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From: kawakami@volcano.Berkeley.EDU (John Kawakami)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga/Atari help
Summary: More blab crap
Message-ID: <35371@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 8 Apr 90 09:41:24 GMT
References: <40345@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <10365.2619c11a@zeus.unomaha.edu> <1990Apr5.191157.7522@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
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Reply-To: kawakami@volcano.Berkeley.EDU (John Kawakami)
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In article <1990Apr5.191157.7522@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> you write:
>In article <40345@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, jkain@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jeffrey Kain) writes:
>
>	One other consideration you should have in choosing which
>computer to buy: which one is selling? The Amiga is selling very well,
>and sales are only increasing. Atari has had to continuously drop
>their prices to make their machines sell. Yes, you'll get a cheaper
This is NOT TRUE.  Since 1986, when we bought a 1040 w/monitor, the
_retail_ price has gone down $100.  The street price seems to have
gone down less.  What DID happen that might give you that impression
is that Atari "unbundled" the monitors and consoles, and introduced
the 520STfm (the one with the floppy).  "Instantly" the prices of
the machines dropped $175 and $300 (the bundled prices of the monitors)
and the price of the 520+drive configuration dropped because the drive
went from being external to internal.

What I've found surprising is that the price of the ST has basically
NOT DROPPED in four years.  If I were Atari, I'd be slashing prices like
mad and attempting to Super VLSI the ST and shrink board space.  There
is enough software out there that a real cheap ST could really eat up
some serious Amiga and Apple2GS market share.  I'd give up genlock and
all those colors to save real $$ and get some good software.

Meanwhile, Atari is in homeostasis in an industry where growth is imperative!
You need to sell hardware to sell software to make money for authors who
help you sell more hardware...

>machine, but IMHO at least it won't be well supported a year from now.
>Maybe the STacy and the TTs (whenever they come out) will change
>things, but I doubt it.
>
>
>	-- Ethan
>
>Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
>
>"If Commodore had to market sushi they'd call it `raw cold fish'"
>		-- The Bandito, inevitably stolen from someone else


John Kawakami       kawakami@earthquake.berkeley.edu
                    ucbvax!earthquake.berkeley.edu!kawakami
                    take-a-right-up-the-hill-then-a-left-on-leroy