K538915@CZHRZU1A.BITNET.UUCP (02/25/87)
Please don't forget that I'm quoting european mags and Commodore Germany:
-The price that I've seen quoted for the A500 + monitor, would make
it about the same price as a mono 1040ST and about $100 cheaper
than the price that was quoted for a 1MB Mega-ST (the A500 is
suppose to have 512kB ram with an optional board with an additional
512kB + clock).
(Prices were mentioned in: Data Welt (normally quite well informed:
annouced the Atari PC a month before CES)
68'000er (that had a picture of the motherboard of a Mega-ST this
month with this title: ....space reserved for the blitter. The
problem is that there was NO room reserved for the blitter on the
board as far as I could tell)).
The SM125 has completly replaced the SM125 here:
Nice things:
-swivel base
-picture height and horizontal position adjustable from outside
(as far as I can remeber )
Not so nice things:
-no contrast regulation
-even worse adjusted than the SM124
-paint or something like that put on the coils (so that you
can't align the picture yourself)
-the knob everybody thinks is the contrast button is the volume
pot (I've actully tried this on unsuspecting friends of mine)
-doesn't have that solid feeling anymore (this is just a personal
disliking)
-picture size is VERY dependent on the brightness value
Perhaps the SM125 isn't quite as bad as I think, but you would expect that
if you'd replace the SM124 you would do it with something that is really better
Simon Poole
K538915@CZHRZU1A.BITNETakw@osupyr.UUCP (02/27/87)
OK. So we have seen the Amiga 2000. (Or at least heard about it on the net or read about it in Byte. :-) Yes, it is quite an awesome machine. Yes, it runs 100% (proportedly) IBM software and runs all Amiga software. I guess according to some disgruntled engineers much of the add-on third- party hardware is not compatible with the A1000. But: we are not here to deliberate on the Amiga (or at least I am not.) What we have here is this: many people who have purchased an ST seem to at first been totally enthused with the machine and many (to the delight of the rest of us) have gone out of there way to write some professional quality PD software for the machine. This is in addition to the same, professional level (in most cases) commercial software that has been written for the machine since its arrival in July of '85. Now some (note I said *some*) of these same people are now disgruntled. Why? Because Atari is supposedly 'abandoning' the ST line like they 'did' with the 8-bit line. Why are these people so disgrunted? "Lack of support!" "No upgrades!" "40 folder limit!" etc. True, there are a few problems with the ST. I will give in to that. But, can we look at some of the cold, hard facts that there are in the world? I. Atari is a young, *small* company. Even though the name 'Atari' has been used since Nolan Bushnell founded the company back in the Dark Ages of Pong, the current 'Atari Corp' dates back to July 3, 1984 when Mr. Jack Tramiel basically bought the rights, inventory, and *debts* from Warner Communications. He purged the company of many (and in some cases inefficient) employees, services and buildings. He took the ST project, already in research, and had it completed almost a year later to the day after he bought the company. Yes, in some cases the 'old' Atari company was easier to reach because of 800 numbers, etc. but even so this made the company much more inefficient, having numerous divisions and agencies. In fact, clearly the most idiotic part of the 'old' Atari was being split into three divisions: Home Enter- tainment (2600, 5200, 7800), Home Computers (400, 800, XL) and Coin-op games (etc.) This made for many wonderful blunders (like the add-on 'computer' for the 2600 which was totally incompatible with the other home computers), the 5200 (which was a 400/800 w/o keyboard and quite rearranged internally.) This system was inefficient; thus Mr. Tramiel purged it into computer hell. OK, one might say, but now it has been going on three years since he bought the company. Shouldn't he be supporting the ST line to the hilt? Yes, he should. But in many ways, there is one thing that the ST is not doing, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Generating (enough) capital, baby. If Atari had enough ST and XE sales they wouldn't have to go into the PC-clone business. But they must not, so they are going to. 2. The ST computers will be with us for a long time (or at least 8 more years) To the contrary of many reports, the XL/XEs are not dead. (Read comp.sys.atari.8bit lately?) They were introduced back in 1977. In fact, here in Columbus the computer/game outlets probably sell more XE and 2600 software than ST and Amiga software combined. Unless you haven't heard, Atari sold 100,000 2600 units with *no* advertising. Now the STs have been out since '85 and will most likely make it to '95 barring rain, sleet, EMP or stock market crash. Right now there are more word processing/business apps for the ST than the Mac relative to its evolutionary scale or the Amiga at any point (no fair including IBM stuff on the Amiga!) There is already the Mac emulation for the ST as well as software MS-DOS emulation (with hardware to follow presently.) The blitter chip will be available soon, the TT will be out in some form and the Megas as well. Now, if you don't like your ST: sell it! There is sure to be someone who is disgruntled with their present computer or someone who knows a good deal when they see one. Sell it if you don' like it. I am not saying don't flame Atari on the net; on the contrary, flame away. That way at least Neil, Landon et. al. will hear something. Call/write Atari. Flame 'em on the net. But *don't* put your ST in the closet or use it as a doorstop. If you feel the need to do these things, send your unit postage due to the address below (and I will be *more* than happy to take care of it. :-) Ranting and raving... | Andy Weaver --+-- akw@osupyr.UUCP | The Ohio State University | Proverbs 25.25 1774 College Rd Cols, OH 43210 |