benw@bocar.UUCP (B Weber) (06/24/85)
Permission to reprint or excerpt is granted only if the following line appears at the top of the article: ANTIC PUBLISHING INC., COPYRIGHT 1985. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION. CES WRAP-UP & COMMENTARY MEANING OF NEW ST CHANGES By MIKE CIRAOLO, JACK POWELL 6/10- At the June Consumer Electronics Show Atari announced that two new ST models and a pioneering 500 megabyte ROM compact disk system would appear on dealer shelves in time for the Christmas rush. Complete lines of integ- rated software for the ST were announced by three major developers. First programs from the new productivity series were to ship this fall from Haba, Batteries Included and Rising Star. Haba also promised ST owners a 10 megabyte hard disk for $499 and a $299 Hayes-compatible modem. NEW ST MODELS Atari said that both new ST's will have 256K RAM of programmable memory. The 260ST will retail at $399. The 260STD is to be $499 and includes a built-in 3.5" disk drive. Otherwise they are identical with the 520ST except for the following: * GEM and the rest of the TOS operating software will be on ROM chips instead of on disk. * The television RF modulator is to be built-in. * The new 256K models won't ship till October or November. 520ST DEVELOPMENTS How is all this significantly different from the 520ST? According to Atari Marketing VP James Copland, the first 2,000 U.S. units of the 520ST were already shipping in June to Atari users groups. In July the 520ST would appear in computer specialty stores, and mass merchandiser distribution of the ST line would begin in the fall, Copland stated. By June, the 520ST was already on computer store shelves in Canada and parts of Western Europe. Price of the 520ST was set at $799 and included a 3.5" disk drive, a high-resolution monochrome monitor, external RF modulator pack -- and GEM on disk, leaving 256K RAM in memory after loading GEM and TOS. So all the 1985 ST's will now have no more than 256K of usable RAM...or will they? ROM OR NOT? For pre-Xmas delivery, manufacturing must begin no later than September. The CES announcement of the 260ST and 260STD gave Atari all of June and July to make sure GEM and TOS were thoroughly debugged. These newly announced 260 models will allow Atari to maintain credibility by meeting its pledge to ship the 520ST to US stores in early July. Disk updates could easily remedy any bugs found in the operating system of early 520ST's manufactured in May and June. To Antic, the whole thing looks like a gutsy, clever move from Atari Chairman Jack Tramiel. Much of the U.S. business press unfortunately is computer-illiterate and reports even minor production delays as putting a company's entire future in doubt.Atari needed to bring an ST to market quickly as possible, even if in limited numbers. Yet Tramiel had clearly learned a valuable lesson during his Commodore days, the glitchy Commodore 64 operating system that went into ROM sooner than it should. In the long run, rushing GEM and the ST operating sytem into chips before it was truly ready would create user problems and be bad business. As this issue went to press, Atari had been issuing mixed signals about whether a 520ST GEM and operating system upgrade to ROM would be provided by the manufacturer. Before and during CES, the company repeatedly said that the 520ST model would never have GEM and TOS in ROM. However, a June 7 message on CompuServe's SIG*Atari from a company spokesman quoted Atari president Sam Tramiel as saying the entire 520ST operating software would be made available on simple plug-in chips at "nominal cost." Of course, commercial 520ST software that doesn't use the GEM desktop can still draw on close to 400K of available RAM. CD ROM The mind-boggling 500 megabyte CD ROM was the hottest thing at CES. It was displayed at the Atari booth by Activenture,which is developing the technology under contract with Atari. Imagine a read-only disk that's identical to a compact audio digital disk, but which could contain 100 volumes of reference books with room left over. And the 100 volumes of information would be instantly accessible. Only three seconds were required for the 520ST and CD ROM to search a keyword through an entire 26-volume encyclopedia. And CD ROM could handle virtually any type of data that can be digitally encoded -- video images, software, photographs, etc.
san@cositex.UUCP (Steve Sanderson) (06/28/85)
> > NEW ST MODELS > > Atari said that both new > ST's will have 256K RAM of > programmable memory. The ... > * GEM and the rest of the > TOS operating software will > be on ROM chips instead of > on disk. Ok all you Atari ST watchers... according to this article, the smaller models will have 256K RAM and GEM & TOS built into ROM, and the ST520 will have 512K but GEM & TOS will *not* be in rom, giving a 256K of usable RAM on the ST520 (after GEM & TOS are loaded). So... what is the difference between buying the smaller model or the larger model? It seems as if they both ultimately have the same amount of usable RAM! I am not referring to updates to the 520ST where GEM & TOS will be built in, but rather to the machines available now (or soon). Why buy the present 520 over the present 260? Thanks, Steve Sanderson -- Steve Sanderson, COSI Texas 4412 Spicewood Springs, Suite 801 Austin, Texas 78759 UUCP: {ihnp4, seismo, ctvax}!ut-sally!cositex!san, san@cositex.UUCP AT&T: (512) 345-2780
jec@iuvax.UUCP (07/02/85)
The ST520 has the advantage of more memory if you don't use GEM, the 260
doesn't give you that choice. The ST520's GEM should also be easier to
fix in the event of errors (which are to be expected).
Besides, I don't think you should ignore the ST520 ROM upgrade possibility.
I suspect that someone, if not Atari, will make use of it.
James E. Conley Usenet: {ihnp4,pur-ee,purdue}!iuvax!jec
I.U. Dept. of Linguistics Phone: (812) 335-6458
401 Lindley Hall (812) 332-3514
Bloomington, IN. 47405steve@kontron.UUCP (Steve McIntosh) (07/03/85)
> ... what is the difference between > buying the smaller model or the larger model? It seems as if > they both ultimately have the same amount of usable RAM! I > am not referring to updates to the 520ST where GEM & TOS will > be built in, but rather to the machines available now (or soon). > Why buy the present 520 over the present 260? > > Steve Sanderson, COSI Texas According to the West Coast Atari distributer, they don't expect to see any of the smaller machines until late fall - in time for the xmas rush. By then, the 520 is expected to have TOS and/or GEM in rom, and you will recover the ram space. [Believe it or not, quite a few people I know of could care less about GEM - on disk or in ROM. And they are ALL going to buy ST's if they don't buy Amiga's.]