Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!wugate!uunet!sjsca4!greg From: greg@sj.ate.slb.com (Greg Wageman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Time to create comp.sys.atari.flames (was Re: RE: Vapourware!!!) Message-ID: <1989Nov14.182847.9376@sj.ate.slb.com> Date: 14 Nov 89 18:28:47 GMT References: <1989Nov8.182505.11625@uunet!unhd> <23996@cup.portal.com> Reply-To: greg@sj.ate.slb.com (Greg Wageman) Distribution: na Organization: Schlumberger ATE, San Jose, CA Lines: 63 Opinions expressed are the responsibility of the author. In article <23996@cup.portal.com> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes: >Anthony Lapadula states: > >>(1) I do resent being told in late '85 that my 1040ST would indeed >>be able to use the Blitter, which, of course, was due out RSN. Don't >>know if I should blame my dealer or Atari, but the example stands. > >Sam Tramiel, President of Atari Corp promised, on a TV show called something >like "the Computer Show" that all STs would have a blitter upgrade made >available... something like a year later, Atari finally admitted the lie, >and made the excuse that the FCC wouldn't let them do it... I'm getting really disgusted with the endless stream of message like this one appearing in this group. I've seen hardly a single message with anything like technical content, tips, hints, programming help, etc. Perhaps it's time to creat comp.sys.atari.gripes or comp.sys.atari.flames... There is quite a long way between a company stating an intention to (attempt to) provide something, and an actual product offering. If you've any experience in the Real World (tm), Mr. Retelle, you'd know that in this imperfect world we must work in, sometimes things prove technically infeasable. Sam Tramiel isn't an engineer. The only thing he could be faulted for is making a statement before checking with his technical people about its feasability. Even then, he might have been told it was technically possible, but his engineers didn't think of the FCC certification issue. Atari isn't the first, and won't be the last corporation to have sales or marketing promise something that engineering couldn't deliver for reasons that didn't become evident until later. The 520 and 1040 case designs are very RF-leaky. It was because of this that they were sold in the US without the RF modulator: they simply couldn't pass the FCC Certification test with a modulator. My understanding is that the 1040 is very close to violating the emissions standard. Adding a blitter to the design would require re-certification, and would not pass. It is not surprising to anyone with a little bit of electronics knowledge that retrofitting another processor into a design may cause that design to exceed some parameter like RF emissions. Atari addressed this problem when they designed the Mega STs. The sealed case design allows much better control of RF emissions than does the vented design of the 520's and 1040's. The Megas are FCC certified with 4 megabytes of RAM, and with blitters. If you want a blitter, Mr. Retelle, buy a Mega ST, which were engineered with them in mind. Is it just me, or are others in this group tired of reading postings that sound like little children throwing tantrums because mommy didn't give the toy she promised? "But you SAAAAAID I could have it! You PROMMMISED! Waaaah!" Grow up, will you? Copyright 1989 Greg Wageman DOMAIN: greg@sj.ate.slb.com Schlumberger Technologies UUCP: {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!greg San Jose, CA 95110-1397 BIX: gwage CIS: 74016,352 GEnie: G.WAGEMAN Permission granted for not-for-profit reproduction only.