Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!cs.dal.ca!silvert
From: silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Software costs
Summary: Is PC software really cheaper than ST software?
Message-ID: <3263@cs.dal.ca>
Date: 5 May 89 16:19:14 GMT
References: <8905021217.AA08520@nh.cs.wm.edu> <98@sdcc10.ucsd.EDU> <102@sdcc10.ucsd.EDU>
Reply-To: bill@biomel.UUCP, biomel@cs.dal.CA
Organization: Habitat Ecology Div., Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
Lines: 38

In article <102@sdcc10.ucsd.EDU> cs163aeo@sdcc10.ucsd.EDU (Professor I.R. Gumby) writes:
>That's why when I bought my first IBM
>clone a year ago over an Atari ST.  The programming languages and
>utilities for an IBM are easier and less expensive than that for the
>ST, so rather than take a compatability risk with an ST and PC
>Ditto, I chose an IBM XT clone and later upgraded it to an AT
>clone.  Now that Atari has the software I want (and now at the price
>I want with Borland entering the ST market) and eventually the
>networking hardware (if it's not out already, I am looking into
>buying one.

Is this an April Fool's joke, or is this guy serious?  I work with both
my own two ST's and with PC clones, and I use the ST for developing
stuff to run on the PC sometimes.  There are a few cheaper PC items, but
in general the ST stuff is far cheaper.  For example, I have two
versions of VIP Professional (one GEM-oriented, one looks like Lotus)
for half the cost of Lotus 1-2-3.  My AbSoft Fortran compiler for the ST
cost 1/3 of Microsoft's compiler, and is a lot more compact.  TDI
Modula-2 is down to about the same cost as Topspeed, and I believe that
there is a cheaper one out.  XPRO for $35 beats any MS-DOS Prolog,
including Turbo.  Word Perfect is cheaper for the ST, although not so
well supported.  dBMAN is a lot cheaper than dBASE, etc., etc.

The only major exception seems to be in the area of C compilers, where
Borland, Zortech, and others have a price war going, and C++ hasn't
shown its head yet.  There aren't any decent expert system shells for
the ST that I know about either.  There are factors that depend on the
size of the market that enter in, of course.

From a programming point of view, MS-DOS is hard!!!  All that
segmentation crap, graphics at the lowest level, and so on.  Give me GEM
any time!

-- 
Bill Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division.
Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, NS, Canada B2Y 4A2
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