JOHNBARNES@ENH.NIST.GOV (12/21/89)
The Future of INFO-ATARI16:
There is a movement afoot (althogh not heavily supported) to set up
alternatives to INFO-ATARI16 so that selected users can receive more
coherent information, presumably without all of the flames mixed in.
I oppose the creation of such a service because it would become too
narrowly speciallized. The Atari marketplace is already a lonely
place for interested users and I do not see any value in allowing the
user community to become even more fragmented.
I believe that what we really need is a couple of good writers and
editors to take material that is of widespread interest an repackage
it into archival publications that wouold have a permanenet home on
one of the archive sites.
If such archival material were to migrate into the hardcopy Atari
press that would be all to the good. I note that many of the
questions that are asked here (at considerable expense, I might note)
have been answered in the magazines.
I personally find the flow of unrelated information that passes across
my screen from INFO-ATARI16 to be quite interesting because it raises
issues that those of us in the colonial provinces of the Atari world
(yes, the USA appears to be a colony of Europe when it comes to
matters Atari) tend to miss or to solve in isolation. I would not
like to see the newsgroup become the exclusive province of the
flamers nor would I like to have to hunt all over to get the really
good stuff.
I vote for keeping things the away they are but I would plead for
people to post information that has more content and to point us
toward archival sources of solid technical data. I would be happyu to
post some tables of contents for the magazine that I am associated
with if anyone is interested. In recent months I personally have done
lengthy writeups on the Syquest 44 and hard drive backup technology.
I do not wish to upload these here unless someone has an interest or
unless some has a home for them on a good archive site ("good" meaning
ftp-able, as that is all I understand how to do).
It appears that there is a tendency to post the burning question of
the moment to the net when a little research in a library would yield
a quicker and sounder ouutcome. Magazines like Current Notes and ST
Informer, and to some extent z-Mag and ST REports, have solid
technical information that is more useful than some of the spur of the
moment responses that get passed around here. On the other hand I
have found some of the questions raised here a rich source for things
to write about in my magaize efforts to help all Atari users.MBERNAR@ERENJ.BITNET (Marcelino Bernardo) (12/21/89)
JOHNBARNES@ENH.NIST.GOV expressed some opinions about the future of this newsgroup which I mostly agree with. There are a few statements, however, which I don't agree with based on my own limited experience. "I note that many of the questions that are asked here (at considerable expense, I might note) have been answered in the magazines." I've found the magazines that are/were available in my area: STart, ST Log, STXpress and Atari Explorer are seriously lacking in technical information (I would exclude Dave Small's column in STart). Coverage of Public Domain and Shareware is inadequate. I've seen a letter to STart asking for a terminal emulation software for a Tektronix 4010 terminal go unanswered when Uniterm has existed for years. "It appears that there is a tendency to post the burning question of the moment to the net when a little research in a library would yield a quicker and sounder ouutcome. Magazines like Current Notes and ST Informer, and to some extent z-Mag and ST REports, have solid technical information that is more useful than some of the spur of the moment responses that get passed around here...." I have not yet found a library in my area (New Jersey) that has any of the ST magazines you mentioned. I can't even find one ST book in a library or a bookstore. Under the circumstances, this net is the best place that I expect to get informed answers to technical questions.
JOHNBARNES@ENH.NIST.GOV (12/22/89)
I accept Marcelino Bernardo's statement about the inadequacies of the glossy ST press when it comes to real technical information. My reference to a library included things like the Abacus and Sybex books as well as source codes to true public domain programs. Many of the questions asked here, however, do not fall into the category of technical information. A number of them are from beginners who might do well to read Ralph Turner's Help Key column in ST Informer or his "Atari ST Book". Those questions that are of technical nature, such as the one about ringing the bell from GEM, oftewn receive rather terse answers that take a lot of work to implement. It would be nice to see these as more extended articles and to have these archived somewhere. The Atari community being what it is, we also see a number of cries for help coming out of utter darkness. The newsgroup serves a valuable function in giving these people a community that they can belong to. One difference between the 8-bit days and modern (ST) times seems to be that programming has become more complicated and people are less willing to share their knowledge openly. Of course in those days we really didn't have "developers" because Atari was just a game machine. Nowadays we see oodles of "public domain" software but very little source code. Ken Badertscher sometimes seems to feel that the only programmers worth talking to are the ones who are initiated into the Masonic Lodge by paying the fees and learning the secret handshakes. Atari needs every bit of help it can get. Every program that actually gets written and that does what it is supposed to do is one more reason to buy Atari. Information that will help accomplish this should be disseminated as widely as possible. This newsgroup is one way of doing that and it could become a truly valuable resource if we could put some more punch into the discourse.