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stvsibm.txt
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Text File
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1992-02-04
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4KB
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92 lines
ST Vs IBM
~~~~~~~~~
R.BROWN
...Recently, I spent four months in California doing some production
work (I'm a filmmaker), and I lugged my Mega 4, Syquest, etc. with me
to use whilst I braved both mountain and studio.
Each day I sat there working on my ST with a 33 mhz 386 PC not two
feet from me with a professional developer at that DOS keyboard...
Spell that U-N-I-M-P-R-E-S-S-E-D.
For example: by the time the PC could actually boot to the Norton
Desktop for Windows (a far-far cry from Neodesk or the new STe/TT
TOS), even with a maths coprocessor - the PC had lost more time than
it could _ever_ make up in an average session, say, with it running
Lotus and my lowly ST running LDW Power.
And with this example, try loading a BIG (!) spreadsheet into Lotus
in the PC environment: welcome to "OUT OF MEMORY" problems, even with
'extended' or 'expanded' memory of ANY size. A gigabyte, say.
Pathetic is a word that comes to mind.
Has it been so long that we've forgot that DOS seems not much more
than a retread of its 'grandfather', CP/M? Yes, the syntax on that
dandy command line has changed...
IBM, DOS, and this ilk have also spawned this "TREMENDOUS and
FABULOUS" surfeit of software. Name the significant titles amongst
that horde. Get a handful? Ever notice the countless assortment of
subset/inferior titles that apparently exist to give options to
underacheivers?
What's more, are we disregarding the DOS options available for the ST
itself (386 available _right now_...)? Furthermore, there _are_ CLI's
available for the ST that brings a "virtual DOS" environment where
the power of the ST can be temporarily stripped and the cludgy
command line introduced with its attendant, inefficient command set:
cd H:\DIMWITT.ED\OPERATIN.G\SYSTEM\*.YUK, or 'DOS' for short.
And the Mac! So complex that it needs System 7 with "Bubble Help"
that adds (for example) the awesome capability of being able to drag
a data file on top of its program's icon to have the program run and
load the given data file in one fell swoop? Try it in Neodesk on your
Atari.
What about those high power platforms on the Mac? Ever try trans-
porting files amongst similar platforms, say something simple like
Freehand to Illustrator?
Both may save an EPS file, but... Ah! The fabulous _third party_
developer, Altsys, will let you buy a $90 program, EPS Exchange, to
get those files moving. Best be running Multifinder, I suppose.
Of course, significant primary Mac "education" is possible on an ST
running Gadget's Spectre GCR. Maybe not the high end color (-yet-),
but certainly a lot of Word, Superpaint, Illustrator, Freehand,
Fontographer, Photoshop, Digital Darkroom, Quark and PageMaker
(combine the two and get Atari's PageStream from SoftLogik), and a
lot more. Work done on the ST in Mac mode can easily be taken to the
office Mac on floppy disk.
And being one that works in Mac mode (and on the real thing), what
about that Mac OS? World's worst file selection scheme, a quagmire
that in itself slows down the user not unlike the "slow boot" of the
PC.
Granted, these other platforms offer certain advantages, but, and
especially in light of the new progress being shown at Atari (put a
finger on the pulse of the new rumors...), now is not the time to
either give up on Atari nor be a doomsayer.
Spectacular ST/TT-specific software is now coming of age, including
titles like Avant Vektor, Cranach Studio, Calamus SL, Retouche
Professional, and others that are equivalent to or surpass _any_
software in either the Mac or DOS environments.
The Atari combines the graphic environment and purported 'ease of
use' of the Mac with the logical file handling of DOS in a package
that neither the IBM nor Mac can surpass save for a few proprietary
applications - and that may be just a matter of time.
----------------