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From: felner@b.inf.ethz.ch (Tomas Felner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: TT desktop & prices
Keywords: TT desktop prices TOS
Message-ID: <6648@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
Date: 8 Sep 90 09:27:07 GMT
Sender: news@neptune.inf.ethz.ch
Lines: 72

Today I finally had a chance to see the 32MHz TT live on a big trade show
here in Switzerland.

What impressed me most and what seems not to be known so far to the general
public, is the new TT desktop. Do you like shells like NeoDesk and Gemini?
Well, now you can have most of their functionality on your TT, in the
official Atari TT TOS. Here are some first impressions from the new desktop
after playing around with the TT for about an hour:

- quite a few new menu entries have been added in the desktop
- most (or all?) menu entries can be invoked with a single keystroke and
  those keys are user configurable
- you can assign a full pathname to the function keys and thus invoke your
  favourite programs with a single function key keystroke
- you can now have an unsorted index (nice for auto folders)
- you can choose the background color from a menu entry
- there's a menu entry 'Desktop Configuration' where you can set and
  configure quite a few things, which I don't all remember
- you can select a number of logical drives and then search for a
  file/folder on all those drives. When the search was successfull, a
  window with the file/folder opens. And this search is very fast!
- you can read another .INF file and thus change the look of the desktop
- you can switch between several different color tables
- you can have a different border, text and background color for each part
  of a window (like close button, expand button, title bar, vertical scrollbar,
  left arrow, up arrow, etc ...)
- you can drag any files on the desktop, leave them there, assign different
  icons to them, and give them different names (i.e. move the 1stWord icon to
  the upper left corner, change the icon to something cute looking, and name
  it "Wordprocessor")
- those icons apparently can be edited somehow and you can add you own ones
  (I didn't see this but someone told me)
- there's a completely new control accessory with many new options
- there's a new and fast GDOS
- and probably there's a lot more I didn't find out about ...

I really liked all those new features. I am only surprised that no one ever
mentioned this so far. How come? The version I played with was in German.
Maybe it's a product of Atari Germany and not yet available in English, but
I have no idea? Anyway, congratulations to those Atari hackers (Ken, Alan ?)
who came up with this!!! 

But now for the big question: Are those poor users who cannot afford to get a
TT also going to see this new desktop on their 520, 1040 and Megas? If the
answer is yes, when is this going to be the case?


And here comes an answer to the question 'How much will I pay for a TT?'. 
The following are the official prices from Atari Switzerland. The TT is
supposed to start selling these days here in Switzerland (and also in
Germany I think).  (US$ 1.- = SFr. 1.30)

Basic set:  TT, 68030, 32MHz, 40MB disk, 720KB floppy, mouse, keyboard

Basic set with  4MB: SFr. 4990.-  (US$ 3850.-)
                6MB: SFr. 5690.-  (US$ 4380.-)
                8MB: SFr. 6290.-  (US$ 4850.-)

Extra: PTC1426  Multysync color screen, 14"       SFr 990.-  (US$ 760.-)
       PTM146   Monochrome screen, 14"            SFr 330.-  (US$ 250.-)
       TTM194   Monochrom screen, 19", 1280x960   SFr 1890.- (US$ 1450.-)

So a 4MB, multisync system is approx US$ 4600.-
   a 8MB, multisync system is approx US$ 5600.-

Now I am curious about the reactions to all this information ... :-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomas Felner, felner@inf.ethz.ch

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated to Atari at all. I am just a user who
reports to the net what he has seen on a big trade show in Switzerland.