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From: rosenkra@convex1.convex.com (William Rosencranz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Atari slanders Micro RTX and MT C-Shell
Message-ID: <104658@convex.convex.com>
Date: 6 Aug 90 18:14:55 GMT
References: <4236@bdt.UUCP> <104640@convex.convex.com> <1990Aug6.022523.26967@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Sender: usenet@convex.com
Organization: Convex Computer Corporation; Richardson, TX
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In article <1990Aug6.022523.26967@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gl8f@astsun8.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes:
>In article <104640@convex.convex.com> rosenkra@convex1.convex.com (William Rosencranz) writes:
>
>>[i mentioned that alot of comparisons of micros are based on numbers, not
>> software]
>
>Actually, someone from Atari talked a little about their marketing
>thoughts and the TT. It has 2 major markets:
>
>1) upgrade for the existing ST "power user". You can run most all ST
>   software on it, so there's your software base.

absolutely true, though based on the prices and performace i have seen
here, which are RUMORS until the machine comes out, as greg correctly
points out below, i don't think i'll plunk down $3-5k for 2-3x
performance boost unless i really needed VME or some other attribute on
the TT that the ST otherwise lacks.

>2) low-end Unix workstation. For many government bids, source-level
>   compatibility is all that's required. For other bids, you don't
>   need to bid lots of software, depending on the niche you're
>   trying to attack. For example, my department only bought 2
>   pieces of software for our Suns: FORTRAN and IDL.

true again. often these contracts go to the lowest bidder and atari
could have a shot here, depending on perceived quality of the company
doing the bid. often this includes training, maintenance, etc, and
to my knowledge, atari does not have the chops here that say an ibm
or a sun or a dec would have, though for that very reason they could
offer a low bid.

>   For the rest of the market, they do have a developer's program
>   which requires you to cough up $$ up front but allows you to buy
>   hardware for cheap. I don't have any idea how many software
>   people are taking advantage of this.

i have, and in general have been satisfied with the support and certainly
the price of equipment. i can't complain. i have gotten upgrades,
access to private areas on GEnie and CIS, some documentation upgrades,
etc. the squeaky wheel gets the grease :-)

>As usual, we aren't going to find out what's really going on until the
>TT hits the shelves. We can sit around all day guessing about things we
>don't know, and we won't get anywhere.

bingo...

-bill
rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com

Bill Rosenkranz            |UUCP: {uunet,texsun}!convex!c1yankee!rosenkra
Convex Computer Corp.      |ARPA: rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com