Conference 7.286::atarist

    There is a whole set of disadvantages to the ST which come under the
    heading "There are more Clones out there than all other personal
    computers combined." The market is bigger, so there is more software,
    books, courses, peripherals, public domain stuff, ... In part because
    the market is so much bigger, some things are cheaper, e.g. hard drives
    are least expensive in the MS-DOS world. The amount of public domain
    software for Clones is unbelievable.
    
    The ST is good, though: cheap, runs well, plenty of software, already
    set up for MIDI applications, nice environment for program development.
    
    - Hoyt

- The laptop ST has a bult-in trackball for using the mouse.

- A Macintosh emulator is available for the ST.

- ST programs tend to behave a lot like MAC programs (read: friendly
mouse interface) but cost more like PC programs (You can get good
desktop publishing with PostScript output for about $100.00  Over twice
this much for the equivalent MAC program).

- The ST uses a 8Mhz 68000, which compares favorably to a '286 running
MSDOS, so mip-for-mip, the ST is very cheap.

- The ST has a rock-solid flicker free 640x400 pixel monochrome display
as it's CHEAPEST monitor.  That's VGA quality (well, its B&W only, no
colors or grey tones).  1MB of memory with this 70hz 640x400 display
will only cost you about $700 U.S., if you hunt around a bit or get a
used one.  In the world of clones, you only gett 200 scanlines at this
price.

- The ST runs Whack, my multi-window multi-session VT220 emulator, which
many users have noted is worth the price of the computer if that were
the only program they ever used on it.  (See topic 3.)

Plus I noticed the title or KEYWORD for .0 was MIDI.

MIDI spells Atari or Mac in my book (maybe next year or the year after it
might spell Amiga).  To see the difference go check out C-Labs Notator or
Steinberg's Cubase on the ST (or for more home oriented check out Master Tracks
Junior or Dr Ts Tiger Cub) and then compare them to the PC MIDI applications in 
the same range (price range and target range).  I'd think the ST programs win
hands down.  Mac has some nice MIDI stuff too.

Chad

    Just in case any of you fanaSTics care to join the debate: in the 
    NAC::IBM notes conference (topic 4377) someone has asked the poignant 
    question:
    
                              MAC or 386?
    
    I put in a couple of good words for the ST, despite my personal
    allegiance to the Holy Order of Clones. The queryer is especially
    interested in desktop publishing. If any of y'all knowledgeable in this
    area care to contribute, I'll enjoy the carnage. The Mac-o-fiends are
    getting to much ink for my taste.
    
    .0 might find the debate of value, as well.
    
    - Hoyt

        I went through and read 4377 in the IBMPC notes file and 3394 in
        the McIntosh notes file - big deal.  There like here and in the
        Amiga notes file we need more information as to your intended
        use.
        
        What do you want to use the computer for?
        
        Yes, I own an Atari and I could tell you all the things I think
        are great about it.  I can also tell you the things I don't like
        about it, but that does you little good, because it is just my
        viewpoint, based on what I use my system for.
        
        A friend of mine has an Atari, his wife uses it for word
        processing and once in a while lets him play a few games.  He
        also has an AT which he uses to control his packet radio with,
        because the software ran on it.  Which is better?
        
        All the machines out there are obslete, they were when they were
        introduced.  They all have plus' and minius', but they will
        function and do nearly any intended job.  The question is what do
        you like and which one will do your task better.
        
        If you want to play it safe, get the PC or clone, there are
        millions of users out there, someone can help you when you have a
        problem.
        
        If you're a bit more adventurous, but still want to minimize the
        risk go for the Apple Mac, it to has a lot of support and
        following.
        
        Amiga's and Atari's have smaller followings in the U.S., as an
        example there are many more Amiga users here in DEC than Atari
        users.  But here in Phoenix, there are more Atari users, even
        though this is Fred Fish land - Fred is the SOURCE of PD software
        for the Amiga.
        
