Atari ST vs. Amiga

[kool kitty89]

Longer answer: Ever seen a 2 MHz 68K? (or perhaps a 16 MHz 6502) Yah, me neither. Apples and Oranges

In the case of later processors of the architecture (65C02 and 65816/802) there were/are (still used for some embedded applications iirc) available at speed close to or greater than 16 MHz. I think 68k had 4 MHz in its slowest rated model. (not that you couldn't clock it slower) And in 1987 the PC Engine was using a 7.16 MHz 65C02 derivative.

 

Even Longer Answer: The 68K has prefetch caches... it trades latency for throughput. Comparing execution of a single instruction on a 6502 vs a 68K is disingenuous at best. a 6502 is a building a entire car one at a time. The 68K is building cars on an assembly line. The 6502 gets 1 car quicker, but the 68K can crank out more on average than a 6502 ever will, but there's a delay until the first one comes off the line. All modern processors operate in this fashion.

 

OK, prefetch plus double the bus width makes up for 4x the access latency. (in one discussion it was mentioned that a 650x could edge ahead of a similarly clocked 68k with optimized 8-bit code and heavy use of zero-page)

[frogstar_robot]

 

Yeah, he was way off on that one.. And there are no "s**t linux distros"!!!!

 

 

Xandros is pretty crappy...........

[+wood_jl]

[snip!]

Even today I would rather use Amiga OS4 than Mac OSX (which stole the 'dock' idea from Amiga OS 3.5 and added it to some shit linux distro) and Windows 7 (pig ugly...designed by geeks not people with any artistic ability) and still has the same problems as Vista as well haha.

What shit times we live in for buying a computer.

 

My, my how negative!!! It's not THAT bad!

 

I tried Windows 7 and it looks/feels a lot like Vista to me. I do think it's faster than Vista though. My computer came with Vista and I "downgraded" to XP the very day I set it up at home, so I have to admit I didn't give Vista a chance. I remember seeing (on some geek news site - don't know if it was slashdot or what) that a survey of people said most thought Vista sucks, and then of those surveyed, only a fraction of them had actually used Vista. I'm going to have to agree with that, since I'm one of them.

 

Win7 can easily accomodate a Linux dual-boot; I had Ubuntu on it in no time. I did "Ghost" back to XP/Ubuntu because I failed to see any advantage to Win7 over XP for my use. Seeing as how you can easily dual-boot Win7 with Linux, and most new machines come with Win7, it's not that bad. I'm not sure what constitutes a "shit Linux distro" but I am quite impressed with the slickness, stability, and ease-of-use with Ubuntu and spend most time in it. I don't see how it could be a "shit" time for computers when you can get such an OS for FREE.

[atarian63]

[snip!]

Even today I would rather use Amiga OS4 than Mac OSX (which stole the 'dock' idea from Amiga OS 3.5 and added it to some shit linux distro) and Windows 7 (pig ugly...designed by geeks not people with any artistic ability) and still has the same problems as Vista as well haha.

What shit times we live in for buying a computer.

 

My, my how negative!!! It's not THAT bad!

 

I tried Windows 7 and it looks/feels a lot like Vista to me. I do think it's faster than Vista though. My computer came with Vista and I "downgraded" to XP the very day I set it up at home, so I have to admit I didn't give Vista a chance. I remember seeing (on some geek news site - don't know if it was slashdot or what) that a survey of people said most thought Vista sucks, and then of those surveyed, only a fraction of them had actually used Vista. I'm going to have to agree with that, since I'm one of them.

 

Win7 can easily accomodate a Linux dual-boot; I had Ubuntu on it in no time. I did "Ghost" back to XP/Ubuntu because I failed to see any advantage to Win7 over XP for my use. Seeing as how you can easily dual-boot Win7 with Linux, and most new machines come with Win7, it's not that bad. I'm not sure what constitutes a "shit Linux distro" but I am quite impressed with the slickness, stability, and ease-of-use with Ubuntu and spend most time in it. I don't see how it could be a "shit" time for computers when you can get such an OS for FREE.

Sad thing about Win7 is that is really no faster and sometime slower than XP SP3. Other than being pretty it really offers nothing. Ubuntu is the deal,nice and free.

