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ATARI SHOW ENGLAND

Atari Expands on PC Market
==========================
(by Paul Molenaar)

London, April 25 - Quite out of the blue, Atari introduced a 
'full-blown' IBM-PC computer other than the Atari PC that was 
first shown at the Hannover Messe in Germany. The new PC has 
slots for expandability and may include a built in harddisk. 
Atari made no 'big fuss' about it, because as Jack Tramiel said: 
"we'd rather people buy the Atari ST." The two IBM-PC compatible 
machines Atari now offers are considered to be 'money-makers', no 
more, no less.

Otherwise, the Atari Show in the London Novotel was a show of 
'maybe later this afternoon'. Although some software companies 
had some new products to show, most of the other products that 
should have been shown were either "lost during the flight" (Data 
Pacific's new version of the Macintosh emulator) or out of order 
(Atari's laserprinter). Dave Small, the inventor of the Macintosh 
Cartridge was present and took the time to tell me some more 
about this product.

"The cartridge project started when I took a look inside the 
Macintosh Rom and discoverndependent. My 
wife uses a Mac and I figured the Macintosh Rom could be 
implemented on the Atari ST. With that it really began, porting 
the stuff to the ST and checking out what had to be done to make 
it work. In the process I discovered some annoying bugs in the 
Mac Rom. As I understand, Apple bought a Cartridge to see what 
errors I encountered and patched to make it run on the ST. They 
needed to know because of the Mac II project."

Reactions from Apple people varied, Small says,laughing: "On the 
first show, some Apple guys walked by my stand saying: "let's 
break some legs here." Andy Herzfeld, on the other hand, was 
quite interested and told me more about the Mac Rom's and how to 
make things work." Small did show version 4.0 of his emulator 
software, being able to run more software than 3.x versions did. 
The bug that made the system 'bomb' after an application was 
ended is removed and more software than before should run now. 
"I've also devised a way to ensure that software writing to ram-
location $0, causing most of the crashes, is patched. I made a 
dynamic debugging tool for my own purposes that scans the object 
code of applications and makes patches where necessary. No, this 
will probably not be published. The code is not written very 
smoothly."

New will be a hardware interface that makes the original Atari 
drives read and write Macintosh disks. Small: "It cn of a 
chips that control the speed of the disk and thus 
simulate the varying drive speed of the Macintosh." This device 
is to be released in a matter of weeks or 2 months at the most, 
Small said. At the same time, a Cartridge version for the Amiga 
will be introduced. There it will run in the interlaced high-res 
mode.

Dave has seen the MacBongo emulator. It is a software-only 
version of his emulator. Small: "It shows that a software-only 
Macintosh emulator can be done. I have considered it, but as you 
may know, Apple US is very eager to sue anyone that tempers with 
the Macintosh. That's why my emulator requires the original Rom's 
and won't even work with Eproms. And yes, I've heard of the 
Aladin emulator too. I would very much like to cooperate with 
them. I know a lot about the Macintosh by now and it would be a 
waste of time for them to find it all out. I know all the bugs in 
MacWrite. It's full of them and I know this version will never be 
able to run on the Macintosh II, haha."

It's unlikely the Cartridge will support the newer 128K Roms the 
Macintosh 512e and Macintosh Plus are equipped with, let alone 
the 256K Rom that is found in the Macintosh SE. Small: "It will 
take me a hell of a time. I looked into the code and saw it's a 
lot of work. And I prefer to write articles for magazines."

What surprises Small is the prices his emulator retails in 
Europe. "It really costs too much. I can understand why people 
made MacBongo. If possible, I'll persuade the Europen 
distributor the price. It's twice the price the 
Cartridge retails in the US. If necessary, we'll lower our 
wholesale price of the product for them." By now, Data Pacific 
sold some 4200 cartridges. "Maybe it will pay me a holiday to the 
Bahama's some day. No, it hasn't made me rich yet. Would I be in 
London if I were rich? I'd be on the Bahama's."

Atari, occupying the largest booth on the show, showed (again) 
their newer Mega-ST models. Bugs in the Rom's have been removed 
and the machine is said to be in production by now. European 
dealers should be receiving their first models within the next 
couple of weeks, an Atari spokesman said. It could be that the US 
market has to wait a little longer, awaiting FCC approval. The 
laserprinter isn't in production yet and even the worn-out 
prototype couldn't be made to print. Pagedesign packages used 
either an Apple Laserwriter or a QMS laserprinter to show the 
output.

The new Atari PC, equipped with slots, is a IBM-PC compatibler running at either 4.77 or 8 MHz. The prototype was not 
allowed to be opened. This makes me believe it contained either a 
'standard' clone motherboard or, as an Atari official suggested, 
the motherboard of the earlier, non-expandable Atari PC. It 
looked compatible enough, and there's no reason why it shouldn't 
be. If anyone else can do it, why shouldn't Atari?

New software:

MicroDeal showed a stunning looking game called Goldrunner. It's 
a fast action, shoot'm up arcade game with multiple levels.

Barbarian is the name of a new game by Psygnosis, the company 
that brought us Brataccas, Arena Sports and Deep Space. It looked 
extremly good, like most Psygnosis software does. The game 
involves slaying monsters in an underground world. Terrorpods 
will be released shortly, but no demo could be shown yet. The 
games will be available for both Atari ST and Amiga.

Superbase was basically the only business-type of software that 
was shown. This program needs no further information.

GST brought the latest ("and final") release of First Word Plus. 
Their program will retail for just under 80 pound.


COPYRIGHT 1987 BY PAUL MOLENAAR