need more than the 48K board.) Axlon makes a
memory board called Ramdisk,
which
simulates
a disk drive and
is
very
fast.
Again, this com-
ponent
is
elegant
in
design
but
of
limited
use
. If
either
of
these products intrigues you, contact
the manufacturer for more
details.
Other
Peripherals
In
addition
to
the peripherals already men-
tioned, there are numerous pieces
of
equipment
you can
buy
that
allow
you
to
use
your
com-
puter
in
different ways.
CP/M
Option
One item
that
many Atari hobbyists have been
wishing for
is
a CP/M option for Atari systems.
CP/M
is
actually a control program,
known
as
an
operating system,
that
generally runs on com-
puters
which
use
a chip called a Z80
as
their
main
processor.
The
Atari CP/M module
is
actual-
ly
a separate computer
that
uses
your
Atari com-
puter
as
a keyboard and can read and store in-
formation
to
and from
your
Atari's disk drives.
By
using the CP/M module, Atari users
will
have
more software programs
available
to
them, since
many programs need the
CP/M operating sys-
tem in order
to
run.
Voice
Synthesis
Voice synthesis, the electronic creation
of
speech,
is
an interesting and amusing area in
which
to
tinker. The Alien
Group
Voice
Box"
is
a
voice synthesis system
that
plugs right into
your
Atari system (no
850
interface required). While
not
much commercial software has
yet
been
189