🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <890525.11385598.000380@SFA.CP6> Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET (Z4648252) writes:
>Hal Meeks writes:
>
>"All these emulations aren't something to boast about. It indicates that
>the software end of the machine using it's native OS is severely lacking, and
>people are trying to make up for that."

>    My ST runs more dependably as a Mac than as an ST.  Note that I use
>my computer for writing and minor desktop publishing.  I use FullWrite
>almost daily, finding it easier to use than PageMaker.  FullWrite is also
>easier to use than Calamus and for college students, certainly much
>cheaper ($108.00).  Its power and EASY user interface reminds me of the
>same principle that TimeWorks DeskTop Publisher transmits in being easy on
>the user.
>    I have fewer crashes while using the ST as a Mac and, in the long
>run, am able to get more productivity out of my machine as a writer with it
>in Mac mode.

The Mac has had some dogs, too.  How many revisions has, say,
Microsoft Word gone through, now?  Or even MacWrite?  The business
community is much less tolerant of buggy software than we Atari folks
are, since they cannot afford to stay with dogs, and superior
competition quickly fills the gap.  As personal users, we can't afford
to simply discard an $80 program because it's buggy.  The Atari's
problem is that we don't have the buying power and numbers to draw
that kind of competition.  That is not a flaw of the hardware nor the
OS.

>    With the advent of cheap lasers and the HP DeskJet series, a writer
>should expect to being able to actually see on the screen what he will
>get on the printer, font-wise. [...]
>    Is this a fault of TOS or developers?  I dunno.  However, I really
>regret that so many of the ST programs are unpolished and rough while
>programs for other systems, as a whole, seem to be finer made.  We, as
>STers, certainly deserve better and should not have to buy an emulator in
>order to have really professional software.

Atari can take at least some of the rap for the problems of getting
good hardcopy output.  The GDOS situation is bad for everyone.  GDOS
should be a part of the standard developer's kit, and smoothly
integrated into *every* application that uses GEM.  There is too much
confusion about and hassle with GDOS.

>    Look at programs for the Mac and IBM and compare.  We can't use the
>excuse that the ST is "new" because it isn't.  This summer will see the
>forth year of the ST market.  It is a real pity that programs such as
>Dungeon Master, Oids, and Captain Blood, and Time Bandits, are rated as
>the most polished programs for the ST while 'productive' software such as
>WordPerfect, PageStream, Calamus, First Word, and Word Up are considered
>'problem children'.

The ST might as well be new, when you look at the market penetration
it's got here in the U.S.  You can't cite the European sales figures
to American software companies, because they are totally irrelevant to
the American market.  The English version of a product is essentially
a separate product, and the ST just doesn't have the installed base to
justify any kind of a major effort on the part of big software
companies.  Hence, we get after-thought ports of programs written for
other platforms that don't quite fit on the ST.

In this regard, ST owners are indeed lucky to be able to emulate, to a
high degree of success, other computers with that large installed
base.  These emulations give us a bridge to professional software
until the Atari market gets as hot here as it did in Europe.  Atari
Corp. keeps promising that this is going to be the case Real Soon Now.
In the mean time we can boot up our Magic Sacs and Spectre 128's and
PC Ditto's, and wait.


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