K538915@CZHRZU1A.BITNET (07/29/87)
Sorry folks, I was a bit quick of the mark with my report yesterday
(that UniTerm wouldn't run on a Mega ST-4), UniTerm DOES run on the
Mega-ST's, it seems as if a not wellbehaved RAM-disk caused the trouble.
Our local shop managed to sell 10 ST-4's in 8 hours, this morning I had
a chance to try a few more things and take the last ST-4 apart:
- I installed a HD with HDB 2.4 and GEMBoot 1.10 without
problems (I did have to find the new location of the
internal pointers, but that was no problem with the
utility provided by Konrad).
- All the things which have supposedly been fixed
actually are as far as I tested: notably the underscore
bug (the 40 folder prolem IS NOT FIXED, but nobody ever
said it would be) has gone away.
- The scrollarrows on windows and on the file selector are
now touchexit buttons (that means they autorepeat), it doesn't
help very much on the desktop, since the disk-window up-
dating is very slow.
- An expansion connector IS fitted, the 68000 is still NOT
socketed and as I mentioned yesterday there are NO blitters
installed.
The Mega-ST make quite a good impression, they take up a lot less
desk space, the keyboard is better (not good!) and some of the
more serious bugs have gone (RS232 and underscore bug). The compatibilty
with older ROM versions is good (none of my programs has had trouble
(with execption of the false alarm yesterday)). The pricing is slightly
obscure: the ST-4 being about right (~SFr 3000) the ST-2 being too
expensive (~SFr 2600) and the 1040 ST being very cheap (~SFr 1400).
If Atari would at last address the remaining problems seriously
(GEMDOS (40 folder bug etc) and blitter), they would probably have
a machine that would have appeal to a wider market (non-programmers).
Simon Poole
K538915@CZHRZU1A.BITNETbraner@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (braner) (07/29/87)
[] I believe the soldered-in 68000 in the Mega-ST is worse than the lack of the blitter. A socketed 68000 would, at an extra cost of about 50 cents to Atari, allow much easier upgrading of the machine, both to use other CPU's (68020) and coprocessors (68881) _and_ the retrofitting of a blitter if it ever arrives. The expansion socket is great, but a socket for the CPU is almost like having _two_ expansion sockets! Any more votes for Atari to hear? - Moshe Braner