Atari Shows Portable ST, Equipped with Mac Emulator
 
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
LAS VEGAS (Microbytes Daily News Service) ---  Atari Computer is
showing at Comdex a portable computer, called the Stacy, that
company officials describe as a "full-featured" machine with all
the features of Atari's desktop ST computer. While Atari
officials see the music industry as the primary market for the
Stacy, they also quietly stress that with an external plug-in
device, the Stacy can run up to 95 percent of all current
Macintosh software.
 
Scheduled to ship in January, the Stacy is built in the clamshell
style. Like the Mac Portable, it has a trackball next to the
keyboard. However, the Stacy trackball is smaller than the Mac's,
and to this reporter felt difficult to use. And unlike the Mac
trackball, the Stacy version can't be moved from right to left to
accommodate lefties. Without a hard disk, the Stacy weighs in at
15 pounds.
 
The portable has a backlit supertwist 640 by 400 LCD screen that
is very readable. Internally, the Stacy uses the same Motorola
68C000 CPU (the low-power 68000) that runs the rest of Atari's ST
line. The Stacy will come standard with 1 megabyte of RAM
(expandable to either 2 or 4 megabytes), and one 720K-byte
3.5-inch floppy drive. An internal 20- or 40-megabyte hard drive
will be optional. The Stacy includes all standard ST computer
ports and interfaces, including serial, parallel, MIDI, monitor,
floppy, cartridge, expansion, and game controller ports. It's
powered by 12 standard C batteries, and will run from 3-4 hours
on battery power, Atari says.
 
The Spectre GCR is a $299 Macintosh software emulator in a
palm-sized box that plugs into the Stacy (or any ST) cartridge
slot. With the Spectre GCR, an Atari ST can read and write Mac
disks, run Mac software, and do it 20 percent faster than a Mac
Plus, according to Gadgets by Small, the company that developed
and manufacturers the device. Gadgets spokesperson Sandy Small
says the Spectre GCR is a much-improved version of the company's
earlier Mac software emulator, the Spectre 128.
 
To avoid legal hassles with Apple, Gadgets by Small doesn't
include the Mac 128K ROMs necessary to make Spectre GCR work. You
must purchase these yourself and plug the ROMs in the Spectre
board. The device is designed to work only with real Mac ROMs,
not copies, and though it works with older 64K Mac ROMs, Small
recommends buying the 128Ks, since many newer Mac programs won't
run on the 64Ks. Also, Spectre GCR doesn't support Mac ROMs newer
than the 128K variety, since those "aren't commonly for sale,"
Small said.
 
One thing the Spectre, and hence the Stacy, can't do is work with
AppleTalk. The reason, according to Small, is that the ST doesn't
have Apple's SCC chip needed to run AppleTalk.
 
Contacts:
 
Atari Computer, 1196 Borregas Ave, PO Box 3427,
Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3427; (408) 745-2000;
 
Gadgets by Small, 40 W. Littleton Blvd, #210-211, Littleton, CO
80120; (303) 791-6098.
 
                              --- Jeffrey Bertolucci
 
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