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 "Q: What is the difference between a Boeing 747 and an Amiga?
  A: A Boeing 747 only crashes once."


         PRESS RELEASE: NEW 68060/68040 BASED TT CLONES
               NOW AVAILABLE FROM COMPUTER DIRECT


 The DirecT40 and the DirecT60 are based on the same  motherboard
design,  simply swapping out the socketed 68040 and plugging in a
68060 results in an instant upgrade!

 DirecT40  is a MC68040 33/66 MHz Atari TT clone.  DirecT60 is  a
MC68060  60MHz Atari TT clone.  DirecT40/T60 are housed in  a  PC
style tower case which allows for up to 5 - 5.25" devices and 3 -
3.5"  internal drives.  This means that you will have  plenty  of
room for SyQuest Drives,  Tape BackUps,  CD Recorders and Players
and  any other device that would require an open front drive  bay
plus you would still have room for up to three hard drives!

 The  open  architecture  design of the  motherboard  allows  for
interfacing   with  the  low  cost  and  readily   available   PC
peripherals such as EIDE hard disks,  SCSI hard disks, DD, HD, ED
floppy  disks,  PCI and/or ISA ET4000 or Mach 64 graphics  cards,
SVGA/VGA Monitors,  AT style keyboards and more! Adding memory is
as easy as popping in PS/2 SIMMS! 8 memory slots organized in 4 +
1  banks allow for expansion right up to  1  Gigabyte!  Hey,  who
needs a hard drive with a Gigabyte RAM disk!

 All  DirecT40/T60 enjoy the standard TT  external  ports,  SCSI,
Modem 1,  Modem 2,  LAN, MIDI in and MIDI out. For those who need
cartridge  port  and ACSI (DMA) port we will be offering  in  the
near future the DirecT40/T60 Plus which has a full ST  compatible
I/O card.

Technical Specifications:

Case:

Full size tower case with 6 - 5.25" open front bays (one is  used
for floppy),  3 - 3.5" internal bays, 250 Watt power supply, dual
fan ventilation system, CSA / UL approved.

Dimensions: 620mm (H) x 190mm (W) x 455mm (D) Weight 2.5 Kg.

Installed Peripherals:

Keyboard: AT 101 key.
Floppy: 1 with DD, HD and ED compatibility.
Hard Drive: Quantum 850 Mb EIDE Hard Drive.
Memory:  4 Mb minimum,  expandible to 1 Gigabyte via 8 slots,  72
pin (PS/2) SIMM.
Video:  ISA  bus  ET4000 graphics card with 1 Mb  DRAM  and  NVDI
ET4000 driver,  Resolution: 640 x 480 x 16.7 Million Colours, 800
x  600  x 65K,  1024 x 768 x 256 and 1280 x 1024  x  16  colours.
(expandable to PCI bus ATI Mach 64 with up to 4 Mb VRAM.)

DirecT40 Technical data:

Processor: MC68040 33/66MHz
Processing Power: 29.5 MIPS
Comparison: TT030 - 7 MIPS           Factor Increase: over 4x's
            Falcon030 - 3.74 MIPS    Factor Increase: over 7x's
            ST - 1 MIP??             Factor Increase: over 29x's

DirecT60 Technical data:

Processor: MC68060 60MHz
Processing Power: 120 MIPS
Comparison: DirecT40 - 29.5 MIPS     Factor Increase: over 4x's
            TT030 - 7 MIPS           Factor Increase: over 17x's
            Falcon030 - 3.74 MIPS    Factor Increase: over 32x's
            ST - 1 MIP??             Factor Increase: over 120x's

 MIPS is Millions of Instructions per second and is used to  rate
processing power and speed.

Internal ports:

4  PCI-bus slots
2  ISA-bus slots
1  VME-bus slot
1  EIDE (enhanced IDE) with max. 10MB/s for 2 devices
1  SCSI with max. 4MB/s for 1-7 devices (TT compatible)
1  floppy (DD/HD/ED) d.h. max 2.88MB

Modem 1 (25 pin Dsub-connector) with max. 19,200 baud
Modem 2 (9 pin Dsub-connector) with max. 250,000 baud
Local talk (8 pin Mini Din) with max. 250,000 baud
Printer 25 pin Dsub (TT/Falcon-compatible)
Midi-In/Out
PC keyboard connector (standard)
mouse and joystick (Atari compatible)

Pricing Information:

DirecT40:
The complete system,  including medium height tower  case,  68040
processor with FPU,  4MB RAM,   850Mb hard drive,  floppy  drive,
graphics card, PC-keyboard and mouse is $3799.99 Cdn. or $2739.99
US. or less**. FOB Edmonton.

DirecT60:
The complete system,  including medium height tower  case,  68040
processor with FPU,  4MB RAM,   850Mb hard drive,  floppy  drive,
graphics card, PC-keyboard and mouse is $4499.99 Cdn. or $3239.99
US. or less**. FOB Edmonton.

**  Please  Note,   since  these  machines  use  standard  PC/IBM
compatible peripherals,  due to market conditions on these  parts
the actual street price will vary, usually downward as the trends
on these parts are following this path currently.  Check with  us
for daily pricing.

Dealer enquiries are welcomed.

Other configurations are available on request! Every DirecT40/T60
is custom built by Computer Direct.  This allows us to build  the
system that you want, not the system somebody wants to sell you!

