Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think!snorkelwacker!mit-eddie!apollo!rehrauer
From: rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: TT availablity
Message-ID: <481762d6.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 17 Jan 90 16:33:00 GMT
References: <25628@brunix.UUCP> <5343@blake.acs.washington.edu>
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Reply-To: rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer)
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Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA
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In article <5343@blake.acs.washington.edu> ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) writes:
>On December 27th, I posted an article about the "show and deliver"
>policy of Atari's:  New products will be shipped within 90 days of
>an announcement.  At least, this is what i understand Atari's "new"
>policy to be.  I gather the Dusseldorf "show" of August 25th 1989 was
>NOT an announcement, as there are zero TT's being shipped to dealers
>in Europe.  I did get personal mail from an inside Atari engineer
>saying that the Dusseldorf "announcement" stated a 1st quarter '90 
>release.  We've still got 8 weeks or so before the end of the quarter.
>However, the very same engineer made it perfectly clear that the TT was
>still being designed.  Furthermore, if one calls Atari Developer's 
>support, one discovers that the TT developer's kit is unavailable.
>This all leads to very interesting and disappointing conclusions.

At this point, I think Atari's policy should be to not say ANYTHING
until a product is actually shipping.  _Shipping_, not on the boat from
Singapore, not in final FCC clearance, not in Beta sites, not prototyped,
not in design; but really and actually going out the door to end-users or
dealers or whomever.  "This is our official announcement of model XYZZY.
You want one?  Call this number, give us a VISA #, and it'll be UPS'd
to you the next day."  No, I don't think all (or even most) companies
do or should do this.  But Atari has a lot of skeptics, including me.
Maybe this would silence a lot of them.

Personally, I still don't expect to see a TT here, on the East Coast,
until mid-summer at earliest.  I hope Atari proves me wrong, of course,
and ships the dang things next week, and they wow everyone & cause peace
and prosperity & cost $500. :>

>A friend of mine is visitng for a week to finish up a development
>project we are working on together.  He brought his Mac SE/30.  
>Very nice..  hmmm... and seeing how cheap these things are getting..
>hmm..

I wish Apple and Atari (or someone, aka "Dave Small" perhaps :-) would
get together to make low-cost, lower-end Macs.  Let Apple chase the fast
'030 and '040 designs, and let someone else make a Mac of reasonable
performance that I can afford; say, an SE/20 for under $1500.  (Oh
please don't tell me about the Spectre GCR; I already know about it.)
Just a wish.
--
>>"Aaiiyeeee!  Death from above!"<< | Steve Rehrauer, rehrauer@apollo.hp.com
   "Flee, lest we be trod upon!"    | The Apollo System Division of H.P.