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From: ekrimen@wet.UUCP (Ed Krimen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: STe
Message-ID: <1405@wet.UUCP>
Date: 1 Aug 90 05:01:13 GMT
Organization: Wetware Diversions, San Francisco
Lines: 80

Well, I bought my STe yesterday.  :^))
 
For those interested, these are brief thoughts (I'm a very simple 
thinker :^) on my first hours with my STe.  Actually, I have a lot of 
questions.  So, on with the show!
 
The whole purchase was kinda anti-climatic 'cause I was concerned 
that it might not work with my ICD hard drive, fitted with ICDBOOT
version 4.8.2.  But,...
 
I'm glad it works!  So far, at least.  To those who know a little 
more about problems with the STe and hard drives, how long will it
take for the bad signs to show, if they do?  Or should they show 
right away?  Before I sold my old 1040, I backed everything up, just
to be on the safe side when I got the STe.  When I attached the hard 
drive to the STe, I copied a full floppy of stuff to my hard drive to
check for the write-error; y' know, the one where the STe may drop two
bytes of everything.  Everything was okay.  Then I formatted the hard
drive and copied everything again, and it was okay.  I've even tried
formatting a disk in drive A: and it worked okay (BTW, what was
supposed to happen if it didn't?).  I've heard stories about not 
being able to format a disk in drive A: with the hard drive connected.
 
My second observation is that the screen isn't as bright as when it 
was attached to my other 1040.  No, it's not because the screen
brightness control on my monitor is changed, but the default white 
is a lot less bright.  When the computer is first switched on, the
screen is white like the other one for less than a second, but then
lowers in intensity and remains that way.  Are others like this, or is
it just mine?
 
Next, I get an awkward display when I hold down the reset button on 
the back.  The other 1040 just went white when I would hold the 
button down.  The STe produces a scrolling set of lines that looks 
like radio interference.  I know, you just have to press and release
the button to reset it, but I thought this was sort of strange.  
Again, are others like this, or just mine?  Yeah, yeah, I know that
all Atari computers of the same model aren't produced identically :^),
but I'm still curious if you think mine's acting weirdly.
 
This scared me: when I tried to install NeoDesk for the first time 
from the "Install Application" selection from the desktop, I didn't 
get the |Install| button.  I got |Remove| and |Cancel|, but no 
|Install|.  I did something later, and I got it to work.  Maybe I had 
an 'old' DESKTOP.INF file in my root directory, and that had 
something to do with it.
 
On a related note, during the first couple of hours of getting my STe 
home, I double-clicked on a program named CONV.TTP, and received a
Show, Print, Cancel dialog box.  Maybe I had an old DESKTOP.INF file 
and this was bothering it.  I remember Darek Mihocka mentioning this 
in his reviews of the STe.  I haven't seen the problem since that
first occurrence.
 
Next, aren't TOSs later than 1.4 (or is it 1.2?), supposed to turn 
off the floppy light automatically after the hard drive boots?  Mine
doesn't.
 
Yeah, I know this is a lot of questions, but I thought it might add 
some much-needed discussion in the ST arena.  "Who made me 
moderator?", you say?  It's a good thing I don't write reviews for
magazines.  :^)  BTW, this is being posted to comp.sys.atari.st and
Fidonet's Atari ST echo.  Users on both nets have the pleasure of
enjoying this twice!  OH BOY!  ;^)  And, for those who have had the 
STe's for quite a while, I'm sorry you have to wade through this.  
I've been trying to keep up with the info, but still have some more 
questions.  I appreciate your help.
 
On a positive note, this STe is great.  It's quick!  File writes, 
screen draws, everything.  It's one nice machine.  Wouldn't trade it 
for anything!  If you can upgrade, do it.  
 
(The following is just my opinion.  Any similarity to the truth is 
coincidental.  I hope flames get lost in the mail.)
 
Macs are not worth the money.  
MS-DOS should be featured on the HA! Channel. 
And, Amigas, well, multitasking IS nice -- but that's about it.  My 
multitasking will be limited to Mystic and STalker until GEM and TOS
multitasking comes out for the ST.