[kool kitty89]

I'm running 32-bit Vista mainly because it's what came with my laptop, otherwise I may have opted for XP as there seems to be very little difference other than it using more memory, although I haven't expereinced any memory leaks which was a consistant problem on XP. And with a bit of tweaking and stripping things down (UAC was the first thing to go) it's down to about 500-600 MB (a little more due to one care) and has been pretty stable too. (the main downside for me is win9x compatibility, with some programs suppored by XP no longer working, working slowly/funky, patches not installing properly which did with XP and some display issues -mainly programs using 320x200 with directX drivers, OpenGL is fine though -so DosBox is OK -but that last bit could be hardware related)

[oky2000]

I beg to differ.

 

Amiga OS4.1 does everything Windows 7/Vista or OS X does....but here is a snippet of 3 things none of those other 2 OS's can do.

 

Reboot from desktop to full shut down to restart back to a useable desktop = 5 seconds!

Everything runs in RAM, there is no stupid chugging on the hard drive every.

Drag and drop files into a command line input window. (so you can type the text to extra an LHA file like 'LHA X ' then drag the file icon you want to extract into the DOS/SHELL prompt!

 

And that is all on a machine with just 900mhz, 1gb RAM and a lowly Radeon 9200 video card. Try running any other OS in that spec and see how frustrated you get. Even with 3Gb of RAM and 2ghz dual core CPU there are times when opening a window for 'my computer' feels like I am using a Pentium MMX 166 and windows 98 on 8mb of RAM.

 

Progress? What progress? We are going backwards, even with a cash starved outfit developing OS4 it still trumps anything money can buy or can be downloaded for x86 hardware of today simple as that

 

IF you could buy an AmigaONE motherboard right now I would be first in the queue and for the same price as for a quad core x86 motherboard with 4gb of RAM and Vista DVD....but you can't so there you are, proof that even today after being dead for 1 1/2 decades Amiga is still the best OS you can get....shame there is no bloody hardware to buy to run it on

[oky2000]

I'm running 32-bit Vista mainly because it's what came with my laptop, otherwise I may have opted for XP as there seems to be very little difference other than it using more memory, although I haven't expereinced any memory leaks which was a consistant problem on XP. And with a bit of tweaking and stripping things down (UAC was the first thing to go) it's down to about 500-600 MB (a little more due to one care) and has been pretty stable too. (the main downside for me is win9x compatibility, with some programs suppored by XP no longer working, working slowly/funky, patches not installing properly which did with XP and some display issues -mainly programs using 320x200 with directX drivers, OpenGL is fine though -so DosBox is OK -but that last bit could be hardware related)

 

XP and Win2000 are probably the best MS have done at making an OS. If you never ever want to use DirectX 10 then XP does everything Vista does, I even have a GUI skin that replicates the Vista look 100% and that's how I use XP.

 

The only real difference I ever found was when the machine is 99% resource used up (task manager) on Vista the GUI still remains responsive but on XP it stalls and you have to sit there and go make a cup of coffee or something till it recovers

 

BOTH will require a forced shut down should 1 tiny byte of information not be as expected whilst burning a CD/DVD in any disc writing software...this is ridiculous and even more so as it still happens in Windows 7!

 

ditto a duff floppy disk can hang your machine dead even in Windows 7 also. some parts of Windows will always be pathetic and inferior to a 1985 Amiga or other 16bit machines...even 1/4 of a century later

 

What is really amazing when you no longer need a specifically running MS Windows machine is their really is only 3 choices, all of which are still inferior to Amiga OS3 let alone 4 in some ways. Such a shame that in the current climate of a use for a PC being mainly surfing the web/emailing/music/vidoes/downloading/writing docs&drawing pics is that there really isn't that much of a choice, the computer world has pretty much shafted Microsoft's dominance with things like Flash/Java/DIVX/FLAC/MPEG/PDF/HTML....there are people who happily use non Windows machines all day never ever being restricted. Hell you can even talk to people from MSN via an Amiga OS4 haha and it does it better too than Microsoft's own software for its own network haha

 

As for games well...I play them on a $150 xbox 360 instead of a $1000 PC (that will be worth 300 in 12 months time!)

Edited December 11, 2009 by oky2000

[Albert]

Drag and drop files into a command line input window. (so you can type the text to extra an LHA file like 'LHA X ' then drag the file icon you want to extract into the DOS/SHELL prompt!

You can do this in OS X, I use this feature all the time!

