*---== ST REPORT ONLINE MAGAZINE ==---* """"""""""""""""""""""""" "The Original 16/32bit Online Magazine" _____________________________________ from STR Publishing Inc. """""""""""""""""" July 13, 1990 No.6.28 ======================================================================= STReport Online Magazine¿ Post Office Box 6672 Jacksonville, Florida 32205 ~ 6672 R.F. Mariano Publisher - Editor _________________________________________ Voice: 904-783-3319 10 AM - 4 PM EDT BBS: 904-786-4176 12-24-96 HST/14.4 FAX: 904-783-3319 12 AM - 6 AM EDT _________________________________________ ** F-NET NODE 350 ** 500mb Online ** STR'S owned & operated support BBS carries ALL issues of STReport Online Magazine and An International list of private BBS systems carrying STReport Online Magazine for their users enjoyment __________________________________________________________________ > 07/13/90: STReport¿ #6.28 The Original 16/32 bit Online Magazine! ------------------------- - THE EDIIOR'S DESK - CPU REPORT - CPU STATUS REPORT - WINDSOR ATARIFEST - WAACE Updates - KAYPRO BANKRUPT? - FCC NAILS MA BELL - ROSETTA/CHRONOS - STR CONFIDENTIAL * EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH LEXICOR! * * REVISED SOFTREK SUPER OFFER! * * SPECIAL REPORT -> EXPLORER - WHERE?? * ========================================================================== ST REPORT ONLINE MAGAZINE¿ "Only UP-TO-DATE News and Information" -* FEATURING *- Current Events, Up to Date News, Hot Tips, and Information Hardware - Software - Corporate - R & D - Imports ========================================================================== STReport's support BBS, NODE # 350 invites systems using Forem ST BBS to participate in Forem BBS's F-Net mail network. Or, Please call # 350 direct at 904-786-4176, and enjoy the excitement of exchanging ideas about the Atari ST computers through an excellent International ST Mail Network. ========================================================================== AVAILABLE ON: COMP-U-SERVE ~ DELPHI ~ GENIE ~ BIX ========================================================================== > The Editor's Podium¿ In the last few weeks we have seen a number of relativly strong opinions posted by 'well informed' online regulars concerning the 'negative' content of STReport and of course, the comments of its editor, Who me? . For the record, this editor is an absolute, diehard Atarian. In all instances, the information was published or brought up in a sincere effort of trying to ensure that re-occurances would not be the norm or, that the Tramiel Bros. would be made aware. There were those who felt Sam, Leonard and Garry were unfairly targeted. On that point I strongly agree, they have been unfairly targeted. However, the cause for the most part, is that they seemed to be out of touch with the wants, likes and dislikes of the userbase. In fact, in the last three years, both singularly and collectively, they may have given a whole new meaning to business management and manufacturing. To be fair though, they are not solely responsible, their advisors have most certainly dropped the ball on more than one serious occasion. The target needs to be made much bigger. As far as the Tramiel Bros. being unfairly held responsible, well now, that's another story. The old tried and true adage by Pres. Harry Truman; "The Buck Stops Here", fits ever so perfectly. If for example, something is a grand success, they will bask in the comfortable limelight of compliment and vis-a-vis, with the course of current events the way they are at this time, they should justifiably bathe in the hot and revealing lights of the user's interrogatories. It is still STReport's main contention that there is a great deal of 'grass roots' information being re-directed away from the Tramiel Bros. and therefore they are 'sheilded' from many of the everyday issues by their "well-meaning" subordinates. That is, until the minor everyday incidents blow up to such outrageous proportions that there is no hiding them any longer. By that time, the userbase is usually vicitmized by the subordinates as either "constantly complaining or overly reactive." Times are changing though, with the Director of North America about to take the reigns and now coupled with Bill Crouch planning a massive marketing assault upon the USA market, we all can expect to see a brighter future for our favorite machines. With this year more than half over, nothing much has changed from last year at this time except the TT is closer to a reality and we now see the Lynx in full distribution. The US userbase's hopes are higher than now than in recent months. Hang in there folks, no matter what happens in the immediate future, we still have quite a machine to use on a daily basis. Thanks for your support, Ralph....... "THE ONLINE MAGAZINE OF CHOICE!" Often chosen more than once! *********************************************************************** > CPU REPORT¿ ========== Issue # 75 ---------- by Michael Arthur Remember When.... In July 1976,Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak shipped the first Apple I, which was sold in the form of a kit, or how in April 1977, the Apple II was introduced (selling for $3000.00), which helped Apple become a Fortune 500 company? Or when (in May 1980), the Apple III was introduced, which was so buggy and incompatible that Apple eventually re-engineered it, helping the IBM PC to become successful in the business markets which the Apple III was aimed at? CPU INSIGHTS ============ KAYPRO GOES CHAPTER 11, AS SEC INVESTIGATES FINANCIAL RECORDS ------------------------------------------------------------- Kaypro Corp., which played a pioneering role in the microcomputer industry, is now in a state of financial turmoil. They recently filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. At this time, Roy Salisbury was serving as Kaypro's President, with members of the FCS Consulting Group managing Kaypro. Andrew Kay (who is Founder, Chairman of the Board, and controlling shareholder of Kaypro) was fired as CEO. However, soon after this, Andrew Kay's attorneys obtained a court order for a meeting of Kaypro's Board of Directors. In this meeting, Ray Salisbury and other members of his consulting group were REMOVED from Kaypro's management. Ben Fisher, a longtime Kaypro employee was appointed by Kaypro's Board (which was dominated by Andrew Kay's supporters) as Kaypro's President/CEO. However, this series of powerplays may have been in vain, because of the company's current condition. The SEC has also "told" Kaypro to produce financial records for 1988 and 1989. However, Kaypro has now lost their NASDAQ stock listing precisely because they weren't able to file their annual financial report for last year. Investigators auditing Kaypro have been unable to make a report on the company's financial statements because of serious "deficiencies" in Kaypro's accounting records. Meaning that they can't determine Kaypro's finances for Fiscal Year 1989. Also, Kaypro's current management can't even say whether its previous financial reports are accurate or not, let alone its current financial records for 1990. As a result, Kaypro has indicated that it is not wise to invest in the company at this time.... Amid this scene of financial anarchy, Kaypro announced that it will resume production in order to fill a $500,000 backlog in back orders for Kaypro computers, and $1 million in orders received after Salisbury was ousted from management. However, Kaypro CEO Ben Fisher has tried to reassure the entire financial community by saying that Kaypro has "trimmed expenses and expects to show profitability very soon". CPU MacNews¿ =========== RADIUSTV, GENLOCKS, AND WATCHING TV WITH A COMPUTER --------------------------------------------------- Radius Inc. has recently introduced RadiusTV, a NuBus Expansion Board for the Mac II which uses genlocking technology to display TV/Video images on a resizable Macintosh Window. It can digitize and display live 16-bit (65,536 color) video images in real-time (30 frames/second), and allows these images to be saved onto the Mac Clipboard. Cost: $2800.00. RadiusTV also integrates all of the elements of a TV signal into its operation, meaning that you can do several things with it (like viewing closed captions and adjusting calibration settings) that you can do with a regular TV. As part of this, RadiusTV has a cable-ready TV tuning system, and can display NTSC Video from many devices, including: - TV/Cable Broadcasts - Video Cameras - Laserdisc players - VCRs and video cassette players With RadiusTV, one can also select and control several video devices via software. Radius has also bundled a comprehensive set of developer tools for RadiusTV, allowing multimedia (read: desktop video) applications like MacroMind Director to utilize its features. Interestingly enough, Radius is marketing RadiusTV as a "platform" for "business television, image capture, interactive training, education, and presentations". > CPU STATUS REPORT¿ >>>> LATE BREAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE NEWS! <<<< ================= - Cambridge, MA LOTUS WINS CASE AGAINST 1-2-3 CLONES ------------- Lotus Corp. recently won a copyright infringement case against Paperback Software (maker of VP Planner) and Stephenson Software, who makes a spreadsheet product called The Twin. The US District