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| Title: | Atari ST, TT, & Falcon |
| Notice: | Please read note 1.0 and its replies before posting! |
| Moderator: | FUNYET::ANDERSON |
|
| Created: | Mon Apr 04 1988 |
| Last Modified: | Tue May 06 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1433 |
| Total number of notes: | 10312 |
619.0. "Atari at the PC show." by UKCSSE::KEANE () Mon Oct 02 1989 05:32
I visited the Personal Computer show in London this weekend, this show
is one of the largest, it has three sections, professional, general and
entertainment.
Atari had one of the largest stands in the general section. There
stand was split into three, a business section, an arcade section, and
a lecture/demo area.
The Atari business area was devoted to business applications,
demonstrated by some of the main distributers and software houses.
The machines in use were all megas, with lasers, scanners and plotters
and such like. running DTP and CAD applications.
Atari themselves had a long display of their various PC's. They were not
pushing the ST, STE, TT or ATW as a BUSINESS system
They has several round stands dotted about with lots of the Folio hand
helds. They were all available to play with, although they were attached
to the tables for security.
I found the key board dificult to use, (I find it hard to type on a
LK201 properly), due to the small size and closeness of the Foli's
keys. My son found it great. (he has smaller hands!)
Dotted round the outside of the stand were some of the other new
offerings. There was a TT demoing a graphics art program, Absolutely
STUNNING!!!!. and several STACEYS, I saw one running MIDI sequencer
programs. Atari are pushing the STACEY as a Professional MIDI players
PORTABLE computer.
I saw a Stacey on the Hisoft stand running MAC Pagemaker, with a
SPectre GCR stuck in the Cartridge port. Several of the larger
Distributers or software houses had Staceys on their stands.
Allmost hidden in one corner of the Atari stand was an ATW, the
transputer machine. This was advertised as running the first commercial
package. This was by KODAK, and was a color film processor. ( If this
takes off then the ATW should have an interesting future).
The Atari stand literature was a 6 sided throw sheet. The front has a
headline "You get a lot more out of the Atari PC range, picture of two
PC's and Atari logo.
The rear sheet has a picture of the ATW, Parallel processing:Unparalled
power, a tech spec and price guide. The entry M/c is 5000 pounds about.
The third sheet of the back has a picture of a Portfolio, the caption
"The computer for everyone", spec and price 217.38 pounds
By the way the peripherals are NOT yet Available but the Atari man said
this week!
Inside there are two pages showing five of the Atari PC range, and the
sixth side is a listof "NEW PRODUCTS LAUNCHED AT the 1989 personal
computer show.
These are the TT, spec given and price 1,999.99 pounds inc color
monitor.
"This is the first of a family of machines that, when expanded provide
single and multi-user UNIX workstations at hitherto unheard of prices.
The STACEY. 1299.99 pounds Pushed as a music MIDI machine!
ABC-286 a PC 799.99 pounds low end entry
Portfolio periphereals,
Serial 232 60 pouinds
parallel cintronics 40 pounds
Super memory expander to 640K 180 pounds
memory cards 32 K 50 pounds
64K 90 pounds
128K 130 pounds
Card drive for a PC to read write the memory cards 70 pounds.
Anyone who wants further details mail me!!
In summary, I think despite the efforts of Atari, the ST is becoming
accepted in niche markets, but not in the mainstream, where the all
pervading PC has got it all. I think a lot of visxitors were reallly
impressed by the quality of the equipment and software being shown, not
by Atari themselves, but by the software houses.
Cheers
Pat K.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 619.1 | The lynx was there to! | UKCSSE::KEANE | | Mon Oct 02 1989 05:36 | 7 |
|
I almost forgot, halfway through the morning a LYNX appeared on a stand
in the arcade, the Atari guy fitting it in place said Sam had brought
it over the night before!. It was running a demo. but for security it
was in a plastic dome, which was quite scratched, so the details were
not very visable!! The Atari guy said he was trying to get it on the
market for Christmas, at a sub 100 pound price.
|
| 619.2 | Lynx???? | BREW11::LANE | �vi� D��d II...D��d ߥ D�wn | Mon Oct 02 1989 12:24 | 9 |
| Hello Pat,
A million thanks for taking the time to do the show review as
I couldn't make it to the show myself.