        If you were in Europe, things would be significantly different,
        with a more even distribution of various machines and number of
        users.
        
        ALL the machines are suitable for business use.  The Atari and
        Amiga perform double functions and (from what I have seen) double
        as excellent game machines.
        
        If you are into Video, then the Amiga has much better software
        available.  If you are into music, then the Atari has much better
        available software.
        
        All the machines will hook into the Ethernet (the Amiga is on its
        way).  Both the Atari and Amiga will run X-windows, though the
        Amiga will act as a server also.
        
        Both the Atari and Amiga have hardware emulators to emulate
        either a PC or a MacIntosh.  (Later this year, the Atari will
        also run on the AppleTalk network.)
        
        I like my Atari, but like the VAXstations, Amigas, MACs, PCs and
        other machinces I've used I also would like it to do a few more
        things.
        
        The nice thing is I can make it do what I need it to do.
        
        Bob

    
    Don't forget the varity of operating systems which run on the ST,
    either as emulators (HW and SW) or as the real thing. To name some
    of them:
    
    OS/9            Mac-Emulator
    CPM             MS-DOS Emulator
    CPM 68K         RTOS/Pearl
    P-DOS           C64 Emulator
    MROS            MINIX
                    
    other Emulators are 6502 and Z80 for uPs. With some bucks more to
    invest you also got a cheap MacIntosh (Spektre or Aladin) or a cheap
    PC (PC-Speed or Supercharger) beside your Atari, and all that in
    one machine (the question is if it's needed anyway).
    On the other hand there's no way around buying an AT if you want
    to use the computer for business also. In the business world there's
    only one standard, and that's MS-DOS.
    Computers with Intel processors are very good pieces of hardware,
    I just don't like the OS, don't ask me why. Personal and probably
    wrong opinion. Thousands of MS-DOS users proove me wrong. So, as
    mentioned before your decision depends on what you want to do with
    the computer most. I think favorite for Atari are science, Midi and
    monochrom graphic applications, Amiga is good for video and good color
    games, Clones for business stuff like spreadsheets and databases.
    It's hard to seperate target groups for different computers anyway.
    
    Bernd
    

A couple of points which I would make on the ST vs. PC question:

	1) Price. The basic ST is cheap, and great for games or simple "serious"
	   use. However, if you want a hard disk, the PC is quite a bit
	   cheaper (thanks to the size of the market). ST disk prices are
	   coming down, but I still get upset at the prices seen for PC disks!
	   The same appears to apply to software such as compilers - the PC
	   market's size ensures that top-quality software is available at
	   remarkably low prices.

	2) 68000 vs. 80x86. I have always found the Intel processors'
	   architecture horrible and the Motorola's much nicer.  This probably
	   reflects my background in Macro-11 / Macro-32 rather than any
 	   inherent merits, but I have heard a comment that the 80x86 series
	   were "hardware engineers' processors", while the 68000 series were
	   better-liked by us software types (I refuse to refer to myself as
	   a "Softie", no matter what some "Hardies" may say!).

	3) Operating systems. MS-DOS is horrible - particularly the 640K memory
	   limit (I'm just quoting a friend with an AT clone, so please don't
	   flame at me!); I am not all that keen on the Atari TOS / GEM setup,
	   although some people seem to like it, but it seems to work well
	   enough.  Incidentally, I've bought MINIX (which is available for
	   both the PC & ST, of course), but run into problems with only having
	   �M of memory and twin floppies.

	4) Software. As yet, I haven't identified a word-processor for the ST
	   that satifies my (fairly straightforward) requirements - would you
	   believe I'm still using Interword on an elderly BBC micro! There
	   must be one (lots?) out there, but it isn't too easy to find ST
	   owners to give advice (except for this conference!), while it is
	   easy to find PC owners.  Following on from this, it is generally
	   easier to get copies of PC software to "try" - of course, nobody
	   at DEC would dream of stealing software!

