Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!qantel!lll-lcc!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccivax!rb From: rb@ccivax.UUCP Newsgroups: net.micro.atari16 Subject: Re: What next for the ST? Message-ID: <492@ccivax.UUCP> Date: Wed, 19-Mar-86 13:09:18 EST Article-I.D.: ccivax.492 Posted: Wed Mar 19 13:09:18 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 23-Mar-86 00:39:22 EST References: <8603092319.AA12627@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> <465@ccivax.UUCP> <2807@reed.UUCP> Reply-To: rb@ccivax.UUCP (What's in a name ?) Organization: CCI Telephony Systems Group, Rochester NY Lines: 74 Summary: Standards please!!! In article <2807@reed.UUCP> rosalia@reed.UUCP (Mark Galassi) writes: >>When is the PC industry gonna "Grow up" and adopt even minimal standards? >>Does IBM have to do everything??!!! > >Don't praise IBM. Who's praising IBM??? >Maybe their new RISC machine >will finally be a good product, but that is not an attempt to establish >standards. I haven't heard much good about the RISC machine. Who cares, this is Atari group anyway right? :-). What I am upset about is the appearant contempt for even minimal standards between Atari, Commodore, and Apple. This appears to be changing, Apple is putting SCSI on the Mac, Commodore is considering adopting NAPLPS as a file storage/transfer format. What is Atari doing??? The sooner some simple standards for peripherals, software, and data formats are adopted, the better. In most other Consumer Electronics industries, standards have made it possible for each company to capitalize on their particular strengths. Atari makes some good computers, but on the 800 line, only Atari peripherals can be used. Even a "generic" modem required the 850 interface box. To be fair, the main reason I like the Atari 520-ST is because they DID attempt to put some very good standards in their machine. DRI wrote the operating system (better than CP/M68K), they built in the RS-232 and Centronics (with adapter cable) interface, and used a well vectored OS rather than leaving people to go poking and jumping into strange ROM vectors. Good job Atari!!!:-) What has me concerned is the "Upgrade Path" for this and future machines. Another concern is that I might get tied to Atari's trade-off choices. If Atari comes out with a fully supported SCSI interface, we'll have the choice of over 100 mass storage devices, including removable, winchester, and tape drives. Maybe the SCSI command set isn't complete enough to be truly generic yet? I can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect of buying a 520 only to discover that the 1040 makes the 520 obsolete, or that the TT series will make the ST series obsolete. In the Byte interview the guy said that upgrading the 1040 to 4 meg would be "Trivial". Yes it will be trivial to add the extra two pins to the design and manufacture process, but don't expect to be able to simply plug in 1 meg chips and have 2 or 4 meg. Expect to have to buy a NEW MACHINE :-(. Don't expect software vendors to stick to 512K either, unless Atari starts making concurrency available, along with a real MMU, the applications will grow to fit the available memory. In other words, unless you upgrade, your 520 may be obsolete in another 6 months. According to some reports, the ST is really only the TERMINAL for their "Real" "Personal Mini" TT computer. Is that another $1000? Notice the CPU is soldered in? Ever tried de-soldering a 64 pin chip? Notice the RAM is also soldered in? Notice there is no header for a Piggy-Back RAM board? I would hope that these were oversights rather than deliberate choices. All of these choices together might have added $100 to the purchase price. It would have been worth it considering the alternative is either a lot of manual "hot wiring" or buying a new computer every six months. Even adding a few address lines to the DMA ports would have helped. I've said before, I like the Atari, but I'd like to make sure that "Cheap Computer" doesn't mean "Disposable Computer". What plans are in the works NOW that will keep this from happening? I would definately like to see a socket compatible MMU, and a 68010 upgrade path. Also, higher resolution (1024X1024?) if the 70HZ is to be justified. Disclaimer: All opinions subject to change without notice.