🚀 go-pugleaf

Neil Harris who is the publisher of Atari Explorer gave a little
talk at the local atari users group meeting about the XE and ST
line of computers. The following are a few interesting tidbits.

Regarding the 8 bit line:

1) The new pocket size 300 baud modem is out and includes free
   time on the major information networks. Also included is 
   "sophisticated" terminal software with autodial, upload&
   download. He indicated it was similar to Hometerm. The
   price given was $49.95 retail.

2) Atariwriter+ is finished and the manuals are being printed up.
   Should be available in a few weeks. He also mentioned other
   software but I can't remember now.

3) The XEM music micro has hit a few snags. Apparently they have
   been having a few problems getting working silicon on the vlsi
   amy synthesizer chip. They have contracted out the remaining
   development on the chip to another company which eventually
   plans to use it in forthcoming synthesizer products. He said
   atari retains rights to the chip and when the bugs are worked
   out may come out with a product based on it.

4) He indicated that this christmas sales season is critical to
   the future of the 8 bit line and that if it does well that
   there would be new products for the 8 bit line. He did not
   confirm or deny rumors of a christmas sales spectacular to
   clear out the large numbers of 800xl(~$49.95) computers. He
   also said that atari has a 3 1/2 inch disk drive for the
   800 series but that he didn't know whether it was a viable
   product this late in the product cycle.

Being a former commodore employee he said that he had been born again
with regards to the capability of the 800 series vs the c64.


Comments on the ST:

1) He said atari had a chance to use the amiga chip set, but
   turned it down.  Atari felt that the amiga chip set was based
   on 3 year old technology for a $700 video game machine and
   that it could do better.  He questioned the marketability of
   the amiga(in its price range) based on its animation
   capabilities in the current market.  The analogy with mindset
   which had similar capabilities at a similar price was made.

2) The atari ST basic is done and will be shipped out to all owners
   that mailed in their warranty card. Also 1 copy will be shipped
   to dealers and user groups. The time frame for this should be a
   few weeks. Stwriter is also almost done and would be distributed
   in a week or so. Also in the works is a Stcalc which would also
   be distributed as a freebie. This is a stopgap measure until the
   wave of commercial software hits the stores.

3) He indicated that several companies were working on IBM
   software emulators and that also some atari engineers were
   looking into a hardware coprocessor off the dma port. He
   questioned whether people would want to use "inferior"
   ibm pc software relative to the user friendly interface of
   GEM and the speed of the 68000.

4) He said that the roms were almost done and that they should
   be out in the december time frame. He didn't think that the
   DRI settlement with Apple would have any effect but that
   he would check about the official company position. He
   indicated that atari would not be so ready to cave in to Apple
   regarding copyrights, etc.

 5) In response to a question about the education market he said
    atari is interested but not ready to commit in a big way
    until the consumer market is taken care of. He mentioned a
    time frame of sometime in 1986. Several local area net are
    being looked into. The low cost version would address up to
    255 ST's and operate through the midi ports at 31kbaud. A
    higher cost ethernet based version off the dma port is also
    being worked on.

6)  Regarding the 260STD he indicated that atari would continue
    to use the present channels(dealers) of distribution. He
    didn't know whether the 260STD would be marketed in the
    current form or as maybe a 1meg machine.

7)  He said there were several expansion boxes planned to hook
    up to the ST dma port. One would just have 8 slots to
    allow expansion cards from atari or third party
    manufacturers. The other one was a 32 bit machine that would
    also hook up to the dma port. The ST would then be used as
    i/o processor to handle the screen,disk, and keyboard. He
    said the 32032 was basically ruled out due to performance
    problems. It didn't really outperform the 68000 in the ST
    by very much. There are 3-4 microprocessors under
    consideration including the 68020. The 32 bit machine would
    be shown no earlier than the Jan CES.

8)  Atari will be attending the COMDEX and will most likely be
    showing a finished version of the CD rom. He said atari
    was having problems finding parts suppliers that would do
    sufficient error checking, but that these have been solved
    and a december time frame was mentioned for initial
    shipments.

9)  He said that atari was basically shipping ST's as fast as it
    could make them and that atari would not advertise on
    national tv until it was sure people could walk in and buy
    one. He indicated that many people are interested in the 
    machine but are waiting for the first wave of commercial
    software to hit before committing to buy.

10) About Byte not providing a balanced view of the ST vs the
    Amiga, he said that atari was partly to blame in not
    providing machines to byte. He says they have ST's now and
    that they should have a review in an upcoming issue.

I guess that's it. If atari can produce it should do very well.


-ravi

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