Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!inria!mirsa!avahi.inria.fr!colas
From: colas@avahi.inria.fr (Colas Nahaboo)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Time for a New Computer: Should it be an Atari ST?
Message-ID: <8488@mirsa.inria.fr>
Date: 23 Jul 90 12:44:58 GMT
References: <1990Jul20.162017.21823@chinet.chi.il.us>
Sender: news@mirsa.inria.fr
Reply-To: colas@avahi.inria.fr (Colas Nahaboo)
Organization: Koala Project, Bull Research France
Lines: 65

In article <1990Jul20.162017.21823@chinet.chi.il.us>,
megabyte@chinet.chi.il.us (Dr. Megabyte) writes:
> Several of my friends have recomended the Atari ST line as an "Upgrade"
> path from the CoCo 3.  The reasons:
> 
> 	High Quality Graphics
Poorer than VGA-PCs & amiga
> 	Mouse driven, graphic interface
Low quality one
> 	Ease of Use
For a computer hobbyist, yes
> 	Cost effective
> 	Relative ease of finding software
not anymore
> 	Good sound
Yuck! worse sound around.
> 	Good 'C' compilers available
Try to find an ANSI C or C++ compiler...
> 	Lot's of PD code
yes, if you read the news.
> 	Can read those messy-DOS disks
> 	Runs OS-9 (My prefered OS)
price/availability? + uncompatible disk format.

> It almost sounds like the CoCo 4 Tandy never came out with.  So here are my
> questions about the Atari ST line:

General problem: The atari ST is an endangered specie: It didn't sell enough
to get the critical mass to interest software companies. With no successor
(apart a vapourware TT which is already obsolete before being out), it will
be in the same situation as the CoCo3 in one year.

It is still a valid choice for some precise uses, for instance:

- as a multi-windowing terminal emulator, due to its superb mono screen, cheap
  price, and the "term" (uw-derived) terminal emulator. Our organisation,
  INRIA, did not buy any ascii terminal since 2 years, only STs.
  Drawback: horrible keyboard.

- as a game machine, for an european user (my use). In france it is cheap, so
  games are cheap.
  Drawback: Now, more and more of the better "adult" (strategic, simulations)
  games are developed on PCs, STs having all the flashpan kid arcade games.
  Exceptions: FTL and Bullfrog.

- Some specialized programs, such as calamus, are perhaps worth byuing an ST 
  for. But would you invest one year of your work on an exotic program, 
  incompatible with the rest of the world? Personaly I used my ST to do all
  the drawings of my thesis with easy-draw, but it was a pain to translate
  them to postscript for latex inclusion...

- for the unix user, you have emacs, Latex, some shells, tar, etc...
  before leaving work, I just do a "tar cf /dev/floppy ." on my unix box, take
  the disk home, and continue to edit my sork under microemacs on my ST at home

In my opinion, get a taiwanese 386 PC VGA compatible. That's the route I will
follow as soon as they will cost less than the price I payed my first ST,
about $1500 (now you have a 286 for this price). I had STs for the past three
years, enjoyed them, but their time is counted... The amiga may survive since
it has a credible successor with the A3000, but it is much more expensive than
PC-compatibles for non professional graphic uses.

Colas Nahaboo, Bull Research France -- Koala Project -- GWM X11 Window Manager
colas@avahi.inria.fr            Phone: (33) 93.65.77.70, Fax: (33) 93 65 77 66
INRIA - Sophia Antipolis, 2004, rte des Lucioles, 06565 Valbonne Cedex, FRANCE