rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) (08/09/89)
In article <30438@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> mitchell@janus.berkeley.edu (Evan Mitchell) writes: >I have a question for all you loyal Atarians... "Why?" Why are you so loyal >to Atari? I'm curious. I used to own a couple of 8-bits, and I was very >happy with them. However, time marches on, and so does technology, and Atari >does NOT seem to be at the forefront of consumer technology. Vaporware does >NOT count. In any event, here in Berkeley, Winner's Circle sells both Amigas >and ST's. Vincent, the ST guy, is so inthusiastic about the machine that he >could almost sell me one. > >What inspires such loyalty? Speaking only for myself, "I don't know, but whatever it was, it's gone". (Warning: A very long diatribe follows.) When Atari rolled out their original 8-bit line, I bought an 800. I was quite happy with it, and still believe that in many ways it was the most advanced peecee, software- and hardware-wise, of its time for under $2,000 (this includes the Apple II, Radio Shack stuff, Commodore Pets, Exidy Sorcerer (anyone else remember this one?), and soon-to-be released and much-overhyped IBM PC and Commodore 64). Nevertheless, Atari owners could be recognized by their instinctive bristle at the question, "Oh, you own a computer? What kind?" We were somewhat plaintively to be heard saying things like, "Well, yah, it doesn't have slots, but..." and "Well, it does play great games, but it also..." Amiga owners that I know remind me very much of we owners of Atari 8-bitters in that respect. (Though Amigans can now counter the stupid "But does it have slots?" question, the defensive "But can yours multitask?" seems to be a universally-used shot, and indicates a similar deeply-rooted inferiority complex. :) Of such stuff is the nature of fanatic loyalty made. You picked your "lowly" Atari over the haut couture Apple and pin-striped behemoth PC and "cheap imitator" C64 because you KNEW it was better technically. It not only was, it HAD to be, because otherwise you really were duped into buying the "not best" machine for the money, right? That little rationalization is still just as valid with computers today, not to mention cars, stereo equipment, or any expensive item. So when Atari rolled out their ST line, the company had much good karma in my books. I very much liked the Apple Macintosh after playing with several, but (again), couldn't afford it. I saw an ST demo'd, was duly impressed, and bought an ST. For less money than the 800 alone cost ($800 vs about $900), I had a half-Meg 68000 machine with disk drive and superb monochrome monitor. By comparison with my 800, it was a vast improvement in many ways. I believe that, like the 800 was in its time and price-range, the ST was the best buy. (To fend-off indignant Amigans, at the time I bought my ST, the Amiga was a rumor named the "Amiga Lorraine", I believe. Had I waited another 6 months I may have made a different purchase. Had I waited another year or two I certainly would've.) So why aren't I inspired anymore? Part of it is what I hope is a bit of maturation on my part; the realization that, hey, practically any computer has something good to recommend it, and if it does the tasks you do, then be happy. There's better ways to expend energy than in silly flame-wars over "whose toy is better". Much of it is also the perception that Atari unwrapped a really nice little box in the 520ST back in 1985, then... And then... And then... Well, there's the 1040ST; a repackaged 520 with twice the memory and less cables hanging out the back. There's the MEGA-2 and MEGA-4; a repackaged 1040ST with more memory and one Atari-specific slot. But wait! Don't forget about the "under $1,000 laser printer!" Well, gee, guess it costs just a bit more. And it really doesn't work so well unless you have a 2Meg machine. And I can't really use it on anything but an ST. Hmmm. But wait! Don't forget the video blitter chip! Hey, that'll make all your programs fly! Well, gee, guess it really won't do us 520ST owners any good. And it really doesn't seem to speed up most things very much at all. Hmmm. Whoa nelly, but wait for the 68020-based "TT" machine! Now THAT will be slick! Well, it's 1986 now... Well, it's 1987 now... Oh, it's 1988 and now it'll be a 68030-based box, guess that's good news... Well, it's 1989 now... Hmmm. Oops, forgot about the wonderfully sexy Transputer-based box, what they now call the "ATW", I guess. Hey, that's actually shipping! Oh, in Europe... To developers... For about what a NeXT or MAC IIx costs... Not much software for it yet either (not