User Profile User Profile Although the Atari market is shrinking, it is still strongly supported by its users, and has probably the most active user base of any computer. There are loads of user groups, disk magazines and literally hundreds of PD and Shareware programs available.
Each month, we intend to carry a profile of a different Atari user. To kick the series off, we have Harry Sideras of the UK Association of Atari User Groups.....
Harry kindly responded to my netmail, asking him to contribute a profile for this series, very quickly. It is very interesting, and I hope you enjoy reading it....
1. Describe your Atari setup
My hardware's been built up over quite a few years, with a mish mash of products that were intended for, what turned out to be, unfulfilled needs.
My current working setup is based on a Mega STe with 4Mb RAM and a 540Mb internal hard drive. I managed to grab a cheapo second hand graphics card through System Solutions which expands my screen from the normal ST resolutions to something similar to Falcon resolutions,but without the truecolour mode - 256 colours is the maximum I can get, but the resolution is up to 800*528 in this colour depth. I usually run in 832*624*16 colours though, on an IDEK 15" SVGA monitor. I have Atari SM124 (mono) and SC1224 (colour) monitors as well, which I switch back to for older software and games when my girlfriend's kids are here.
Over and above this, I've still got my external ICD FA.ST hard drive case, which is still awaiting me to install an Archive Viper tape streamer I picked up. I have some Zi-Fi stereo speakers that are out of use while I have a problem with the number of plugs available to me. There are 3 scanners dotted around - a Naksha, an old Hawk CP14 from Signa which still has the best cropping and rough editing software available with it -HJBPaint - and an A4 scanner (not flatbed).
Printed output is to either a HP Laserjet 3P or a very early but little used Star LC24-10 dot matrix printer.
Elsewhere, I've got a 4Mb STe with TOS 2.06 which is now mainly used for games after a hard day at the office! That Llamatron is a killer!
2. What is your Atari's main use?
What I actually use it for and what I want to use my Atari for are two different things. My original purpose was twofold:
First to do some reports for work, which could combine text, graphs and spreadsheet information with some colour printed output onto my original Star LC10 colour printer. For that I've been using the latest versions of K-Spread, K-Graph and First Word Plus for some time and soon switched over to Timeworks 2 when my DTP needs outstripped my WP needs.
Now I use Magic 4 I'm about to switch over to Papyrus and Texel (soon I hope) due to incompatibility problems of some essential add-on utilities I use (DJ & FW+ refuses to work with Magic, so I can't print images through FWP on my Laserjet).
Second, I wanted Player Manager 2 on the ST rather than an old 8-bit machine!
What I actually spend most of my time doing is logging onto the BBS and CIX/Internet networks and supporting new users by bringing people together through my UKAAUG venture, that I took over at the beginning of 1996. After all that, no more time exists for me, unfortunately, if I want to continue to involve myself in my non-computing activities. Sad but true...
3. How long have you been an Atari user?
I first bought an Atari 800XL around 1984/5 and had a very basic games setup for a number of years that I rarely used. I finally gave up the ghost with it when I visited an Atari show at the Alexandra Palace (in the days when an Atari show was something to *really* to shout about!) and spoke to the programmer from Europress who wrote the Spreadsheet module of Mini Office on the 8-bt Atari. I told him about a fatal bug and he told me he knew about it, but it was never going to get fixed because they were movingon to support the C64, and other platforms. I resolved to get a 16-bit machine shortly afterward. A couple of weeks before and I wouldn't have had to buy a 90 quid 360k single sided floppy disk drive...
I sought advice and discovered that the Amiga had a better spec that the ST, but I looked at the software base and the kind of software that was available and decided that I'd go for the ST in December 1988 because it seemed to do the jobs I was interested in better and with better software -I wasn't going to be told that my hadware was no longer supported like I just had with the 8-bit machine. The fact that the 800XL had a much higher spec than the Amstrads, Speccies and C64s hadn't saved it and I saw no reason to use that as a basis to choose a new platform.
Price was a factor too and the ST came out ahead there as well, but I've never regretted that decision to this day. The Amiga GUI and OS was a pile of cack for a long time and the software that I was interested in didn't exist to the same quality or extent for too long a time. The situation may be different today but it's long past being an issue for me.
4. What is your favourite Atari program?
For a long time in my GDOS days my favourite software was Fontkit Plus. I briefly got onto the betatest team for FKP4 and spent a while with the first beta, totally incapable of finding a problem with it. That didn't prevent the author, Jeremy Hughes of subsequent Imagecopy fame, producing half a dozen bugfix versions. He's one helluva programmer in my opinion.
Since then I've had enormous respect for the author of the shareware OCR -Alexander Clauss - who subsequently wrote CAB. An excellent program that's more than a match for the commercial Migraph OCR and, so I'm told, Signa OCR that used to weigh in at a couple of hundred quid.
5. Any information about yourself ie your occupation etc.
I work in Production and Material Control and have done since about 1980 -that's to do with the timing of components, and raw materials from suppliers through the production process and out to the customers. I started with a company involved in window dressings and fixtures and I'm now with a component supplier to the motor trade.
Aside from my work I've been quite involved in playing and coaching table tennis over the years - though I've never stayed in any one league long enough to get anywhere and I started far too late for it to matter very much. I've played at a lowly County League level but mainly potter around somewhere between Division 5 and Premier League over the last couple of years - wherever I can get a game, basically. I once harboured hopes of greatness and then I got hit by a reality pill!
In November 1995 Ken Ward announced the end of his involvement with the AAUG. This followed 15 years of sterling and much appreciated work on behalf of Atari 8-bit, ST and Falcon owners and User Groups.
Following that decision I contacted Ken and obtained his consent to take over the AAUG and relaunch it within the UK as from January 1st 1996.
The primary purpose of the UK Association of Atari User Groups is to maintain a directory of User Groups and their contact details in order to enable individuals to join an existing network of support. Advice and encouragement is also available on creating new groups in areas where it doesn't currently exist.
The UK AAUG will continue to operate on a non-profit making basis, so all postal contact requiring a response *must* be accompanied by an SAE and disk.
The directory will also contain information on groups that support Atari software, Atari companies, Atari publications (both printed and on disk), PD Libraries and Atari Bulletin Boards, FTP and WEB sites.
To this end I would ask that all organisations that need to be listed in these directories, that haven't already been contacted directly on this subject, confirm their current contact details as soon as possible to ensure that they are included within my provisional lists.
Harry Sideras
UK Association of Atari User Groups
49 Haywood Road
Tile Cross
Birmingham
B33 0LJ
(Remember the SAE and disk)
Internet: sidcelery@cix.compulink.co.uk
hsideras@mettav.demon.co.uk
NeST: Harry Sideras on 90:102/143
TurboNet 100:1011/143
AtariNet 51:502/100.16
FIDO 2:254/108.16
