pa1132@sdcc15.ucsd.edu (pa1132) (11/09/88)
Can anyone from Germany tells us what happening there? Is the share of market belonging to Atari being eaten away by the Amiga? Atari is always "proud" of their success in Europe, but many sources seem to indicate that the last stronghold of Atari is also lost to Amiga. Someone in comp.sys.amiga said that "Commodore" is the best selling computer in Germany. which Commodore? C64/128 or Amiga 500? I guess it's the Amiga 500. Now see what else Atari will say. Perhaps the only thing Atari is preparing to do is to go bankruptcy. Also, can anyone from Atari tell us why Atari never releases their sale figures? Is Atari ashamed of their number? Or what?
c60a-2bn@web-2f.berkeley.edu (Lawrence Y. Chiu) (11/10/88)
Atari is doing very well in Europe. Almost 4 STs are sold for each Amiga. Atari releases their sales figures every quarter; they are required to re- lease them by the SEC, since they have an obligation to the people who own shares in the company. By the way, almost one-third of Amigas made in Eu- rope are returned as defective. On another totally unrelated note: Is it possible to write a program that will backup the FAT and the directory of a hard disk partition? Programs that wipe out hard disks generally do so by destroying the FAT and the directory. A program that will backup the vital information on a disk is effective pro- tection against viruses and other malicious code. Is this project feasible? Such a program will probably make backing up a hard disk much more painless! Lawrence Y. Chiu; University of California, Berkeley.
good@atari.UUCP (Roy Good) (11/10/88)
in article <706@sdcc15.ucsd.edu>, pa1132@sdcc15.ucsd.edu (pa1132) says: > Also, can anyone from Atari tell us why Atari never releases their > sale figures? Is Atari ashamed of their number? Or what? Atari is a publicly traded corporation, on the American Stock Exchange (symbol ATC). It regularly releases quarterly reports (3rd qtr report due imminently) on time scales which are (a) legal and (b) consistent with most other companies (ie around 6 weeks after close of quarter). These reports include sales figures (and have even separated Atari's Federated subsidiary, to clarify the situation). I have come across few companies in this business which break out revenue by country - almost all consolidate their figures, although I guess each subsidiary is obligated to file its local figures for local tax reasons, so that would be an appropriate source. Finally, as a shareholder, you get the Annual Report and can request a 10K, which is the document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Hope that's enough info! Most of it applies to ANY public company. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roy J. Good Product Development, Atari Corporation Views expressed are my own. Atari may agree or disagree; they have the right. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ltf@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Lance Franklin) (11/10/88)
In article <16750@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> c60a-2bn@web-2f.berkeley.edu (Lawrence Y. Chiu) writes: > >Atari is doing very well in Europe. Almost 4 STs are sold for each Amiga. >Atari releases their sales figures every quarter; they are required to re- >lease them by the SEC, since they have an obligation to the people who own >shares in the company. By the way, almost one-third of Amigas made in Eu- >rope are returned as defective. Well, I'm here to answer the question below, but I'd like to see some docu- mentation on the above, If you have em. Bad idea to post stuff like the above without quoting sources...leads to all kinds of trouble. And post an equivalent defect-percentage for Atari, if you want to be fair. >Is it possible to write a program that will backup the FAT and the directory >of a hard disk partition? Programs that wipe out hard disks generally do so >by destroying the FAT and the directory. > >A program that will backup the vital information on a disk is effective pro- >tection against viruses and other malicious code. Is this project feasible? >Such a program will probably make backing up a hard disk much more painless! Yup...it's already done on IBM-PC's, which have almost identical disk formats. The programs simply create a file in a fixed location on the hard-disk (usually the LAST n sectors on the disk) and copy the FAT and directory to this file. You merely run the program at boot-up, and thus you have a FAT/Dir backup to fall back on when something goes wrong. As long as you don't re-order stuff on the disk, the file will stay put. As a matter of fact, the version I have for the PC comes