Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!UMass.BITNET!Gribnif
From: Gribnif@UMass.BITNET (Dan Wilga at UMASS Amherst)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Replacement Desktop
Message-ID: <88042902112267C.AFJL@Mars.UCC.UMass.EDU>
Date: 29 Apr 88 06:19:09 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 48

I was surprised to see the press release for NeoDesk appear here recently.
Due to its appearance on GEnie, it has also found its way onto Compuserve,
Delphi, and the program has been receiving attention on FidoNet for some
time now. The press release certainly did succeed in its task. It got
people talking.

My reasons for writing this letter are twofold:  The first is to dispell
the idea that the press release I wrote is for a fictitious program that
will either never ship or was merely a late April Fools joke. As the
person who has put every waking hour of the past 3 1/2 months into its
creation, I can assure one and all that it is far from a joke. The program
exists and *is* going to ship.

Which brings me to my second point. It ships tomorrow (okay, "today"),
April 29. Our original shipping date was to have been May 2, but we found
that we were in a position to tempt fate and do the impossible; ship
early. The first copies will be going-out to the people who have so far
ordered the program, as well as several dealers and magazine reviewers.
Also, a large number will be available at the Atari fair in Bellport, NY
(on Long Island) this coming Sunday, May 1.

To be a bit more technical than my lighthearted press release would have
allowed, NeoDesk is an alternative to the normal GEM desktop written by
Atari. It makes no attempt to rewrite GEM itself, only the "application"
which is the desktop that allows you to manipulate files and run other
programs. As such, it is subject to all of the normal GEM inadequacies,
though it tactfully avoids the more obvious ones, such as the underline
bug, for instance.

NeoDesk is being marketed by The Computer Bug, Inc. Allthough they are
responsible for answering any technical questions received on the order
line, I would not be totally against answering the more complex ones that
arise from its use here. However, please be reasonable: my mailbox is only
so big and if the number and types of improvements suggested by people
placing orders so far is any indication, I may get swamped for volunteering.
Gribnif Software should also be available in the near future on one or more
of the large BBS systems I mentioned earlier, though we are still working on
that.

Short of repeating the press release (which, for me, would be unethical :-()
I can say that it appears in Digest #216, along with the phone number and
address for orders.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In those days, men were real men,           Dan Wilga
 women were real women, and small
 furry creatures from Alpha                  Gribnif@UMASS.BITNET
 Centauri were REAL small furry              Gribnif%UMASS.BITNET@Forsythe.
 creatures from Alpha Centauri"                  Stanford.EDU