Court found that the user interfaces of VP Planner and The Twin infringed on the copyrighted Lotus 1-2-3 user interface. Lotus still has a similar case pending against Mosaic Software, maker of another 1-2-3 "Clone".... In the case, Judge Keeton stated that "the user interface of 1-2-3 is its most unique element", and is what made it so popular. Lotus has said that this case reaffirms that copyrighted portions of software will be protected under law. However, Paperback Software intends to appeal the decision, and may be joined by other spreadsheet makers who are being sued by Lotus. However, this ruling says that a program's menu command structure is an "original work", and can presumably be copyrighted. However, several industry analysts say that Judge Keeton has wrongly maintained that a program's user interface and command structure is more important than its features or functionality. If so, then this ruling may have only confused the issue.... - Washington, DC FCC ORDER SLASHES $1.1 BILLION FROM US PHONE BILLS -------------- The Federal Communications Commission (or FCC) has ordered a series of reductions in the fees charged by companies like Southwestern Bell for local phone number service, which will result in a $1.1 billion dollar break in consumers' phone bills. Interestingly, the local phone companies themselves only proposed a $400 million dollar cut. The FCC found that local phone companies made inaccurate projections of cost and demand for such services (as well as overestimating certain expenses), and used these projections to charge excessive rates. Last year, the "baby Bells" gained $19 billion from these fees.... The FCC has also found that several "baby Bells" (including NYNEX, Southwestern Bell, BellSouth, and Ameritech) charged their political lobbying costs to their operating expense accounts. MCI and Allnet have asked the FCC to investigate whether the "baby Bells" are pushing the cost of their political lobbying efforts to consumers.... - Mountain View, CA ADOBE TYPE MANAGER OUT FOR WINDOWS 3.0 ----------------- Adobe Systems has introduced a version of Adobe Type Manager(or ATM) for Microsoft Windows 3.0. ATM will allow Windows 3.0 applications to automatically display Postscript fonts (scaled to any size), and to print them using ANY printer, Postscript or non-Postscript. It will be shipping in September. Cost: $100.00. ATM/Windows contains the Standard 13 set of Postscript fonts (Times, Courier, Helvetica, and Symbol). However, most Postscript laser printers use the Standard 35 set of Postscript fonts. Therefore, Adobe has also announced that when ATM/Windows ships, that the Adobe Plus Pack (which provides the 22 other fonts in the Standard 35 set) will also be available. Cost: $200.00.... - Cambridge, MA LOTUS PUTS QUATTRO PRO, UNIX MAKER UNDER SIEGE ------------- Only days after its lawsuit win, Lotus is suing Borland Inc. and the Santa Cruz Operation (maker of SCO Xenix), charging that their spreadsheet programs (Quattro Pro and SCO Professional, respectively) violate Lotus's copyrights. Lotus alleges that the recent ruling indicates that 1-2-3's command structure and user interface are copyrightable, and that both of these spreadsheets have violated Lotus' copyrights. However, Quattro Pro provides features and commands NOT found in 1-2-3, which may weaken Lotus' case. However, this case stands a good chance of clarifying what parts of software programs cannot be imitated, and may settle the issue over how important a program's "look and feel" is to its sales and popularity. Interestingly, the Software Publisher's Association recently found that Quattro Pro now owns over 28 percent of the PC Spreadsheet market (up from 5 percent from when it was introduced in 1989), and that Lotus hasn't regained the market share it lost while developing 1-2-3 Version 3.0.... _______________________________________________________ > LEXICOR, ST's FUTURE! STR FOCUS¿ * EXCLUSIVE *, In-depth Interview! ================================ LEXICOR, in ST's FUTURE! ======================= STR -- = STReport Lee -- = Lee Seiler, Vice President LEXICOR SOFTWARE CORP. 58 Redwood Road Fairfax, Ca 94930 A candid interview with Lee M. Seiler of LEXICOR SOFTWARE CORPORATION. STR -- Lee, I understand that LEXICOR is a brand new company devoted to the Atari market and its software authors. Please, tell us a little about LEXICOR? Lee -- YES that's true...LEXICOR is actually a small corporation made up of former ANTIC developers. Last year ANTIC lost interest in further development of the CYBER series. We got together and decided to form our own company and continue development on our own work. STR -- Can you tell us who some of these people are..?" Lee -- YES...Paul Dana, Dave Ramsden, Mark Kimbel, including Jim Kent who, while not actually doing any programming, has been a valued adviser on some aspects of our work and Robert Birmingham who was not with Antic but is an exceptional programer. STR -- With the depression of the ATARI market and all the footdragging from ATARI in addition to ATARI's lack of interest in the US market, is seems that starting a new company to support ATARI computers would be a bit risky? Lee -- Not at all...in fact, the ATARI market could not be better...let me explain...While everything you suggest is true to some extent it does not naturally follow that the US Market place is to be avoided. Your inference is right that many companies are no longer producing products for the ATARI computer and some have gone out of business. But this is due to their failure to recognize the ATARI market for what it actually is in stead of what they think it should be. STR -- I'm not sure I understand what you mean??..could you be more specific? Lee -- OK, Take ANTIC for example,last year we were working on new products as independent developers with the understanding that ANTIC would buy the finished programs we were working on and add them to the CYBER STUDIO series. But suddenly we discovered from Jim Chapperal that ANTIC sales had fallen drastically and that the ATARI market was not worth the cost of completing development of our new software. This was about the time that Charles Cherry went to ATARI. STR -- I see, however, are you saying that the ATARI market has IMPROVED since then? Lee -- By no means, in fact it has gotten even worse, so much so that a majority of the general users talking on Compuserve relates to how bad the ATARI support is from both ATARI and second and third party companies. STR -- Well now I am really confused!...You seem to be saying that the ATARI market is very good on one hand and contradicting yourself on the other hand by admitting that the same market is worse than ever?? Which is the case? Lee -- Yes, it does seemingly appear to be contradictory, superficially though. The reality here is in what shape the ATARI market actually is in. Not how it appears at first glance. In the first place, you must accept the fact that the US ATARI market for ATARI CORP. is a secondary market. This is a fact evidenced by their performance and is not likely to change anytime soon. Next; this secondary market is a very limited market. It's ability to support products, new or otherwise, are well defined. To remain in business in this marketplace, the basic rules of supply and demand must be strictly adhered to, violate these rules and you are lost! This is exactly what has been happening. A good example is ANTIC'S misconception of those rules and the actual state of the market, this was demonstrated by their cut back in Cyber support and the eventual dropping of all further development of Cyber Studio Products. STR -- I see and understand your points, Now, please can you give us an example or two of your meaning? Lee -- Of course, ANTIC found that their sales were dropping and wrongly believed that the ATARI users were throwing their computers in to the trash can and flocking to the MAC and AMIGA markets! They also assumed (wrongly) that the solution was to chase after the fleeing users. They seemed to think that it was necessary to, in some way, get those users to switch from a MAC or AMIGA to the ATARI computers and that this would only happen if ATARI Corp built, advertised and sold more and better products in the US with emphasis on heavy advertising. This was, of course, not at all what was happening. STR -- So you are saying that what really happened was that they just sold out their limited market?? Lee -- That's right! STR -- I see...you mean that a limited market will sell only limited numbers and when it becomes saturated... sales drop off! Lee -- Correct. And the only way a company can continue in this sort of market, which is quite limited is to offer new material, built on the existing foundation, which is what we are thoroughly involved in. STR -- Exactly what have you done along these lines....I have seen your advertisement in various hardcopy publications and it appears you are offering some extremely powerful programs? Lee -- First we have created a new series of CAD3D programs which make it possible for an ATARI owner to actually become an OFF-LINE graphics work station. We call our program series " PHASE-"4". This series consist of four parts...the first is ROSETTA3D which is a super fast CAD object viewer and translation program. The second is Chronos 3D which is a motion control module, Next is Kinetic