home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Floppyshop 2
/
Floppyshop - 2.zip
/
Floppyshop - 2.iso
/
diskmags
/
3565-4.665
/
dmg-3609
/
news.txt
/
st_v_pc.asc
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1997-06-21
|
5KB
|
102 lines
∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙
∙ ∙
∙ "MY COMPUTER IS BETTER THAN YOUR COMPUTER" ∙
∙ ∙
∙ A practical guide to why you shouldn't throw out your ST ∙
∙ ∙
∙ by Dave Cowling ∙
∙ ∙
∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙
I spend a lot of time visiting families who have a computer, but
need to learn how to use it. While I visit homes with a variety of
machines, the machine I have to contend with most often is the exalted PC.
Hands up those who have complained in the past about the GEM
Desktop? It's a lousy colour, and not too friendly either, but at
least it's there and workable. Which is more than can be said for the
user-unfriendly PC. OK, you can put your hands down now.
Getting to grips with disk management and program management are
the biggest problems for novice PC users. Moving files, deleting
files, creating folders, are all a mystery to many PCers, when to you
and I they are quite simple tasks.
If I'm dealing with an ST owner, I can show him/her how to
format a disk, and move single files or whole disks in a simple
demonstration which even the youngest in the family are able to follow
and repeat easily.
But it's not so easy for a new PC user. They may or may not have
Windows, but either way there is a steep learning curve, and if they
are in the slightest bit nervous of the machine then it is an uphill
battle. MS/DOS is no big deal once you're used to it, but if you
happened to have zapped a few disks while trying to master it, then a few
nervous twitches are understandable.
The sad fact is that the PC is, and has been for a long time,
the industry standard. Serious software abounds for the PC, but the ST,
as a consequence of losing out on hardware sales, has become the poor
relation. The new 32 bit machines are very fast and their price is
competitive with 25 MHz '486 clones selling for £750 + VAT. But the 486
specification includes a Super VGA colour monitor, plus a hard drive.
This is the market place that Atari are hoping to sell the Falcon
into, and without success in this area, software for the ST will continue
to decline.
I love using computers, be they PC or ST, but when I have
projects to do for college, I always opt for the ST. It's
reliable and user-friendly, and I haven't seen a DTP program on the PC to
beat Pagestream. (I didn't say there *wasn't* a PC program that could
beat Pagestream - the latest Pagemaker may well do that - but I
haven't seen it yet!).
Should I throw my ST out of the window? No, not for a long time. I
still think of it as a workhorse that's able to do most of the tasks
expected of computers. But I sincerely hope that Atari UK get their
finger out when thay come to market the Falcon. A successful new
machine would prolong the ST's life and mean a good flow of software for
it. Anyway, where else could you read STEN?
∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙
Nicely put, Dave, but I think you're wrong about the Falcon having to
be aimed at the business world. Atari in the States have been heard to
say that they see serious home enthusiasts as the machine's main market,
along with specialist niches like music studios and post-production
video. The best way to look at the Falcon is as 'the ST of the '90's';
it offers the same mix of high specification at low cost, and has a wide
range of potential uses.
I don't think there is, or will be, any competition between the ST
and PC worlds. The bottom line is that you buy the machine that's most
suitable for your needs. If you're running a business, than you buy a PC
to run business software. If you're a design studio or magazine, then
you buy into the Mac world. If you're an teacher, then you get an
Archimedes and run educational software. If you want a general-purpose
home machine, then you buy an ST or Amiga. You can then run anything,
from art programmes to word processors and DTP packages, at the lowest
possible cost.
I'm not sure that the Falcon will automatically mean more software
for the ST. Most of the applications being developed are specifically
for the Falcon, and they're unlikely to run in 'ST mode'. The importance
of the Falcon (if Atari don't blow it, or go off at their usual half-
cock), is to attract fresh blood to the Atari scene. Perhaps we'll see
the return of the serious users who went over to the PC or Mac in the
last couple of years!
John Weller
~~~~~eof~~~~~