Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!oodis01!uplherc!sp7040!obie!wes
From: wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Sticking up for Atari
Message-ID: <213@obie.UUCP>
Date: 3 May 88 04:24:27 GMT
References: <2878@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>
Organization: Great Salt Lake Yacht Club, north branch
Lines: 46
Summary: What Atari lacks....

In article <2878@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>, seitz@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Matthew Eric Seitz) writes:
> 	Last time I checked, there was nothing which gave you all the Atari
> did for a lower price.

Hmm...  Perhaps for home use, but not for business/professional use.
One of the major drawbacks with the ST is the difficulty/impossibility
of networking them in any way, shape, or form.  This is where the Mac
kills everything else.  Networking has been built into the Mac OS for
quite some time now.  The IBM PC has it kludged in (Token
Ring/NetBIOS, Novell NetSlime, etc) and the ST doesn't have it at all.

Last week, we got two new Mac IIs at work.  To hook them up to the
AppleTalk in the building so they could print to the two laser
printers, all we had to do was plug into the LocalTalk connector and
tell the system to use the LaserWriter+ printer resource via the
AppleTalk connector.  THAT SIMPLE.

> I have found Atari software to fulfill every need I have.
> Nothing extrodinary, just the basics:  Terminal emulator ( Uniterm ),
> Word Processer ( Word Perfect ( which has just put out another upgrade ) ),
> Database ( dbMaster One ), spreadsheet ( vc ), Modula-2 compiler ( TDI ),
> Drawing ( EZ-Draw, again recently upgraded, IBM emulator for doing class
> work which was to be graded on an IBM ( PC-Ditto ).

I have 5 Mega 2's at work (which I picked).  We have recently gotten
WordUp for a word processor.  The output is really stupendous on the
HP LaserJet II.  One big problem is that it takes 8-12 minutes to
layout and print a page using this setup.

Also, try this: draw a chart using your favorite draw or paint
program, then incorporate it into a document on your word processor.
On the Mac, you would just cut it to the clipboard, hop into the word
processor, and then paste it into the document.  You can't do that on
the ST yet.

As I said, the ST line has some major holes that need to be filled in
to compete in the business/professional market.  The hardware that is
there is quite adequate for the job, if we could just get the software
to talk and work together.  And the seperate systems to talk and work
together via networks.  Sigh.  I really hate the idea of paying Apple
for being so snotty about everything, but Atari and C= really haven't
given us much of an alternative yet.
-- 
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