which consist of players and utility programs the last is Prism which is our high-res rendering package which includes prism AGE our High res graphics program. We have also gathered the best hardware talent available to create more color at useful resolutions for use in animation on the ATARI. STR -- What do you mean by a "translation" program? Lee -- You can import 8 different file formats and then view the object and export back into any of the import formats you wish including the P.I.X.R " RIB" file format. You can also do draft animation sequences with ROSETTA in 1024X768 in 16 colors and save it as a .DLT file which allows the user in a commercial environment to create and show in real time first quality draft animations to customers. You can also save out 1024X768 by 16 color files and load them back into Cyberpaint for viewing at the 320X200 resolution. Also supported is the full 4096 color pallet. STR -- What are some of the file formats ROSETTA will handle? Lee -- .DXF, .DXB, .3D, .3D2, .3D4, .Swivel 3D, Renderman RIB, Amiga sculpt 3D, Mack sculpt 3D .... STR -- That's impressive.....I have seen some of your animations were those made using ROSETTA? Lee -- Yes and NO... The mermaid which is a 15K vertices object was done in ROSETTA...it is a simple rotation about all three axis.. while the shattering glass with reflections and reflection distortion was done using Chronos3D. The eischer was done using both programs. STR -- Tell us a little about "Chronos"..? Lee -- This program is the heart of "PHASE-"4".....it is a fully featured object motion control program which requires no command line operations. STR -- .......You mean its mouse driven...? Lee -- Yes, the only keyboard input is option imputes and file path selection, everything else is mouse driven. STR -- Your advertisement claims "..cut, copy and paste time itself...." What exactly does that statement mean to the user? Lee -- Please, allow me describe the new CYBER world as it now exists! Our CYBER Universe is now 400 times bigger than the one discovered by ANTIC, in this new universe you can have objects so large, they can't possibly be created in CAD3D2 and are only approached by Cyber sculpt. There is no limit to the number of objects in this new Universe other than system memory. In this new and wonderful Universe you can see both into the past and into the future. You can do this from any point in both time and space. In this universe, which the user defines, you may cut, copy and paste any object both where it exists and when it exists. So you see, the user can both see the past he has created and the future he wishes to create, the user may cut an object from their own past and paste it into it's own future, the reverse is also true as well. Objects can be transformed from one existence to another. There is no longer any requirement for an object to have a fixed number of faces and vertices. STR -- wait a minute.....are you saying that you can change a 4 vert.. pyramid with 4 faces into ........ Lee -- .....Into say, an X-29 reversed wing fighter having thousands of verts and faces. YES that exactly what can now be done!" STR -- That sounds exciting.....but it sounds a little too good to be true!!! How is this accomplished?" Lee -- If I told you that, everyone would be writing our programs and we would be on the beach... STR -- What else can you do in Chronos?... Lee -- I know this will sound boastful, but you will be able to do just about anything you can imagine and much of which you thought to be impossible on an ATARI ST. STR -- Like what for instance...? Lee -- As far as chronos goes..... or PHASE-"4" is concerned....? STR -- An example of each will be just fine.... Lee -- The user will be able to display 16 million colors in 256 pixel resolution on the standard SC1224, as well as 1024X768 depending on the users system hardware. STR -- Well that's great, but it sounds like the user may in store for major hardware or equipment modifications. True? Lee -- Yes, however it certainly won't be as difficult as one might expect. Or for that matter, as expensive as imagined. We are supporting the ISAC High Res color board made by J. Craswell at IMAGE SYSTEMS for all those who want big screen word processors and technical drawing such as is found in DYNA-CAD. We have also developed our own TRUE 24-BIT color Board and are currently negotiating the manufacturing arrangements with several high quality hardware manufacturers. STR -- Are you at liberty to disclose who these manufactures are..?" Lee -- YES.....Practical Solutions and IMAGE SYSTEMS are currently engaged in the manufacture of our hardware applications. STR -- Sounds expensive. Any idea of the cost to the end user? Lee -- Our entire software package will retail some where around $300.00 however, however it is obtainable in modular form. The most expensive module being approx. $100.00. The 24 BIT color board which will drive any ATARI ST from the 520 to the MEGA4 and it will be in the $300 to $500 range. Again these are only estimates at this time. The company's intention is to offer a full, offline work station package, ready to go, for anywhere from $600.00 to $900.00. And this includes all hardware and software excluding, of course, the computer and monitor(s), Which, in most cases, the user will already possess. STR -- Does this include the ISAC board...?" Lee -- Unfortunately, no. If one desires both the ISAC and 24bit installation, they would need a second computer because these two systems share some common hard and software environments and would interfere with each other. The Isac retails for around $800.00. Now, if one purchases through our company, it is possible to obtain the 1024X768 board and our entire software package for less than the retail cost of the board. STR -- That seem somewhat excessive, having to buy a second computer..! Lee -- Not when you consider that a hard drive costs more than a 520 or 1040ST these days. and when you consider that the serious or professional animator will want to be rendering animations and creating new one at the same time, having more than one system on a shared HD makes very good sense. STR -- I would like to re-examine something you mentioned earlier about the ATARI market....? You said that the ATARI market was very good at this time in direct contradiction of the general opinion of the userbase, what did you mean or how do you plane to take advantage of the current ATARI market..?" Lee -- As I see things now ATARI corporation is a profitable company and will continue to produce computers for the foreseeable future, whether they release the new TT or not makes no real difference at all as far as the existing market is concerned. In fact, if they never sold another computer ever it would not really effect the existing market. I view Atari Corp. just as I would any other equipment manufacturer, they make hardware which I create and interface products for. This means that I am interested in the "Installed User Base" and not the potential new market that might exist if ATARI ran their manufacturing operations to suite my taste, advertised like IBM and dumped lots of cheap hardware on the market. The apparent notion that some how if Atari competes in the open marketplace like IBM it will some how make the computer better or improve the existing market is incorrect in our opinion. STR -- So what you are saying is that you believe the ATARI market is healthy and you are going to be successful? Lee -- Certainly, mainly because the problem now is not AN IMAGE problem with ATARI but the need for software and hardware developers to provide the tools which the manufacture has not provided. Who cares if the Tramiel brothers do or don't get along or whether or not they care for the American customers? I have been to ATARI twice as a registered Developer and the place just looks and sounds like any other corporation. I think to believe that these people are some how out to punish customers is beyond any reasonable possibility. I don't care if the manufacturers of the HD we use, originally thought of the ATARI or not. In fact, they did not. I have a host adaptor from a third party manufacturer "ICD" who sees the market as I do, so now I play 44 Meg animations in real time from a HD never originally intended for this use. I am not complaining because ATARI doesn't make such a device. What's the point.?" STR -- That's an interesting point you make....so you feel that there is a responsibility of some sort on the part of either the user or developer to fill a void that the manufacturer obviously doesn't..? Lee -- Yes. That's exactly what I mean. Instead of complaining about how mistreated they are, those doing the complaining should think about how best to support and use the equipment they have. I was a user who wanted to use the ATARI as an ART tool....it took a while for me to see that the ATARI lacked resolution, colors and software. Therefore, when I saw the opportunity to develop products and overcome these deficiencies... I took it. STR -- Why not just buy another computer like the MAC or AMIGA...?" Lee -- Ease of use and Cyber Paint were the biggest reasons at first. STR -- And now.... Lee -- Well as you know, by now the industry has caught up with the advances ATARI made several years ago. But this only means that the current owners of ATARI ST systems who are more than