Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!hyc
From: hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: STs and Colleges: A Proposal
Keywords: st, universities, colleges, minix,unix
Message-ID: <10677@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu>
Date: 17 Jan 90 22:10:13 GMT
References: <481784b3.14a1f@force.UUCP>
Sender: news@math.lsa.umich.edu
Reply-To: hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu)
Organization: University of Michigan Math Dept., Ann Arbor
Lines: 53
UUCP-Path: {mailrus,umix}!um-math!hyc

In article <481784b3.14a1f@force.UUCP> covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) writes:
>
>	I have proposed this idea to John Townsend on GEnie
>and both he and an Atari employee named Elizabeth Shook have
>responded to it. But I thought that I would like to bounce it across
>the USENET hoping that someone might pick it up and run with it.
>
>Anyway, there is a lot of interest in UNIX and C at most colleges and
>univeristies today. Most schools which teach Computer Science (comp sci)
>also teach UNIX and C. And what is really needed is a Cheap, Hackable
>UNIX machine. I have asked John Townsend @ Atari why Atari doesn't
>bundle a Mega ST2 with a 65 meg drive, a monochrome monitor, and MINIX.
>This package could be sold to college students across the USA at under
>$2500. this would be the cheapest UNIX development system available. 

I think this is an *excellent* idea. There are some problems, though.
I'd love to see a big Atari presence here in Ann Arbor, but I doubt it
can ever happen, the IBMs and Macs have been here too long and are
literally everywhere. Since most students have free access to the Mac
labs, very few actually need to buy their own systems, even though
indulging parents tend to buy them anyway.

The real problem I see here is that we've already got Apollos and PCs
and such up the wazoo. I don't know about other universities, but I'd
figure any other place with a comp sci/comp eng program is already in
the same position as well, i.e., they've sunk their money into other
hardware already.

Not to dampen the idea, it may still work. After all, the operating
systems classes here recently switched to using Minix on PCs. I think
the system you describe sounds ideal. Get programmers working on a
machine with a real architecture, as opposed to the silly 64K segments
you're bound to on PCs...

[Geeze, I guess I should get onto GEnie some more to catch this sort
of discussion... Sigh.]

So Atari doesn't have a sales force to do it, but would support someone
else's efforts, eh? Hm. It seems to me that you'd have to be at least
as large as Atari Inc. already, to be able to field all the support staff
that you're inevitably going to be called upon to supply. [The folks
around here bought into Macs big-time, sight unseen, because they were
reputed to be so user-friendly and intuitive. They figured they'd save
zillions by not needing to provide consulting/support services. They
learned otherwise, the hard way...]

Even if you present it as a hacker's system, you're going to get dubious
responses unless you can demonstrate sufficient competent support.
Dunno how you'll get that. It seems it'd take a big organization to even
get a U to start talking to you.
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