with a disk reorganizer to keep everything efficient, and it automatically keeps the backup file in place, and optionally re-runs the FAT backup program after reordering everything. Of course, the program depends on the assumption that whatever screws up your FAT/Dirs won't take out the opposite side of the disk...probably not a bad assumption. And of course, if things go bad, you simply boot a disk with the recovery program, and it copies the last n sectors to the first n sectors to recover the disk...pretty simple program, shouldn't be difficult to do on the ST. Lance. -- +-------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------+ | Lance T Franklin | | I never said that! It must be some kind of a | | ltf@killer.DALLAS.TX.US | | forgery...I gotta change that password again. | +-------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------+
hase@netmbx.UUCP (Hartmut Semken) (11/10/88)
In article <706@sdcc15.ucsd.edu> pa1132@sdcc15.UUCP () writes: >Can anyone from Germany tells us what happening there? Is the share >of market belonging to Atari being eaten away by the Amiga? Atari Atari seems to do very well over here. The technical support for ST computers is pretty good, cause there are lots of clever (young) people, accumulating all information about the STs they can get (books and magazines are availeble in public libraries) and give it to the people acually doing work with their STs. In Germany about 70 to 80 per cent of the ST systems are monochrome only, almost no system stay color only fo a long time (just until next X-mas...). People seem to do work on their machines; Atari has almost lost the image of the 2600 game. > >Also, can anyone from Atari tell us why Atari never releases their >sale figures? Is Atari ashamed of their number? Or what? Do not trust any statistic, you have not falsified yourself. With lots of data and clever selection you can prove anything. What sales figures would you like? Sold units? Profit made? hase -- Hartmut Semken, Lupsteiner Weg 67, 1000 Berlin 37 hase@netmbx.UUCP In a space in the forest, on an empty patch of wet ground between a circle of craning trees, appeared quietly and without fuss a plain white door.
david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer) (11/11/88)
German sales are still strong in comparisons to US sales, but that's
not saying that much.
Has anyone else noticed that the few US software distributors that were
actually carrying Atari ST software are dropping the ST products? They
are selling off what they have on the shelves but they're not ordering
any more.
Another side note: I've now noticed that Antic Software is publishing
AMIGA SOFTWARE. What does "Antic - The Atari Resource" have to say for
themselves now, I wonder?
--
David Beckemeyer (david@bdt.UUCP) | "Lester Moore - Four slugs from a .44
Beckemeyer Development Tools | no Les, no more."
478 Santa Clara Ave. Oakland, CA 94610 | - Headstone at Boot Hill
UUCP: {uunet,ucbvax}!unisoft!bdt!david | Tombstone, AZalderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) (11/11/88)
In article <706@sdcc15.ucsd.edu>, pa1132@sdcc15.ucsd.edu (pa1132) writes: > Can anyone from Germany tells us what happening there? Is the share > of market belonging to Atari being eaten away by the Amiga? Atari > is always "proud" of their success in Europe, but many sources seem > to indicate that the last stronghold of Atari is also lost to Amiga. > Someone in comp.sys.amiga said that "Commodore" is the best selling > computer in Germany. which Commodore? C64/128 or Amiga 500? I > guess it's the Amiga 500. Now see what else Atari will > say. Perhaps the only thing Atari is preparing to do is to go > bankruptcy. Er, based on my information, Atari and CBM have near equal market shares here in Germany, if you look only on the 68k machines. Atari has a little bonus because the ST was released half a year before AMIGA 1000. On the 8bit market, the XL/XE systems were not very successful (I wonder why because the hardware and the Operating system of the Ataris was much better and cheaper). C64 had about 80%, I think (I don't have a percentage). -- alderaan OP RKOpdp (RSTS/E) FB Mathematik/Informatik RKO Berlin Dieffenbachstrasze 60-61 1000 Berlin 61
c60a-2bn@e260-4e.berkeley.edu (Lawrence Y. Chiu) (11/11/88)
I read the information in a current issue of The Games Machine which is a magazine from the UK. Check the issues for the last few months. In that same article Atari was mentioned to have a return rate of 4 to 5 percent. This magazine is not dedicated to the ST, by the way, and someone for the European subsidiary of Commodore, Ltd. is quoted. Lawrence Y. Chiu; University of California, Berkeley.
hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) (11/11/88)
In article <6057@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> ltf@killer.Dallas.TX.US (Lance Franklin) writes: >In article <16750@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> c60a-2bn@web-2f.berkeley.edu (Lawrence Y. Chiu) writes: >>Is it possible to write a program that will backup the FAT and the directory >>of a hard disk partition? Programs that wipe out hard disks generally do so >>by destroying the FAT and the directory. ... >Yup...it's already done on IBM-PC's, which have almost identical disk formats. >The programs simply create a file in a fixed location on the hard-disk (usually >the LAST n sectors on the disk) and copy the FAT and directory to this file. It would seem more useful, to me anyway, if it simply copied this data to any file of your choice, preferably *on a different drive.* Any virus writer who knows about this trick can just as easily take out the last sectors on a disk as the first. Keep the data on a floppy and you don't have to worry about what happens to data on the hard drive. Personally, it strikes me as silly to store a backup FAT in a file on the same disk. If the FAT goes, and that file *did* somehow get relocated on your disk, you're not going to be able to find that backup FAT, or at least not easily. This would be a pretty simple program to write... Along these lines, I remember a program on the Apple ][ (Remember, the Apple ][? Not the //e, //c, or IIgs. The ][. }-) called Multi-Disk Catalog. This program was a real treat for people with huge numbers of disks, because it could keep track of disk catalogs ("directories" to you'n'me... }-) for many disks on a single disk. Kind of like an indexing program, but just a touch better - it stored the actual catalog itself in its database. If parts of the original disk's catalog got wiped, no problem - just restore it off this database, or just restore enough to retrieve one vital file. Very very handy. -- / /_ , ,_. Howard Chu / /(_/(__ University of Michigan / Computing Center College of LS&A ' Unix Project Information Systems
uace0@uhnix2.uh.edu (Michael B. Vederman) (11/11/88)
In article <426@bdt.UUCP> david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer) writes: > >Another side note: I've now noticed that Antic Software is publishing >AMIGA SOFTWARE. What does "Antic - The Atari Resource" have to say for >themselves now, I wonder? >-- >David Beckemeyer (david@bdt.UUCP) | "Lester Moore - Four slugs from a .44 >Beckemeyer Development Tools | no Les, no more." >478 Santa Clara Ave. Oakland, CA 94610 | - Headstone at Boot Hill >UUCP: {uunet,ucbvax}!unisoft!bdt!david | Tombstone, AZ Being an ANTIC developer, I can comment on this rather instigating comment. I cannot, however, speak officially for ANTIC, but rather let you know what I have learned from the people I deal with. Bottom line: Atari sales aren't that great in the US. No news there! The move is one to keep Antic software alive. The software part of Antic is *now* (it wasn't before) a separate company than Antic Publishing, which produces Antic and STart magazines. The new company's co-owners have decided to increase their profits, and have, in fact, not only entered the AMIGA market, but the IBM market as well. Unless we wanted to see *NO* software at all from Antic Software, Inc. (ie. the Cyber line, FLASH, SHADOW, Cad 3D, etc.) this move was needed. I can't say it all, but Atari owners can expect more changes from Antic Software. That *DOES NOT* mean changes for the worse!!!!! As a matter of fact, 'Cyber Punks' are rampant and Antic's Cyber line is going to continue to grow, despite Tom Hudson's move to IBM (to supposedly produce Cyber-type STuff on the IBM). Almost everyday, ANTIC gets calls from people wishing to develop new Cyber related products. Also, another company related to Antic Software (I can't recall the name) is importing foriegn products and marketing them through Antic's distribution network. I personally don't see anything wrong with preserving the ST software line by making a *smart* business decision. ** FLAME ON ** If David Beckemeyer would stop wearing his heart on his sleeve, maybe he wouldn't get so offended by other people's marketing strategies. Just because he had faith in ATARI Corp. and they let him down, *DOES NOT* give him the right to bash all companies associated with the ATARI computers!!! Everyone is in the same boat. You just jumped ship early, and seem to still be floating waiting for a rescue party. I am sorry that RTX didn't take off like you wanted. I personally wish I was making much more money from our ATARI products, but that is why I have a real job, as a real computer programmer for a POS company. (And I program the IBM PC all day, as well as OS/9 on a VME 020 machine!) The fact is, I have an Atari ST, I'm not rich, but I do enjoy the system. The computer is great, despite Atari's lack of developer's support (which seems to be getting much better), so I program on it. Compared to the IBM rag, the ST is a fun machine to program, that allows me much better performance and ease of programming. Not to mention it doesn't have *brain dead* assembly!!! So, please get over it David. Bash Atari, not the companies trying to make money the best way they can! ** FLAME OFF ** These opinions *DO NOT* reflect Antic Software or Double Click Software. They are my own!!! Flame me. See y'all at COMDEX! - mike vederman -- for (;;) : Use ATARINET, send an interactive do_it(c_programmers); : message such as: : Tell UH-INFO at UHUPVM1 ATARINET HELP University Atari Computer Enthusiasts : University of Houston UACE
c60a-2bn@web-2d.berkeley.edu (Lawrence Y. Chiu) (11/12/88)
Of course, the program must be able to back up to a different disk, since it makes no sense to back up to the same disk. If the FAT on that disk becomes corrupted, chances are, the backup will also be affected. Lawrence Y. Chiu; University of California, Berkeley.
