lorraine@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Peter Lorraine) (01/08/87)
I went home to Toronto over Christmas and had a chance to look in a few computer shops selling ATARI equipment and saw a few things I haven't seen advertised in the USA. I saw in "Electronic Playworld" one of the loveliest colour monitors for the ST. It bore an ATARI logo, had an integral ssdd disk drive and had spectacular resolution and colour definition. The manager told me that it was a repackaged JVC monitor and that ATARI had produced only about 5000 or so. It wasn't for sale. The other product that was interesting was the 520stfm which appears to be a standard 520 with rf modulator but also with an integral drive like the 1040. Sorry, I forgot to check which drive it was. A very stylish package. Does anyone know if this is for sale in the USA or is this just being test-marketed in Canada? As a side note, Commodore sells an IBM clone (not the amiga sidecar) which I have not seen in the USA. It seems to be a popular choice for those seeking pc-ability. The last thing that caught my eye was the game "Deep Space" or some such title from Psygnosis who distributed Bratacus. You fly around in space shooting aliens as in Star Raiders but I thought the graphic implementation was superior. A really neat feature was the use of heads up style computer displays. The game has planets, aliens that pop out of their spaceships which you can capture for bounty, and an overall mission of leapfrogging from star system to star system to rescue some kidnapped celebrity. I didn't buy it (Canadian selection is grand but software prices are steep by US standards) but if you are in the market for a space-shoot-em-up game then check this out. peter lorraine