🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3540@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, engst@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Adam C. Engst) writes:
> I must disagree with Andrew's point about putting the OS back on disk so we
> can get updates every few months.  As much as I like the idea of frequent 
> updates, I absolutely detest having to waste mongo megabytes just getting the
> stupid machine to boot.

Well, lets try to get away from the hyperbole and into the more
mundane realm of facts ( "Just the facts, ma'am."  ) ROM'ed GEM/TOS
is 192K.  This is by no stretch of the imagination `megabytes.' I
might also point out that the cartridge port supports only 128K.
Perhaps extensions to the ROM code could go in here, but there's not
room for much more.  

There's no particular reason why someone (why should it be Atari?
they don't do anything else, I don't expect them to do this
either...)  couldn't make a disk-bootable version of TOS/GEM/GDOS.
The hooks are right there in the current ROM versions.  It could be
updated *frequently*; and it wouldn't compromise the use of the cart
port, which I appreciate since my Magic Sac lives in there.  It might
take up 250K, which I view as cheap in view of the memory sizes which
are becoming common with the introduction of the ST-{2,4}'s.

/* fierce flames follow; the weak of heart may press N at this juncture */

Unfortunately, the whole thing has convinced me that Atari has, for
all intents and purposes, abandoned GEM.  Fine; I am seriously
considering abandoning Atari.  Especially in view of the "Moses
Promised LAN" fiasco (was ever a product given such a stupid name?).
I called Atari Canada last week, asking about availability.  I was
told 3rd or 4th quarter 88.  Now, as I remember, this thing was
announced 4th quarter 87.  What was that all about, perhaps a way of
conducting a straw poll?  "If enough people call us, we'll consider
building the thing; and we won't have to pay for market research."
Or maybe they wanted to force someone out of the Atari-LAN market by
making customers play wait-and-see?  In either case, I am not
impressed.

In this context, I might also mention the vapourware ibm-pc gadget
that was supposed to hook up to the DMA port and give msdos
compatability for a reasonable price; that got lots of airplay and
then sank without a trace - the PC-1 is *not* that product, I have
seen it and it does not need an ST to operate.  (As an aside, the
PC-1 appears to "fill a much-needed gap"; it's too small and too
unexpandable to be anything more than the VIC20 of the msdos world.)

To clarify my attitudes a bit, let me explain that In The Beginning,
I was really taken with the ST's, and recommended them to my friends
and to people around the University generally.  I knew there were
shortcomings and bugs, but my basic faith in the good intentions of
vendors led me to think that fixes, as the product became more
popular and started to generate cashflow for Atari, would be
forthcoming.  I defended the things against various stacked
benchmarks (the utterly stupid Byte reviews come to minla.( I showed
anyone who would look the neat demo's, and promised nifty app's.
Subsequent reality has been disappointing.  

So far, I have seen one (1) fix, and one (1) enhancement.  The fix is
FOLDERXXX; the enhancement is HINSTALL.  And I (the University,
really) am a registered developer.  Ghods know what the rest of the
world has gotten.  I have also seen a lot of flashy but shoddy
applications software.  Who cares if a database has a wonderful GEM
interface, if it crashes every time someone sneezes?  Who cares if a
spreadsheet is a perfect Lotus-clone, if it goes into hyperspace at
random intervals?  And in a similar vein, who cares if TOS is a
decent msdos clone or not, if it's disk i/o is slower than molasses
in January?  My totally obsolete H89 (8-bit Heathkit with no disk
controller and no dma) created and deleted files faster!  Darn right
it cached the FAT's, and with only 48K to play with, too.

So I have been left with a certain amount of egg on my face, and a
certain unpleasant taste in my mouth, vis-a-vis my earlier enthusiasm
and recommendations.  

For what it's worth, I now am recommending Amstrads for the typical
pc-buyer (you know, the word-bashing and spreadsheet type of user),
and Amigas to the serious graphics freaks.  I recommend ST's only to
the hacker types who write most of their own stuff, and who aren't
especially graphics oriented (so far, I am about the only person I
know in this latter category), or to people who can't afford Mac's
and want to do el-cheapo desktop publishing.

Perhaps the release of Idris will be the turning point, although I
have seen Atari snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once too
often. What I am really waiting for is Minix.  Yes, it has bugs;
no, there's not much running on it.  But we will have SOURCE, and be
out from under the thumb of a certain Business-Is-War type who
obviously thinks customers are cattle.  Fine; let him do his
business without me.

Sincerely,

Ross Alexander,
Sr Systems Programmer,
Athabasca University,
Athabasca, Alberta,
T0G 2R0

alberta!auvax!rwa

non-disclaimer:  The above opinions _are_ the official position of
		 Athabasca University Computing Services,
		 Operations Department,
		 Systems Programming Office (me).