much for a NeXT either, but at least that's a sexier box :)... Hmmm. But hey, at least there's lots of great software available! Even some of the original 8-bit "greats" are still around, like O.S.S. with their very nice PERSONAL PASCAL, and Batteries Included with their wonderful DEGAS Elite and Thunder! packages. Well, they were here just a minute ago... Hmmm. Well, at least TOS 1.4 will have most of the OS bugs, well some of the bugs, well a few of the bugs fixed. Maybe I can spend my nickels on that... Hmmm. Frankly, what there is about the Atari product these days that inspires "fanatic loyalty" is completely beyond me. The ST is still a decent little box, that runs a selection of nice/fun/useful software. But fanatic loyalty?? Nope. The slogan "power without the price" is a sad & tattered white lie; cheap PC clones offer comparable bang for less buck, and a wider variety of software to boot (no pun intended). Very little of anything substantive has come out of Atari in the past 2-3 years, so one hasn't even the option, as I did in 1985, of buying something on the cutting edge of price / performance / techno-glitz / whatever with an Atari label on it. As if I desired to do so. Based on past experience, about two years after I buy a peecee, someone will tell me that it is obsolete. Another 2-3 years after that, I will begin to get the itch to buy something better. A year later, I will. If all goes according to schedule, that means that I'll be buying something new next year or 1991. I seriously doubt that it will have an Atari label on it. I like the direction Apple is headed with the Mac IIcx, but (again) probably won't be able to afford it. I like much of what I see that the Amiga can do. '386-based DOS machines, with the addition of things like H.P.'s New Wave software, are getting more attractive by the year. Who knows? Not Atari, though -- I don't hate 'em, but I certainly no longer love 'em. -- >>> "Aaiiyeeeee! Death from above!" <<< | Steve Rehrauer Fone: (508)256-6600 x6168 | Apollo Computer, a ARPA: rehrauer@apollo.hp.com | division of Hewlett-Packard "Look, Max: 'Pressurized cheese in a can'. Even _WE_ wouldn't eat that!"
mitchell@janus.uucp (Evan Mitchell) (08/10/89)
In article <44ed9575.71d0@apollo.HP.COM> rehrauer@apollo.COM (Steve Rehrauer) writes: >In article <30438@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> mitchell@janus.berkeley.edu (Evan Mitchell) writes: >>I have a question for all you loyal Atarians... "Why?" Why are you so loyal For the record, I did NOT cross post this! Being an 8-bit owner (as well as an A500) I was simply curious as to why people are sooooooo loyal to the ST and even the 8-bits. I didn't want to start a war, but I did like what Steve had to say :-). -Evan _______________________________________________________________________________ | Evan Jay Mitchell EECS/ERL Industrial Liaison Program | | mitchell@janus.berkeley.edu University of California at Berkeley | | Phone: (415) 643-6687 | | "Think, it ain't illegal...yet!" - George Clinton | |_____________________________________________________________________________|
moreno@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU (Andres Moreno) (08/10/89)
You bet that I will not be buying an Atari machine next time around! Where
is smalltalk for the Atari? Does my Lisp have nice 'engines' like PC SCHEME?
Can I have multi-font word processors like I have in the Mac? *N*O*P*
To be fair, there is MWC, a very decent compiler and WordPerfect (who is not
likely to do any more work for the ST), but compare my spreadsheets to Excel!
In the balance, I was (still am) poor and could not afford any better. Now I
am saving to be able to overcome computer poverty. Atari sure has let down
the north american customer, so I wish them well when they move their head-
quarters to Germany.
No, I can not be loyal to Atari.
Andres F. Moreno
p.s. I do hack my machine all the time, and for that, it has served me ad-
mirably.daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (08/11/89)
in article <44ed9575.71d0@apollo.HP.COM>, rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) says: > Xref: cbmvax comp.sys.atari.st:19247 comp.sys.amiga:40802 > ... Exidy Sorcerer (anyone else remember this one?) Yeah, that was my first home machine, bought it in the spring of '79. I had played around with PET and TRaSh-80s, but I wasn't happy with the small displays, slow cassettes, and non-graphics of either of them. Of course, you could easily spend over $2,000 on an Exidy if you bought floppies and CP/M for it, but I never got that far. It was stolen in '84... -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it