Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!haven!mimsy!bane
From: bane@mimsy.umd.edu (John R. Bane)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Still searching...
Keywords: ste, help
Message-ID: <21312@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 16 Dec 89 04:48:53 GMT
References: <2352@pkmab.se> <1830@atari.UUCP> <2370@pkmab.se> <1854@atari.UUCP>
Reply-To: bane@mimsy.umd.edu (John R. Bane)
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 30

In article <1854@atari.UUCP> kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) writes:
>
>daniel@pkmab.se (Daniel Deimert) writes:
>| Why should I buy a computer I can't use?  Like buying a car and when
>| you ask for an explanation of the buttons getting the answer: "Sorry,
>| you have to be a registred driver to get to know this.  You shouldn't
>| know about more than the gear and the wheel."
>
>Why do so many people use this analogy?  A computer is not a car.
>A computer is a computer.  But, since you insist, getting technical
>information (on a level equivalent to "How do I program DMA sound?")
>from an auto manufacturer isn't all that easy either.  Try it some time.
>
I can walk into any decent auto shop and purchase a repair manual for most
cars available in America.  I can walk into any computer book store and
purchase cubic yards of books on how to program an IBM PC or a Macintosh.
In both these cases at least one version of this information is published
by the manufacturer, and can be purchased for less than $30.

The only Atari-approved source of this information is the developer's kit,
which is over $100 last I heard.  The alternatives are reverse-engineering
exercises like Abacus books and the documentation supplied with various
compilers.

I don't require this information to be free, but I would like it to be
available from Atari for a price that meets my need for it (generalized
hacking around, little possibility of commercial success).
-- 
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