BobR@cup.portal.com (Bob BobR Retelle) (11/12/88)
David Beckemeyer asks: >Has anyone else noticed that the few US software distributors that were >actually carrying Atari ST software are dropping the ST products? The local "Electronics Botique" chain store has moved all remaining ST software to a small "island" display in the back of the store, and given the former ST wall space to expanding its Amiga and Macintosh shelves... The "Babbages" chain store in the same mall has cleared out all its Atari software, and given the space to Commodore titles... MicrOtyme in Ohio called the Michigan Atari Magazine to say it was pulling its ads for Atari products this week.. I called Computer Direct today (they used to print a catalog that was half Atari/half Apple.. they've dropped all Atari products), and the first thing the girl asked was "What computer do you have?".. when I said "Atari", I could hear the intake of breath to tell me they didn't carry Atari anymore.. I had to tell her all I wanted was disk storage cases... I recently wrote a 3-part series for ST-Log magazine, and my mother called nearly every computer store in the Metro Detroit area looking for a copy of the first installment.. some of the answers she got when she asked about "Atari" would be amusing, if they weren't so sad... No... I haven't noticed anything... >Another side note: I've now noticed that Antic Software is publishing >AMIGA SOFTWARE. What does "Antic - The Atari Resource" have to say for >themselves now, I wonder? I imagine "Antic - The Atari Resource" is hoping to stay in business... BobR
pa1132@sdcc15.ucsd.edu (pa1132) (11/12/88)
Then, can anyone at Atari kindly tell us how many St's have been sold in the U. S. ? (Compute!'s approximation is about 175,000 Atari ST's and 200,000 Amigas in the U.S. and the number of Amiga is rising rapidly. See Compute! several issues back, the exact month I forget.)
david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer) (11/15/88)
In article <694@uhnix2.uh.edu> uace0@uhnix2.UUCP writes: > >** FLAME ON ** > >If David Beckemeyer would stop wearing his heart on his sleeve, maybe he >wouldn't get so offended by other people's marketing strategies. Just >because he had faith in ATARI Corp. and they let him down, *DOES NOT* give >him the right to bash all companies associated with the ATARI computers!!! [ rest deleted ] > >- mike vederman > >-- >for (;;) : Use ATARINET, send an interactive > do_it(c_programmers); : message such as: > : Tell UH-INFO at UHUPVM1 ATARINET HELP >University Atari Computer Enthusiasts : University of Houston UACE Believe it or not I wasn't trying to bash Antic. I realize it probably looked like that, and so I'm going to make a brief posting to (maybe) clear it up. It was more like: "See even companies that originally were very dedicated to the Atari ST are being forced to move on and expand their horizons..." I sincerely have absolutely no problem with Antic Software's move away from 100% Atari software. I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But at the same time I think it makes a pretty strong statement about Atari's position in the marketplace. I'm sorry about the way the message appeared to bash Antic Software. I didn't mean it that way. -- David Beckemeyer (david@bdt.UUCP) | "Lester Moore - Four slugs from a .44 Beckemeyer Development Tools | no Les, no more." 478 Santa Clara Ave. Oakland, CA 94610 | - Headstone at Boot Hill UUCP: {uunet,ucbvax}!unisoft!bdt!david | Tombstone, AZ
BobR@cup.portal.com (Bob BobR Retelle) (11/15/88)
pa1132 writes: >Then, can anyone at Atari kindly tell us how many St's have been sold in >the U. S. ? Atari Corp seems to consider *everything* as "proprietary", including it's list of dealers, foreign distributors, schematic diagrams, and accurate sales figures.. Maybe someday they'll figure out that the people who need this kind of information are the very people who are trying to *help* them... BobR
Graham@ucl-cs.UUCP (11/15/88)
>Can anyone from Germany tells us what happening there? Is the share >of market belonging to Atari being eaten away by the Amiga? I don't know about Germany but the ST is doing very well in Great Britain. The current concensus of opinion is that around 150,000 machines have been sold (compared to around 50-60,000 Amiga's). There are a number of ST secific magazines, including one dedicated to games only. In addition, there are a growing number of 16-bit games/entertainment magazines that feature the machine heavily. The number of games produced for the ST has grown enormously and, generally the first versions of new games appear on the ST before any other machine. Graham grahamr@uk.ac.ucl.cs Dept. of Computer Science University College London
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (11/16/88)
