Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac!csuchico.edu!ekrimen From: ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Atari Mortis Keywords: history, cheerleading, admonitions Message-ID: <1991May20.024743.12954@ecst.csuchico.edu> Date: 20 May 91 02:47:43 GMT References: <4528@bnr-rsc.UUCP> <1991May19.035413.14005@chinet.chi.il.us> Sender: news@ecst.csuchico.edu (USENET) Organization: California State University, Chico Lines: 58 In article <1991May19.035413.14005@chinet.chi.il.us> saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) writes: >I just did a bit of comparison shopping. Sure enough, in selected applications, >the TT beats the pants off anything based on an Intel chip. In a lot of >other applications, it runs pretty much even with a 25 MHz 80486. And the >price is in the 80386 range. Leaves it a very good hardware buy. But the So you say "speed without the speed price," right? Hold that thought. >software situation stinks. You just don't see the exuberant blossoming of >neat programs to do stuff you wouldn't do with a computer except you wanted to >find another thing to do with it. You see programs in important niches compete The software situation does smell pretty bad. I use Macs a lot for graphics, and I can probably list about 10 packages off the top of my head with plenty more I've never seen. The Atari arena doesn't have this diversity. People always say that there's not much software selection in the ST community. What kinds of stuff would people, not just you Stephen, be interested in? It seems we have a ton of utility packages, but very few applications. >on lack of bugs, rather than neat features. Configurability is a problem too: >not that the other name-manufacturers are any nicer about selling you the >machine the way you want it set up, but Atari is the last holdout for LITTLE >boxes: if the standard configuration doesn't have what you want, you either >hang it outboard, or (in the case of a disk drive, in particular) replace the >one it came with. No room to add stuff. Pizza boxes are great as network >leaves, but for the one-and-only, lots of room to grow is comforting. Here's where the 'speed without the speed price' comes in. One of the ways that Atari keeps the prices of their computers low is by making them unexpandible internally. I don't understand why this is exactly, but adding slots for cards and stuff drastically adds the price to a product. I don't know why making a case a bit bigger with a few ports on the *inside* would raise the price of a product but it does. (This theory doesn't apply in the MS-DOS world because there's so much competition, it lowers the price of the products.) It's not just Atari, but other manufacturers lower their prices for machines that are more unexpandible than others. NeXT cube vs. slab. Amiga 500 vs. 2000. Mac IIsi vs. ci. (Please let me know if you see holes in this theory. :^) > For the future, the notebooks look like super-neat machines (I have some >problems figuring out how to market them, but that's not a technical issue). >A successor to the ATW could give Atari a visible presence in education and >research. The Mega STe looks kinda lonesome at 16 MHz: if the other STe-s >ran that fast, they'd be real challengers in home and small businesses. The STe is fine at 8Mhz. The only thing holding it back is marketing from Atari. A home machine doesn't need to be 16Mhz, although I know everyone would like to have a 16Mhz machine for the same price as their 8Mhz. -- ||| Ed Krimen [ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu or al661@cleveland.freenet.edu] ||| Video Production Major, California State University, Chico / | \ SysOp, Fuji BBS: 916-894-1261 ONE WEEK UNTIL GRADUATION!!