 

..Al

[oky2000]

[snip!]

Even today I would rather use Amiga OS4 than Mac OSX (which stole the 'dock' idea from Amiga OS 3.5 and added it to some shit linux distro) and Windows 7 (pig ugly...designed by geeks not people with any artistic ability) and still has the same problems as Vista as well haha.

What shit times we live in for buying a computer.

 

My, my how negative!!! It's not THAT bad!

 

I tried Windows 7 and it looks/feels a lot like Vista to me. I do think it's faster than Vista though. My computer came with Vista and I "downgraded" to XP the very day I set it up at home, so I have to admit I didn't give Vista a chance. I remember seeing (on some geek news site - don't know if it was slashdot or what) that a survey of people said most thought Vista sucks, and then of those surveyed, only a fraction of them had actually used Vista. I'm going to have to agree with that, since I'm one of them.

 

Win7 can easily accomodate a Linux dual-boot; I had Ubuntu on it in no time. I did "Ghost" back to XP/Ubuntu because I failed to see any advantage to Win7 over XP for my use. Seeing as how you can easily dual-boot Win7 with Linux, and most new machines come with Win7, it's not that bad. I'm not sure what constitutes a "shit Linux distro" but I am quite impressed with the slickness, stability, and ease-of-use with Ubuntu and spend most time in it. I don't see how it could be a "shit" time for computers when you can get such an OS for FREE.

Sad thing about Win7 is that is really no faster and sometime slower than XP SP3. Other than being pretty it really offers nothing. Ubuntu is the deal,nice and free.

 

If you compare Win 7 to XP SP1 it get's even worse haha...SP1 of XP is awesome, fast and massive amounts of TCP/IP connections for torrents don't kill it unlike SP2/3.

 

My only problem with Linux is the whole download source for <x flavour> of Linux and then compile it. It is very weir. I just want to download something and double click it. OS X (which is UNIX) has the same fault. xUbuntu is probably the closest I have come to using it day to day but still it had issues and even doing something as simple as checking which drivers for which devices were/weren't installed and/or functioning correctly was a complete nightmare. Unacceptable, I never had this much problem installing motion jpeg boards and 16bit sound cards in my 1990 Amiga 2000

 

edit: please get a VERY GOOD anti-spyware/firewall setup if you are going to use XP SP1...has more security holes than a sieve!

Edited December 11, 2009 by oky2000

[oky2000]

Drag and drop files into a command line input window. (so you can type the text to extra an LHA file like 'LHA X ' then drag the file icon you want to extract into the DOS/SHELL prompt!

You can do this in OS X, I use this feature all the time!

 

..Al

 

I stand corrected I have only used early versions of OS X.

 

If I ever get OS4 for Mac Mini G4 running I will be able to use both a lot more....which can only be a good thing haha

[+wood_jl]

Progress? What progress? We are going backwards, even with a cash starved outfit developing OS4 it still trumps anything money can buy or can be downloaded for x86 hardware of today simple as that

 

I get your drift!

 

However, there has been some progress. I mean, they had $200 el-cheapo laptops at Walmart on "Black Friday" (and in significant quantity that I could have had one 1.5 hrs after opening). How much were things like "ST Book" or "Stacy" or whatever, back in the day? Also, how many frames per second would an Amiga get with Call of Duty Modern Warfare at 1600 x 1200 with all effects turned on?

 

There is definitely a loss of efficiency but there's been such a gross cheapening of hardware, and so much more quantity of hardware piled on that at least it works at reduced efficiency. But look what the hardware is doing now. Amiga Stuff is from an era when a MB was considered a shitload. Now it takes a TB to meet that distinction.

 

Just looking at the things we do with desktops (or laptops) today - from playing the lowly MP3, storing TONS of 8-10 megapixel digital images let alone displaying them, editing video (or HD video) and burning it to DVD or Blue Ray, playing hi-res games..... Big loss of efficiency, but the sheer quantity of data these modern machines juggle (and what you can do with your home computer) is mind boggling to anyone who came up through the 16-bit (or 8-bit) era. I mean, could you even PLAY an MP3 on an Amiga or ST, let alone in the background? So it's not exactly "backward."

[+save2600]

I mean, could you even PLAY an MP3 on an Amiga or ST, let alone in the background?

