ekrimen@csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) (09/12/90)
I just talked with Dave Cagle at Atari Tech Support. I asked him a few questions about my STe. The general concensus seems to be that if it doesn't hurt the hardware, don't worry about it. I asked him about TOS 1.62 and he said he has no ETA on when or if it will arrive. Someone sent me some e-mail about a month ago telling me that he got a replacement STe from Canada and it had 1.62 in it. From what I've heard, you can tell if it's 1.62 because the ROMs have "Release 2" on them. Maybe I should have asked him about "Release 2 of 1.6" instead of 1.62. Kinda like the old story that there's only one mouse made by Atari, the STM1, although they are, or used to be, of different quality and made in different countries. In fact, all the STe's I've seen have the same kind of mouse, a good one I might add, and there's no "Made in...." on it. I asked him about the delay for hard drives. I heard on here (should I lay it on Allan Pratt? :^) that there's a 90-second delay when you turn on the STe to allow the hard drive to come up to speed. I asked Dave about it and he said that only the Stacy's do this. My first STe paused, but now that I realize it, the one I have now doesn't. Weird. Finally, the floppy light doesn't go off after the hard drive has booted. I thought that TOS 1.2, 1.4, and 1.6 was supposed to turn it off. I think he said that some do and some don't. As long as it doesn't hurt any hardware, don't worry about it, he added.