🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1266@cacilj.UUCP> paul@cacilj.UUCP (Paul Close) writes:

>Oh my, a bug in RTS/CTS handling!  Tsk, tsk.  Forget about the zillions of
>bugs they fixed, forget about the months of development, and focus on one
>obscure bug.  The reason it wasn't fixed, I'm sure, is that none of the
>developers who beta-tested even *use* RTS/CTS flow control!

Folks, what we have here is the bane of the consumer -- the "brand loyalist."
By that I mean those of us who've used Ataris and (yes) Commodores since long
before the IBM PC was a twinkle in Big Blue's eye.  I'll bet that he (like a
lot of us) stuck by his small, innovative company from Atari 400/800 through
1040ST, with all the lean years in between.

Maybe some of you remember (or HAVE) the Commodore 64 and 1541 disk drive.  
For years Commodore denied that its DOS had any bugs despite frequent testi-
mony about its file overwrite (save-with-replace, they called it) doing all
kinds of strange things from swapping filenames to triggering nuclear melt-
downs.  Well, somebody finally PROVED that the bug existed, Commodore was 
forced to at least acknowledge it (and recognize that others might exist) and
the users of Commodore computers were safer and happier.

My point here is that a bug -- any bug -- is an IMPORTANT THING.  Allowing a 
company to sell buggy software is tantamount to letting it screw you in any 
other way.  Don't let Atari off the hook on this one so easily.  You might
regret it later, and so might they (big business doesn't deal with companies 
that turn a blind eye toward product shortcomings -- denying a bug is not the
way to generate confidence in a small, undermarketed company like Atari).

>Why don't you pay up and become a developer?  Try working to make the Atari
>better instead of complaining about how bad it is?!?

It's ATARI's job to make its products work correctly, not its users'.

>Go buy an Amiga or something and quit complaining!

"My Atari -- love it or leave it," eh?  Well then next time you're screwed you
will know who to blame: yourself.  (BTW, all my comments apply equally to
Commodore -- and any other company, for that matter.)

>Wrong.  If it wasn't for Atari, we wouldn't have this wonderful machine that
>truley delivers "power without the price"!  When the ST first came out, an
>8MHz 68000 was *power*!!!  Even today, it is a respectable machine.  Ever
>priced a 25MHz 68030 machine?  Come up with a figure a home hobbyist could
>afford?  I didn't think so.

Just a note: anybody remember the original price of an Atari 800 with 16K?  I
seem to remember a figure around $1000 or so.

>You don't sound very proud to me.

He doesn't have to be proud of Atari (the company) to be proud of Atari (the
machine).

>...I sure get tired of people who think that Atari should do
>everthing for them.  I'm glad there are developers who *do* something to
>improve the machine, instead of just whine and complain.

When buying a computer, just as for any other high-ticket item, you're buying
the company behind it.  If service is nonexistent, if support is minimal, if
the company is unresponsive, then the computer, no matter how technically ad-
vanced, will never gain acceptance -- especially companies like Atari and 
Commodore who already have negative images.

>-- 
>Paul Close	paul@cacilj.CTS.COM 	...!{uunet, ucsd, crash}!cacilj!paul
>
>    The Obi-wan Kenobi method:  "Use the Source, Luke"	-Jim Fulton


					-Colin
					strasser@eniac.seas.upenn.edu



==============================================================================
Colin Strasser				University of Pennsylvania
strasser@eniac.seas.upenn.edu		Moore School of Electrical Engineering
CI$: 72447,1650				Class of '90 -- Penn's 250th year!

There is but one law: "Don't get caught."