 

Oh yeah, do it all the time on my Miggy's and they still multi-task just fine (030 & 060 equipped Amigas that is). But speaking of the backwards thing: you just brought up a pinnacle of backwards technology: the mp3. Especially in this day and age of TB sized mass storage and the GB's we now work with in RAM. No excuse for listening to mp3's at all today - but we know where a lot of peoples standards have gone throughout the decades and a lot of peoples listening skills have been compromised to say the least.

 

But you brought up a lot of good points re: efficiency - not trying to argue. It's obvious that programmers have become "spoiled" with all the power they command at their fingertips and it shows by the inefficient and buggy garbage they're constantly writing updates and service paks for. I think the 'Net today and the coding for some of these sites are a great example of what I am trying to convey.

[FastRobPlus]

I beg to differ.

 

Amiga OS4.1 does everything Windows 7/Vista or OS X does....but here is a snippet of 3 things none of those other 2 OS's can do.

 

Reboot from desktop to full shut down to restart back to a useable desktop = 5 seconds!

Everything runs in RAM, there is no stupid chugging on the hard drive every.

Drag and drop files into a command line input window. (so you can type the text to extra an LHA file like 'LHA X ' then drag the file icon you want to extract into the DOS/SHELL prompt!

 

And that is all on a machine with just 900mhz, 1gb RAM and a lowly Radeon 9200 video card. Try running any other OS in that spec and see how frustrated you get. Even with 3Gb of RAM and 2ghz dual core CPU there are times when opening a window for 'my computer' feels like I am using a Pentium MMX 166 and windows 98 on 8mb of RAM.

 

Progress? What progress? We are going backwards, even with a cash starved outfit developing OS4 it still trumps anything money can buy or can be downloaded for x86 hardware of today simple as that

 

IF you could buy an AmigaONE motherboard right now I would be first in the queue and for the same price as for a quad core x86 motherboard with 4gb of RAM and Vista DVD....but you can't so there you are, proof that even today after being dead for 1 1/2 decades Amiga is still the best OS you can get....shame there is no bloody hardware to buy to run it on

 

This is why I stopped visiting amiga.org about 5 years ago. Amiga fanatics need to let go and realise that it's never coming back. I'd love an "AmigaAge" type site where you can go to talk about all things Amiga with the understanding that it's a cool retro hobby.

[+save2600]

 

This is why I stopped visiting amiga.org about 5 years ago. Amiga fanatics need to let go and realise that it's never coming back. I'd love an "AmigaAge" type site where you can go to talk about all things Amiga with the understanding that it's a cool retro hobby.

 

LOL! 5 years is a long time to be away. Some of us aren't that far left of center

[FastRobPlus]

 

This is why I stopped visiting amiga.org about 5 years ago. Amiga fanatics need to let go and realise that it's never coming back. I'd love an "AmigaAge" type site where you can go to talk about all things Amiga with the understanding that it's a cool retro hobby.

 

LOL! 5 years is a long time to be away. Some of us aren't that far left of center

 

I'll bet it's gotten a bit better, but when I was there it was 70% filled with kids from Scandinavia and central Europe with some kind of computer Emo inferiority complex.

With no sense of irony they'd say things like "LOL Flash, LOL 3D graphics, LOL 64bit, LOL multi-mon! If Windoze can do it and the Amiga can't, it's stupid. My Amiga can boot in under 3 seconds and that proves it still better than anything the morons at M$ or Crapple could ever dream of. "

[+save2600]

LOL! Yeah, I think it's way toned down now. Seems some of us left are pretty disparaged over the continuing Amiga Inc/Hyperion Technologies debacle, although some progress has been made of late. Still doesn't mean a darn thing though. For now, we just have to put up with overpriced mainboards for OS4.x and such. MANY are going the MorphOS route on G4 MacMini's and I even gave it a try on an Efika recently. Cute little system (the Efika), but buggy as hell and waaaaaay underpowered. Sold it quick while I still could

[+DarkLord]

I mean, could you even PLAY an MP3 on an Amiga or ST, let alone in the background?

 

Oh yeah, do it all the time on my Miggy's and they still multi-task just fine (030 & 060 equipped Amigas that is). But speaking of the backwards thing: you just brought up a pinnacle of backwards technology: the mp3. Especially in this day and age of TB sized mass storage and the GB's we now work with in RAM. No excuse for listening to mp3's at all today - but we know where a lot of peoples standards have gone throughout the decades and a lot of peoples listening skills have been compromised to say the least.