comfortable with the GEM interface and its host of reliable and diverse second and third party peripherals have become a waiting market for reasonably priced powerful graphic tools and commercial applications. We are talking about an easy 800 thousand users, all of whom like what they have and have not really been offered anything new for quite some time. STR -- ...and this is what you are attempting to do now...?" Lee -- What we have done....so far.....We have created 4 new major programs for the ATARI using 5 programmers and one artist. Most of the software is written and being groomed for release soon. All the hardware has been prototyped and works well. STR -- Therefore most everything you have mentioned is basically done, is that right.?" Lee -- YES.... we will be releasing the first part of PHASE-"4" soon. STR -- Do you have a release date yet..?" Lee -- We have set AUGUST 15th as the big day, but we may be delayed by some hardware deliveries. At this point we are only telling retailers AUGUST as a first possible delivery date. We have been getting four to five calls a day for the last three weeks with from dealers and users asking us to reserve programs and hardware. STR -- Is there a way to get a preview of what your new programs will do....?" Lee -- YES.....We have uploaded several animations created with our programs which demonstrate many of the features we mentioned here today. STR -- What about the 24-bit color..?" Lee -- Unfortunately with out the color boards, there is no way to view the picture files. We hope to be ready to ship boards in late SEPT. When that happens we will start uploading 24 bit ATARI color to the ATARI forum on Compuserve. STR -- That brings up support, will you be offering support? ..it sure sounds like you are opening up a whole new area in ATARI use..?" Lee -- Yes we are.... and Yes we will be offering full support. STR -- Will this include online support..?" Lee -- Yes, we have already set up full LEXICOR online support in the ATARI forum on Compuserve. We will be offering monthly tutorials using both PHASE-"4" and (Cyber-related applications). We will be offering a new library of object files for users to exchange and .ANM files for motion control applications. STR -- When will this support be available...?" Lee -- People who have questions can send Email to us now. Our formal support will begin when we begin shipping. Our arrangement with Compuserve is predicated on product availability. STR -- Earlier, you commented that you did not care if ATARI ever sold another computer does this mean you won't be supporting the TT when it is released.?" Lee -- At this point, we have passed on supporting the TT. But if ATARI does make it available to US developers and the US market, we will reconsider supporting this computer. I have to mention however that if even a small percentage of the existing installed userbase wants our products we will be quite busy. STR -- Do you feel the TT will be available this Year?" Lee -- I have no idea what ATARI plans for the TT in the US but the reality is that it takes time to develop and or port products from one machine to another. Even if we did plan to support the TT it would be next year before we could reasonably get a product on the shelf. Besides why spend a couple of grand on a new computer and all the problems associated with that when for less than half that amount you can upgrade your own trouble free system and get fully functional 24-bit color, motion control and rendering....? Remember that our software will allow the user to import and export to most other popular graphic systems MAC, Amiga...etc with the same or higher resolution. STR -- I have just one more question, I understand that LEXICOR is hiring programmers..are you and for how long?" Lee -- Not exactly....The way we work is we offer author/developer support based on an exclusive marketing agreement, we are a group of software authors so our company is based on the idea that the author comes first. STR -- If someone was interested in finding out more how would they do this..?" Lee -- They can check the compuserve ATARI ARTS forum for our HELP Wanted listing which has all the details. __________________________________________________________ > SOFTREK OFFER! STR InfoFile¿ SUPER SAVINGS FOR EVERYBODY! =========================== TRADE UP TO TURBO ST! ===================== Until October 1st, 1990, owners of Quick ST may trade up to Turbo ST for only $25 (shipping included). Now everyone can take advantage of the only software accelerator that speeds up graphics. The 1.82 release of Turbo ST that you will be shipped includes high speed routines to fill polygons, and to draw diagonal lines, icons, and pixels. In addition, the monochrome and Moniterm versions of Turbo ST include what may be the worlds fastest circle drawing algorithm. Not only that, but Turbo ST is the only software acclerator to speed up WordPerfect. To take advantage of this offer, simply send the title page of your Quick ST manual or your Quick ST purchase receipt to SofTrek, P.O. Box 5257, Winter Park, FL 32793 along with your personal check, money order, VISA, or MasterCard number. If the only proof of purchase that you have is your original Quick ST disk, you may send it in and it will be returned to you unaltered with your Turbo ST order. This offer supersedes the trade-in offer that appeared in ST Report, issue #626. All users who responded to the previous trade-in offer will be mailed back their original Quick ST disk along with $5 (the difference in price between the new offer and the old offer). Should you have any questions about this offer, Or, call SofTrek at 1-800-749-7638. SofTrek P.O. Box 5257 Winter Park, FL 32793 _______________________________________ > STe - DMA STR FOCUS¿ Atari's R. Hain sez they're fine but....... =================== RUSSIAN HARDRIVE ROULETTE ========================= Its true, there seems to be a little or no problem with the DMA port elsewhere in the world, why is it happening across the USA? Could it be the circuit modifications done to gain acceptance by the FCC? Although Atari's online wizards (who are usually quite outspoken) have really had nothing to say relative to this and the 32Mhz TT030 news, there is talk of a letter sent out by Atari making note that there may be about "10%" of the shipped STe units in the USA that have problems with the DMA port. Also, we include a few notes posted by folks who definitely have no axe to grind and have experienced the DMA problem or have an active interest in the situation. There is no reason to elaborate on the matter as it screams loudly by itself. The only answer is Atari must now do the right thing and get this wrinkle ironed out completely to everyone's satisfaction. Category 14, Topic 40 Message 213 Tue Jul 10, 1990 C.WALTERS1 [Chet] at 04:31 EDT Well, it just goes along with all the rest. I bought a lawn mower motor to replace one that died. Turns out I needed a step shaft and did not know it. I took it back and ordered one with a step shaft. It came in. I took it home without looking in the carton. Opened it. No step shaft. Took it back. Got another and this time opened it at the shop. No step shaft. Got another. Finally a step shaft. Four motors before I could cut the grass (by then it looked like those "amber waves of grain" you've all heard about). Next I bought a photocopier for productivity. Brought it to the office. It was DOA. Took it back. It was the last one so I chose another model. Brought it home. DOA. Screw this! Got the money and bought a Laser printer instead for productivity. Nice printer. KX - P4450 from Panasonic. Set it up and printed fine for about 10 minutes. When the fuser got hot the laser got out of the kitchen. Would not print even a self test. Called in the techie to replace the laser unit. Worked fine thereafter if you like the left side of the page to always print a quarter of an inch above the right. The text lines looked remarkably like bezier curves. Finally screamed my way into a replacement of the entire unit. Now it's ok. Next, I got an air conditioner so's I could work in the office during the day without shorting the keyboard from perspiration (sweat, really) dropping on it from my forehead. The AC unit worked ok, but the control was shorted probably from the sweat of an assembler's forehead dropping on it at the factory. Got another. It's ok now. Got an STe from Atari last week. Works fine for games and such. Try to plug a harddrive into it and bye bye HD. Total havoc. Called Atari. "Well, a certain percentage of the first run of US STe's have weak DMA chains. (About 10% it seems) Send it back." Oh, well, does anything work first time out of the box anymore? Seems not. Some of the fireworks I had for the fourth of July were duds too. The ones that worked were spectacular though! That's sort of like Atari computers. When they work there's nothing can touch them. To that I must add that the STe was the first bad unit I ever got from Atari. Everything else I ever got from them worked fine and forever. I sold my first beige beast 800 to a person and it's still going strong after seven years. All of the Megas purchased by WizWorks have performed flawlessly since they were plugged in. Except for a surge that fried a monitor and power supply once, they've just been great workhorses. So, can I blame it on them? Not