Conference 7.286::atarist

    Are you in the US?  A Mega STE with the 50M hard drive, 1.44M floppy
    and 1 meg memory is about $800-900 mail order.  With the hard drive bay
    empty they are in the $650 range.    
    
    							Brian

    I don't know if the Falcon is expected to be shipping later this year
    or not.  The last I heard was that Atari would unveil it this September
    at the Boston Computer Society.  You might want to keep that in mind as
    a possibility, especially if you are not planning on making a purchase
    until later this year.
    
    -- Mike

	 I am in the US, Maynard Ma to be exact. I still have to
	do some convincing on the homefront as to why I need to
	upgrade, how much it will cost etc. But if I begin now I 
	should be able to have a pretty convincing argument just
	around Xmas time. 
	 The mega sounds like a really good buy especially if I 
	can buy it without a hard drive and add my own. I already
	have a scsi drive. Now I had heard that there was a problem
	adding your own drive, something about the enclosure that 
	comes without a drive being different than the one that comes
	with a drive. Is this still true? And what type of interface
	is included. I may just keep my external drive box and run from
	the DMA port.

	 If the Falcon does happen to be available in a reasonable time
	frame I will give it a long hard look as well.

	 I have had my ST for 5 years and as far as I am concerned
	it is the easiest and most enjoyable PC to use. I also have
	a DOSBOX clone and use high power DOSBOX's at work and at friends
	homes. The DOSBOX's all seem clumsy in their interpretation of
	windows and the super awesome 11 meg+ games that I have tried on
	them all seem to have a certain hesitation in the controls. It
	is more like I am just watching the game rather than playing.
	This could just be me. One game that I can recall that played
	poorly was Wing Commander. The graphics were outstanding but
	gameplay was not and the time it needed to redraw screens...
	well it just wasn't worth it. BTW this was on a 386 w/8-meg.
	Mabey a 486 would have been better. I even preferred FALCON on
	the ST.

	Bob (Who is obviously heavily biased in favor of Atari) ;-)

    Bob,
    
    The factory packed Mega 1 STE reportedly does have a crippled drive bay
    as you stated. However, the couple of mail order places I spoke with
    are buying Mega 2 STes and adding/subtracting RAM and drives to make
    the different flavors.  So check with the dealer if you want to buy
    without the hard drive.
    
    As far as adding your own, some dealers are doing just that, offering
    larger drives than the 50 meg drive from the factory (Toad is offering
    130 and 240 meg, for example).
    
    
    
    							Brian

    
    Actual price for an atari TT with 32Mhz 4MB Memory (+4MB Fastram)
    without harddrive
                                                         $1700
    
    But the better choice is the falcon, which will be offer for
    (end of year)
    							 $700
    
    
    RALF
    

	 Any info on the Falcon yet. Like size, shape, speed,
	type of cpu, mem, drives, I/O ports, options etc...?

     
      I think the 'official' release of information is coming up in a few
    weeks, as they are showing the falcon at a show in germany near the end
    of august.
    
    KR
    

    Re: .6
    
    Check the next note (1297).
    
    					Brian

    I spoke with the folks at Toad about the Mega STE pricing.  For them,
    anyway, it's stable for now, no further decreases are anticipated. 
    They know no more about availability of Falcon than anyone else.
    
    They did mention that all Mega STEs are shipping with 1.44M flooppies
    and TOS 2.05, even ethough there are known bugs with 2.05.  Toad
    pooh-poohed the bugs, folks on USENET say they concern the serial port
    used at high baud rates (like 9600 and above) and HD floppy formatting.
    
    Toad sells 2.06 for $59 (think that's the MSRP) but you do have to buy
    it *in addition to the Mega STE*.  That's because (they claim, I belive
    them) that Atari will not give them credit for 2.06 ROMs that they
    install into STEs.  Even though it's the newest TOS it's not considered
    a free upgrade under warranty!
    
    Also, although units sold without hard drives can have them added
    easily, the mounting hardware and host adapter are *not* included, so
    the $250 or so extra you pay for the 50M hard drive includes that
    hardware, so that installing your own is not as cheap as just popping
    in a SCSI drive.
    
    Current Toad price (as of 8/10/92) is $999 for the 2M model with 50M
    hard drive and TOS 2.05, $1058 if you need TOS 2.06.
    
    							Brian

	 Well it looks like I'll be waiting for the Falcon. I just hope
	that Atari can deliver when they said they would. This could be
	an incredibly popular system. I showed the ad to a few dosbox users
	and they were awestruck. I am hoping for the best.

						Bob Adams