 

But you brought up a lot of good points re: efficiency - not trying to argue. It's obvious that programmers have become "spoiled" with all the power they command at their fingertips and it shows by the inefficient and buggy garbage they're constantly writing updates and service paks for. I think the 'Net today and the coding for some of these sites are a great example of what I am trying to convey.

 

Ditton on the Falcon - I play MP3's all the time.

[FastRobPlus]

LOL! Yeah, I think it's way toned down now. Seems some of us left are pretty disparaged over the continuing Amiga Inc/Hyperion Technologies debacle, although some progress has been made of late. Still doesn't mean a darn thing though. For now, we just have to put up with overpriced mainboards for OS4.x and such. MANY are going the MorphOS route on G4 MacMini's and I even gave it a try on an Efika recently. Cute little system (the Efika), but buggy as hell and waaaaaay underpowered. Sold it quick while I still could

 

That's good to hear. I won't be back though. I'm hoping someday we get an English Language version of A1K.org

Edited December 11, 2009 by FastRobPlus

[+save2600]

 

Ditton on the Falcon - I play MP3's all the time.

 

Cool. I do think it's great that people are still using these things (Amiga's and ST's) for any practical applications. The Falcon really intrigues me. Too bad the system came too late and was not marketed well at all in the U.S. Re: mp3's though... I find it's easier, more efficient on the CPU load and sounds better just playing a good old fashioned CD through the system.

 

@FastRobPlus - I am envious of your boxed Amiga game collection! Wish I had more goodies to trade. I do have an internal CF/IDE68k board I'd be willing to trade for a boatload of 'em :-) Also, in case you care - the new buzz people are making a frickin' drama out of on A.org is the fact Wayne's getting out of it and there's a new SysOp/Owner that's choosing to remain anonymous for whatever reason. <sigh>

Edited December 11, 2009 by save2600

[+poobah]

Oh, a Mac fanboy.. :-) Yes, PARC had the GUI concept which "inspired" (shall we say) Apple.

I'd say the genius of the Mac is the .. er.. um.. Daleks.. Definately Daleks!!! Brilliant that!

Fanboy- Ha! Nope. I see computers are tools, some are more appropriate for certain tasks than others. I don't claim my screwdrivers are more valuable than my ratchet sets. In this room, powered up and doing stuff right now is a Mac Pro, 2 XP boxes and an Atari 800XL. Each of them is doing something they do best.

 

Apple's genius is in presentation... Consistent intuitive interfaces being a keystone of that philosophy. Regardless of your bias, you have to appreciate this. If not, you need more software design classes.

 

It mulitasked smoothly and effortlessly AND still multitasked when under severe percentage useage/load of resources (so Took MS until Vista to manage that!)

I was doing this on a 486/25 under OS/2 in the early 90's

And he was doing that in the late 80s, hence his point. OS/2 was pretty nice tho...

I was addressing the "Took MS until Vista to manage that!", you do of course, realize that OS/2 was a product of MS and IBM....

And having spent more than a few hours on a late 80's Amiga 1000 (in the late 80s no less) and not the '030 and up machines people use today, I'd respectfully disagree with "smoothly and effortlessly...under severe... load"

 

Yeah, he was way off on that one.. And there are no "s**t linux distros"!!!!

Well, RiscOS had a DOCK concept about the same time as NeXT. I get in the Linux vs BSD argument all the time with a co-worker, so that's a totally different religious war to avoid.

way off: see making accurate statements....

BSD: oh come now, BSD was an official Unix distribution. Didn't say one was better than the other, only clarifying the pedigree. BSD existed long before Linux (in fact Linus himself was only 8 when BSD was released), sorta makes it tough to call it a "s**t linux" distro

[+poobah]

Longer answer: Ever seen a 2 MHz 68K? (or perhaps a 16 MHz 6502) Yah, me neither. Apples and Oranges

In the case of later processors of the architecture (65C02 and 65816/802) there were/are (still used for some embedded applications iirc) available at speed close to or greater than 16 MHz. I think 68k had 4 MHz in its slowest rated model. (not that you couldn't clock it slower) And in 1987 the PC Engine was using a 7.16 MHz 65C02 derivative.

