jons@islenet.UUCP (Jonathan Spangler) (06/18/86)
I have several questions for anyone on the net. Perhaps Neil from Atari could give us some answers. 1) What CAD programs are available for the 1040ST? I have heard of Graphic Artist and a new one from Germany titled "Data Becker". Is that the name of the program? How good is it? How good is the graphic artist? What printer/plotters do they support? Is a monochrome monitor required? 2) I know that Michtron is working on a flight simulator for the ST's. Is there a known date of release? Also, someone mentioned Sub-logic. Are they working on software for the ST? 3) At one of the Winter/Spring shows, I believe CES, it was mentioned that someone had developed a cartridge for the ST called MACartridge allowing ST users with a monochrome monitor to run Macintosh software. What has the outcome been? Has Atari seen the cartridge? Are they for sale? Perhaps someone needs to create a Macintosh-compatible ROM (similar to the PClones) to sell the cartridge. 4) The infamous Atari-IBM box has been talked about for awhile and I under- stand it was shown at the Hannover Fair in West Germany. How much and when will it be out? Are there options for 5 1/4 inch drives available for the box? I have heard $200 and out by Fall '86, but it is always nice to hear something straight from the horses mouth. 5) The video digitizer was shown at a recent Chicago show. This hooks into the cartridge slot and is compatible with a standard video camera. Anyone know of a price? When to ship? 6) What kind of expansion beyond 1 meg is Atari planning? I understand from the March '86 Byte that the MMU will handle 4 megs. It seems reasonable to assume that the machine can easily be expanded to 2 megs by piggy- backing 256K DRAMS. 7) What is the status of the graphics co-processor chip? Is it going to be available for the 1040ST or for a future machine (100 Mhz, 1024 X 1024 pixel monitor, true 32-bit workstation)? Is or will this be user installable or even dealer installable? Does this give me an increase in number of colors on screen, blitter capability, etc. 8) Whatever happened to GEM Write? Is Atari still working with Digital Research? Or is GEM Desktop all we get? Anybody else have an "integrated" word-processing & graphics combination? Will Microsoft products ever be available for the ST? Like Windows? 9) If I have a 1040ST, is it possible to add an RF modulator (not that I would want to personally)? I understand there is a place on the motherboard for such a thing. 10)One last question: when will the new version of NEOChrome be finished? (At least version 1.0, right?) This is the version that fills in the missing boxes and adds animation capabilities like the infamous bouncing ball demo and the Cockatoo demo flying across the screen. Don't mean to be so tedious, or to ask so many questions and I don't expect all answers from one source. The only reason I ask is because I am a dealer for the ST series and these are questions that I have been literally HAUNTED with for the past several weeks. On the other side of things, I suppose that being bombarded with a thousand questions on a machine shows a tremendous enthusiasm for the machine but it is awfully nice to feed the hungry savages once in a while and not just play the dumb dealer who hears nothin', sees nothin', and speaks nothin' about a new machine. Seems that most of the questions are centered around software. I would appreciate any and all comments/suggestions/inquiries/editorials. From Waikiki Beach...