in article <429@bdt.UUCP>, david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer) says: > Keywords: Amiga, Atari, Germany > Xref: cbmvax comp.sys.atari.st:13231 comp.sys.amiga:27487 > It was more like: "See even companies that originally were very dedicated > to the Atari ST are being forced to move on and expand their horizons..." > But at the same time I think it makes a pretty strong statement about > Atari's position in the marketplace. Without commenting directly on this particular situation, I just though I'd point out that expanding into other markets isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sure, one reason to move from Computer A to Computer B is that Computer A's sales are slow, and you're not making your fortune don it alone. So Computer B's here, and a port of your application may require a small amount of work relative to what it took to get stuff running on Computer A, especially if they're both based on CPU X. You spend 1/4 the original work and double, or better, your market. Maybe now you can pay the bills. But different circumstances can lead a company to exactly the same decision. This company is selling a product for Computer A, and doing quite well. They'd even like to expand, maybe with some new products. Perhaps they spend lots of time and write another program for Computer A, and it takes off too. But pretty soon sales for Computer A start to drop off or at least settle down. So for the next product, they notice that Computer B sitting there has as many potential customers for their product as Computer A, and the work to port their program(s) to Computer B is less than the work to develop a brand new application for Computer A. Now they've doubled their market. I don't know any details on whether Antic's move into the Amiga market was a survival move or an expansion move. In either case, if they can sell a successful product for Amigas, the decision was the correct one for them to make. Regardless of how strongly they are dedicated to the Atari ST, it would be foolish for them to let brand loyalty drag down the potential of their company. Hardware companies like Commodore, Atari, Apple, IBM, whatever, are smart to consider each other "the competition". But if you're a software company, you competition isn't Commodore, Atari, Apple, or IBM; it's MicroSoft, WordPerfect, or Lotus, etc. > David Beckemeyer (david@bdt.UUCP) | "Lester Moore - Four slugs from a .44 -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
Graham@ucl-cs.UUCP (11/18/88)
>Can anyone from Germany tells us what happening there? I'm not German but British (still European :-) >Is the share of market belonging to Atari being eaten away by the Amiga? No. What has happened over the last year is that Commodore has finally started selling the Amiga seriously and at the same time the market for 16-bit machines has greatly increased. The result has been a lot more 16-bit machines sold (ST/Amiga & PC). >Atari is always "proud" of their success in Europe, but many sources >seem to indicate that the last stronghold of Atari is also lost to >Amiga. Atari is doing very well and definitely not being "beaten". As I said above, Commodore is selling more machines in an expanding market (and so is Atari). >Someone in comp.sys.amiga said that "Commodore" is the best selling >computer in Germany. which Commodore? C64/128 or Amiga 500? Probably the C64 - this machine is also being heavily pushed in Britain and will outsell the Amiga several times over during christmas. Don't worry, Atari is alive and well in Europe. All the talk about dying etc. is rubbish. Graham grahamr@uk.ac.ucl.cs Dept. of Computer Science University College London
mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick) (11/20/88)
In article <11205@cup.portal.com> BobR@cup.portal.com (Bob BobR Retelle) writes:
<David Beckemeyer asks:
<>Has anyone else noticed that the few US software distributors that were
<>actually carrying Atari ST software are dropping the ST products?
<
<The local "Electronics Botique" chain store has moved all remaining ST
<software to a small "island" display in the back of the store, and given
<the former ST wall space to expanding its Amiga and Macintosh shelves...
<
[ deleted amusing stuff about Atari dealers bailing out like mice off
a sinking ship ]
I was at a Major software house locally a couple of weeks ago discussing
a product and suggested an, excuse the expression, ST port. The
guy there, one of the managers of softwere development said something
to the effect :
"Well, were scaling down our Atari work, due to their crummy sales.
And frankly, I'm not all that disappointed about that (heh, heh)"
Needless to say, vindication was mine, all mine. . .
--
*** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Some people say I'm arrogant. But I know better then them" -
Mike Dukakis at the Al Smith Banquet
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]