cmcmanis@sun.uucp (Chuck McManis) (01/10/87)
[Begin interested sarcasm mode ... ]
Uh oh, it looks like someone at Atari design central has seen something of
the light. At CES both Atari and Commodore announced PC compatibles (Commodore
apparently got the PC-10 and PC-20 they have been selling outside the US
FCC certified) in addition Atari announced the "Mega" ST. This new ST is
somewhat smaller than the 520 or 1040, and differs from them in that
a) The Keyboard is detachable
b) It has an expansion connector
c) It has a real time clock
d) It can be expanded beyond 4Meg (16 they claim)
e) It has 1Meg internally.
f) It comes with a "blitter"
g) It will cost "about $1000"
I can't tell from the announcement but apparently the Monitor is separate
and is supposed to sit on the "base unit and floppy drive." Of course
they still don't have a multitasking O/S or decent audio, but they do
have cheap hard disk drives. Availability is another question. No word
yet from Commodore on new machines (not that I really expected any)
On another front at MacWorld Apple talked about lot's of stuff but no mention
of any new Macs. Ah well, another rumuored announcement gone sour ...
[Pop Mode stack]
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.kim@amdahl.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) (01/10/87)
In article <11196@sun.uucp>, cmcmanis@sun.uucp (Chuck McManis) writes: > At CES both Atari and Commodore announced PC compatibles (Commodore > apparently got the PC-10 and PC-20 they have been selling outside the US > FCC certified) in addition Atari announced the "Mega" ST. Yeah ... from the 1/6/87 issue of PC Week in "Late News" they say: CBM will ship two 8088 based PClones ... the PC 10-1 with 512K, one 5.25" floppy and mono/CGA adaptor at $999. The PC 10-2 has 640K and two drives at $1199. I've heard from some folks in Canada that these are pretty good boxes (for PClones, that is :-)). /kim -- UUCP: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,seismo,oliveb,cbosgd}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25 [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]
jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura) (01/11/87)
Chuck mentioned in his blurb on the Atari announcement that the Mega ST's had a real time clock. To avoid confusion, *all* ST's have real-time clocks. What's new is the fact that the Mega ST's have fully supported Battery Backed real-time clocks. On the old ST's we had to have 3rd party battery kits or similar kludges to add battery power for the clock. Atari has listenned to Atari-users in all their upgrades on the MegaST. Most of us were astounded, not so much by the technology represented by the upgrade but by what it represents as company policy. I don't think I've ever felt that I've been listened to in this fashion before by *any* company. Cheers! -- Jim O.