece desktop-style.
- Release Date: 1990-1991
The (at least) two versions of the TT can be distinguished by:
- Internal sheet plate (old) or coating (new) for electromagnetic compatibility
- CPU and FPU on daughter board (old) or directly on main board (new)
- 1.44 MB HD floppy drive (720 KB DD floppy drive on older models)
Emulation
- Hatari is able to emulate an Atari TT on a variety of different OS'sOperating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
using the SDLSimple DirectMedia LayerSimple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform, free and open source multimedia library written in C that presents a simple interface to various platforms' graphics, sound, and input devices....
library. - Atari Coldfire ProjectAtari Coldfire ProjectThe Atari Coldfire Project or is a volunteer project that aims to create a modern Atari computer clone.- Reason for the project :...
- Atari computer clone
External links
- Guillaume Tello's WEB page What to do with a TT? Some hardware expansions detailed
- Download page Programs for Atari, mostly for the TT.