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atarinew.txt
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1992-02-25
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A T A R I N E W S
-------------------------------------------------------------
Compiled from ST Report and Znet Online Magazines
PAGESTREAM OFFER - UPDATE
A few months ago, Z*Net published a Soft-Logik User Group offer for a
free copy of PageStream to Registered Atari User Groups. Soft-Logik has
asked the User Groups that responded to the offer for their registered
Atari User Group number, which is non-existent. Atari's Director of
Communications, Bob Brodie does NOT assign any numbers to the groups.
Soft-Logik has been made aware of this and there is no longer a need to
call Atari Corp directly for this number.
ATARI SIGNS UP GENERAL ELECTRIC SERVICE NETWORK
Atari officially announced at NAMM that it's products will be serviced
by the 250 strong General Electric Service Center network though the
United States and Canada. Ted Maciejewski, Atari's National Service
Manager stated that product-specific service programs are currently
being developed by Atari and GE, and are expected to be fully
implemented by March 1992. Programs will also be implemented to address
the service needs of MIDI musicians and dealers. Mail-in service will
also be available with normal ten-day and optional one-day turnarounds.
ANTIC INC TO DISSOLVE BY JAN 1
Infamous for their closing of operations of START magazine without
payment of authors, printers, and disk duplicators, Antic Publishing,
Inc. is said to be planning to dissolve the corporation at year's end,
1991. The company solicited renewals on subscriptions (some $80 and
more) even after it announced the suspension of publishing, and has been
unresponsive to subscriber inquiries. Insiders have said that START
revenues were regularly diverted into the production of PC HOME JOURNAL,
Antic's other publication, which will be spun off to a legally new and
unrelated corporation as of January 1, 1992. The debts of START are
apparently intended to die with the name ANTIC, but legal responsibility
might be proven by lawsuits to survive into the new corporation. A
development group has been researching the liabilities of producing a
START MAGAZINE CD to include all of the text, graphics, and programs
ever included in the magazine, but are worried that their efforts will
only bring them lawsuits as well, regardless of contractual protections.
ATARI'S CD SHELVED; METADOS TO GO PUBLIC
According to Bill Rehbock, Director of Technical Services at Atari
Corporation, the announced and expected CDAR505 will NOT be produced at
any time soon. Intended for a fall 1991 release, the unit is really a
Chinon CDX451, readily available at many dealers today. The sole Atari
influence was to be the silkscreened name on the front panel and the
METADOS driver software to be included. It now appears that these
additions, along with Atari packaging, will drive the minimum price of
the CD ROM players to about $50 above what everyone else can get the
drive for, making it a loss proposition for Atari. Now, Atari plans to
promote the use of the 500+meg devices by encouraging production of
disks and software by releasing METADOS into the community as freeware.
This will enable any Atari user to buy any SCSI CD player and use it
immediately on any TT, or with a host adaptor, on any ST. ICD is
expected to shortly release a revised HOST software system that will
allow their Advantage series of host adapters to address the CD devices
without effort or confusion. Chinon CDX451 drives are currently
available at prices as low as $380 from discounters.
ATARI'S PAD COMPUTER BACKBURNERED
Where's the STylus? Maybe gone. The pad-based ST that was said to be
the future of computing and was at one time expected to be the "WOW"
unit at COMDEX has been tabled by Atari. Market studies show that
everyone is interested in pad computers, but nobody expects to buy one.
Rather than offer a machine without a market, Atari is putting the
project into mothballs until and unless the market shows that money is
to be made. Despite the 98% accuracy of the outstanding Atari
handwriting recognition software as compared to the 75% accuracy of most
PC based units, the STylus is presently judged to be a novelty whose
time has not yet come.
TT AND STE: "ATARI'S MAINSTAY FOR NEXT TWO YEARS"
Atari's President, Greg Pratt, said while addressing the banquet crowd
at Chicago's Atari show last week that the new machines coming in 1992
from Atari will be shown at the Spring CeBIT show in Germany, and will
be dazzling. However, he then added that the machines will then see a
12 to 18 month development before commercial availability, and that the
current TT and Mega STe will be the mainstay of Atari for most of the
next two years. This realistic comment throws cold water on some of the
hopes of the Atari community who expected an Atari Falcon 68040 on their
desks in 1992. A full transcript of Pratt's address will be included in
next week's Z*NET.
