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From: Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Atari at CES (was Illegal Editing, ...)
Message-ID: <30662@cup.portal.com>
Date: 10 Jun 90 06:20:02 GMT
References: <30566@cup.portal.com> <1990Jun7.175459.9298@cbnewsc.att.com>
Distribution: na
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 83

Kit Kimes writes:
>>From article <30566@cup.portal.com>, by Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com:
>> (Well, there really isn't much else to talk about.. Atari made a really
>> dismal showing at CES, and the STe is delayed again...)
 
>I disagree that Atari made a dismal showing at CES.  They had a nice
>booth, it was generally as crowded as Sega and Nintendo and at least
>they were featuring the ST to some extent which is a change from the
>last couple of years.     ...
 
Well, yes... it was nice that they were there, and that they didn't have the
STs hidden away in the back alley behind the booth as in previous years...
 
And it was nice that the booth said "Atari Computer" in big letters, even
though the booth was 90% game machines...
 
And it was nice that it was crowded, even though most of the crowd was
playing Lynx video games, and the crowding was due more to the smallness of
the booth and the poor layout than to the excitement generated by what was
being shown...  (the Nintendo booth, easily the largest booth in the entire
show was actually *less* crowded than Atari's, even though there were
many, MANY times more people in there...)
 
It was nice that there were a couple of STes there, even though they weren't
identified in any way...  no signs saying "NEW!"  or "INTRODUCING: STe" or
"Atari makes real Computers!" or anything at all...   they were sitting
below signs that said "Advantage", which had nothing to do with anything...
 
It was nice that there was a Turbocharger hooked up to an ST, even though
there was no sign or anything telling about all the advantages of the
emulation available for Atari computers..  it was even running MS-DOS
sometimes when it wasn't running games...  (In fact, I almost missed that
there were STes there at all until I noticed that the XE-Game System light
guns were plugged into their left sides... you had to already know that's
how the STe hooks up, or you'd never know there was anything special about
the computers... Atari sure wasn't telling anyone by the display...)
 
It was nice that they had the ramcard drive for the Portfolio, even if the
most notable feature of that display was the Macintosh computer that was
sitting next to the Atari PC clone...  (no, they weren't pushing the Atari
PC clone itself, just the link to the Portfolio)  ... That was it for new
hardware at this CES... just the ramcard drive and the STe (which they seemed
to want to keep as anonymous as possible...)
 
It was nice that they introduced a handfull of new games for the Lynx, a
few of them even to be available this summer...  of course Nintendo and Sega
and NEC were showing literally  *hundreds*  of new games for their systems,
both from the parent companies and from dozens of third-party producers...
 
Oh.. and it's nice that they're still thinking about releasing the Advantage
package... someday...   
 
>2) There is still some questions remaining on the package.
>One school of thought is that everything in the package should be
>low-rez so that people could use their TV and not worry about which
>programs they can read and which they can't.  On the other hand, 
>some of the programs that Atari wants to include require the mono
>monitor.  There might be two packages, one including a mono monitor.
 
 ...in other words, they STILL don't know what they're doing with it...
not the kind of thing to instill much confidence in dealers or distributors
wanting to order real products to try to sell...  (of course, Commodore had
a really nice display of the A500 package they're pushing now...)
 
 
What I don't understand is that Atari has used the excuse in the past that
it can take $500,000 to put on a CES display, for times when they didn't
show up...   so why, when they do decide to spend the money, don't they use
it more effectively, or hire someone who knows what they're doing to do
it for them...?
 
OK, maybe dismal doesn't describe Atari's showing at CES... 
maybe "Ho-Hum... was Atari there?" would be better...?
 
 
BobR
 
 
(Hey... contrary to what anyone might think, I'm *NOT* happy that Atari
made a dismal showing...   I'd love to be able to report that the STe was
the hit of the show and that Atari put on a dazzling display to introduce
it...  but it wasn't, and they didn't, and I came away feeling let down...
...again...)