manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (02/22/87)
There has recently been a fair amount of traffic here of the following sort: "Atari computers don't work, and the company doesn't support them properly. My next computer won't be an Atari." Since the rule is that people who are satisfied don't speak out, and because there are undoubtedly silent readers of the group who are considering the purchase of an ST, I felt I ought to speak out. I've had a lot of experience with another company (let's call it Fruit Computers, to avoid another one of those silly debates about which machine is better) with whose products we stocked a 66-station student lab. Fruit Computers' first machine didn't have enough memory, so they announced a second machine with adequate memory, but at a cost of US$1000 for a 384K upgrade! We bought their machines shortly before they announced the Fruit Squared, with more memory and DS disks. No problem, there was an upgrade: the disk upgrade is reasonable, but adding 512K of memory is still several hundred dollars. Of course, Fruit software has no bugs (unlike Atari's): their original Pascal compiler had many bugs, at which point they announced a new version. Turned out that their compiler wouldn't work with their new operating system, so they had to send it back for rework. There finally is a fixed compiler which works with the system, but it still has many serious bugs. Fruit's ZapWriter+, a laser printer, came with non-working ROMs. As for vapourware, Fruit announced FruitNet, which would support file servers and all kinds of other goodies. Only two years after this announcement, they have finally actually shown a real file server. Re technical documentation: getting a copy of "Inside the Fruit", the technical reference manual, involved repeated telephone calls to Toronto, as none of the local Fruit sales people, all of whom wear expensive suits, knew what it was. (Fruit had been selling a developer's kit, costing several hundred dollars for a lousy C compiler and a thick wad of erroneous looseleaf paper, but we wanted the real thing.) They finally published it, 2-1/2 years after the release of the machine. (Commodore is to be commended for getting its technical documentation out so early, but that's the exception, not the rule.) I'm not really knocking Fruit (they make good, if overpriced, computers); but things aren't really much better with non-Atari machines in general (at least in my experience), except for one manufacturer, the much-maligned IBM (who *do* publish excellent technical documentation for their machines, and the machine prices show it). It's also worth noting that many compatible manufacturers (with Zenith being a notable exception) publish *no* technical documentation, referring you instead to IBM documents. In any case, here's my point: I've had a 1040ST for almost a year. The combination of the hardware, TDI Modula-2/ST, and some of the PD software I've obtained from here (notably uEmacs 3.7, LESS, and ARC) make it my machine of choice. (I happen to have both a Mac and an IBM PC sitting in boxes--they don't belong to me--I just can't be bothered to fish either one out of its box and set it up). I would gladly buy another ST (though I might wait for the Mega ST!). Is Atari's support adequate? Well, Apple doesn't (to my knowledge) doesn't run a public-access BBS (IBM does, though the number is a closely guarded secret, apparently). When I used to be a member of the old fa.info-mac, I don't remember anybody from Apple ever contributing anything (in fact, Apple's net address was a matter of considerable speculation). Things could be a lot better, but they could also be a lot worse.
gordon@sage.UUCP (02/24/87)
In article <855@ubc-cs.UUCP> manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vincent Manis) writes: >I've had a lot of experience with another company (let's call it Fruit >Computers, to avoid another one of those silly debates about which machine That sounds like an apple of a story to me. However, I too have had an ST for a long time - its one of the old 520's from when they were launched in the UK (1 and a 1/2 years ago), and I agree, atari have generally been very good. For instance, both the blitter and the sound chip will be made available for all ST's (when they become available) - have commodore said they will upgrade the old blitters for the new improved ones? or add them to the new bottom of the range machine? i think not (dont yell too loud if im wrong). OK, you can't get the documentation seperately, but my dealers have been good enough to let me brouse through bits when I needed too, and there are several alternative sources of the info - they have mistakes, but I'm sure the official docs do too. I've always found atari helpfull, if a little slow (aren't they all). And I intend to by a 4M mega ST this summer to replace my old 520, after all, the software I have would cost even more to replace than the computer. Simon GORDON@SAGE Reading university UK
paone@topaz.UUCP (02/28/87)
I bought my 1040 almost a year ago, and have not had so much as a single disk errors with the machine. The reason (one of them) that I bought the ST, was that I have a six year old 800 which never had any trouble until it died last week.(sniff,sniff). I am not sure about the reliablility of other brands after the kind of hacking that I put those machines through, but I know that I will always swear by Atari. -- Phil Paone paone@topaz.rutgers.edu "Admiral...There be whales here"
hadeishi@husc4.UUCP (03/01/87)
In re: Whether Commodore-Amiga is providing upgrades to the old users: The OLD Amiga blitter chips are being used in the new machines, the A500 and the A2000, so there is no need for an upgrade. There is no upgrade path anyway since the new (unreleased) blitter chip is rumored to have a 2 Mb address space and the old blitter is restricted to the lower 512K of RAM (known as "CHIP RAM" to Amigoids. This is somewhat of a restriction only for frame-buffer animation, and it is plenty of memory for most graphics applications and text applications at 640x400 resolution. Note that 640x400 with 16 colors, the larget Amiga resolution and color depth, takes up only 128K, and you can swap in graphics from non-CHIP ram as long as you don't need blitter speed to do it.) The new chip is rumored to be intended for high-end graphics workstations in the 1024x780 or 1Kx1K market running a version of UNIX (probably Sys V.2 or V.3, not BSD WAAAH) as well as Amiga Intuition on at least a 14Mhz 68020. It has the 2 Mb address space simply because of the larger resolution. It is possible to add graphics boards to the Amiga series to provide upgrades to resolution and/or blitter speed/address space, but of course you would need a new, expensive high-resolution monitor to go with it. Such a trick was demoed at a show a few weeks ago, apprently; Amiga Intuition supports different screen sizes and resolutions. Most users won't need more than the 640x400 resolution made possible by the introduction of the new $500 long-persistence color monitor available from Commodore. -Mitsu
leavens@atari.UUCP (03/05/87)
> Is Atari's support adequate? Well, Apple doesn't (to my knowledge) doesn't > run a public-access BBS (IBM does, though the number is a closely guarded > secret, apparently). When I used to be a member of the old fa.info-mac, I > don't remember anybody from Apple ever contributing anything (in fact, > Apple's net address was a matter of considerable speculation). Things could > be a lot better, but they could also be a lot worse. We do, in fact, run a BBS--it has five lines, and can be reached at: 408-745-5308 5970 2642 4458 5664 The lines cascade, so if you just want to get on, dial any number. --alex (@Atari)