64kb really?

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

Let's be honest, when Atari sold the 130XE it said on the box that it had 131072 bytes.  And most of us probably didn't understand that at first.  It's a 128kB computer, how can it have 131072 bytes of memory.  (Yes, later on we learned that 128kB is 128x1024=131072 bytes)

It's that kind of confusion that companies (and not only those) want to avoid.  Confusion makes people walk away.  Most don't want to be educated, because they just do not get it.  And why should they?  Nobody tells you why a lightbulb glows, they just tell you it does.

 

That's why Atari computers were sold as 64kB computers instead of 62kB computers.  It just confuses people.  And it might make them choose another computer that seems to have 2kB more.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

PS I guess that's what they call "marketing".

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

7 hours ago, Rybags said:

On the other hand, there were 48K expansions for the 400 that in fact had 64K worth of chips but were marketed as being 48K (unsure if any were from Atari though)

AFAIK, none of those expansions were from Atari.  However, one of my 400s has an Intec MM6448 memory expansion with 64K of Motorola memory on board, but only 48K is addressable.

[leech]

46 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

AFAIK, none of those expansions were from Atari.  However, one of my 400s has an Intec MM6448 memory expansion with 64K of Motorola memory on board, but only 48K is addressable.

I think, much like the 800, it's only designed to be able to address 48kb without swapping out the CPU board, right?

[+kheller2]

Its a good thing they didn't use imperial units.   No one wants a 141lbB system.

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

56 minutes ago, leech said:

I think, much like the 800, it's only designed to be able to address 48kb without swapping out the CPU board, right?

I believe that you're right, but that is an upgrade that I have zero experience with.  Something tells me that the OS ROM also needed to be swapped out for an XL ROM in order to address the 'extra' 16K, but I may be confusing that with the 400/800 OS swap into an XL for backwards compatibility improvements.

 

There's also something rattling around in my head about installing 16K onto the OS card of a 48K 800, but that's equally as indistinct as my other recollection.

42 minutes ago, kheller2 said:

Its a good thing they didn't use imperial units.   No one wants a 141lbB system.

 

 

That's more accurately written as 10st1lbB in proper Imperial units

[leech]

9 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

I believe that you're right, but that is an upgrade that I have zero experience with.  Something tells me that the OS ROM also needed to be swapped out for an XL ROM in order to address the 'extra' 16K, but I may be confusing that with the 400/800 OS swap into an XL for backwards compatibility improvements.

 

There's also something rattling around in my head about installing 16K onto the OS card of a 48K 800, but that's equally as indistinct as my other recollection.

That's more accurately written as 10st1lbB in proper Imperial units

Well the incognito has the Colleen option, which limits it to 48kb, so the OS being the limitation seems likely.

[Chri O.]

I just installed extra 64 MB on my new to me HP printer.  Now I got the whooping 80MB ? and you guys are worried about you few bytes here and there.

 

[Greg Miller]

6 hours ago, ClausB said:

They have much more RAM than 64 kilobits. They have 64 KB (64*1024 bytes), of which 62 are usable.

 

I remember a college networking class I took where the professor was very sloppy about that. I remember him writing "1 mb = 8 mb" on the board once.

[Chri O.]

Why My 2 TB Hard Drive is 1.81 TB ? ? marketing cheaters....

 

[Heaven/TQA]

Ok. Thanks it seems we learned something new…

 

the Amstrad with 72kb for Spain or that actually it is the 6510 in the C64 who made it possible…

 

?

[patjomki]

33 minutes ago, Heaven/TQA said:

Ok. Thanks it seems we learned something new…

?

 

And not to forget MapRAM which lets us use the additional 2K with just a small modification.

[Mazzspeed]

41 minutes ago, Heaven/TQA said:

Ok. Thanks it seems we learned something new…

 

the Amstrad with 72kb for Spain or that actually it is the 6510 in the C64 who made it possible…

 

?

It wasn't just the 6510 that made it possible, the 6510 just had the additional control lines necessary to communicate with the PLA to act as a latch. The PLA was also available via the expansion (cartridge) port, making for some interesting and extremely useful memory configurations available to external hardware.

[Heaven/TQA]

24 minutes ago, patjomki said:

 

And not to forget MapRAM which lets us use the additional 2K with just a small modification.

https://xxl-atari-pl.translate.goog/mapram/?_x_tr_sl=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
 

yeah just read it in English ?

