🚀 go-pugleaf

[a line for the line eater]

    I'm sorry for that subject, but announcements/showings from Atari (like the
one that follows) are begining to strike this strange and somewhat
off-balanced chord in me... he he he... oops, sorry.  What follows was taken
from the newest issue of Infoworld (March 28th?) with some heavy editorializing
added by your's truly.  About the only thing that lends it any credence is the
fact that it wasn't reported in the "Robert X. Cringly" rumor column--it's
apparently a for-real "ghost" (or at least vapor) sighting.  Here goes:


   "...Atari Corp. revealed its long-rumored 68030 Unix workstation March 18 at
the Hannover Computer Show in West Germany.  The workstation, which is reported
to be already in the hands of 50 developers [!... strike one up for Atari!], is
scheduled for sale in Europe [and North America?????] by the end of 1988, Atari
said [I don't know if I should even dignify that with a snide remark].
   "The as-yet-unnamed [maybe the LT, for Lirth Two, of course...] workstation
has a VME bus with five slots, according to Shiraz Shivji [do the 1040's have
blitters yet, Shiraz?  Will the '030 EVER have a VME bus?], Atari's [VP] for
research and development.  The base machine includes 4 megabytes of RAM, a
1-mbps Starlan port, two serial ports, one SCSI port, and a 60-megabyte
internal hard disk.
   "Shivji said an optional graphics card will offer CGA, EGA, and VGA graphics
to go along with a [optional, I suppose] 1,280-by-960 high-resolution monitor
that is also under development.
   "Shivji said the base machine will cost less than $5,000 and operate 50
percent faster than an 80386, with both systems running Unix System V, Version
3.1 [notice that they didn't say specifically that Unix was included for
$5,000...].
   "According to Atari president Sam Tramiel, the company is not targeting
the multiuser market, but rather is seeking to offer a powerful workstation
for professional users, particularly in technical areas.
   "Atari also showed prototype 44-megabyte removable hard disk drives, which
will be offered for the company's 286, 386, and 68030 machines [WHAT 286, 386,
and '030 machines?  For that matter, what 8086 (or 8088?) machine?], plus a
CD-ROM drive.
   "A write-once/read-many (WORM) drive that will allow users to write data and
audio [oh give me a break!] onto compact discs should be ready within a year,
Shivji added.
   "Atari Corp., 1196 Borregas Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94088; (408) 745-2000


If I seem cynical, I'm sorry (well, not really).  It's not that I don't
believe that it can't be done, but rather that I don't believe that Atari can
do it, especially in the time frames that the article mentioned.  I just wish
for once that Atari had come to a show with demo models ready to send out to
dealers...   I will give them one thing--if it's true that they've already
gotten the machine to some developers, they've done something right.  However,
if they wan't to prove their sincerity (something that the Tramiel clan is very
much lacking in) they can a) have in-depth reviews of the machine (with pics &
tech. info) in the magazines by early summer; b) have developers advertising
products for them by late summer; and c) show the prototypes at every single
ma-and-pa computer show they intend, instead of showing it in Europe and never
letting North America see it until after it's been shipping in Europe.

   Sadly to say, my expectations are low.  The only thing on this list I expect
to see within a year (thats March '89) is the ROM drive...  I sure hope I'm
wrong, but I doubt it  (for you folks at Atari reading the net, sorry I've
heaped so many burning coals on you, especially since y'all aren't responsible
for most of the "management/business" decisions of Atari.  Maybe you could pass
the message "on high"?).

                        Scott Udell
                        UD140469@NDSUVM1.BITNET


[a line for the line eater]