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4. Blitter
=======
The Blitter, introduced in 1988 by Atari to massively speed up VDI
copy and move operations, is NOT present in the TT.
The TT does not have a Blitter.
This makes sense in some way, as the CPU in the TT is a lot
faster when it comes to copying blocks around the memory than the
CPU in the ST is. If source and/or destination are even located in
TT-RAM, which the Blitter could not access anyway, the speed gain
is even more massive.
TOS 3.0x therefore does not offer Blitter-based VDI-routines. All
attempts to access the Blitter will crash the TT.
Compatibilities and incompatibilities
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=> In comparison to the Atari ST and Atari STE:
The ordinary ST usually does not have a Blitter (only the Mega ST
series has a Blitter), the STE does have a Blitter. In the ST
(where present) or STE, the Blitter does mean quite a speed-up.
However, if you are trying to program the ST or STE in a
TT-compatible way, you may not use the Blitter.
=> In comparison to the Atari Falcon030:
The Atari Falcon030 does have a Blitter, and for most copy
operations, the Falcon-Blitter, even though it's operating at 16
Mhz, is a factor of 3 to 4 slower than the CPU is on the same
operations. Therefore, it is usually not adviseable to use the
Blitter in the Falcon anyway. To program the Falcon in a
TT-compatible and efficient way, you may not use the Blitter.
=> What to look for when writing ST programs:
No Blitter in the TT. That's all to mind.
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