franco@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (03/30/88)
Alot of people have been critical of the ST and MEGA computers recently.
They say these computers have no future. The Amiga people say the Amiga
outclasses these machines. I must disagree with both groups. The reasons
are:
1. The ST user community is fantastic. There are many, many
shall I say UNIX types that own and develop on an ST. The
result is wonderful stuff like the gulam shell, all the great
unix-like utilities, zmodem software (zmdm), the TeX previewer
and lots more. All this stuff has improved my productivity
quite a bit. If the commercial stuff is lacking for the ST
I haven't even noticed. I use virtually no commercial ST stuff
except for compilers/interpreters and word processors.
2. The ST is a great terminal. Since about 90% of my computer
time is terminal time this is a very important attribute to
me. I know of no other small computer that comes close to the
ST in performance in this category (mono monitor only).
3. The ST does a fine emulation of the mac (although not the
macII). The magic sac is a phenominal product. I have HFS
on finder 5.4 with system 3.2 or 4.2. Almost nothing doesn't
run. Some things run better on the MacTari. Who cares if
SCHEME is not available for the ST - I just switch on the
MacTari and pop in MacScheme (and its faster! with 30% more
screen area than the mac!).
4. The ST does a reasonable emulation of the IBM-PC. PC-Ditto
is too slow for some applications but is adequate for most.
Who cares if DBASE III is not available for the Atari - I just
switch on PC-ATARI and pop in DBASE III.
5. The ST can also emulate CP/M, the Atari 800, and the Apple II.
But who cares?
6. The ST has just the right complexity for those interested in
learning about modern computers. I have certainly learned an
awful lot from my machine.
Now, I realize that I am supposed to be joining the bandwagon to stomp on
Atari but there is some force from within that prevents me from doing this.
Even after over 2 years of ownership, I still find the ST exciting both as
an educational tool and a medium for doing useful work. If I needed a
small computer (not talking about a workstation) this minute I would be
compelled to choose the Atari ST or MEGA.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just different.
franco@iuvax.cs.indiana.eduweaver@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Andrew Weaver) (03/31/88)
In article <36500044@iuvax> franco@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu writes: > >Alot of people have been critical of the ST and MEGA computers recently. >They say these computers have no future. The Amiga people say the Amiga >outclasses these machines. I must disagree with both groups. The reasons >are: > [many good reasons to like the ST] I agree. The ST is a great box, due to the user groups and the many people who are gifted programmers and weren't so gifted, perhaps, financially. To these people we users, and incidently, Atari itself, owes much. However, the problem lies not with the computer but with its manufacturer, in my opinion. The ST doesn't appear to have much of a future in the United States. The ST is doing extremely well in Europe, and Atari is pumping the bucks, and more importantly the support over there instead of here, where IBM and Apple have the hold of the personal computer market (more or less - you can argue about who has hold of the home market, Commodore perhaps, but even C= doesn't have an overall command like IBM or Apple.) Atari is, ever so quietly, edging out of the U.S. market. As long as some STs sell, sure Atari will keep minimum support in this country. The Tramiels, no matter what any of us think of them, are in it for the big bucks. Their business philosophy appears to be, at least from the way they act, not one of the user (or the customer) coming first, but the profit margin. I have enjoyed my ST, when it works. I am not being facetious; my ST only works when the chips feel they are sufficiently close to Mother Board. Sure I can send it back to Sunnyvale with $95, but if I had the $95 readily available I wouldn't be bitching about it. So goes Power without the Price. >Now, I realize that I am supposed to be joining the bandwagon to stomp on >Atari but there is some force from within that prevents me from doing this. >Even after over 2 years of ownership, I still find the ST exciting both as >an educational tool and a medium for doing useful work. If I needed a >small computer (not talking about a workstation) this minute I would be >compelled to choose the Atari ST or MEGA. > Well, I am tired of being dogmatic. I encouraged many a friend to buy an ST, many before I ever bought mine, and many of them never regretted the decision. They also use theirs for different reasons, and haven't had the problems that I have had with mine. Ever since I bought my Atari 400 in high school, its always been "Atari, Atari, Atari!" but now I want something that I know will be supported, and have reasonably new and exciting software for next year. But hey, welcome to the computer market. >I don't know. Maybe I'm just different. Yes, but that is to be encouraged. The ST was and still is a good idea. Maybe if Atari went under again and was bought out by someone more attuned to the users instead of the users' money, we'd have to jump off of the Atari bashing bandwagon. But until then... >franco@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu andy at osu -- Andrew Weaver weaver@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu OSU College of Business soon: weaver@osu-pisa.UUCP Remember: Oprah spelled backwards is Harpo. HONK! HONK! HONK!
