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From: fjmora@CS.WM.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
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Message-ID: <8903272107.AA07817@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 27 Mar 89 21:07:48 GMT
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rom: fjmora@cs.wm.edu (Fredric Mora)
: <8903260239.AA01013@nh.wmcs.uucp>
: 
: Atari support & wish list

Mr. Szymonik from Atari said that given the price of the ST hardware,
the support is not that bad. 
As a Sun user and proud ST owner, I can say that Sun has a support which
is not better than the customer support from Atari, which is a shame
considering the price difference. So I do not encourage Atari bashing
based on support. Mr.  Szymonik is  right to say that 
"in comparison things don't look so bad in Atari..." given the 
good price of Atari hardware.

Yet, I'd like to make a couple of observations:
1) The Atari hard disk line seems quite overpriced given their 68 ms average
access time.

2) More and more hardware extensions now appear for the ST line.  The
Mega ST has but one bus connector, and the ST has only a cartridge
port.  I would like to have a 68881 board and a sound digitizer.  My
cartridge port is now taken by a video digitizer, a sound digitizer,
and a clock.  It's a pain to plug/unplug all these cartridges.  So
when I upgrade to a Mega, I would like to be able to buy a bus
connector board with, say, 6 connectors like the one in the Mega so I
can add all those marvelous hardware extensions (in their Mega-bus
format).  I would hate to have to purchase a AT clone with a
coprocessor for my number-crunching applications, and I am eagerly
waiting for such a connector board.  Is that irrealistic?  The
development time for such a peripheral should be quite short
(although one may have to consider some power supply replacement).
What do you think?  Is there such a thing in Atari's future?  

Thanks.

Regards,

     Frederic Mora                              GEnie:
     The College of William and Mary            F.MORA
     Dept. of Computer Science                  INTERNET:
     Williamsburg, VA. 23185                    fjmora@cs.wm.edu
     USA                                        

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