fohler@freal.cs.umass.edu (Gerhard Fohler) (12/08/89)
Has anybody had the possibility of working with the Stacey display? I heard that it is pretty bad and that it is better to wait for an upgrade. Is this true?
jackin@vehka.uta.fi (Markku M{enp{{) (12/12/89)
Well, I've read two magazine reviews that tell us a whole different
story. In december issue of ST-magazin (W-Germany) the reviewer said
that Stacey will not have a backlighted display (plain LCD, not good).
On the other hand, in December issue of PCW (Personal Computer World,
UK) Stacey was a cover article and the reviewer said it has a back-
lighted display, which is one of the best he has seen. In fact he had
two different machines (both had backlighted LCDs). Also David S. wrote
how good the display was (a few articles back, here).
I believe that Stacey has a backlighted display, which is very good.
MM.
!Markku M{enp{{ ! University of Tampere, Finland !
ajy2208%ritcv@cs.rit.edu (12/14/89)
I went to the Ontario Science Centre recently and by a fortunate
circumstance, there was a MIDI Show the day I went. Well, there were
STs EVERYWHERE, and this included two Stacys. I had the opportunity
to use one for nearly 30 minutes, running Notator and Calamus.
Both of the Stacys had backlit displays which I liked *VERY* much..
It's the best supertwist backlit screen I've seen to date, and is
very usable!! They were both Stacy 4's, with 4 megs of ram and
a built in 40 meg hard drive. One of the Atari (Canada) employees
at hand said that these were production run machines and we could expect
to see them in Canada before the end of the year. Unfortunately, I'm
not from Canada (close though.. :-)...
_____________________________________________________________________________
Albert Yarusso, Rochester ajy2208@ritvax.bitnet,ajy2208@ultb.isc.rit.edu
Institute of Tech. _________________________________________________________
Computer Science /___ / {rutgers, ames}!rochester!ritcv!ajy2208
______________________/ / ajy2208@ritcv.cs.rit.edu GEnie: A.YarussoR_Tim_Coslet@cup.portal.com (12/17/89)
> > Has anybody had the possibility of working with the Stacey display? I >heard that it is pretty bad and that it is better to wait for an upgrade. >Is this true? I saw it at a meeting of the local Atari Users Group (BAAUG). The display is not "perfect" (but in this world few, if any, things are), but is quite good for the price. The only REAL problems I saw with it were... 1) It is a little slow. If you move the mouse too fast the pointer will dissapear. Also "rapidly moving" graphics will fade or dissapear. I don't see this as a problem (for my uses). You don't need to make the mouse "fly", and most of what I use my ST for will not involve rapid movement. 2) If the "brightness" and "contrast" are set VERY HIGH there is a tendency for symbology below large white areas on the screen to to be "dimmer" than symbology that is not below large white areas. Again I don't see this as a problem (for my uses). The range of "brightness" and "contrast" is more than adaquate... no one should have to set these controls anywhere near their limits. Depending on your intended use these may or may not present problems for you. If these limits are unacceptable for you, I wouldn't recommend getting the Laptop ST. For my uses, these limits are entirely acceptable in trade for the portability (besides, you can still connect either mono or color monitors to the Laptop for the occasional application to which these limits present problems). R. Tim Coslet Usenet: R_Tim_Coslet@cup.portal.com BIX: r.tim_coslet
dsmall@well.UUCP (David Small) (12/19/89)
The base message asks about the Stacy display, and if it's bad. I've been using a Stacy4 since Comdex 1989, a month ago. I've put it to a variety of uses. The Stacy4 display is about the size of a Mac screen. It is backlit and VERY usable in dim list (try that on Mac portable). The contrast allows adjustment to extremely readable, and even side-to-side reading has a nice, wide angle. Because LCD's aren't, it is not superfast, but that isn't a problem. The much ballyhooed 'lose the mouse' is easily remedied by just wiggling the mouse slowly and picking up the motion with your eye. On habit that you have to fix is while text editing. The temptation is to move the cursor with mouse to the area to fix, then press RETURN, instead of the mouse button, to set the cursor there. I don't know why-- I use a Mac all the time -- but I and one of the Codehead people ran into it immediately. Still, it's training. I have the 4 meg RAM / 40 meg hard disk version. The hard disk is a Conner and no slouch at all. However, frankly, don't run it off batteries; this is dynamic RAM (Apple uses VERY expensive static) and dynamic is a power hog. Atari is trying -- they have a utility that powers down the HD when it is not in use. About the only peeve I have with the machine is the space bar requires more effort that the rest of the keys, and when Sandy is asleep next to me, I hate to whack it as hard as it needs. So sometimesmywordsruntogether. This may just be this particular keyboard. In any event, I own both a Toshiba 1200 HB (backlit, HD, MS-DOS) and the Atari Stacy. I find the screens equally readable -- thank heavens for backlighting! -- and I am using the Atari more and more as I gain confidence in it. It seems 100% compatible, with the exception of a now being fixed HD bug (minor, and you won't see it), and while it's heavy, try the twin floppy model -- not nearly as bad. And the best news of all, it passed FCC as Class A, so you can buy it. (You might want to talk to a developer, who gets them at half price .. hint hint.) The machine has been extremely reliable for me. I can't recall a crash. It also works extremely well in Mac mode with the GCR; the drives are Epsons and have no ringing problems we can see. Hence, any time I need to shift to Mac mode, it takes 20 seconds. Internally, the 68000-CMOS is covered, after about 1/4" clearance, by a power supply unit that mystifies me. A friend tells me that it's necessary to drive the electroluminescent display at higher voltage; I have no way to tell if that is true. I expect adding a T-16 is possible *barely*, but PC-Ditto II might be a real bear. Anyway, I've been typing and hacking and hammering on it for a month, it's held up fine, and the display is as comfortable for me as the state of the art in Toshiba. Furthermore, I was told the price of the 4/40 would be $2500, so I can get around 3 of these for one Mac portable. I ain't complaining. Now that the FCC hurdle is passed, I strongly feel Atari has a real winner here. MIDI people are drooling at the prospect of a portable MIDI driver/sequencer. The drive is rugged; by accident, I carried it through the airport on, and not a bad sector showed up. Try that on a Toshiba... :-). Well, enough rambling. I think it's a winner. Battery life is never going to thrill you; I may research Gates lead-acid cells. Don't go 4 meg and HD if you want to run batteries; they go flat in *15 minutes*. But in terms of an easy to use portable, I really like it. I've taken the time to ramble a little because many people have not yet seen a Stacy and few people have posted any long-term impressions. If I couldn't stand the display, I wouldn't use it, and I would call it very usable. -- thanks, Dave / Gadgets