jimomura@lsuc.on.ca (Jim Omura) (12/31/90)
As far as I can remember, I don't think I've ever posted a
"New Year's Message" beyond saying "Happy New Year!" before on
any system. So this is probably an all-time-first for me. I
have however, though on very rare occasion, made public predictions.
I generally do this in cases where the prediction is significant
because it "flies in the face" of the opinions of the masses, yet
I'm fairly convinced that they are highly probable. Ie, in cases
where I'm fairly sure that I'm right and almost everybody else
is wrong. An example was my prediction, a few years ago taht
Communism would collapse "soon" (it happened sooner than I'd have
expected, but I never had sufficient "insider" information to
go beyond that). Also, before Nintendo proved me right I said that
games on large capacity cartridges were a viable way to make
money even in North America (not hard for me to predict since the
1, 2 and 4 Megabit cartriges came out for MSX in 1986 -- before
Nintendo had established themselves in North America).
So what am I going to predict? Well, as you can see by my
above predictions, they may be startling to "most people", but
in fact they were actually fairly conservative, and this one is
going to be conservative too:
I think the coming 2 years will prove that the STE and the
Lynx were, if not "wonderful" moves, good enough. The STE in
particular was a mixed product for me. I wanted an improved ST
and the STE sort of parallelled my thinking. It's not the computer
I'd have designed. There are many things I can point to, but
the most glaring is the 2 new joystick ports. I wouldn't have
done that. I'd have put my money into completing the implimentations
of the current IO (read/write Centronics, mouse support of the B
joystick port, adding the buss out from the Stacey to the 1040ST
package, true SCSI) and added a 2nd MIDI out or an STMPE connection.
In short, I'd have aimed, ostensibly, at serious applications
rather than games. But having mulled over the new spec, I'm
satisfied that there are enough improvements "for now" to support
significantly better applications than those currently on the
market, and that's the key to its viability. Significantly
better programs will be brought out over the next 2 years making
use of these improvements. People who buy the STEs will, in general,
be glad that they did.
Likewise, I think more than just the fact that the Lynx is
"a really nice game machine", Atari was right in focussing their
marketting on it and giving it an early *heavy* push. The Sega
Game Gear is out. I can buy one if I want one *right now*!
Same with the NEC Turbo Express. Atari has cut a niche for themselves
and the future for the Lynx as a development target is good!
Let me put this prediction in perspective a bit more -- I'm likely
to be writing a game myself in the near future and I will probaably
*not* write a version for the Lynx -- so I'm not saying this with
any current expectation that promoting the Lynx will do me any good
at all. And quite to the contrary, may hurt the sales of the game
I have in mind because I'll be supporting a competitor. Again,
people who by the Lynx, and programmers who develop for the Lynx,
will be glad they did.
So there are my predictions for the coming year, and in fact
2 years. They are typically mine in that they are so extremely
conserative, yet among the things I've read from the Atari community,
and the general computer community, they are not popularly held.
Come back next year (and in 2 years really) and see if I'm right!
