🚀 go-pugleaf

The figure of  130  Atari dealers came from an Atari dealer.  With all the
dealers either going out of business or dropping the Atari line, I don't
think that's too far out of line.  Remember that the sales figures were for
LAST year, and there's been another years worth of deterioration of the
Atari marketplace since then.
 
You only have to read the postings here on UseNet, on the major information
services and on local BBSs all over the US to see evidence of the situation.
There are entire states without a single Atari dealer (and of course, Atari
has stopped mail order sales of STs).  People wanting to buy Atari equipment
keep posting messages asking for help finding a dealer within hundreds of
miles of them.  It's not uncommon to read about someone driving 200 miles to
get TOS 1.4 installed...
 
At any rate, we should be able to see the actual figures for ourselves soon
if Atari follows through on some of the things they're recently been saying
they're going to do.  It used to be that when a third-party developer called
and asked for a list of Atari dealers, they'd be told "NO" in no uncertain
terms... it was "proprietary information", but it looks as if they're
actually going to be releasing this information as part of their new
developers' support.
 
Now if only they can get a more accurate listing of who actually sells
Atari computers than they seem to have now...
 
BobR