FXDDR@ALASKA.BITNET.UUCP (02/25/87)
When I posed the question about Publishing Partner and its long lines, I overlooked the culprit: the Vax 8800 that the Apple LaserWriter is plugged into. It turns out our friendly Vax, in sending files to the LaserWriter terminal queue, munches lines longer than 132 characters. That is a queue setting and can probably be changed, but I took the coward's way out and wrote a quicky program to wrap long lines at convenient places. Publishing Partner looks pretty tacky on the screen, but it sure produces nice results on the LaserWriter. And speaking of laserprinters and such, it seems to me some people are forgetting a key point about the Atari hardware: low cost. If you contrive to add outboard buffers and processors to the Atari laser printer, you are pushing the system price up enough that you might as well get some other brand of laser printer. Ditto for various kludges to expand the ST. When I got my 520ST a year ago, it was because the software I needed was available, and the system price (hardware+software) was low enough that I could afford it. I didn't expect to expand it to 4 MB. (I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could cheaply expand it to 1 MB!) It has done everything I wanted it to and the results were good enough that I used ST screen slides in a paper at the National Radio Science Conference last month. It has been well worth its low price. I wouldn't hesitate to purchase a new Mega-ST or TT or whatever if they look desirable. I could keep the 520ST around as a spare, or use it for a BBS, or something...I doubt that I would sell it. On the other hand, if, when next I have the urge to upgrade, if Amiga has a good product, I might go that route. I am application-driven: I don't feel the need to have the "latest-and-greatest" or to religiously buy Atari. So be realistic, please. Why worry about resale value or "upgrade paths"? The machines are bargains. I've extracted full value from mine; it has paid for itself. The logical "upgrade path" is to buy a new machine as long as the prices remain reasonable. However, I do think new ROM releases are a reasonable expectation. I get new ROMs periodically for my packet TNC, and it cost as much as an Atari floppy disk drive. So if Atari keeps my ROMs up to date, I won't have any quarrels with them. Don Rice University of Alaska, Fairbanks BITNET%"FXDDR@ALASKA" CIS 72337,3417 // KL7JIQ