Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!apollo!rehrauer From: rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Atari TT 030 Launched! Keywords: Atari TT Message-ID: <4ae12be3.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> Date: 8 Jun 90 14:52:00 GMT References: <1990Jun5.143231.4977@watserv1.waterloo.edu> Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM Reply-To: rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) Distribution: na Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA Lines: 86 In article <1990Jun5.143231.4977@watserv1.waterloo.edu> pdbeam@watserv1.waterloo.edu (T.C.) writes: >THIS IS NOT AN ATARI PRESS RELEASE--I HAVE NO CONNECTION TO ATARI. >THE OPINIONS BELOW ARE MY OWN AND NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF U OF W. > > I went to the official North American launch of the Atari TT 030 last >night in Toronto. The TT 030 will be available in limited quantities in >Canada in late July/early August and fully available in September. The TT >will be officially launched in the US at Comdex in November. ^^^^^^^^ Everyone in the U.S., write down that date! > The expected price of the TT 030 >(2Mbytes, 40M hard disc) is under $4000 (CDN). This puts it well under the >Amiga 3000 in terms of price (the A3000 is under $4000 US). There are three A3000 configurations available (prices in US$): Retail Education A3000/16-40 $3299 $2179 A3000/25-40 $3999 $2619 A3000/25-100 $4499 $3059 The Educational Discount on the entry-level A3000 (I'll assume this is relevant to you, since you did say that you were an educator :), which includes a 16MHz '030, 16MHz '881 math processor (you say this is optional on the TT), 2Mb of RAM and 40Mb hard-drive, is significantly lower than the "estimated" list-price of the TT 030. US$440 more buys you a 25MHz '030 and '882 (better math-throughput than the '881). Atari MAY have an educational discount policy, depending on who you talk to and what lunar phase prevails at the time. In that case, the TT 030 may be cheaper than an A3000. On the other hand, Commodore HAS an educational discount policy, now, and will be happy to sell you a machine, now (well, next month for the A3000, though they'll happily take your money now :-). (No doubt I'll draw "We don't need no steenkin' Amiga's in this group!" flames, but you did invite the comparison yourself. Just wanted to give equal time to the competition. :-) >The TT 030 comes with TOS 2.0 which will be compatible with most existing ST >software. ST software runs about 1/3 faster on the TT 030. Ehh?? Why only 30% faster? Is that, "You should expect 30% overall increase in throughput, I/O included"? Seems like, unless your code is mostly I/O- bound, that you should get more than that just for the higher clock-rate. And having an instruction pipeline and cache on the '030 should definitely be a big win. What gives? >Atari made no mention of their marketing intentions to us, but then again we >were educators and they probably didn't think we'd be interested. I brought >the issue up with an Atari official and he told me they were addressing the >problem. Draw your own conclusions. I still don't get warm fuzzies that Atari knows what they want to do with this product. Or Can Do, even if they know. >I think Atari still have a lot of promises to keep (UNIX, hardware cards, >software), but if they do then I think the TT will be a strong machine with >good prospects in the future. It certainly gives the Mac II and A3000 (not to >mention Sun) a run for their money in terms of providing a platform for UNIX. "Ho ho ho." The TT competes in the same arena as the A3000. I question whether either is a "Plan B" for anyone considering the purchase of a Mac II, for the same reason that I doubt anyone who seriously contemplates buying a new Jaguar automobile would hop over to a nearby Honda dealer and comparison- shop a loaded Prelude. (Whether a Jag is a better car than a Prelude isn't the issue, at least not in a Jag-buyer's mind. Pooh-pooh if you will the "image" that hooks the Jag buyer, but it does sell the car. :-) And I REALLY doubt anyone looking at Suns would even glance in the direction of Atari or Commodore. Different markets. Atari would be retarded to try to sell into Sun's turf, coming as they do from a background in games and proprietary-OS'd personal machines, IMO. What it all comes down to, for me, is: Do I want something that will run TOS software? If so, and that assumes that I have an ST and want to dump it rather than keep it around, then the TT would make sense for me. But if I want to run Unix, if I have no financial/emotional investment in TOS software, if I want a Unix box for anything other than personal twiddling, then I'd be a lunatic to buy a TT from Atari, based on their schizo history with the ST product line in the U.S. market. -- >>"Aaiiyeeee! Death from above!"<< | (Steve) rehrauer@apollo.hp.com "Spontaneous human combustion - what luck!"| Apollo Computer (Hewlett-Packard)