PLI TO ADD ATARI TO PRESTIGIOUS HARDWARE SUPPORT LINE
Atari's move to standardize their ports and accessories has born fruit
in the closing of a support deal with PLI, billed as "the most trusted
name in removable hard drive technology". Atari will be added to Apple
and NeXT in the lines that PLI will offer Syquest technology removable
drives, hard drives, rewritable optical library systems, and more. The
sexy and tiny PLI boxes are as affordable as any in the market, and the
Atari name and symbol will begin appearing on all PLI literature between
those of Apple and NeXT. SCSI devices, the PLI units work instantly
with a TT and Atari's HDX software, or with a host adaptor, on any
Atari. CO-OP ads with PLI and Atari will begin appearing in Atari and
other magazines in January. PLI, 47421 Bayside Parkway, Fremont CA
94538, 800-288-8754.
HYBRID ARTS GETS NEW CEO, OUTLOOK
After years of restriction in Atari support due to a CEO that appeared
to have a grudge against it, Hybrid Arts is happy to announce that a new
boss and a new outlook is allowing a new growth and support for Atari.
One of the pioneers in MIDI software and hardware, Hybrid "fired" their
old boss and replaced him with Chris Pelzar. The result is a complete
turnaround of attitude, support, advertising, and development for the
Atari platform. Genedit 2.0, an outstanding MIDI editor, was marketed
many months ago in germany, but was withheld from the US market by the
old Hybrid. It was shown and sold to enthusiastic musicians last week
at the Chicago show. Digital Master is also going over big, part of a
new effort by Hybrid to sell what they have rather than what they
thought they could eventually produce. Efforts have also begun in
payment of royalties and fees that have been owed for years to some
developers of Hybrid's early products. Hybrid Arts, 8522 National
Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232, 310-841-0340.
CRASWELL SHOWS, OFFERS 16 MILLION COLOR BOARD - $400
Maker of AlberTT and ISAC resolution and color enhancement boards Jay
Craswell brought his just-completed "LEONARDO 24" card to the Chicago
show. Using a standard monitor, it gives over 16 million colors on
screen at once. To be eventually bundled and sold with Lexicor's
software by Lexicor, Jay's company Dover Research offered a $400 price
for those few who buy the board now from him directly. The final price
will be higher, but has not been set as yet. The pictures shown by Jay
in the Atari booth were incredible. Unlike the AlberTT and ISAC boards
which offer increased resolution and more colors available from a
palette, the 24-bit Leonardo card works within the "normal" Atari
resolution but offers all the colors at one time.
Jaguar and Falcon not Games but.........
Reports claiming that Atari's Jaguar (tentative debut -> Spring CES)
project is a combined home computer and games system have been dismissed
by the firm (Atari U.K.) as "pure speculation", but Atari UK has confirmed
that a new super TT will be released next year. One merely has to know
Atari's"codename" game... Birds = computer projects, Cats = Game machines.
Jaguar will use a 32-bit 68030 processor and a 32-bit graphics and
sound processor simultaneously, and cartridges will be used for storage.
But when asked whether the machine will be ST-compatible a spokesman
replied: "I doubt that you could stick a 3.5in disk in and it work."
He described the Jaguar as a next generation console and said it "will
be much further up the games playing ladder". Atari would like to sell
the Jaguar for less than 100.00 UK ~ $180.00 US but the technology
involved is likely to lift its price nearer to 200.00 UK ~ $360.00 US).
Future STs are likely to take advantage of Jaguar's much improved
graphics and sound processor although there are still no signs of Atari
working in this direction.
ST Marketing Manager Darryl Still (Atari U.K.) says that Research and
Development division have been looking at new products for more than a
year, but was not willing to reveal further information about plans for
the ST.
He did, however, confirm that the Texas R&D plant are working on
the Falcon project, a highly improved TT. The current machine's 68030
processor will be swapped for a faster 68040 (TT040) to make it up to five
times faster than today's model.
Falcon's TT should have broadcast quality 24-bit graphics with 64-bit
access. On reports claiming it will have a CD-ROM drive Atari said:
"There are various projects in the States."