really. If you read the above, it's just been my luck lately. Must be in the stars. I'll be sure to check with Nancy's astrologer before I buy another big ticket item. Mebbe I'll just have it shipped to a different address under an assumed name and have my son pick it up for me. That might trick cloud I've been working under lately. Ralph - I will say this. They did not quibble at Atari at all. They just said send it back. Not bad. They are getting better. Atari that is. Lets not kick them while they're down. If there's a problem then give 'em a chance. Saying they did this deliberately smacks of paranoia. Sure, they've been lax in their duties, but hey, look at the above and see who ain't been lately! The DEV program is getting really responsive and responsible. Atari is on the way up. Keep your eye on it! Might be a good time to invest in Atari stock now that it's rock bottom priced. Dunno, I never was much good at that stock stuff. Ok, I promise _I_ won't buy any. It'd be sure to dive if _I_ got some. That's the way it's been for me lately. _______Chet at \/\/iz\/\/orks :^{) We will have to wait and see how the replacement performs. How's come nobody mentioned this before? Am I just the first to have troubles or is everyone scared to talk? Dunno, I ain't scared to tell the truth. I don't give a squirt who gets pissed off. Just ask some who know. I may be wrong sometimes, but it's what _I_ perceive as the truth at the time. ------------ Editor Note; The entire STe "shortfall" matter was completely detailed in STReport 625 and 626, from the broken TOS 1.60 to the DMA choke. Atari has good reason to be concerned, this is the year of the last hurrah, the STe and of course, the ominous silence by the online wonderboy concerning the 16Mhz or is it 32Mhz TT030 gives the entire userbase all the confidence needed... Category 23, Topic 12 Message 96 Tue Jul 10, 1990 JEFF.W [RTC Sysop] at 22:53 EDT What is the story with the STE's that Atari has been shipping in the USA? I heard about a DMA problem on the motherboard some time ago, but Randy Hain told me a few weeks ago that there is absolutely nothing intrinsically wrong with the DMA on any of the STE's. Now, Chet Walters is told by someone at Atari that 10% of the STE's shipped in the USA are likely to have a DMA problem. That's a one in ten chance that any STE will scramble someone's hard disk. Those are spooky odds. Short of sacrificing hard disks drives to each STE a responsible dealer receives from Atari, how can these STE's be identified? Will there be a field upgrade issued to Atari's service dealers or do the defective units have to be shipped back to Atari? ------------ *** Timely words Jeff, in fact you have said it all. Let's wait and see if as sensible an answer is forthcoming. _______________________________________________________________ > STE - 1990's BOOM or BUST STR Spotlight¿ What's up Doc??? ======================================= part II THE STE, DOES IT WORK OR DOESN'T IT? =================================== by Robert A. Dolson Well, I got the ICD host adapter yesterday and completed putting the new hard drive together today (at a friend's house, he was a big help in mounting the host adapter inside the shoebox case). I had the STe with me of course, and proceeded to hook it up to the hard drive using the ICD supplied DMA cable. Got it formatted ok, and then started to copy some files to the drive. I turned on the write verify and status on the handler prior to starting to write to the drive. It seemed to go fair at first with a few write fails showing up, but rapidly got worse and it started to stop with an alert box telling me that drive C: might be damaged! So, I packed everything up and came back home to try it with the shorter 18 inch Atari cable. I re-formatted the drive again using that cable and it seemed to be a lot better, but still got quite a few write fails. Then I changed back to the longer cable and it was pretty bad again. I then proceeded to take the STe back to 1 meg. of memory (from the 4 that I had in it earlier). It acted the same so I decided to try hooking it up to this old ST to see how it would do......... DID I GET A SURPRISE!! The new drive WOULD NOT BOOT USING THE ST!!! Not from floppy or autoboot! In fact, it would give me two bombs on the screen and tell me the ICD clock was not installed, and then if I had the ICD boot software in drive A:, it would not give me a directory on drive A: but told me the data on THAT drive was damaged! It would not tell me this if I booted without the hard drive and looked at the disk. I am totally DUMBFOUNDED!! I can't imagine why it won't work on the regular ST! I even took it back and forth a couple of times and it still works (with write fails) on the STe, but not on the ST! The only thing I can figure is that the keyboard clock backup on the ST is interfering in some way. Tomorrow, I hope to disconnect the keyboard on the ST and thus do away with the clock possibility. I will also be making a trip up to Computer Garden sometime during the next few days to see if they can fathom any of this. It's got me completely baffled. By the way, the old ST still works flawlessly with this old 42 meg. SH-204 ...with a 3 foot cable at that! ________________________________________________________________ > ONLY TRYING! STR FOCUS¿ Users trying to help Atari help itself. ====================== Ctsy Delphi 15660 9-JUL 01:59 General Information RE: Yes, Virginia, There Is... (Re: Msg 15623) From: NORMW To: ANDYPANDA67 (NR) Andy, the criticism of Atari is said with the hope that it will eventually get back to the ears of those who _can_ do something about it....and maybe it has! This new man who is taking over Atari, North America has a proven track record. And what I'm hearing, filtering out of Sunnyvale is hopeful. I'm sorry if you are disturbed by the criticisms, but they are well deserved. Remember, I have a background in design and production of commercial equipment, and the way the STe has been released in the US is quite shoddy. And _they_ know it. I was enthused with the idea of the "Jackintosh" when it was first announced around '83 or '84. I want to continue that enthusiasm, in fact, I want to design products for it. But that is pointless if Atari makes no effort, what-so-ever to sell in this country. That has been very frustrating. I have my fingers crossed in regards to the new man. Norm Norm, your enthusiasm has been absolutely unimpeachable for years, yet many like yourself, have found themselves asking the very same questions and holding up the same hopes. The above message is almost a carbon copy of many we have received in the last three weeks as a result of our recent series of Apocalypse Articles, this one in particular is included to make an example of the sincerity of all those folks who are trying in their own ways to help Atari realize the userbase's general attitude these days. Never, in Atari's history, have so many of its loyal followers been so outspoken, both pro and con. All of us have a distinct and reasonable responsibility to not mislead each other when it comes to our equipment. A basic premise, as far as STR is concerned, is that the Atari hardware is still outstanding even though the design is almost 5 years old. We (the userbase) must not allow those who dislike the criticisms to stampede those of us who are concerned into silence. In the past few weeks there was an uproar over the 'negativisms' brought forward by STReport so much so that there were 1-3:00am threatening phone calls (the answering machine took some abuse) and online "gang bangs" by a select few, (8-10 people), who, through an organized effort, made the entire protest appear to be far greater and more reaching than it actually was. Now, only a short while after the appearance of the articles, we are virtually loaded down with hard copy mail and e-mail from those we like to call the "lurkers" and of course, the users who do not use modems. It even was mentioned by a particularly outspoken online Atari rep that STReport is "not read to any extent at Atari". That was a bold misrepresentation that typifies the gent's agile ability to try and misinform the users for whatever maligned or misguided purposes. The facts are quite different as has been proven time and time again. The most important item on all our agendas must be the ultimate well being of Atari, (if we are to protect our investments). To achieve this end, it is clear that we all must pull together and support Atari where we are able while still maintaining our own credibility, each and every one of us. STR is well aware that the users have a very strong desire to see Atari succeed. Some of us are a little overeager in our attempts to persuade others to support Atari. These are the folks who have lost the meaning of support and blindly follow the flag bearer in any direction. STR will never propose that the Lemming Syndrome be adhered to, no matter how comfy the feeling of security in numbers there may seem to be. The bottom line is, there are far more users who are honestly concerned and willing to do something more than attempt to stifle those who do not blindly sing the swan song of lemmings. Atari simply must succeed, there are far too many users out there who are on limited budgets who need to have the ST continued to be supported. There are far too many worldwide who are