ATonce

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                    |*|        Z*NET ECHOES        |*|
                    |*|     by Terry Schreiber     |*|
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                         ATONCE 286 AT EMULATION
                      General Specs from the manual
                      -----------------------------
 
  - 16 bit, 8MHz 80286 CPU
  - Norton factor 6.7
  - 704kb DOS-Memory (in ST's with at least 1 MB RAM)
  - up to 3 MB(e.g. Mega ST 4) Expanded/Extended memory for example as
    RAM-DISK or as RAM for certain programs
  - Administration of up to 24 GEM-DOS-compatable partitions under DOS
  - DOS can be booted directly from one of these partitions
  - Supports hard disk and removable hard disk subsystems (for example 
    votex HDplus, vortex DataJet) (Ed.note: commonly refered to as
    Syquest mechanism)
  - Video-Emulations: CGA, Hercules, Toshiba T3100, Olivetti (with the
    Atari color monitor CGA only)
  - Use of the Atari Mouse as Micro-soft-Mouse (on COM1 as well as COM2)
  - Supports the parallel and serial interface
  - Complete integration of the internal 3.5" floppy drive as 720KB DOS
    floppy drive, as well as one external 3.5" or 5.25" as 720KB/360KB
    DOS floppy drive
  - Sound support
  - Adapter for 1040STE and Mega ST (optional extra)

 The first striking this about this product is the guarantee.

 "Votex guarantees that on leaving the premises of vortex the product is
 in a faultless condition and is manufactured to the product
 specifications.  No further guarantee is given."
 
 With this in mind I suggest that you have an experienced tech install
 this unit, although I did install my own and it took about 35 minutes.
 
 The manual is quite informative as to the install in all the Atari
 product line excepting the Stacy.  The size of the ATonce makes it an
 instant sell in the Stacy as the board measures 2 3/4" X 3 1/4" by
 5/8" height requirements.
 
 After the install I did find that being used to Supercharger and it's
 handling of GEM partitions I became spoiled.  All partitions to be used
 as DOS partitions need to be formatted under dos therefore making most
 drives need re-formatting and/or re-partitioned for the size that you
 need.  A 16 meg partition is the maximum you are allowed.
 
 After the install you are ready to boot.  There is a noticeable
 difference in speed in the boot-time as compared with the Supercharger,
 the ATonce is about 1/3 faster.
 
 As for benchmarks and speed checks I didn't do any but the speed
 increase is very noticeable.  I tried it on both color and monochrome
 and the color was somewhat lacking.  A future upgrade to some software
 emulations for color would be nice so that you can run Hercules and EGA,
 VGA would also be nice but I would, for now be satisfied with Hercules.
 
 Running Better Working's "Eight-in One" software I connected a modem and
 Voila'- connect 9600 ARQ to a local system.  As for Atari Laser printer,
 the manual doesn't state anything regarding the laser.  I will try it
 out in the next week and see what happens, hopefully it will work as
 well as the Supercharger.