Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!oliveb!sun!pepper!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga Magic Sac
Message-ID: <51636@sun.uucp>
Date: 2 May 88 21:44:34 GMT
References: <29758@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <40978T31@PSUVMA>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 31

In article <40978T31@PSUVMA> T31@PSUVMA.BITNET writes:
>   I do not know who gave you your info about the Amiga Magic Sac but
>   The copany which makes the Atari Magic Sac does not sell the Apple ROM
>   for the product.  I can't see how they could run out. 

The information on the Magic Sac* came from Data Pacific, the same company
that sells it for the Atari. Basically, the supply of legal 64K ROMs is
finite, and it is not legally feasible to produce something that used 
either a copy of those ROMs or some of the new ones. Data Pacific believes
that there are enough ROMs in the 'pipeline' to satisfy the Atari demand
but couldn't satisfy new demand created by the Amiga version, they 
acknowledge that this will be a dead product in while because there will
be no source of ROMs. You should know that Apple *will not* produce any
more 64K roms and thus in time (maybe sooner than you think) you won't 
be able to buy the Magic Sac for the Atari either. It is current speculation
that Data Pacific "got away" with this for exactly this reason. Apple knows
how many ROMs are out there and thus the maximum impact of the Magic Sac on
their sales. It is also interesting to note that the Magic Sac + Atari is
the only "clone" of the Mac that hasn't been actively sued by Apple. This
could change if D.P. pushed the issue. It will change even faster if Atari
keeps saying things like "its Mac compatible too!" in public. So if you
want the Magic Sac on the Atari buy it soon, you may not get another chance.


*The Magic Sac is an addon device for an Atari ST that uses the Mac 64K ROMS
 and some custom code to emulate an Apple Macintosh.


--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.