saj@chinet.UUCP (Stephen Jacobs) (04/01/88)
I would like to add my voice in qualified defense of Atari. Years ago, when people at companies dependent on IBM for most of their business found themselves harmed by the giant shifting its business, the saying "IBM doesn't love you" gained some currency. It means you can do business with them, but expect them to watch out for themselves, not for you. And people live with that. Well, Atari doesn't love you, either. I wish they did, but I can live (and do the odd bit of programming) with it.
rjung@sal22.usc.edu (Robert Jung) (04/01/88)
In article <36500044@iuvax> franco@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu writes: >Now, I realize that I am supposed to be joining the bandwagon to stomp on >Atari Who sez? Don't let these ST-grinches spoil your enjoyment of the machine. > but there is some force from within that prevents me from doing this. >Even after over 2 years of ownership, I still find the ST exciting both as >an educational tool and a medium for doing useful work. If I needed a >small computer (not talking about a workstation) this minute I would be >compelled to choose the Atari ST or MEGA. > >I don't know. Maybe I'm just different. No, you're just an optimist, like me. I get depressed reading this net from time to time, but I refuse to "jump on the ST-bashing bandwagon". I think my 1040ST is still a better buy over the comparably-priced Amiga and Mac systems, and I haven't had any complaints about the hardware. I must agree, there are some policies of Atari upper-management that I don't like... But does this detract from the machine itself? I really doubt Atari Corp. will dissappear into a black hole tomorrow, but I must agree I wish Uncle Jack would clean up his act a little. But I still love my ST (and my Atari 800 and XL)! --R.J. B-) P.S. Tangent time: Recently, I've been getting a strange bug with my 1040... When I get a directory from the desktop, switch disks, then press ESCape, I get the new directory (of the new disk), but mixed with some of the files from the *old* directory! Whatsamatter? (I doubt it's non-fatal, I can pop the disk, re-enter it, and get a good directory afterward, but I wonder what's the poop... Too many files from disk #1, maybe?) ______________________________________________________________________________ Bitnet: rjung@castor.usc.edu "Who needs an Amiga?" = == = = == = Power WithOUT the Price = == = ===== == ===== Just because it's 8-bits doesn't make it obsolete. ==== == ====
lharris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Leonard Harris) (04/02/88)
I don't want to start up too much, but about 2 months ago a note was left on this system that "fixed" roms were a reality and it was just up to Atari management to decide on their release. Does a simple decision like this really take 2 months. The bottom line is should I wait for new roms for my 520, or spend extra bucks on eproms and copy the Mega roms so I don't have to wait 3 minutes for my 4 meg 520 to boot up. (also - are improvements to the 520/1040 a dead issue. I remember reading that 520/1040's with blitters were in the future - am I dreaming?) /leonard
pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) (04/08/88)
In article <617@nunki.usc.edu> rjung@sal22.usc.edu (Robert Jung) writes: >P.S. Tangent time: Recently, I've been getting a strange bug with my 1040... >When I get a directory from the desktop, switch disks, then press ESCape, >I get the new directory (of the new disk), but mixed with some of the >files from the *old* directory! Whatsamatter? I'm not going to claim this is definitive, but... I occasionally saw things like that myself. After a bit of investigating, I determined that it only ever happened to me (and reliably repeatedly happened) if the two disks involved had the same disk serial number. There's been a lot of mention of disk serial numbers recently, so I won't repeat where to find them. Duplicate disk serial numbers are produced by some (flawed) PD formatters, including early versions of TWISTER, I'm told. The later TWISTERs, and the later DCFORMAT's, are OK. The standard desktop formatter is OK. Dup serial numbers will also be got if you use one of the proprietary 'protected disk copiers' such as PROCOPY, or anything else that does a full logical bitcopy of the disk. I'm not absolutely positive, but I believe it might be true that in order to get the effect you describe you need not only to have disks with duplicate serial numbers (and use them back to back) but that you might also need to be running one of the PD disk caches, such as Moshe Braner's SCACHE or the recent ACACHE (whose author I don't recall). I seem to remember that if you don't have a cache in, the more likely effect is that the second disk (the one where the problem becomes visible) will have a window list which includes a lot of file icons with no (or garbage) names and apparent 0 lengths. In any case, if this is what is causing the problem, you can terminally garbage the second disk, if you write to it while the system is in this confused state as to what is on it. So, you should check, and clean up your act. There was a recently posted tool (BOOTSEC, I think it was called) which makes it easy to check disk serial numbers.