ravi@eneevax.UUCP (Ravi Kulkarni) (10/15/85)
Neil Harris who is the publisher of Atari Explorer gave a little talk at the local atari users group meeting about the XE and ST line of computers. The following are a few interesting tidbits. Regarding the 8 bit line: 1) The new pocket size 300 baud modem is out and includes free time on the major information networks. Also included is "sophisticated" terminal software with autodial, upload& download. He indicated it was similar to Hometerm. The price given was $49.95 retail. 2) Atariwriter+ is finished and the manuals are being printed up. Should be available in a few weeks. He also mentioned other software but I can't remember now. 3) The XEM music micro has hit a few snags. Apparently they have been having a few problems getting working silicon on the vlsi amy synthesizer chip. They have contracted out the remaining development on the chip to another company which eventually plans to use it in forthcoming synthesizer products. He said atari retains rights to the chip and when the bugs are worked out may come out with a product based on it. 4) He indicated that this christmas sales season is critical to the future of the 8 bit line and that if it does well that there would be new products for the 8 bit line. He did not confirm or deny rumors of a christmas sales spectacular to clear out the large numbers of 800xl(~$49.95) computers. He also said that atari has a 3 1/2 inch disk drive for the 800 series but that he didn't know whether it was a viable product this late in the product cycle. Being a former commodore employee he said that he had been born again with regards to the capability of the 800 series vs the c64. Comments on the ST: 1) He said atari had a chance to use the amiga chip set, but turned it down. Atari felt that the amiga chip set was based on 3 year old technology for a $700 video game machine and that it could do better. He questioned the marketability of the amiga(in its price range) based on its animation capabilities in the current market. The analogy with mindset which had similar capabilities at a similar price was made. 2) The atari ST basic is done and will be shipped out to all owners that mailed in their warranty card. Also 1 copy will be shipped to dealers and user groups. The time frame for this should be a few weeks. Stwriter is also almost done and would be distributed in a week or so. Also in the works is a Stcalc which would also be distributed as a freebie. This is a stopgap measure until the wave of commercial software hits the stores. 3) He indicated that several companies were working on IBM software emulators and that also some atari engineers were looking into a hardware coprocessor off the dma port. He questioned whether people would want to use "inferior" ibm pc software relative to the user friendly interface of GEM and the speed of the 68000. 4) He said that the roms were almost done and that they should be out in the december time frame. He didn't think that the DRI settlement with Apple would have any effect but that he would check about the official company position. He indicated that atari would not be so ready to cave in to Apple regarding copyrights, etc. 5) In response to a question about the education market he said atari is interested but not ready to commit in a big way until the consumer market is taken care of. He mentioned a time frame of sometime in 1986. Several local area net are being looked into. The low cost version would address up to 255 ST's and operate through the midi ports at 31kbaud. A higher cost ethernet based version off the dma port is also being worked on. 6) Regarding the 260STD he indicated that atari would continue to use the present channels(dealers) of distribution. He didn't know whether the 260STD would be marketed in the current form or as maybe a 1meg machine. 7) He said there were several expansion boxes planned to hook up to the ST dma port. One would just have 8 slots to allow expansion cards from atari or third party manufacturers. The other one was a 32 bit machine that would also hook up to the dma port. The ST would then be used as i/o processor to handle the screen,disk, and keyboard. He said the 32032 was basically ruled out due to performance problems. It didn't really outperform the 68000 in the ST by very much. There are 3-4 microprocessors under consideration including the 68020. The 32 bit machine would be shown no earlier than the Jan CES. 8) Atari will be attending the COMDEX and will most likely be showing a finished version of the CD rom. He said atari was having problems finding parts suppliers that would do sufficient error checking, but that these have been solved and a december time frame was mentioned for initial shipments. 9) He said that atari was basically shipping ST's as fast as it could make them and that atari would not advertise on national tv until it was sure people could walk in and buy one. He indicated that many people are interested in the machine but are waiting for the first wave of commercial software to hit before committing to buy. 10) About Byte not providing a balanced view of the ST vs the Amiga, he said that atari was partly to blame in not providing machines to byte. He says they have ST's now and that they should have a review in an upcoming issue. I guess that's it. If atari can produce it should do very well. -ravi -- ARPA: eneevax!ravi@maryland UUCP: [seismo,allegra]!umcp-cs!eneevax!ravi