BTW what is a Lynx that you mention in .2 and was there any
mention of the Dungeon Master sequel?
Regards
Roger
|
| 619.3 | Lynx, not a DEC workstation! | UKCSSE::KEANE | | Mon Oct 02 1989 14:33 | 33 |
| Sorry, I thought everyone knew what a Lynx was (8>)).
The Lynx is a hand held games console, it is about 10 inches across and
three wide. it is held in both hands, with a miniture joystick at one
end and fire buttons at the other. In the middle is a small 3 X 2 inch
LCD colour display. The display can be inverted for right versus left
handed users. Games are fed to the thing on Credit card type packs. It
has a graphical palletteof 4096 colours four channel sound effects,
powered by six AA batteries processor 6502C processor. 16 bit system. I
cant remeember how much ram it gets on the cartridges, 512 K rings a
bell! The unfortunate thing is that EPYX are supposed to be developing
games software for Atari, but last week they EpYyx, fired all but 16 of
their staff.
There was nothing about a Dungeon Master sequel. The only offering on
the MIrror soft stand was the MOST AMAZING INCREDIBLE graphics of a new
game STUNT CAR. The game opens with a incar view of a off road car
showing the front, (hood) , and top of the front wheels. The car is
attached by chains to a crane, and lifted onto a raised track. When you
think you are over the track and low enough you press the fire button
and the chains break, the car drops down onto the track, the front
wheels bump up and down on the suspension. You then have to steer the
car around the elevated track, jumping gaps in the track. If you
mis-steer the car crashes to the ground.
The current adventure offering that is similar to Dungeon Master is
Bloodwych, this can be a two player game. An interesting adventure? is
KULT, this has a tremendous sense of humour, and atmosphere aided by
good sound effects.
TTFN
Pat K
|
| 619.4 | minor nit | NORGE::CHAD | Ich glaube Ich t�te Ich h�tte | Tue Oct 03 1989 10:05 | 6 |
| minor point:
The 6502 family is a 1-4 mhz (usually) 8 bit processor. The same as in the
Apple II family, Atari 4/800/XL/XE/XE GAMESYSTEM family, Commodore 64 family
of computers. Either the Lynx has this (slow) processor and is not 16 bit
or it has something else and 16 bits.
|
| 619.5 | 6502C is 8 bit ! | UKCSSE::KEANE | | Tue Oct 03 1989 12:15 | 12 |
|
RE .1 You are right....
I dropped off. I looked up the spec in a publicity puff in the ST
world, as there was no litereature on the LYNX at the show, I asked my
son whether the 6502C was 8 or 16 bits as I didnt recognise it, and he
said 16, It isnt though. THE 6502 is the CPU in the old dragons and
BBC's and is 8 bits, 8 BITS 8 BITS!!
Sorry
Pat.
|
| 619.6 | Possible Answer... | VICTOR::LIVEUSER | | Tue Oct 03 1989 12:39 | 6 |
| There is a processor which is the 16 bit version of the 6502 and
is used in the APPLE IIGS. Its serial No. is very similar to 6502
, it is able to run all 6502 code and switch to a mode where all
addressing and registers are 16 bit.
Could this be it ???
|
| 619.7 | | QARRY::BHAMILTON | Buzz Hamilton | Wed Oct 04 1989 09:29 | 8 |
| The writeups that I have seen about the Lynx fail to mention what CPU
is used. They do say that it runs at 16 Mhz so I doubt it's a 6502.
They also say that the display has 16 of 4096 colo(u)rs and that the
screen has a 106x102 pixel resolution. That has to be comparable on a
square inch basis to the ST low rez screen, doesn't it?
There were pictures of the sreens for games that are being prpeared for
release in the Atari Explorer magazine. They looked very good!
|
| 619.8 | Lynx is 6502 based | DUGGAN::WEAVER | Laboratory Data Products/Science | Fri Oct 06 1989 00:27 | 5 |
| The Lynx CPU is a 6502. People wanting developer information
can call Larry Siegal in the Atari Chicago office - if you know
anyone so inclined.
-Dave
|