 

Even Longer Answer: The 68K has prefetch caches... it trades latency for throughput. Comparing execution of a single instruction on a 6502 vs a 68K is disingenuous at best. a 6502 is a building a entire car one at a time. The 68K is building cars on an assembly line. The 6502 gets 1 car quicker, but the 68K can crank out more on average than a 6502 ever will, but there's a delay until the first one comes off the line. All modern processors operate in this fashion.

 

OK, prefetch plus double the bus width makes up for 4x the access latency. (in one discussion it was mentioned that a 650x could edge ahead of a similarly clocked 68k with optimized 8-bit code and heavy use of zero-page)

 

Later processors and derivatives? seriously?

And of course, the 'special case'-- optimized 8-bit code and heavy use of zero-page...

 

Okay then, lets compare to a 68060 or PowerPC (they are, after all, derivatives of the 68k)

then, we'll use 80 bit floating point multiply and divide performance as our benchmark....

 

See the ridiculousness of it all?

 

The 6502 rocked in it's day, as did the 68K, but they were different days.

[+wood_jl]

I mean, could you even PLAY an MP3 on an Amiga or ST, let alone in the background?

 

Oh yeah, do it all the time on my Miggy's and they still multi-task just fine (030 & 060 equipped Amigas that is). But speaking of the backwards thing: you just brought up a pinnacle of backwards technology: the mp3. Especially in this day and age of TB sized mass storage and the GB's we now work with in RAM. No excuse for listening to mp3's at all today - but we know where a lot of peoples standards have gone throughout the decades and a lot of peoples listening skills have been compromised to say the least.

 

I'm on the fence with this MP3 thing. Granted, they vary greatly in quality, and it's not just "bitrate" as I've heard crappy 320k and "good" 128k files. Sure, I understand the criticism of them - and jpegs - but most people's ears just aren't that sensitive. Lots of "techie" types will crap on MP3s - but they can't sing a single note or hold a tune (tone deaf) and I think that's the real test of one's ear. If you're a good singer is a good listener. If they don't sound "clicky" or the volume is too low or high, and the tweeters are tweeting, the subwoofer is woofing, and the midranges are midranging.....I don't understand why they're so criticized, if they're encoded "correctly." At the same rate, you can look at a beautiful JPEG and some "spec guy" will shit all over it because it's "not raw" and is "lossy" even if it looks beautiful. They ALL don't, but many JPEGs look great and many MP3s sound great, at least to me. I guess a really sharp HDTV display can be criticized too, since it's not "raw."

 

Plus, some people have 500GB of MP3s and wouldn't want to buy more drives to store their music!! But I take your point!

 

I was unaware that Amiga and ST could play MP3. I remember reading some (non-techy) article that said "it would be a handful" for a 386 to play one....they were boasting of the "power" in an iPod (or something) and trying to relate it in terms of "PCs not that long ago couldn't (or could barely) do this..... Article may have been way off base, then.

[+wood_jl]

 

This is why I stopped visiting amiga.org about 5 years ago. Amiga fanatics need to let go and realise that it's never coming back. I'd love an "AmigaAge" type site where you can go to talk about all things Amiga with the understanding that it's a cool retro hobby.

 

LOL! 5 years is a long time to be away. Some of us aren't that far left of center

 

It's Atari 8-bit that's coming back. There are powerful web servers in beta right now, powered by 8-bit Ataris. Just you wait: Your Pentiums are about to be eclipsed.

[+save2600]

 

I was unaware that Amiga and ST could play MP3.

 

Here's a vid if you're interested in checking it out...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zMHjTwMxTI

[+DarkLord]

I was unaware that Amiga and ST could play MP3. I remember reading some (non-techy) article that said "it would be a handful" for a 386 to play one....they were boasting of the "power" in an iPod (or something) and trying to relate it in terms of "PCs not that long ago couldn't (or could barely) do this..... Article may have been way off base, then.

 

Stock ST's and Amiga's can't, afaik - some semi-rapid Amiga user can correct me on this if I'm wrong.

 

An 030 equipped Amiga, or a stock Atari Falcon can play MP3s though.

 

On my Falcon 060, running at 95mhz and with 256 megs of Ram, Aniplayer reports approx. 5-6% CPU usage

during MP3 play. Not bragging or anything like that, just posting for comparative/example purposes. I

think other accelerated Falcon users have reported even lower.