Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!prls!pyramid!infmx!robert
From: robert@infmx.UUCP (Robert Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Amiga Software by Atari!!!
Message-ID: <2893@infmx.UUCP>
Date: 20 Dec 89 21:37:26 GMT
References: <.7.Dec.89.09:31:12.A10419@UK.AC.SALF.C> <2233@cs-spool.calgary.UUCP> <5791@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Reply-To: robert@infmx.UUCP (Robert Coleman)
Organization: Informix, Menlo Park, Ca. U.S.A.
Lines: 37

In article <5791@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> cs161fca@sdcc10.ucsd.edu ( ) writes:
>Well, back in 1984 Atari had a company called Atarisoft which sold
>software for commodore 64 and other computers...Perhaps things have
>got so bad for Atari (i.e., ST in the market defeated by the Amiga)
>that Atari wants to try the old trick again.  However, last time the
>trick did not work...  (Atarisoft was a failure.)

	Hmmm. I worked for Atari at that time QAing the Atarisoft line. We
were told internally that Atarisoft was was one the main things keeping
Atari afloat.

	This was when Warner still owned Atari, but had performed it's major
layoffs (I was laid off from the computer division and picked up by the 
Atarisoft group). The company was struggling to barely survive during that 
period.

	Actually, the Atarisoft products were one of the things that Atari
really did right. We found some of the best Arcade game players in the country,
and hired them to tell us all the tricks, tips, etc of the arcade games we
were converting. Whereas old conversions of Pacman did not "feel" like the 
arcade version, Ms. Pacman behaved in exactly the same way as the arcade (at 
least as far as our experts could determine).

	Given the environment at the time, I was reluctant to take internal
info at face value, so Atarisoft may really have been a commercial failure.
However, as Atari was bought out shortly after I left the company, the
cancelling of Atarisoft may have had less to do with the commercial
success/failure of the products than with Tramiel's corporate vision.

	Do you have real info about the success/failure of Atarisoft or are
you just looking at the fact that it's not around anymore?

Robert C.
-- 
"Helen's the only one who knows what scruples are, and she won't tell us"
John said. "Have we got scruples about it, Helen?"
"Not a trace," Helen affirmed.		-The Reefs of Earth, R.A.Lafferty