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Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!agate!web-1c.berkeley.edu!laba-1aj
From: laba-1aj@web-1c.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Comment on the portable spectre gcr
Message-ID: <1989Sep13.193947.21747@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 13 Sep 89 19:39:47 GMT
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From agate!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!leah!
 csd4.csd.uwm.edu!marque!carroll1!dnewton Wed Sep 13 12:15:43 PDT 1989

%In article <872@cuphub.cup.edu> kar7481@cuphub.cup.edu (HI HO-HI HO - IS UNIX THAT GREAT? YOU KNOW?) writes:
%>GOAL: Introduce ST's to the collegiate environment via Spectre-GCR Mac Emultr.
%
%   I've had direct dealings with Atari on the feasability on this.  The basic
%feeling is it's a very good idea, get a STacy w/ GCR for a portable Mac.  The
%concern most people have with this idea is the lack of an AppleTalk interface.
%this limits it's usefullness to a heavily-networked environment.

Atari should develop an AppleTalk interface right away.  Portable mac clone
announcements are getting pretty common, and Apple's entry is imminent.  IMHO,
for the casual and middle level applications user, the STacy+SpectreGCR
combo would be the cheapest (read: most reasonable) mac clone.  However,
I know of one company which has taken a page from Gadgets By Small and
announced a clone which requires that the user obtain mac ROMs and plug it
into the computer.  This may not sound worlds apart from the ST+GCR package,
but it is: the other machine offers Appletalk, it is probably upgradeable to
256K ROMs, and it probably takes a 68030 optionally.  I'd expect other
mac clone makers to make machines with these features.  And if I recall,
the entry systems wil be around $3000.

What I'm getting to is that Atari and GBS had better speed things up and/or
synchronize the releases of their respective products.  If they don't they
will lose potential sales of Stacys and GCRs to more agile mac clones.

&  John Kawakami
&  laba-1aj@web.berkeley.edu
&