🚀 go-pugleaf

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In article <24111@cup.portal.com> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes:
>In the "Real World (tm)", there are things known as Warranties of
>Merchantability and Fittness for Purpose.  There are also things known
>as Truth in Advertising, and Fraud.

So what?  Atari's products are certainly "Merchantable" and "Fit for
Purpose".  Their computers are salable, they sell, and they work.  I
don't know why you even mentioned those terms, except perhaps in a
grandstanding attempt to impress.  Please, spare us.

As for "Truth in Advertising" and "Fraud", if you can demonstrate that
Atari has *ever* advertised a blitter chip as being available for the
512 or 1040, then you'd have a case.  All you can point to are rumors
and endlessly-repeated and misquoted off-hand remarks.  And you are
getting dangerously close to libel by implying Atari is guilty of
fraud.  Innuendo works both ways.

>Both Commodore Business Machines and Atari Corp. have been forced by
>law to produce products they had promised, but which for their own
>reasons they didn't want to actually produce.  The Commodore-64 CP/M
>module and the Atari XF-551 Disk Drive are two examples.

I remember this; this is a completely different situation.  The items
in question had been *advertised* as available.  They generated so
little response, that the respective companies involved decided they'd
be unprofitable.  When they cancelled them, they were sued by some of
the few people who wanted them.  A case of shooting themselves in the
foot, or a lack of Market Research.
 
>If Greg Wageman had been one of the people who had bought an Atari ST
>based on the promises of the Chief Executive Officer of the company, I'm
>willing to wager he too would be more than a little upset when the
>implied contract was broken.

CEO's of major corporations don't generally make promises to me about
anything, except perhaps as a stockholder.  In any event, hearing a
CEO saying "Product X is in development" is worlds away from a Press
Release for a new product.  The latter represents a commitment to
deliver a real product, the former represents R&D.  Every corporation
persues some product in R&D that never gets to market (that's why it's
called "research").  You only get sued over them if you *formally*
announce them and don't ship, and even then only if the plaintiff can
prove that the announcement generated sales.

>As far as technical details, the "blitter upgrade" had been promised by
>many different Atari Corp people over a span of several years.  It was not
>something that a stupid executive just happened to blurt out on a TV
>"talk show".  There had been upgrades/daughter boards/motherboard swaps
>discussed by Atari for years.  This created an expectation of performance
>for those who invested in Atari equipment.  Atari obviously expected that
>a blitter equipped "vented case" 1040 would pass FCC certification because
>they redesigned the motherboard with a blitter socket position.  "Do It
>Yourself" blitter upgrades are possible *if* you have the right motherboard.
>That leaves us with the question of why Atari didn't do it themselves...

Correction: it had been *mentioned*, not *promised*.  Any "expectation
of performance" was created in your own mind.  A product isn't real
until delivery date and price are quoted.  Atari has done neither for
the blitter "upgrade".

They didn't do it because they couldn't make them FCC compliant.  That
doesn't mean that they couldn't sell them elsewhere, where RF
emissions standards aren't as strict, just like the RF modulators
which are not available in the US, but have a space on the
motherboard.  Atari, as we are now all painfully aware, has numerous
markets outside the US.  Assuming that Atari's technical decisions are
driven by the US market is your mistake, not theirs.

>I'm left wondering how the STE with its "vented case" design can add
>video enhancements and SIMM memory to 4 Megs and still pass FCC certification
>if the Blitter would have pushed it over the line.

Not having compared the internal design of the STe with a 1040, I
can't comment.  No doubt based on their previous experience they knew
where all the weak spots were, and corrected the design.  Since the
STe is a new product, they could design with lower RF emissions in mind
from the start, same as they did with the Mega line.

>Sorry if I've exceeded my message allowance by posting this reply, and I'm
>further sorry if anyone reading this is annoyed that it's not an Atari
>cheerleader message.  I don't much care about a blitter chip and I don't
>plan to say anything more about the subject.  Atari Corp lied to their
>customers, and that annoys *me*

Look, I'm an Atari customer too, but I don't consider myself as having
been lied to.  You have only yourself to blame for reading way too
much into comments made about *possible* future products.  This is
precisely why the folks at Atari are getting so close-mouthed about
new developments.  We in the Atari user community want to know that
they're developing new products and expanding the product line, but
because of attitudes like yours, where a "We're looking into..."
becomes a commitment, we must now wait until products are shipping
before we get word of them; so now people become discouraged because
"Atari isn't doing anything new".

Give them a break!
 
Copyright 1989 Greg Wageman	DOMAIN: greg@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies	UUCP:   {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!greg
San Jose, CA 95110-1397		BIX: gwage  CIS: 74016,352  GEnie: G.WAGEMAN
        Permission granted for not-for-profit reproduction only.