Compatibility:

DirecT40/T60  is  fully compatible with all cleanly  written  GEM
applications  that  run on a stock TT.  Software  which  accesses
hardware  directly will not run.  Some examples would be  Warp  9
(VDI)  and Software which requires TT High,  cartridge  port  and
ACSI  (DMA) port.  DirecT40/T60 Plus motherboards  will  overcome
many  of these problems due to the integrated ST I/O  card  which
contains the original Atari hardware.  DirecT40 and T60 have been
tested extensively with the following software:

Please note:  Products with known bugs on ST/TT are still  listed
as Yes,  these programs still exhibit these bugs on  DirecT40/T60
but  are just as useable as on an ST/TT.  Comments are added  for
some problem apps. Comments followed by "*" refer to DirecT40/T60
Plus motherboards with ST I/O card.

Application        Type                                Comments

7 up               text editor                         yes
ACS                development                         yes
Argon              backup                              yes
ATARI Works 1.0    word pro, database, spreadsheet     yes
Arabesque Pro 2    graphic                             yes
Avant Vektor       vector tracer                       yes
Calamus SL         DTP                                 yes
Calligrapher       word processor                      yes
Chagall            demo                                yes
Charly Image       graphic                             yes
Connect            telecomms                           yes
Convector          vector tracer                       yes
Crazy Sounds II    utility                             yes
Cubase 3.x         MIDI/music                          yes
                                                  only ST-high*
Cypress 1.5        word processor                      yes
DA's Layout TC     desktop publisher                   yes
Da's Picture       graphic                             yes
DA's Repro         graphic                             yes
DA's Vector        vector edit/trace                   yes
DA's Vector Pro    vector edit/trace/animation         yes
DeskPic            Desktop picture                     yes
Digitape           harddrive-sampler                   yes
                                                  no DSP-sound*
Diskus             disk utility                        yes
DynaCADD           CAD                                 yes
Ease               Desktop                             yes
Edison             editor                              yes
Everest            editor                              yes
Fractals           graphic                             yes
Freeway            database                            yes
Gemini             Desktop                             yes
GEM-View           graphic-converter                   yes
GEMRAM             utility                             yes
GFA-Assembler      language                            yes
GFA-Basic          language                            yes
GFA-Compiler       compiler                            yes
GT-Look            scanner-software                    yes
                                              set cookies like TT
HD Driver          hard disk driver                    yes
Harlekin           utility                             yes
In Touch           Personal info Manager               yes
Inshape demo       raytracer                           yes
Interface          RCS                                 yes
Kadinsky           vectorgraphic                       yes
Kobold             copier                              yes
LHarc              packer                              yes
Lazy-Shell         packer-shell                        yes
Linux 68/k         operating system                    yes

Megapaint pro      graphic program                     yes
Meta-DOS           CD-ROM driver                       yes
                                                  but problems?
Midichord          MIDI                                yes
Midnight           screensaver                         yes
Morpher            graphic                             yes
                                                with FPU-Emulator
MIDIMAZE           game                                yes
                                                  but inverted
Notator Logic      MIDI/music                          yes
                                                  only ST-high*
NVDI ET-4000       screen accelerator                  yes
Outline Art        vector edit/trace                   yes
Overlay            graphic                             yes
                                              without NVDI ET4000
Oxyd               game                                yes
PageStream 2.x     desktop publishing                  yes
Papillon           graphic                             yes
Papyrus            document processor                  yes
Phoenix            database                            yes
Pixart             graphic                             yes
Phase IV           graphic                             yes
PhotoLine          graphic                             yes
PKS-Edit           editor                              yes
Poison             virus finder                        yes
Positive Image     graphic                             yes
POV-Ray            Raytracer                           yes
                                                with FPU-Emulator
Pure C             language                            yes
Pure Pascal        language                            yes
RSC                RSC                                 yes
ReproStudioPro     image editor                        yes
Script             text program                        yes
SCSI-Tools         hard disk driver                    yes
Selectric          file selector                       yes
StudioPhoto        image editor                        yes
Signum III         text program                        yes
Speedo 4&5         utility                             yes
ST-Zip             packer                              yes
SysMon             utility                             yes
Tempus-Word        text program                        yes
TMS-Paint          graphic                             yes
Beta-CranachStudio graphic                             yes
Beta-Compact       graphic                             yes
Beta-Vektor        graphic                             yes
TruePaint          graphic                             yes
Turbo C            language                            yes
Twilight           screensaver                         yes
                                             not all modules work
Twist              database                            yes
Winx               utility                             yes
XBoot              utility                             yes
ZOO                packer                              yes

Ordering and Quotations:

Computer Direct
10338-59 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada. T6H 1E6

Toll Free (US and Canada): 800-547-9203 (orders only please)

Tel: 403-496-2488  Fax: 403-496-2489

Internet: http://compdirect.com
e-mail: info@compdirect.com 

Disclaimer
The text of the articles is identical to the originals like they appeared in old ST NEWS issues. Please take into consideration that the author(s) was (were) a lot younger and less responsible back then. So bad jokes, bad English, youthful arrogance, insults, bravura, over-crediting and tastelessness should be taken with at least a grain of salt. Any contact and/or payment information, as well as deadlines/release dates of any kind should be regarded as outdated. Due to the fact that these pages are not actually contained in an Atari executable here, references to scroll texts, featured demo screens and hidden articles may also be irrelevant.