🚀 go-pugleaf

Opinions expressed are the responsibility of the author.

In article <23996@cup.portal.com> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes:
>Anthony Lapadula states:
> 
>>(1)  I do resent being told in late '85 that my 1040ST would indeed
>>be able to use the Blitter, which, of course, was due out RSN.  Don't
>>know if I should blame my dealer or Atari, but the example stands.
>
>Sam Tramiel, President of Atari Corp promised, on a TV show called something
>like "the Computer Show" that all STs would have a blitter upgrade made
>available...    something like a year later, Atari finally admitted the lie,
>and made the excuse that the FCC wouldn't let them do it...

I'm getting really disgusted with the endless stream of message like
this one appearing in this group.  I've seen hardly a single message
with anything like technical content, tips, hints, programming help,
etc.  Perhaps it's time to creat comp.sys.atari.gripes or
comp.sys.atari.flames...

There is quite a long way between a company stating an intention to
(attempt to) provide something, and an actual product offering.  If
you've any experience in the Real World (tm), Mr. Retelle, you'd know
that in this imperfect world we must work in, sometimes things prove
technically infeasable.

Sam Tramiel isn't an engineer.  The only thing he could be faulted for
is making a statement before checking with his technical people about
its feasability.  Even then, he might have been told it was
technically possible, but his engineers didn't think of the FCC
certification issue.  Atari isn't the first, and won't be the last
corporation to have sales or marketing promise something that
engineering couldn't deliver for reasons that didn't become evident
until later.

The 520 and 1040 case designs are very RF-leaky.  It was because of
this that they were sold in the US without the RF modulator: they
simply couldn't pass the FCC Certification test with a modulator.  My
understanding is that the 1040 is very close to violating the
emissions standard.  Adding a blitter to the design would require
re-certification, and would not pass.  It is not surprising to anyone
with a little bit of electronics knowledge that retrofitting another
processor into a design may cause that design to exceed some parameter
like RF emissions.

Atari addressed this problem when they designed the Mega STs.  The
sealed case design allows much better control of RF emissions than
does the vented design of the 520's and 1040's.  The Megas are FCC
certified with 4 megabytes of RAM, and with blitters.  If you want a
blitter, Mr. Retelle, buy a Mega ST, which were engineered with them
in mind.

Is it just me, or are others in this group tired of reading postings
that sound like little children throwing tantrums because mommy didn't
give the toy she promised?  "But you SAAAAAID I could have it!  You
PROMMMISED!  Waaaah!"

Grow up, will you?

Copyright 1989 Greg Wageman	DOMAIN: greg@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies	UUCP:   {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!greg
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