grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Graham Thomas) (04/04/89)
Despite Richard Covert's recent message to the effect that Atari USA is bundling Ultrascript (Postscript emulator) with new SLM804 laser printers, the news from Atari UK customer services is that "we don't have a date for Ultrascript yet". Or a price, or any other information. However, the Epson FX emulator is now "finished". The price in the UK will be 29.95 pounds. Will be - when? "The end of the month" (meaning the end of April). Fine, except that in March I was also told "the end of the month". It has now been over 15 months since we bought our first Atari laser printer. To print out documents from a non-GDOS word processor like First Word Plus, we either have to import it into our DTP program (which takes time, and messes up footnotes) or use the Diablo 630 emulator. This is, as many people will know, not the world's best-written piece of software. Even disregarding its bugs, it's restrictive when it's working well, too. No mixing typesizes in a document; no proper subscripts or superscripts, no 1.5 line spacing, no graphics, etc. What was it that we were supposed to get without the price? The most frustrating part is, it really wouldn't have taken much extra effort to have made both the ST and the laser printer really good, and well-supported, products. Atari's a real curate's egg of a company. The good parts (including the Atari people who put in the time and effort to converse on this network) are pretty good, but the bad parts spoil the product as a whole. A real shame. Graham -- Graham Thomas, SPRU, Mantell Building, U of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RF, UK JANET: grahamt@uk.ac.sussex.syma EARN/BITNET: grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk ARPA: grahamt%syma.sussex.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu UUCP: grahamt@syma.uucp Phone: +44 273 686758