Thread View: net.micro.atari
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Started by Kurt Guntheroth
Fri, 18 Jan 1985 17:38
Re: New Atari machines (home UNIX at last?)
Author: Kurt Guntheroth
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 1985 17:38
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 1985 17:38
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[go ahead bug, make my day]
Some notes on the 'possibility' of Atari marketing those new machines.
1. Atari has been talking to National for years about the 32000. When I
was talking to National, there was always this one particular company in
California who was going to produce a consumer machine based on the 32000.
Of course they could not tell me who it was, but it couldn't have been Apple
and they said (indirectly) it wasn't IBM sooo...... This doesn't mean Atari
couldn't use the 68020. That's the neat thing about the 32-bit processors.
If you have a C compiler, they're all alike.
2. A hard disk for $400 is quite reasonable. Just because the IBM crowd
wants a minimum $1000 for a 10Mb disk doesn't mean that represents a
reasonable markup. We were able to buy a 10Mb disk (drive+drive electronics
only) for $300 in quantity one. If you want to talk about volumes of 500K
units/year I bet the price gets even lower. Also, the consumer industry
operates on a relatively narrow markup over factory cost.
Apple can sell Macintoshes to the universities for $1000. You can bet
they aren't selling at a loss. The Atari's don't have an expensive high
quality CRT included either, so they should be cheaper. The pricing is
reasonable, assuming a high volume product.
3. What design to finance? They bought the OS from DRI. No development
there. I bet they could even get DRI to do the port for them (wouldn't you,
for the kind of volume they could deliver? Remember, this is the product
that could make CP/M-68K and GEM household words.) Designing the PCB's is
not that big a deal, the plastic case couldn't cost more than $5 million if
it was the most intricate possible design. Fancy gate arrays have design
times of a couple of man months and the production cost for prototypes is
really negligable for a company of Atari's size. The only thing that could
get expensive is VLSI for things like fancy video and sound chips. These
designs may have been proceeding for some time now (it is pretty clear they
have been) so unless Atari goes belly-up this morning they will not be
affected.
Besides, remember Traniel fired most of the staff when he took over. The
engineering design may have been nearly complete when he came in. All Atari
has to worry about is keeping their current products profitable (even in
bankruptcy, the creditors won't close him down if it looks like he has turned
the corner and might pay them back).
No, I think this product is coming. I can hardly wait.
--
Kurt Guntheroth
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
{uw-beaver,decvax!microsof,ucbvax!lbl-csam,allegra,ssc-vax}!fluke!kurt
Re: New Atari machines (home UNIX at last?)
Author: Fred Christiansen
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 1985 16:19
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 1985 16:19
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[]
Computer Systems News for this week indicates that Atari, Commodore,
ACT, and Apricot (ACT USA) have all signed up for GEM. Moreover,
GEM and Concurrent DOS are being readied, the article continues, for
licensing by anybody for about anything. [Shades of Unix?]
The story then says Atari's business machine will be based upon
the 68020. This is the first public reference I have seen on this,
and it is stated quite positively. Considering the previous press items
suggesting it would be Series 32000 based, it looks like the rumor mills
are about balanced between the two, now.
--------------------
Fred Christiansen, Motorola Microsystems, 2900 S Diablo Way, Tempe, AZ 85282
{allegra,ihnp4}!sftig!mot!fred {ihnp4,seismo}!ut-sally!oakhill!mot!fred
{ihnp4,amdahl}!drivax!mot!fred ucbvax!arizona!asuvax!mot!fred
--
--------------------
Fred Christiansen, Motorola Microsystems, 2900 S Diablo Way, Tempe, AZ 85282
{allegra,ihnp4}!sftig!mot!fred {ihnp4,seismo}!ut-sally!oakhill!mot!fred
{ihnp4,amdahl}!drivax!mot!fred ucbvax!arizona!asuvax!mot!fred
Re: New Atari machines
Author: Doug Pardee
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 1985 19:26
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 1985 19:26
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Before I get on about the business of supplying witty rejoinders,
a couple of questions --
According to the press, the new "XE" systems are based on the
6502C CPU chip. Question 1: is it indeed the 6502C, or is
it the 65C02? Question 2: is there anybody producing the
6502C chip, now that Honeywell has closed down Synertek?
> 1. Atari has been talking to National for years about the 32000.
> This doesn't mean Atari
> couldn't use the 68020.
I go out on a very thick and strong limb and predict that neither
Motorola nor National are capable of producing their 32-bit CPU's
in Atari-size quantities any time this year. Neither one is even
in *limited* production yet -- but you CAN get engineering samples.
> 2. A hard disk for $400 is quite reasonable.
Yes. As IBM is finding out with their PC-AT, cheap hard disks are
plentiful and terribly unreliable. I predict that this won't stop
Tramiel, who foisted the *cheap* but nearly unusable 1541 floppy disk
drive on C-64 users. And made a pile of loot on it.
> Fancy gate arrays have design
> times of a couple of man months
Wow! I'd better tell my boss about THIS! Here we've been ignoring
gate arrays because even the folks that make them claim best case
turn-around of 6 months to first prototype, and maybe a year or more
until a working design is stabilized.
> The only thing that could
> get expensive is VLSI for things like fancy video and sound chips. These
> designs may have been proceeding for some time now (it is pretty clear they
> have been)
Some (maybe all?) of the designs that were proceeding were being done
on contract by Amiga. Late last year Amiga returned all of the money
to Atari because they were "unable" to produce such chips. (A point
of contention between Atari and Commodore). Did Atari have any
"Plan B" going on? I don't know.
> No, I think this product is coming. I can hardly wait.
Well, you'll just have to.
Sure, the time WILL come when you'll be able to buy a 68K-based
system for a few hundred smackers. Somebody, whether Atari or
someone else, is bound to do it. But not this year. So why
not enjoy what you CAN get this year?
Even when such a system is actually available on your dealer's
shelves, ask yourself if you want one of the first units. Do YOU want
to be the first person to report every bug? Do you remember CTIA's?
If you had bought a Commodore 64 for $595 (the original price), how
would you feel about someone else buying one for $195 (10 months later)?
I, for one, wouldn't buy a micro manufactured in the first 6 months
of production. Why pay top dollar for the first-try design?
When you can't even buy software for it?
Not only that, but consider that by then Atari or someone else
already will have "announced" some even more stupendous product,
which will make the ST look obsolete. That's the way the game is
played. Each manufacturer tries to announce something that will
keep you, the consumer, from buying someone else's machine NOW.
"State-of-the-art means it'll be obsolete just as soon as somebody
comes out with something better."
--
Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug
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