I won't try to give a conclusion, except that the choice depends very much on
your individual requirements.  I have thought fleetingly of getting a PC for
my more serious home computing needs, but have decided to stick with what I
know and like - I'm just waiting to get enough spare cash for 4M of memory and
a decent-size hard disk!

Chris.

    
    Hi,,
    
    to the originator......
    
    As you can see from all the previous replies, one of the best things
    about owning an ST; is that if you own an ST you meet a better class of
    computer owner!
    
    ST owners are a most articulate, reasonable lot.
    Not one of the responders have entered into the normal Pi***ng contest
    that would occur if you asked your question in other conferences.
    
    (Only joking honest !!)
    
    To add to the others,,  YOU PAYS YOUR MONEY AND YOU MAKES YOUR CHOICE,
    too many people want a computer to  be all things to all people, (all
    members of a family that is), I believe my ST setup, suits my family.
    My kids play games, or do their courseworks on the W.P. My wife does our
    home correspondence on the W.P. I use a Drafting program, and
    generally hack about with the hardware. HOWEVER only YOU can decide
    whether it suits YOU.
    
    I somewhat dissagree with the statement that the PC world has oceans of
    software about, so what !  how many different WP's or spreadsheets can
    you learn to use efficiently, or really need. The ST has enough choice
    now, to satisfy anyone.
    
    Best of luck 
    
    Pat

    
    Overheard in the next office, where a principle software engineer has
    been struggling with an 80386 Clone...
    
    "... IBM and MicroSoft should apologize to the world for f***ing up
    personal computing for the past ten years, then abandon Intel and re-do
    everything right with the Motorola 68030"
    
    Ed.
    

	IMHO,

	For a dedicated music processor, the Atari wins. I own both a 386 and
	a 1040ST. I use the ST almost exclusively for music processing. I
	have Dr. T's KCS Level II V3.0, Quickscore, and Copyist, plus a number
	of support programs for MIDI network management. It worked out
	to be somewhat cheaper in dollars. I have yet to run into any
	uncurable limitations with the ST regarding MIDI, and I have about
	12 MIDI devices in my network. Of course, I may not be an average
	computer user, but many of the people in this conference wouldn't
	be considered "average" either. In my case, I opted for the PC to 
	keep the house computing separate from the MIDI. (and for my wife
	who also computes heavily and concurrently with me). 

	/pjh

    
    One more thing to consider is support.  Both at the dealer level and
    from the manufacturer.  Will they be around in a year?  2 years?
    
    Do they actively support it, are upgrades available?
    
    How compatible is it with existing software?  
    
    My favorite new question is:  Do they offer any sort of trade-in
    program for upgrading your old system to a newer one?
    
    -Dave
                                                  

I love my 1040 ST and won't get rid of it (unless it is to buy a newer ATARI
machine) but it has two problems -

1. Lack of software.  Almost everyone writes for the IBM PC style machine.  A
small minority of those programs are ported to the ST.  PD software is the
same (fewer authors writing for the ST).

2.  Add on hardware is expensive if available at all.  I don't have a hard
disk on my ST because the cheapest one costs three times what a controller
and the same drive costs for a PC.  (I think that since the ST market is
smaller those people in it want to make all of their profit on a single sale :-))

If you have an application in mind where these problems aren't show stoppers
go for the ST.

    
    I disagree with re .12, there's more software available for the
    Atari than one could ever manage to use, not even learn how to use.
    There are a lot of good software packages (maybe a bit more expensive
    than the same would be for MS-DOS) and a lot of PDs. Over the weekend
    I copied about 20.000 blocks arc-ed SW out of the easynet, that
    will take me some weeks to dearc and take a look on them.
    I mean, what's the purpose of a computer at home? For one user there
    are only a few programs of interest, the ones he really works with
    seriously in his rare spare time (wordprocessing, video-stuff, music,
    graphics, spreadsheets, databases). For this purpose he'll find
    what he needs. Makes no sense to collect 5 wordprocessing programs
    and be not fit on either one completely.
    
