🚀 go-pugleaf

Having heard little factual info from what was going on at Atari, I gave a
call to Richard Freck, the person at Atari responsible for St development.
I was lucky to reach him as he just got out of a meeting, and I pressed him
for answers to a number of questions I and others have had regarding Atari
products, plans, etc. The following is what I can reconstruct from my notes
and (sometimes rather poor memory):

 1) There is no GEM Draw coming. They are still awaiting GEM paint.

 2) Those who read the last issue of Infoworld probably saw an article
    regarding a new, less buggy developers kit, that some developers
    claimed they had to have to do development. The claim was made that
    DRI was just letting some copies out. Richard didn't have any info
    on the new software and gave little credibility to the Infoworld
    article.

 3) It will still be about 30 days before TOS in ROM is available to
    the general public via their Atari dealer. HOWEVER, if you are a
    developer (and have sent in your non-disclosure agreement), you
    can get your ROMs right now by sending in a check for $25 to the
    attention of Richard Frick, Atari Corp., 1196 Borregas Ave.,
    Sunneyvale, CA 94086.

 4) The 1040ST should be coming out soon (they are in the warehouse),
    and will come with a built-in double-sided drive and built-in
    power supply.

 5) Before Christmas there was talk of a number of Atari video
    games that were to be available on the ST, such as Missle Command.
    This didn't happen, but the project was not canceled and Richard
    hopes they will come soon.

 6) I recently heard that Atari would be shipping a copy of First Word
    and DB Master with every ST they sell, like ST Basic and ST Logo.
    This is NOT true, according to Richard. When pressed, he said that
    some stores included this software with the ST at Christmas as a
    sales promotion. I said I hadn't heard of this, and he said it was
    up to the stores to mention this. Anyway, he says it is a violation
    of copyright law to freely distribute this software, as it is to
    distribute ST Basic.

 7) The "official" policy from Atari re the 1 meg upgrade is that it
    shouldn't be done. Atari will not repair a system sent to them if
    the update has been done unless it has been done at an authorized
    service center. When I asked about installing the ROMs, he said
    they too should only be done at an authorized service center.

 8) I'd been hearing various reports over the past few months on whether
    the hard disk drive would be only 10 Mb, only 20 Mb, or both. Richard
    said there would be a 20 Mb and a 30 Mb version available, both
    around the mid-March time frame.

 9) I mentioned that I had been using ST Basic for a while not, and
    uncovered several problems with the documentation and software, and
    would an updated version be coming out. He said a new version was
    due out in mid-March, but had no idea on how it was going to be
    distributed.

10) While the TT is not yet an announced product, I did say that I had
    heard a rumor that the CPU was to be the 68020 instead of the
    National 32 bit chip, 32332. The only comment he had was that
    the 68020's were not yet readily available.

11) I noted that I had not gotten my Atari newsmagazine (the Atari
    Explorer?) in many months. For that question he referred me to
    Neil Harris (408) 745-4394.

12) I mentioned that a lot of rumors and comments on Atari fly around on
    the USENET and Arpanet networks, and was he aware of these networks.
    He didn't know of them, but did express an interest in them. I got
    the impression that he would subscribe if it were possible (is it?).


That exhaused my list, and the poor guy was probably glad to get off
the hook, but I did say I would pass this info along to the Atari
user groups I belong to, so I believe his time was well spent. I've
tried to present the above info as "straight" as possible, but if any
one has serious questions they can call Richard Freck directly, at
(408) 745-4926.

     /Don Peters, Digital, 617-689-1242/

        ...decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-pulman!peters