Do you own an Amiga or AtariST?

[beaker]

is it easy to connect an Atari STF on such a flat screen ? is this a VGA monitor or a TV ?
no issues with the 16/10 ratio ?

Hi, yup it's a plasma screen and I am using an RGB scart from Retro Computer Shack. At the moment I only have a couple of games that I've played a handful of times which seem fine in that aspect ratio but I'm planning on doing an internal ABBA switch and either installing my spare HxC in the case somewhere once I get my arse in gear and purchase a decent soldering iron or putting some connections on the case and use the external one....

[MugUK]

I use a HP TFT2025 with my MegaSTE.  Composite input for colour (games/demos) and I can also use VGA for a nice crisp mono display on a 20" screen.  There's a composite switch box too and the SNES fits just nicely to one side

I'll do your tests over the weekend.  Too much time tonight spent PC memory upgrading, BIOS updating and Windows updating - but like a noob, I did all three at the same time (d'oh!).

[TFM]

I'll do your tests over the weekend.

Great!!!

[TFM]

Happy weekend, happy CPCing. And now..... any help would be appreciated:

Just to remember, what the benchmarks are....
Reality Benchmarks
------------------
- Format a disc of 80 tracks, doublesided

- Copy a disc: 80 tracks, one drive only (Don't measure time to swap discs, because that depends on the human)
- Copy a disc: 80 tracks, use two drives

- Copy a file  (40 KB) with two drives
- Copy a file (176 KB) with two drives
- Copy a file (400 KB) with two drives
- Copy a file  (40 KB) with hard disc partitions
- Copy a file (176 KB) with hard disc partitions
- Copy a file (400 KB) with hard disc partitions

- Read a file  (40 KB) from disc.
- Read a file (176 KB) from disc.
- Read a file (400 KB) from disc.
- write a file  (40 KB) to disc.
- write a file (176 KB) to disc.
- write a file (400 KB) to disc.

- Read a file  (40 KB) from hard-disc.
- Read a file (176 KB) from hard-disc.
- Read a file (400 KB) from hard-disc.
- write a file  (40 KB) to hard-disc.
- write a file (176 KB) to hard-disc.
- write a file (400 KB) to hard-disc.

- Read a full directory and show it sorted on the screen - from disc
- Read a full directory and show it sorted on the screen - from hard-disc

- Erase 64 or 128 files at once - on disc
- Erase 64, 128 or 512 files at once - on hard-disc

- Load and show a file  (40 KB) on the screen.   / Tests a TYPE function
- Load and show a file (176 KB) on the screen.  /
- Load and show a file (400 KB) on the screen. /

- Read and print a file of 40 KB on the printer
  (No real print, just fill the printer buffer without wasting paper. Measure the time the computer takes)

- Display 524288 characters on screen (this is 256 * 2048)

[TFM]

Come on guys! Your help is really appreciated - and it's interesting for all of us!

Everyting you can do with Specci, c64, Amiga or Atari 800XL / ST is valuated!

[Bryce]

Can you explain exactly what this benchmark is trying to prove? Floppy drive speed depends on the controller IC and how it's connected. The Paula IC in the Amiga or the 765 in the CPC have exact timing defined in hardware for reads / writes etc. Certain OSs may do more or less checks during formatting/copying which would effect the timing, but even for instance, if I connect a 765 to a 4GHz Pentium, it will still format at the same speed as it would connected to a Z80 (assuming that both CPUs can/are feeding the FDC as fast or faster than the FDC requires for full speed).

Obviously floppies connected serially (C64, Atari XL/XE) are a different matter.

Bryce. 

[TFM]

Well, I explained ALL of that way before. But for you it's my pleasure to explain it again ...

We want to know how quick computer systems work in reality!

You talk about theoretical speed values of the hardware. That's nice for advertisments, but it has no value in real life if software is not supporting it or whatever.

BTW. You just focus on the FDC here. Did you know that different floppy-drives have different step rates, different RPMs, different HLT, HUT and other timing values which vary? They do influence floppy reading speed by 100%. For example you can run (write data) the 3" in the CPC old generation about 10% more quick than the one in the Plus if you write specialized routines.

As an universal mind one is supposed to see the complete computer system - this fascinating microcosmos at once.

The benchmarks here are providing real life data, and therefore they are important.

Please contribute here!