PETCHER@FSU.BITNET (06/21/88)
Funny, my original letter (mega woes) of a few days ago got truncated. Perhaps some of you thought it didn't make sense the way it came out. Here is a rendition of what I meant to say in total: What appeared was: > >I am not having very good luck with Mega 2's so far. Last December I purchased >one, which was obviously buggy from day one. Typically after the machine was > . > . > A story of two buggy megas out of four in our local Atari user group > . > . > ending with: >same experience with the first machine we recieved. Both had hardware >problems. And they were not purchased in the same store, but several hundred >miles apart. So I continue: Now that I have recieved my replacement mega2 and have been working with it for awhile, I have discovered that it also has problems. For one, my disk drive has the famed media change problem - whenever I take out a write enabled disk and replace it with a second write enabled disk, the disk drive doesn't recognize the media change! This was reported previously on the net to be a problem of a certain batch of Chinon drives used by third party vendors, but I did not expect to find it in the 'off-the-shelf' mega! As it turns out, I may also have other problems with the blitter (see, my letter on Uniterm vs. the blitter). Although the final analysis is not yet in, I have certainly had some mysterious crashes lately with otherwise known to be stable programs. I run the same configuration without problems on my 1040 at work and I know of others running the same programs on megas without problem. Since the mega is supposed to be essentially just a 1040 with a little more memory and a blitter in a different box it looks from my vantage point that Atari is going downhill (I am a 3 year plus user of multiple ST machines with no hardware problems to date, before the mega). Since the older machines seem to be more stable than the newer, the main point is this: *** flame on *** IF ATARI IS NOT ABLE TO PRODUCE STABLE HARDWARE, NO MATTER HOW THEY MARKET THEIR EQUIPMENT THEY WILL NEVER MAKE IT IN THE BUSINESS MARKET. *** flame off *** If I had had to depend on the mega for business I would have long ago gotten rid of it and jumped ship to something more stable. Sometimes I think that the instability of the machines is the reason that Atari doesn't market more aggressively than they do. After all, if businesses would have the experience that I have had, Atari's reputation would not be helped to put it mildly. Combine that with the recent discussion of marketing policies on the net (not to mention the many TOS bugs) and Atari has a problem. Why in our area, the closest authorized dealer including servicing is more than 200 miles away. No local dealer can meet Atari's requirements, although there are two or three that would like to sell megas (and one actually does, on a trial basis). Don't get me wrong. I do like my Atari, and intend to do what it takes to get a workable system. It is still the best micro on the market for my purposes (support in scientific research, writing, programming) and I wish Atari every success in the business community. Perhaps I am the victim of a wild fluctuation of statistics that occurred in the vicinity of Tallahassee and my experience is far from usual. I certainly hope so for Atari's sake. Don Petcher E-mail: PETCHER@FSU.BITNET, PETCHER@FSU.MFENET U. S. mail: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute The Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida 32312
hase@netmbx.UUCP (Hartmut Semken) (06/24/88)
In article <[gw.scri.fsu.edu].B16E2EA0.00914A12.PETCHER> PETCHER@FSU.BITNET writes: >Now that I have recieved my replacement mega2 and have been working with it for >awhile, I have discovered that it also has problems. For one, my disk drive >has the famed media change problem - whenever I take out a write enabled disk >and replace it with a second write enabled disk, the disk drive doesn't >recognize the media change! This was reported previously on the net to be a Maybe the drive has a "media changed" output on Pin 2. A Diode (4148) from Pin 2 to the write-protected pin could fix it (?). >problem of a certain batch of Chinon drives used by third party vendors, but I >did not expect to find it in the 'off-the-shelf' mega! As it turns out, I may >also have other problems with the blitter (see, my letter on Uniterm vs. the >blitter). Although the final analysis is not yet in, I have certainly had some Hm, this seems to be a well known bug in the Bitter. Here in Germany we have a little Program around, fixing the problem. Maybe I'll post it here. I've never tried it, because I have no Blitter; in fact, I have one but do not know how to connect it to my 520 ST+ (I get no cirurit drawings of the Mega...). >newer, the main point is this: > > *** flame on *** > >IF ATARI IS NOT ABLE TO PRODUCE STABLE HARDWARE, NO MATTER HOW THEY MARKET >THEIR EQUIPMENT THEY WILL NEVER MAKE IT IN THE BUSINESS MARKET. > > *** flame off *** Do not flame Atari for the unstable Blitter. This is a problem, the semiconductor company (General Instruments?) has (the Blitter seems to be too complicated for their machines 8-). But *flame* *them* for using cheap sockets and circurit boards (and noisy fans). Flame them for their circurit design (unbuffered outputs of the soundchip to Centronics). No, wait!! Stop flaming them! They could start making the hardware more stable; this would put me out of buisiness (I'm fixing "broken" STs...8-) >Don't get me wrong. I do like my Atari, and intend to do what it takes to get >a workable system. It is still the best micro on the market for my purposes Me too. I like it, but some day the fixes will be more expensive than another ("real") machine. >Perhaps I am the victim of a wild fluctuation of statistics that occurred in >the vicinity of Tallahassee and my experience is far from usual. I certainly >hope so for Atari's sake. Perhaps You are a victim of temperature. The power supply of the mega seems to be the same as the one of the SH205. I got rid of it (and built one myself) and my harddisk problems were gone! hase -- Hartmut Semken, Lupsteiner Weg 67, 1000 Berlin 37 hase@netmbx.UUCP High on a rocky promontory sat an Electric Monk on a bored horse. (D. Adams)