Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!uhnix1!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Atari-bashing (was Re: Looking for an Evangelist)
Message-ID: <3161@sugar.uu.net>
Date: 27 Dec 88 15:44:20 GMT
References: <474@ur-cc.UUCP> <6847@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <12835@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston, TX
Lines: 39

In article <12835@cup.portal.com>, Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes:
> A.J. Yarusso writes:
> >Most people who criticize Atari's don't have an Atari and are VERY
> >biased...  oh well, such is life. 

Well, I own two Atari 800s and an Amiga 1000. I have had an Atari 520ST and
an MS-DOS machine (Tandy 1000HD). By that logic I should be unbiased and have
an evenly balanced viewpoint. I don't.  My opinion of the Atari ST, due to
my experience with mine, is that it is a poorly-thought-out hack, and the
spiritual descendant of the Commodore-64.

It's worse than teh C=64, because much of that machines limitations are the
result of when and how it was produced. When the ST came out, there were at
least two decent operating systems for the 68000 available: OS/9 and Tripos.
Why they went with Gem-DOS I have no idea.

Programming on the ST is exactly like programming on the IBM-PC, except that
there are fewer tools available, and more bugs to work around. After a couple
of months of struggling the ST went into storage and I financed an Amiga.

> the true problem...   the manufacturer of what is arguably the BEST value
> in low cost computers does NOT, for whatever reason, tell the world about
> their machines.  It falls to "evangalists" to spread the word, and it's
> an uphill battle..

That's true. Commodore has done a lousy job of advertising the Amiga. How nice
of you to notice. (Yes, I know he's talking about the ST. I don't know why...
Atari has done a very good job advertising the ST, with much more frequent
and affective advertisements than Commodore)

> Among people who DO own Atari computers, you'll ALMOST NEVER hear them
> criticize the MACHINE itself...

Well, you've heard it now. The hardware is unexceptional, and the operating
system (if you can call it that) is only exceptional in its intellectual
poverty. If it had been well designed in the first place, people wouldn't
need to make the sorts of hacks that Allan Pratt so despises.
-- 
Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva  `-_-'  peter@sugar.uu.net