PS: Eat your own flames! Do NOT respond to this message! DO post
your own predictions and reasons separately -- I enjoy
quoting people back their pronouncements when time proves
they needed better glasses. :-)
--
Jim Omura, 2A King George's Drive, Toronto, (416) 652-3880
lsuc!jimomura
Byte Information eXchange: jimomuraaiajms@castle.ed.ac.uk (-=Andy=-) (01/03/91)
Dear Jim et all Before I start my own modest offering of predictions, I would like to congratulate Jim on his "Nostra Damus" like predictions he has made on the globe and Atari, very interesting and a trifle amusing. (I would have prefered his comments on the Persian gulf than that of Atari to be honest!) I am of the opinion that with the current state of the global economy, certainly in the US and in the UK, and nervousness over the Gulf war, that companies of whatever stature are going to find life difficult to survive. As a result, most companies will either have to push up prices (which is inflationary == bad) or cut production costs. Cutting production costs will be for most manufactures the first choice. Now lets look at Atari. They have already cut costs in many areas in the new machines. The plastic casing on the ST is nothing short of "tacky", the keyboard feels like a spring mattress on a bed, plus the array of "99%" functionality of I/O ports. Plus the darn things are made in Taiwan. I cannot see Atari being able to make enough savings in cost of production to keep prices as they are at the moment. They will either have to increase prices, thus placing them in the realms of PC-land which would be a difficult market for them to compete or further reduce production costs. I believe the ST is already "mutton dressed as lamb", and I cannot see them doing much more with it. Cheers. =========================================================================== Name : Andrew Mcsherry +++++++ Degree: Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence(4) ++ ++ Univ : University Of Edinburgh, Scotland. ++ ++ Mail : aiajms%uk.ac.ed.castle@nsfnet-relay +++++++ .......Go Elway....Go Humphries....Go Johnson. GO BRONCOS ==========================================================================
cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Christopher M Mauritz) (01/04/91)
In article <7676@castle.ed.ac.uk> aiajms@castle.ed.ac.uk (-=Andy=-) writes: >Dear Jim et all > >Before I start my own modest offering of predictions, I would like to >congratulate Jim on his "Nostra Damus" like predictions he has made on >the globe and Atari, very interesting and a trifle amusing. (I would have >prefered his comments on the Persian gulf than that of Atari to be honest!) Certainly, the Gulf would be more interesting to talk about, but... > >I am of the opinion that with the current state of the global economy, >certainly in the US and in the UK, and nervousness over the Gulf war, >that companies of whatever stature are going to find life difficult to >survive. As a result, most companies will either have to push up prices >(which is inflationary == bad) or cut production costs. Cutting >production costs will be for most manufactures the first choice. Well, companies will try to cut costs, but as for the rest of your analysis....I don't think so. >Now lets look at Atari. They have already cut costs in many areas in the >new machines. The plastic casing on the ST is nothing short of "tacky", >the keyboard feels like a spring mattress on a bed, plus the array of >"99%" functionality of I/O ports. Plus the darn things are made in >Taiwan. This is all true. ST's are certainly not built to last, but what can you expect at that price? When you buy a Hyundai, you can't expect it to last as long as a BMW. >I cannot see Atari being able to make enough savings in cost of >production to keep prices as they are at the moment. They will either >have to increase prices, thus placing them in the realms of PC-land >which would be a difficult market for them to compete or further reduce >production costs. I believe the ST is already "mutton dressed as lamb", >and I cannot see them doing much more with it. Well, if Atari raised prices, they would effectively cut their own throat. I suspect, if sales really start to slump, they will just slow down or stop production until such time as demand picks up. They don't have the cash to inventory all this stuff if nobody is buying so I think the layoff option will be the most attractive. The majority of Atari's employees are located in Taiwan and Japan so I would expect the ax to fall heaviest there (Besides, Atari already cut back in the USA last year). >Cheers. Hey, that's my line! :-) Cheers, Chris ------------------------------+--------------------------- Chris Mauritz |D{r det finns en |l, finns cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu |det en plan! (c)All rights reserved. | Send flames to /dev/null | ------------------------------+---------------------------
ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) (01/04/91)
aiajms@castle.ed.ac.uk (-=Andy=-) writes: - Now lets look at Atari. They have already cut costs in many areas - in the new machines. The plastic casing on the ST is nothing short - of "tacky", the keyboard feels like a spring mattress on a bed, plus - the array of "99%" functionality of I/O ports. Plus the darn things - are made in Taiwan. They have already cut costs in many areas in the NEW machines? It's always been that way! All their ST computers have been what you described above since the 520ST, although I would argue that the Mega's keyboard is better. The plastic casing and Taiwan manufacturing are what make the darn things so cheap. You get what you pay for. If you want a comparable Mac, you'll pay for it. Enough of the history lesson. I thought this was the prediction thread. -- Ed Krimen ............................................... ||| Video Production Major, California State University, Chico ||| INTERNET: ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu FREENET: al661 / | \ SysOp, Fuji BBS: 916-894-1261 FIDONET: 1:119/4.0