dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) (07/01/88)
in article <1082@atari.UUCP>, neil@atari.UUCP (Neil Harris) says: > > In article <3181@druhi.ATT.COM>, dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) writes: > >> Your not the only person who Atari has tried to keep quiet. >> About 2 years ago Neil Harris told the sysops on one of the commercial >> networks that if I didn't stop "harassing" him online he would quit showing >> up. They wouldn't have a "official represenative of Atari" online anymore. >> I was sent a copy of his email along with a note saying I could do what >> I wanted. I continued to comment on his postings so he left for a two >> months or so. > > Thanks, Dan. > > What *really* happened was that there was quite a bit of name calling going > on. Dan seemed to have blamed me personally for some financial woes > connected with the takeover of Atari. He lost quite a bit of money because > the contract with Synapse for Synfile (which Dan co-wrote) was dropped. I wasn't planning on starting the conversation about SynFile, but since you have: Atari did drop the contract. After accepting delivery on 11,000+ pieces which they sold. There was a two and a half year delay before Atari paid for the 11,000+ pieces of SynFile+. There were also similar numbers of SynCalc and SynTrend involved plus monies for R&D work Synapse was doing. Synapse sued for the $4 million owed plus about to $50 million in damages. Atari settled out of court 2 and a half years later, just prior to going public. > Now I think it's a shame that Dan ran into this kind of problem. But he > knew darn well that I had nothing to do with it (the problem occurred before > I even joined Atari), but he was using me as a convenient scapegoat. So I > asked the sysops to get a handle on the namecalling. That's a sysop's job. Our discussion on the services had nothing to do with Atari's actions with SynFile. It was in reference to statements you were making on Delphi about Atari and Atari products. Many of those messages are still online (they store messages for a very long time) so if people are interested they can read them there. The statement that got Neil mad and caused him to ask the Sysops to intervine was me saying that one of his statements was untrue. He asked the Sysops to censor me and/or have me removed from the system or he would leave. They took no action other than forwarding me a copy of his email to them. > Once Dan and I met personally, I think he calmed down a bit and realized > that I was not some ogre out to get him. > > Maybe we ought to get together again so he won't forget. I never thought Neil was an "ogre out to get me", I think he is a person who is willing to take a job that I and many others wouldn't be willing to do. Not many people would be willing to act as a front for Atari or the people who run it. I dislike "Neil Harris, Atari spokesperson", "Neil Harris, private citizen" is a fairly nice person. > Most of the professional online systems won't put up with that sort of > thing. It's a free country, thank goodness -- but paying users of an online > system tend to object to that kind of stuff. The only objections to my statements were from you. None of the users had any complaints. This is all ancient history, the only reason I mentioned the event was to point out that David Beckemeyer was not the only person Atari had attempted to censor. I hope Atari starts listening to their users and developers complaints instead of just listening to the compliments. Asking (or telling) developers to quit complaining isn't going to make things any better. If they continue the way they are the ST, and it's promise of "Power without the price" will disappear. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Moore AT&T Denver ihnp4!druhi!dlm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------