so deeply committed to the Atari arena financially that they must urge Atari on any way they can to persevere and prosper. _____________________________________________________________ > SILLY SNIPES! STR Spotlight¿ Inept speculation is rampant! =========================== POSITIVE PUBLIC RELATIONS? ========================== By R. F. Mariano As Atari matures, hopefully, its "main attraction" read > online "personality" will also..or, go. In the meantime, the accusation made by the highly imaginative and illustriously informed online rep; J. Townsend, wherein a message he posted in a public area on GEnie, that the Phoney Fax was originated by one of the online magazines truly demonstrates the need for a more mature and responsible individual in so sensitive and responsible a capacity. Category 11, Topic 17 Message 47 Wed Jul 04, 1990 TOWNS [John @ Atari] at 12:36 EDT Just a little piece of information. The FAX machines here at Atari are programmed with ATARI CORP. at the top. At least the two that I use. The one downstairs may be programmed for ATARI US CORP. But, as anyone is this company can tell you.. Atari's US subsidiary is referred to as Atari US Corp. on ATARI USA CORP. Looks to me like someone didn't do their homework.. Hi Gordon! I am here... I stand here with you. Let 'em take their best shots! We're used to it, right! I wish I had a copy of the FAX.. I would be willing to bet it has a certain Online Magazine's writing style! ------------ If this mode of "hysterical accusation" and supposition is permitted to proceed unchecked then it becomes easy to compare these actions to those of a bull loose in a fine china and crystal shop. The "goodwill" generated by Townsend's remarks only amplify the dire need for closer supervision in the "Day Care Center." After having discussed this young man's actions with a few folks at Atari, the general consensus was to overlook his behavior and blame it on his immaturity. That seems to be the same reccomendation Sig Hartmann used to tell most all of us a year or so ago concerning many of the incredible statements and policy making decisions from Atari. Speaking about the fax, one must ask who has the most to gain or, better yet, who is the most threatened by the continued success of Bob Brodie? Clearly, the FAX is a cheap shot at Bob. Online, Bob is highly regarded as the spokesperson to listen to as he is seldom apt to resort to emotional blathering and blatant displays of immaturity while wearing the Atari "uniform". Throughout the USA and Canada Bob's appearances have brought nothing but a solid, positive response from the users and press. His crediblity is unimpeachable among most folks. When considering these points, it now begins to indicate that the "fax" could possibly have been uttered by anyone within Atari itself who feels threatened by Brodie's continued success. Sure, the Fax may not have been sent from Atari's facilities but that really doesn't prove anything except that the deception was even more extensive than originally imagined and perped by an individual with a good deal of experience in the use of fax facilities. Since Townsend has made the accusatory remarks, perhaps he is busy trying to confuse the issue? Category 31, Topic 3 Message 27 Fri Jul 13, 1990 TOWNS [John @ Atari] at 02:52 EDT Don't worry.. you'll get used to Ralph calling you up trying to censor your opinions. In fact, he used to call me. Now he just calls my boss. -- John ------------ Dear John , The word censor is not in the STReport vocabulary, you will never and have never experienced any person(s) from this publication attempting to censor you or, anyone else for that matter. On more than one occasion, STR has called you and many others in the Atari community attempting to obtain further clarification of a topic(s), to discuss a subject in depth and of course to obtain verification of certain bits of information. Or, as was the case this week, to protest your wrongfully making atrocious accusations. John, you have even called STR with tidbits when it was "convenient" to serve your purposes. John, in light of this most recent post, it becomes quite clear that there are still those people at Atari who would rather play games than take the future seriously and take a bold step in the right direction by attempting to mend 'broken fences and further build the positive reputation and future of the company. Its a very sorry situation to see persist. Please John, keep up the good work. The fine examples set by you and the goodwill generated by you alone is sure to do Atari a great deal of good and lead to many years of continued success. ____________________________________________________________________ > WAACE STR SHOW NEWS¿ THE PREMIER EAST COAST SHOW! =================== To All... HOTEL INFORMATION The following information was taken from the Sheraton Reston Hotel informational brochure. The Sheraton Reston Hotel has 302 beautifully appointed guest rooms, including 10 executive parlor suites (excellent for hospitality purposes). The conference center and banquet rooms are all located on the ground floor surrounding a large courtyard and outdoor swimming pool. Each multi-purpose room is equipped with individual sound facilities, individual temperature control and conference lighting systems, as well as the capability for closed circuit television. A full line of audio-visual equipment is available. In addition, it provides complimentary shuttle van service to and from Washington Dulles International Airport 24 hours a day , and has free parking for over 900 cars. At the end of a tiring day, enjoy a nice swim in the outdoor pool or a fast game of tennis, volleyball, or basketball. Golf privileges are available across the street adjacent to the Sheraton Reston Hotel. Guests have access to a twin cinema, a full-service bank, and many small shops and restaurants. Scheduled and direct commercial limousine service to and from Washington National Airport. LOCATION: -------- Situated in the heart of the Washington-Dulles corridor in Fairfax County, Virginia, the Sheraton Reston Hotel is central to business, cultural and tourist attractions. Immediately adjacent to the Washington-Dulles Toll Road and 5 minutes to Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts, the Sheraton is conveniently located 20 minutes from downtown Washington via the Washington-Dulles Toll Road or I-66. Only minutes from Washington Dulles International Airport and the corporate headquarters of major industries and businesses, the Sheraton Reston Hotel is in the hub of Fairfax County's rapidly growing Hi-Tech space-business community. DINING & COCKTAILS: ------------------ Dine in the elegant Derby Restaurant and select from an extensive American menu. For a more casual atmosphere, enjoy the Derby Lounge with entertainment nightly. TELEPHONE NUMBERS: ----------------- Reservations can be made at the Sheraton Reston Hotel by calling voice (703), 620- 9000 or by FAX (703), 860-1594. Remember to ask for the AtariFest rates; $59.00 for a single/double or $66.00 with breakfast buffet, and $66.00 for a triple or quad. Vendor participation is getting very good. Total of 32 of 60 booths have been committed to date. Vendors with booths are: Atari Corp D.A.Brumleve + Debonair Software Joppa Computers Toad Services Alpha Systems Fast Technologies Double Click GEnie Branch Always Cal Com Wizworks Talon Technology Goldleaf L & Y Electronics Strata Software Best Electronics Frontier Software Diverse Data Products Notice that the WAACE show is expanding its international character. In addition to the wonderful folks from Canada, (Branch Always Software) we have Frontier Software from the United Kingdom!!! The deadline for the Hotel room and free fest ticket deal is rapidly approaching. You must have your hotel reservations called into the hotel by 5, Aug 1990 to get your free tickets. PLEASE call the hotel, THE RESTON INN at 703-620-9000.... Ask for the AtariFest rates..... single/double $59.00 Triple/quad $66.00 Thanks for all your support Russ Brown WAACE Chairman ______________________________________ > STR SHOW NEWS¿ WINDSOR/DETROIT INTERNATIONAL ATARIFEST ============= The Windsor Atari Users Group of Windsor, Ontario, Canada and the Washtenaw Atari Users Group of Ann Arbor, MI will be hosting the: Windsor/Detroit International AtariFest SCHEDULED FOR: May 4-5, 1991 LOCATION:St. Clair College of Arts and Technology Both Atari US and Atari Canada (as well as Rich Tsukigi of ST World) have been notified via registered letter of these dates and the clubs have recently received the green light from both Atari divisions. Although a lot of things haven't been finalized for the show, the clubs felt it best to announce what they can now, with updates in the future. So, here's some info on the FIRST internationally sponsored Atarifest I'm aware of: Show times are tentatively 10-5 on Saturday and 10-4 on Sunday. Ticket prices have not been "cast in stone" yet, either, but $2.50 per day was discussed favorably. Vendor sign-up kits are being organized now and are scheduled to be sent out on Oct. 1, 1990. These kits will contain a numbered booth layout, seminar sign- up sheet, info on area hotels, information to help US exhibitors get through Customs easily (and, from all indications, cheaply!), and lots more. Any developers wishing to guarantee they receive a