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From: stephen@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Steve Whitney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Glendale Conference Impressions
Message-ID: <1991May1.180512.2572@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: 1 May 91 18:05:12 GMT
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In article <2623@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> plinio@babbage.seas.ucla.edu (Plinio Barbeito) writes:
`In article <12733@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> kiki@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jack W. Wine) writes:
`>First of all, thanks for the interesting report!
`No prob.  
`
`>>plinio@curtiss.seas.ucla.edu (Plinio Barbeito/) writes:
`>This is really puzzling news!  If Atari built a factory in Israel, it can't 
`>possibly be dedicated to only floppy controller chip production.  I may be
`
`Sorry to have implied that.  I don't know if it will be dedicated to
`that sole purpose.  That's all that Bob mentioned about it, though.

I didn't think he said it would be a factory.  Sounded to me like they had
hired people to reverse engineer the WD1772 and do a layout for one that
would run faster.

`>Atari might be better off ordering 10,000 or so SCSI floppies and offering them
`
`I agree, WD and plants in Israel may go away (Scud? :-) ), but SCSI is 
`here to stay (well, at least SCSI-2 is).
`
`However, I think that if the 20.8M 3.5" drives read 720K and 1.44 Meg
`floppies, Atari should skip the whole lot and offer that instead.  
`If, as you mention, everyone had this standardized quasi-harddisk 
`capability, new software writers wouldn't be pressed to fit everything 
`into a few disks, lowering development time and keeping the cost of good 
`software low.  It would raise the cost of small software, until the 
`21M floppies come down in price, but it would simplify backups without
`requiring the purchase of a tape drive.  Would I go so far as to say,
`skip the 20.8's and go on to Syquest?  I can't stick those things in a
`shirt pocket, or in a folder, for that matter.  IMHO, 5.25" is a step 
`backwards.

Well, it would do more than that.  As Bob mentioned, parts of GEMDOS (BIOS
and/or XBIOS?) are closely wed to that controller.  If they used a new
controller, it would be very difficult to make it appear to be the WD1772,
and software that talks to the contorller would also fail.

`>It seems like a short-term and expensive decision, because many people believe
`>the benefits of the SCSI intelligence would cause manufacturers to leave out the
`>floppy controller chip in future systems.
`
`I think Atari has an (unfounded?) fear of disk incompatibility with
`the current base of software.  True, the last thing they need is for 
`the software base to be shrinking. If they maintain the same controller
`for 720K-2.8M, they probably think it will be easier to solve 
`any compatibility problems.  Yes, it seems like building a new plant is
`more of a risk than using a (possibly?) incompatible 20.8M drive.
`However, if EC turns into "Fortress Europe", and Atari is caught
`without a more local plant by 1992, they could see their primary 
`market disappear...  Also, does selling duty-free to Europe mean they
`can get around the 15% Value Added Tax (ouch)?
`

Another problem is that Western Digital told ATari that there would no longer
be a WD1772.  What do you put in 1040STEs?  SCSI floppies would be awfully
expensive for a low-end machine.

`--
`----- ---- --- -- ------ ---- --- -- - -  -  plinio@seas.ucla.edu 
`I speak for myself, not for my employer.  I am a bad ventriloquist, anyway.


-- 
  Steve Whitney - UCLA CS Grad Student                       (())_-_(())
 Soon to be working at Silicon Graphics                       | (* *) | 
     Internet: stephen@cs.ucla.edu          UCLA Bruin-->    {  \_@_/  }
          GEnie:    S.WHITNEY                                  `-----'