Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!agate!ig!uwmcsd1!nic.MR.NET!eta!pwcs!stag!trb
From: trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Atari fair at Duesseldorf (West Germany)
Summary: Not an Atari Bashing
Message-ID: <589@stag.UUCP>
Date: 14 Sep 88 13:52:12 GMT
References: <8809061721.AA27884@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <379@bdt.UUCP>
Reply-To: trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey )
Organization: Mindtools ST Access Group, Plymouth, MN
Lines: 62

WARNING! My responses have only good things to say about the ST, so
you Atari Haters (either the machine or the company) out there may
wish to hit the 'n' key now...

In article <379@bdt.UUCP> david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer) writes:
>I've been hearing this "dying computer" attitude from dealers, distributors,
>and even some magazine publishers (always the last to go) for several months,
>but I've been reluctant to say anything because I feared it would be construed
>as nothing more than an attempted stab at Atari.   It isn't.   It truly
>appears that Atari has played out their last hand.

And it could simply be that 1) May-September is a horrible selling
time for computers and software anyway, 2) a lot of people are playing
a wait-and-see game on things like the 68030 machine (or a drop in
price in RAM which may drop the price of the Mega...), and 3) there is
so much GOOD PD/Shareware software for the ST that it may really
appear to be a dying computer from the point of view of a software
developer trying to make a living off of the computer.

>I think the consumer who paid hard-earned money in hopes of obtaining
>a useful computer system is the big loser here, especially those that
>have invested lots of hardware, money, and time on the ST.

Fooey. I've wasted more money on IBM PC's and Mac's than I ever could
on my ST (or Amiga for that matter). A lot of us, early on, put $3000 plus
into an IBM PC that within years was worth less than $800. I also
bought a Mac that became worthless at an even more alarming rate as
Apple nickle and dimed me with their upgrades (128K->512K->???
actually cost more than the original Mac ($1900). The IBM PC lost its
appeal with its 64K limitations and the increasingly buggy software
that started coming out from companies like Borland, Microsoft, etc
(it almost seemed to be becoming a fad as to who could rush out their
product first and still get away with supplying the user with the most
bugs). And the Mac was just too slow and messy to develop code on (and
still be able to remember how to write code on Unix systems).

From the home user point of view, I still think the ST is best, since
it is cheap, has great games :-), has better quality PD software in
most areas than the IBM PC or the MAC, can integrate better with
'other' disk formats (and OS's) that the users may be using at work,
and is very easy for the novice user to 'learn' to program on (via
fast but simple languages like GFA Basic.) Note I haven't said
anything 'nasty' about the Amiga...I like the Amiga, but it was always
just a little behind (about 6 months to a year) the ST in the areas
I was interested in (languages, ports of PD packages, certain games,
etc). Plus when I got rid of the Amiga, I still had to deal with
having to have three OS's within reach depending upon which game or
application I wanted to run...which I hear isn't a problem any more.

>It seems to me that this should be a lot more troubesome to all of us
>than whether or not they have fixed the Malloc bug.

I agree, specially since I have never really seen how the 'Malloc'
bug has really prevented me from doing anything on the ST as a
developer. I have never lost any sleep over it or even seen the
problem when using MWC. I actually have wasted more time in the other
mundane bugs (like having to put character eater loops into my code to
handle users that like to hold a scroll key down...else bconin
bombed).

 -Todd Burkey     "a member of STdNET - The ST developers' Network"
  trb@stag.UUCP        -> to join, mail to ftg!dwm@stag.UUCP <-