kit, please post a message on GENIE or CIS. Or, leave email to UNICORNPUB and we'll send your request to the proper people. Tentatively, exhibitor booth prices are $300 Canadian (approx. $250 US) and this gets you a 10x10 booth with 8 ft. table and 1 electrical outlet. The booths will be "piped and draped" and the tables will be skirted. With over 11,000 sq. ft. in the exhibit hall, the show has plenty of booths to choose from. The clubs also plan to invite Atari user groups to have booths on the main floor -- right along with the developers -- free of charge (or maybe a little volunteer work). Kits will be sent out to user groups sometime after the exhibitor kits are mailed. ________________________________________________________ > FLIP SIDE! STR Feature¿ Taking a look at the other side.... ====================== A LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE ========================= By Michael Lee Every week, I continue to hear people complain about no new products from Atari, or about Atari being late with the products that it does release. I think this is a case of "not seeing the trees because of the forest". Let's take a closer look at some of the complaints. If people think that Atari is the only company that is always late with announced products, they are only fooling themselves. One big difference is that many of these other companies don't announce, or hint at, new products until it's close to the time for them to be released. Atari has a habit of leaking the news about new products early, so it is natural that they would get more heat about their products being late (some say Atari does this so that they can get feedback from the users and adjust their development accordingly). Another well-worn complaint is the "Tramiel bashing". It seems to be the rage currently to blame everything that is wrong with Atari on the three Tramiel brothers. The folks doing this bashing conveniently forget that it was these same three that brought out the STe, STacy, Portfolio, and Lynx (just to name a few). It was these same three that keep the ST line strong in the rest of the world. I admit that they have made mistakes in the past, but name me one executive of a major corporation that hasn't (can you say "Edsel"). When you are in a position to make the final decisions, you are also in a position to make mistakes. I also wish they would promote the ST line more in the US, but what good would it do to spend millions promoting the ST in the US if it hurt the European market and Atari Corp? It would be a case of the operation being successful but the patient dying. Let's take a brief look at what Atari has accomplished in the last year. First there's the Portfolio and the Lynx. While it is true that neither of them is a ST related product, both have been, and continue to be, resounding success stories. Both keep the Atari name in front of the American businessman and public. Plus both keep money coming into the Atari coffers, money that can be spent to develop and promote the ST line of products. Second, we have the STacy's. This portable ST is so hot that Atari can't keep up with the demand (however, several dealers have reported that they are now receiving, or getting ready to receive, Stacy 1's and Stacy 4's for normal stock). The STacy is driving the midi users and musicians wild with its power, ease of handling and inexpensive price. Also, the STacy, along with the Spectre128, makes a great, inexpensive portable MAC clone. Price the STacy 4/40 (4-megs, 40-meg hard drive) and a Spectre128 - now go price a 4-meg Mac portable - you now see one big reason why the STacy 4/40 with Spectre128 is so popular. (By the way, MultiByte makes a battery pack/carrying case for the STacy 4/40 that makes it even easier to own, carry and operate you STacy.) Third, we have the STe's. The STe 1/2/4's (why by more than a 1-meg STe when it's so easy and cheap to upgrade them to 4-megs) are the natural upgrade to the ST's. More colors, more sound, more power, more speed, more hardware ports, same low pricing. Fourth, there is the new flagship of the ST line, the TT's. While they are still not available for release in the US (but are promised for release in the next few months), they have been released to the rest of the world. Europe and New Zealand report that their TT's are coming with a 32mhz 68030 chip installed (Atari won't confirm this for the US, but it's doubtful they'd ship one type of TT to the rest of the world and a 16mhz TT to the US). I won't get into the exact technical descriptions as they've been reported in depth everywhere else, but the TT looks to be the low-cost machine to compete against the A-3000 and Mac II (for us who can't afford $8-$10,000). It has a more open architecture, so it will be more expandable than the current ST line. There is also the new SLM-804 Laser printer that has been RUMORED to be shipping in the near future. Lower priced than the current machine but with today's technology. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound too bad for a company that _supposedly_ is on it's last legs and many people already consider dead. Till next week...hopefully. _______________________________________________________ > ONLINE TODAY STR OnLine¿ The wires are hummin'! ======================== CIS IN DETAIL ============= by Oscar Steele Before I delve into the merits of either CompuServe, GEnie, or any of the other services, I'd like to stress a point. Each system has its own strengths and weaknesses. These are businesses that have been in existence for a number of years, and offer something different to all. Making a blanket statement such as this system is better than that one doesn't suffice. Message bases are social areas where you can have fun and occasionally be antagonized (where else could I be heckled, by another online magazine's staff, for asking a non-confrontational question). In contrast, download bases are a more secluded area which are like a key to a vast software library. It would be possible for a local BBS to have a message base similar in size to CIS or GEnie (assuming there were enough active users), but it would -in practice- be impossible for a BBS to have anywhere near the number of downloadable files. Both CIS and GEnie have a sizable download library. Most new uploads appear on both systems; however, there are exceptions, which appear exclusively on one system or another. Recently, I spent some time testing the download capabilities of CIS. 1 x TIME = MONEY/1 Since time is money, the essence of downloading is to get online, download a file (or files), and log off. Obviously, the quicker you do this, the less money it costs you. Currently, CIS's rates are $12.50 for 1200/2400 baud, while GEnie's are $6 for 1200 and $10 for 2400. For 1200 baud transfers, GEnie is most cost effective. However, for 2400 baud (which is preferred since it'll take you less time to get more), CIS edges out GEnie, even though on the surface the rates appear higher. To save the most time, it's best to capture a list of the available files, select the ones you want, and log back on to download them. GEnie has a good, but outdated, program called GSCAN, which will automate the process. However, since GSCAN writes a script file for Flash 1.6, you'll need Flash to download the files. CIS's equivalent, QuickCIS (latest version 1.52a), is superior in terms of selecting files and downloading. Files are captured with a full description (GSCAN only lists the file names and a short blurb). TRANSFER SPEED A 2400 baud modem can in theory transmit 240 cps (characters per second). In practice, it's generally less. I've had transmission speeds as high as 226 cps on CIS (or 813,600 bytes per hour). The lowest speed that I've experienced was 172 cps (with a somewhat noisy line). Transferring with GEnie on a clean line, I've gotten a 167 cps speed (or 600,000 bytes per hour). Cost per minute For file size GEnie .16666 10000 bytes = .00001666 per byte CIS .20833 13560 bytes = .000015363 per byte Formula: .000015363 x 10000 bytes = .15363 per minute x 60 = 9.2178 = $9.22 per hour. As can be seen above, CIS's actual cost per hour is $9.22 per hour, when considering the amount of information received. This is slightly lower than GEnie's rate and varies according to the actual transmission speed. It's safe to say that, in general, the costs are comparable. What CIS has gained in speed, it has partially lost in functionability. There is no batch download capability (not even Ymodem Batch). This was my greatest surprise. In fact, I thought I simply was not aware of the procedure until I asked Ron Luks, CIS's Chief SysOp. It is a feature that will be implemented soon from what I gather. However, there is a crude and fairly easy way to overcome this great oversight. The answer is QuickCIS. BATCH DOWNLOADING ON CIS With QuickCIS, you can create a test file, entitled FILES.LST and enter a list of files. QuickCIS will log on and download the files for you. The format to enter the files to download is: 2 16 FILENAME.PRG 2 represents the section (i.e. AtariPro) 16 designates the category (i.e. Xformer II), and the last is the program's name. There are, however, a number of inconveniences using this method. First, Shadow users will lose the true benefit of background downloading. Shadow will still background download, but you will be unable to exit QuickCIS. This