    Hardware: for sure the Atari was not designed as an open system,
    like the Apple II was, or maybe the PCs with slots for additional
    cards. So hardware upgrades are expensive. I get in rage too when
    I see some prices, compared to the same stuff from other brands.
    But the last five years since the ST is on the market there were
    a lot of private developers inventing hardware upgrades which they
    made public in the mags. And there are some interesting boards which
    you may build on your own or buy completely assembled for little
    money (e.g. network cards, SCSI-interfaces, graphic expansions,
    accelerators, memory upgrades, EPROM-boards a.s.o.). I collected
    most of them over the last few years and meanwhile have three large
    folders full of schematics for hardware upgrades of any kind. Though
    I have not the time (and mostly no use) to build them all. 
    
    I aggree that's a lot more difficult (and maybe expensive if you
    buy it) to upgrade an Atari than it is for a PC, and you have to
    do a lot for your own. But that's part of my hobby and I'm always
    proud of having reached a step more on the way to my 'ultimate'
    system.
    
    Bernd
    

        Re:              <<< Note 812.12 by JOVE::reilly "Michael Reilly" >>>

        Hold on here - let's not propogate myths.  Hard disks are the
        same price for all machines.  What you see are differences in
        packaging.
        
        The standard PC comes with a larger power supply and box than is
        necessary and generally without video, serial line, printer port
        or mouse (all these things must be added to the bus, or in more
        recent times - printer port, bottom line text video capability
        and maybe a serial line is included - mouse is extra).
        
        The standard atari, amiga and mac come with full graphics video
        port, serial line, printer port, mouse and sopme kind of bus
        access - dma on Atari (dma and buss on Megas) and full buss on
        Amiga, plus the Atari comes with midi in/out builtin and SCSI on
        the newer Macs.
        
        Specifically, on the Atari, for this initial monetary tradeoff
        one must add some kind of cabinet, power supply and bus to
        support a hard disk.
        
        The PC is not inheriently cheaper than the Atari, the money is
        simply paid at different time - up front with the PC, later on
        with the Atari.  The PC has an advantage in that it has a bus,
        but this is also a detremient as it imposes a speed penalty on
        the user due to its bandwidth.  The PC user also has to buy a SCSI
        interface card if they want to use SCSI based devices - no
        different than ourselves.
        
        Breakdown, cost wise for a hardisk is simply based on what you
        are willing to live with.  As an example, this is what I paid for
        my harddisk -
        
                Integrand cabinet - holds two 1/2 height 5.25" devices,
                                    linear power supply - 65 watts, fan,
                                    emi filter -                    $198
                (Yes, I could have spent much less $50 in some places,
                 but this looks nice, is all metal - NO interference
                 problems, and will support just about any monitor.)
                
                Controller set - Adaptec 4000 & ICD ASCI to SCSI with
                                 clock.                             $199
                                 (Note that NO other controller need be
                                  purchased until I exceed 7 SCSI devices
                                  as I can use SCSI based disk drives
                                  now.  If I stay with the st506 based
                                  interface, then I can add only one more
                                  disk drive.
        
                Cables and connector                                $ 18
        
                10 mB hard disk - bought a few years ago            $ 50
        
        In the cabinet, both boards mount on the bottom of the aluminum
        mounting plate and the harddisks mount on top.  After the second
        hard disk I will have to invest in another cabinet, but that's
        true for almost all the machines.
        
        Bob

    I shouldn't join these interminable flame wars but I own one of
    each...
    
    Your basic 1040ST, single floppy monochrome, costs around US$800.  That
    price has held constant, within $100, for about four years.  To add a
    20 MB hard disk costs around $500-600, typically, if you shop around
    (and don't "roll your own" the hard way).  Color adds around $200.  You
    get CGA-quality graphics (slightly better, actually).  The bundled
    operating system now being shipped (TOS 1.4) is debugged from the old
    one being shipped until very recently, but still isn't quite as robust
    or feature-rich as, say, MS-DOS V2.11, not to mention V3.3.  But it
    does also include the GEM window manager.
    
