MCMANIS%USC-ECLC%sri-nic@sri-unix.UUCP (01/10/84)
From: Chuck McManis <MCMANIS%USC-ECLC@sri-nic>
Well the Consumer Electronics Show this year seemed to be pushing two
things, games for your computer, and phones for your home. I saw
no less than 75 different games for the Commodore 64 that were either
announced at the show or would be available by June. Obviously, the
C64 is the game computer of choice among many of the software houses.
Of the dedicated game machines the 5200 by atari seems to be the
favorite. Look out for Star Wars the Home video game on '84 *Wow!*
It does everything the arcade version does on the C64 and 5200 ,
even the Atari VCS implementation was impressive. Atari showed a
1450XL but refused to specify a release date, it looks neat, the
basic configuration is 1 DSDD floppy and 64K of memory, The engineer
at the show said there weren't any problems with either the electronics
or the software, just that Atari was sitting on it. Who knows what
thoughts lurk in the minds of these guys. He did mention it was upward
compatible with all Atari software but would need a new level of DOS
to "fully utilize" the DSDD floppy disk. Also it appeared to be
targeting more into "serious" computing than I suspect is healthy.
You can now get 1 of a zillion different model of phone, one you can
even enunciate the number to be dialed.
Two unfortunate trends have appeared, one the number of new modems
available dropped from the summer, and the number of people announceing
new joystick type peripherals also declined. Reasons seem to be that
more manufacturers are including modems with their computers, and
be the home game accessory market seems to be saturating.
All in all an interesting show, a gamers heaven, and certainly quite
an experience, reccommended to all who can get out there.
--Chuck
P.S. To C64 fans, the "Ted" that commodore announced at the show became the
Commodore 264 and Commofore 364. They are both 6502 machines like the
C64 but with the exception of built in software, the 364 has something
like Lotus 123 in it, and the 264 had some sort of electronic desktop.
I don't expect to much hoopla will follow there introduction, I was
told to wait for May and their $500 Unix machine.
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