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From: plinio@turing.seas.ucla.edu (Plinio Barbeito/;093091;allsites)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: New Apple Mac rumored...
Summary: Wait and see
Keywords: Mac Classic Educational Discounts
Message-ID: <1297@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 14 Oct 90 08:35:58 GMT
References: <6025@vice.ICO.TEK.COM>
Sender: news@SEAS.UCLA.EDU
Distribution: usa
Organization: SEASnet, University of California, Los Angeles
Lines: 55

In article <6025@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> keithr@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (U.D.M.) writes:
>The reason I am mentioning it here is because of the price.  The
>Classic configured with 2Mb and a 40Mb hard drive is priced at $1500
>or there abouts.
That compares favorably with the present educational discount price
I've seen for a Mac SE/30: $1849, and that's only for a machine with 1 Meg, 
a 1.4M floppy, but no keyboard, no HD. 

>Its going to make it awfully hard for the ST dealers to sell NEW
>customers on the ST.
If the customer is a student, I'd venture to guess that it's already darn
near impossible considering that one could get a 1M Mac Plus for $499 
(keyboard included)!  Of course, any mac without a HD is useless, and even 
with a HD, the mac plus is no speed demon...but most of the people buying 
probably won't think to ask probing questions about the maximum transfer 
speed of the SCSI port, whether the design of the port is non-standard or 
brain-damaged, whether they can actually USE the machine without HD, etc.

FYI, the price for the Mac SE with 2M, 40M HD, 1.44 drive, and 105 key keyboard
totals up to $1608.  Still uncharacteristically low for Apple -- they are 
probably going to phase these machines out, then make people pay a hefty
'upgrade' fee.  

>Now don't get me wrong.  I really like my ST.  I am just looking at
>this from a marketing point of view and the additional problems this
>COULD bring to the dwindling ST market and dealers.
Don't get me wrong either, I wouldn't use one of those macs if for no other 
reason than the fact that the screen is too tiny and would give me a 
headache, or be frustrated with too few columns of text on the screen.  
On the other hand, what size screen comes with the Classic? 

I like the fact that true, alternate, third-party operating systems are 
"allowed" on the ST.  Even *if* Apple's purportedly great System 7.0 comes 
out tomorrow, IMHO there's something inherently wrong with the idea that 
some other people always get to decide what O/S runs on the machine I paid for. 
(And don't mention A/UX as a choice, it's too buggy and slow, even on a IIcx)
If the implications of this haven't hit home, consider the example that a 
computer company might make the first ROM set for a new computer purposely 
slower, so that when the time comes to upgrade, the marketing literature 
can claim some kind of speed improvement.  If the possibility of writing  
your own operating system were available, then you (or a third party at least) 
would be able to see what speed the hardware is really capable of.

As far as purchasing decisions, it's too soon to call.  As far as whether 
it bodes well for Atari Corp...I just hope they can bring the TT out at a 
competitive price.  Judging from the prices we've seen so far (in Europe), 
they're going to need to do a good bit of slashing.  (Good news for 
prospective TT buyers?)


--plinio
Unrelated side note: I have been able to run gulam inside an mgr window 
by using the vt52 utility.  A few problems, mainly that gulam eats all of the 
mouse input.  However, the Alt-cursor key combinations can still move the 
mouse pointer.