    Your basic 286-clone, single floppy monochrome, costs around US$800. 
    That price has been falling and is about $200 below last year's levels.
    You can do better if you try hard enough.  To add a 20 MB hard disk
    costs around $200, since the power and controller are standard.  CGA
    adds around $100 nowadays, but the quality is poor; VGA color adds
    around $500 to the basic price.  MS-DOS itself runs around $70 more
    (not bundled in the real cheap clones).
    
    The 640k limit in MS-DOS sometimes hurts, and the Motorola architecture
    is unquestinably nicer than Intel.  But TOS is a bad joke on a good
    day.  Word Perfect-Atari is Word Perverse due to TOS bugs, and other
    word processors share the same problems.
    
    So which one is less frustrating depends on your main application...

Hi there,

I am a Mac user and actually interested in the ST (to see what's going on 
at the low-price-market...)

Okay, here's my opinion in IBM PC against a ST:

I am not interested to discuss a IBM Clone via a Mac, since the price
for a Mac here in Germany would only allow to compare it with a '386.

First of all, the ST has a Mouse. The Mouse support is BUILT IN, so you 
don't have to search for one of those �1.000 different Mouse-Drivers and
try each to find out wich will work with the program you are using. Not to
think of using more than one Program with mouse-support.
This is real, I know of some users who switch their mouse.sys as soon
as they switch programs because of incompatibilities.

Second, GEM is used. There are still some Bugs in there, but it's
better to have ONE system running instead of lots of GUI's wich take
much space on your harddisk, have mostly the same functionality, but
some programs will work with them, while others won't. Nearly all programs
on the market use the capabilities of GEM.

Third, the b/w monitor is REALLY GOOD, better than my Mac SE monitor. It is
absulotely flicker-free, has 640*400 Pixels, so you can really work with it.


The things I dislike on MSDOS:
the 640k aren't enough! Even with a '286 or '386 you are curently only
able to use this amount. I've tried to run TEX on an AT, but therefore
needed to rebuild the system: I needed >540.000 free Bytes, wich won't be
there on a normal system because of BUFFERS, FILES, DRIVERS, ...

There are some Graphics Standards, but not only ONE!
So some Programs run using CGA (C64 Graphics, isn't it?), others need Hercules,
some use EGA, and some really expensive like Pagemaker will use all they get
(even 8514/A). The Problem is: None of them use the same horizontal/vertical 
size. To see this: Use some Paint Program, draw an exact circle, and watch
an egg being printed...

It's time to get something like a real Operating system on the IBM PC's. 
At the moment, there are just some EXE's wich will be called,
for Example if you want to do a XCOPY, a FORMAT, a CHKDSK etc.

An operating system has to be more than just some Tools.
Especially for new users, the 
C:> 
isn't useful at all, but the only thing you get when buying an IBM PC clone.
Not only that you have to know the exact syntax (not like vms where the
first unique letters are enough), you only have a Help in a manual
normally too far away to have something looked up.

okay, enough for now.

Bernhard

    
    Hello,
    
    I choose to buy a Atari instead of an IBM PC for the following reasons:
    
    
    	- Nice user interface (GEM)
    	- Mouse driven
    	- Lots of PD software available
    	- Support available
    	- Kids can use it
    	- It can be expanded
    	- Uses TV, Colour Monitor, Black and White
    	- Can handle sound, video, midi
        - Rich mix of software games, professional, music, educational, ...
    	- More memory
    
    The PC in the UK is:
    
    
    	- Expensive
    	- Everything is add on
    	- Uses 5 1/4 rather than the small discs (this has now changed)
    	- You have to add a colour monitor and can't use a TV
    	- Standards always shifting and OS expensive to upgrade
    	- 640K sucks
    
    
    These are some of the differences I highlighted before buying, this was
    2 1/2 years ago and some of the differences are not so black and white.
    But the ATARI still wins for me ---
    
    Chris