[zzip]

14 hours ago, Mathy said:

Let's be honest, when Atari sold the 130XE it said on the box that it had 131072 bytes.  And most of us probably didn't understand that at first.  It's a 128kB computer, how can it have 131072 bytes of memory.  (Yes, later on we learned that 128kB is 128x1024=131072 bytes)

It's that kind of confusion that companies (and not only those) want to avoid.  Confusion makes people walk away.  Most don't want to be educated, because they just do not get it.  And why should they?  Nobody tells you why a lightbulb glows, they just tell you it does.

 

That's why Atari computers were sold as 64kB computers instead of 62kB computers.  It just confuses people.  And it might make them choose another computer that seems to have 2kB more.

But it actually does have 64KB RAM right?  It's just that 2KB is inaccessible due to architectural issues.   The 8-bits are filled with hardware constraints and explaining them to consumers is not easy.   For instance it's easy to say the 8-bit line can produce 256 colors,  but explaining to users all the color placement limits would be a nightmare.

 

Marketing liked to create comparison charts that compared their computers to the competition.   But these charts only tell part of the story.   For instance a chart showing Atari vs C64 would suggest that Atari wins on sound with 4 channels vs 3,  but nothing in those types of charts can easily explain to consumers why SID music often sounds better than Pokey, because that can't easily be distilled down to a number.  You have to hear it to understand.

[oo7]

lots of atari hate based on misconception.

 

 

 

The fact is the 130xe does have 131072bytes and the 800 xl does have 64k

 

 

 

Lots of arguments of wee this occupies this and that.

 

 

no one said 64k accessible by you in basic.

 

 

 

grab a modern intel pc build it using on chip video, install 32 gigs ram and only have 28.9 accessible due to address ranges. still has 32 gigs.

 

 

ppl crying about the past while having no solid argument. the advertisement was crystal clear. includes 64k ram and you can open the machine and find 64k ram. what is the issue????? you wanted a manifest of address allocation on the box?!? lol ok.

[leech]

1 hour ago, oo7 said:

grab a modern intel pc build it using on chip video, install 32 gigs ram and only have 28.9 accessible due to address ranges. still has 32 gigs.

Hell, don't even need to go that modern; 640kb were hardly all accessible to software, as getting everything from DOS into the high memory was impossible.

[Heaven/TQA]

Guys... you know... me is the last one who is bashing Atari but when you get on to C64 and do some stuff suddenly you realise those 2kb missing  (ok.... and the SID sometimes and the color ram and the mix of high res plus low res per char and sprites and drive code and and and....  but don't get me wrong... I love our "copper list" and linear VRAM etc plus extra CPU power for 3D calcs).

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Heaven/TQA

[zzip]

40 minutes ago, leech said:

Hell, don't even need to go that modern; 640kb were hardly all accessible to software, as getting everything from DOS into the high memory was impossible.

Wasn't the 384K memory above the first 640K  and below 1mb inaccessible too on early x86 CPUs?   It was marked reserved for future use.   So if you had 1mb, you could only access 640K of it, if you had 2MB, you could only use 1.6MB or so.

[reifsnyderb]

2 minutes ago, zzip said:

Wasn't the 384K memory above the first 640K  and below 1mb inaccessible too on early x86 CPUs?   It was marked reserved for future use.   So if you had 1mb, you could only access 640K of it, if you had 2MB, you could only use 1.6MB or so.

You had to use emm386.exe to get access to it.

[zzip]

41 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said:

You had to use emm386.exe to get access to it.

But I think on a 286 you were out of luck?

[Heaven/TQA]

are we now into autoexec.bat and config.sys?

 

[+kheller2]

15 hours ago, Chri O. said:

Why My 2 TB Hard Drive is 1.81 TB ? ? marketing cheaters....

 

Base 2 vs Base 10.

 

It's the exact same amount of data, one just needs to know what they are buying .. as it really adds up when buying storage frames.

 

[reifsnyderb]

24 minutes ago, zzip said:

But I think on a 286 you were out of luck?

Yeah, emm386.exe isn't the right answer for a 286.  emm.sys should do the trick.

[reifsnyderb]

25 minutes ago, Heaven/TQA said:

are we now into autoexec.bat and config.sys?

 

Of course.  

[Heaven/TQA]

1 minute ago, reifsnyderb said:

Of course.  

don't tell me that this was not a fuckery... compared to Atari ST or Amiga....