OPTIC'S
Power computing announced an optical drive with 128 megabytes of
storage capacity. It is an external drive which enables information to be
stored on fully-rewritable 3.5in optical cartridges. Manufactured by
computer giant IBM it has a seek rate of 60 milliseconds and plugs
directly into the ST's DMA (ACSI) port.
It has it's own power supply and built in fan and costs $1,199.00 UK
$2158.20 US. Cartridges can be bought for 36.00 UK each ~ $64.00
Publisher 2 ST
GST/Electric distribution is upgrading Timeworks Publisher to version
2 ST.. cost 110.00 UK ~ $198.00 US for new users, cost 34.95 UK ~ $62.91
US for existing users.
Contact: Lorri Marton, Electric Distribution, Meadow Lane, St. Ives,
Cambridgeshire PE17 4LG ** telephone 0480-496666 ** upgrade line 0480-496-
575 ** fax 040-496189.
Also note that 1st Word Plus has been upgraded to version 3.2..
Joe Meehan..on Genie
Several people were I work were on the ill fated air liner that had a
malfunction and the pilots had to try and land it without rudder
control, they did great, but it still crashed, killing many people.
Our employees made it out fine. Several months later we recieved a
shipment, our laptop computer. It was a little ragged looking and had
been fire damaged, but -it still worked- including the hard drive, we
still had all the data.
The moral of this story is, stay out of plan crashes, but if you are
in one, don't worry about your hard drive.
----------------
How to upgrade your MegaSTe's hard drive - From Bob Brodie (Atari) - Cat
14, Topic 40, Msg 157 - from the ST Roundtable on Genie...
Look underneath the Mega STE where the hard disk is situated. There
is a single screw under here that has to be removed in order for you
to get to the Hard Disk. You can also access the roms, ram, and host
adapter as well from this spot. Just lift up the hard disk and take
it out of the case.
Any standard 3-1/2" hard disk will fit in the bracket. I have a
Seagate 60 meg unit installed in my demo unit. Before that, I had a
105 meg Quantum. Both formatted fine with the latest version of Atari
Hard Disk Utilities.
----------------
Some interesting info about the STe/MegaSTe from Mike Drysdale (Team
Computers) - Cat. 14, Topic 4, Msg. 47 - from the ST Roundtable on
Genie...
EVERY STe (again STe) is ready for TOS 2.06. Just remove the old TOS
and plug in the new chips. No boards or modifications are needed.
EVERY MEGA STe and TT (that's MEGAe or TT) is ready for a 1.44 (or
2.88) floppy drive. Install the Ajax chip, a 1.44 (or 2.88) mech, and
flip dip switch #7. Yes it will still read, write, format, 360K
(single-sided) and 720K (double-sided) disks as well as other
perverse and extended format disks (IBM, SPECTRE, Mac, Etc).
If you have an ST or STe (the older stuff), adding a 1.44 floppy will
will much more complex. AND MAY NOT BE POSSIBLE AT ALL.
Owners of older STs (NOT e's) who want TOS 2.06, go directly to
Codehead (do not pass GO).
If you want to have some fun right now, MEGAe owners ONLY, flip dip
switch #7 (it's under the hard drive) and go to format.
----------------
FROM U.S.
PLI makers of hard-drives for the Apple Macintosh, MS-DOS computers,
Atari ST/TT, and Commodore Amiga, will be producing Floptical drives for
the above computers using the InSight floptical 21 megabyte disk drive.
No price yet.
The SuperBase database program will be marketed by a new company to
the Atari market Oxxi Inc.. Oxxi Inc. previously dealt with Commodore
based machines. Oxxi, purchased Precision Software's Atari ST, Commodore
64/128, Commodore Amiga versions of SuperBase about week after Precision
Software was sold to PC software house SPC makers of Harvard Graphics.
Current versions of SuperBase on the MS-DOS platform remain with SPC.
SuperBase 4.0 (available on the MS-DOS platform) was rumored to be in
various stages of being tested for the Atari ST. Oxxi Inc. also received
in the deal Precision's distribution house in the U.K...
for more info:
Oxxi Inc.
1339 East 28th Street
Long Beach, CA 90806.
telephone (213)427-1227.