means you can have a field day, reading and answering messages and using most of QuickCIS's functions, but you can't leave. It's like having all of East Germany's currency. You might feel rich, but you're not. Furthermore, since CIS has downloads with duplicate names, when QuickCIS tries to download one of these, it gets confused. I've chanced upon several files that had two different users upload them. QuickCIS will call it quits and hang up. This brings us to the third problem. If QuickCIS encounters a problem in downloading the file, it will delete your entire FILES.LST. Therefore, it's a good idea to keep a backup of your FILES.LST file. That way, you can check what files have been downloaded, remove them from the file, and rewrite FILES.LST. Please note, once CIS employs batch downloading, the aforementioned inconveniences won't exist. Therefore, it's not really a problem with QuickCIS, but rather with CIS itself. I have yet to experience a hangup when downloading with CIS. With GEnie, I've had numerous problems, of parts of a file being retransmitted throughout a download. I must either wait for a short while, and the transfer starts going through clearly, or it becomes a lost cause and I have to redial GEnie. Furthermore, I've experienced times where GEnie seems to lock up without initiating a transfer. CIS's retransmition rate has been significantly smaller (however, this is not to say that this will be the case for everyone - the phone company is a strange beast). Locating files and setting up a transfer is very quick. In comparison, locating and setting up a transfer on GEnie could easily take up to half a minute longer. SUMMATION As I mentioned in the beginning, I believe both services offer unique features. Currently, it does seem that GEnie has a significantly larger amount of activity, which I see as being attributed to their lower rates for 1200 baud usage (which for right now constitutes the larger amount of users) and the appearance of lower rates for 2400 baud. Once CIS bears to competitive pressure and reduces its rates, it should see more people flock to their sigs.... _____________________________________________________________ > STReport CONFIDENTIAL¿ "BLOCKBUSTER ATARI NEWS FIRST!" ===================== SPECIAL EDITION REPRINT """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ///// ////// /////// BULLETIN // // // /// ** //// // ////// BULLETIN // // // // ///// // // // March 24, 1990 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" STR Publishing Inc. 03/24/90 Mendham, N.J. ATARI EXPLORER PUBLICATIONS CORP. is reported to have ceased all operations and publication of the magazine known as "THE ATARI EXPLORER". According to STReport's sources the parent company, (alleged to be Atari) has been engaged in an attempt to sell this operation for some time and because of the lack of buyers, has in turn, ceased Atari Explorer's operations. Rumor has it that perhaps a certain very recent "EDITORIAL" snapped a number of hatbands in Sunnyvale and as a result, may have had "SOMETHING" to do with this CATASTROPHIC EVENT. Atari Explorer, long considered a standard bearer of Atari Corp. will certainly be missed. The Atari Explorer, publicly termed the "OFFICIAL ATARI JOURNAL" and its publisher, David H. Ahl have actually become household 'friends' to most all Atari users. Attempts to reach a responsible party at either Explorer or Atari Corp. willing to discuss this latest of tragedies to clobber the USA Atari market have been unsuccessful. ---====OOOOO====--- STReport will continue to bring you the latest news as soon as possible ..ongoing coverage of this late breaking story will continue on the feeds and will be presented as soon as we receive updates. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Newsline "Your Independent News Source" March 24, 1990 Bulletin Service copyright 1990 No. 27 --------------------------------------------------------------------- *** REPRINT *** PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ************************************************************ March 28, 1990 For Additional Information, Contact: Jim Fisher Atari Corporation 1196 Borregas Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (408) 745-2010 ************************************************************ ATARI EXPLORER MAGAZINE TO EXPAND COVERAGE SUNNYVALE, CA- Atari Corporation announced today plans to enhance the ATARI EXPLORER magazine. This announcement is made formal following necessary actions taken to relocate the operation closer to headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. "We want to make notable changes in the production of Atari Explorer magazine to include expanded editorial coverage of additional products and enhance the environment for potential advertisers", stated Mr. James Fisher, V. P. Marketing and advertising. "The effort to present this news effectively and more timely requires the magazine staff to have 'instant access' to the technology and information available here." Atari plans to complete the current issue which is still in the hands of the printer and rush them to subscribers as soon as possible. At the time of this release, no changes to publication frequencies and subscriber fulfillment were considered and Mr. Fisher stated that subscribers and advertisers will always be the biggest priority. If necessary, extensions will be made to accomodate subscription commitments. END ********************************************************************** The following is an excerpt from the June 1990 issue of Atari Talk, the official publication of the Atari ST Software Exchange. Although the entire newsletter is available only to mebers of the Exchange, this excerpt has been released to the public due to its nearly universal appeal. Entire contents are Copyright (C) 1990 by the Federation of Atari Computer Enthusiasts. No part of this file may be modified under protection of federal copyright law. ********************************************************************** ATARI CORP. MAKES GOOD ON ATARI EXPLORER SUBSCRIPTIONS????????? --------------------------------------------------------------- In recent months, many people have become frustrated with Atari Corporation's actions regarding its official magazine, Atari Explorer. According to the editors of Atari Explorer, Atari Corporation gave other magazines such as STart priority over Atari Explorer in the way of items to review and official announcements. Atari Corp. then complained to the editors of Explorer for not being first with the printing of this news. Several similar problems have alledgedly occurred, such as Explorer being reprimanded by Atari for reprinting some information about the Portfolio from another atari magazine. In this instance, Atari reportedly thought the information was incorrect and showed Atari products in a bad light, but, according to a report in Z*Net online magazine, this was the only way that the Explorer could get any information because people at Atari Corp. refused to give them any of the help given to other ST magazines. Relations between Atari Corp. and Atari Explorer evidently became strained to the point that when members of the Explorer Staff wrote an outspoken editorial criticizing these actions, they were promptly fired and all copies of Explorer that contained the editorial were taken by Atari. Over the past few weeks, there has been a lot of discussion of this subject on BBS systems and on the major information networks, and nearly everyone seems to be upset at Atari. People have expressed concerns that Explorer may fold and take all of its subscription payments with it. This concern seemed justified, since several atari magazines, most notably A.N.A.L.O.G. and The Atarian, have closed over the past six months, and several of these magazines, (again, most notably A.N.A.L.O.G. and The Atarian,) have not refunded a single cent to their subscribers. Today, however, (May 12,) I received a copy of the latest issue of Explorer. It was stamped "SPRING 1990," and was also marked "Display Until June 1." The magazine contains all the articles familiar to Explorer readers, and gives the impression that the magazine is doing fine and is in no danger from Atari Corp. or financial problems. Looking closely, however, one must notice that the table of contents lists an editorial by Elizabeth Staples entitled "Why a Spring Issue?" No such editorial exists in the magzine, as it has been replaced with an editorial called "The Atari Home Office Revolution" by John Jainschigg. For some time, various rumors have been circulating saying that Atari will continue to publish the magazine, but will heavily scrutinize all issues to make sure no "offensive" articles are included in it. Evidently, Atari has removed the outspoken editorial and wishes to put this matter behind it. The magazine itself is of its usual high quality, as has been stated before. Atari now faces the task of creating a new magazine staff and distributing an entirely new issue of Explorer within three weeks. Since the cover is marked to be removed from the shelves of stores on June 1, this must mean that Atari believes it can get another issue printed and mailed between now and then. So far, Atari has managed to keep up the Explorer. The real question is if it can continue to do so. _______________________________________________ > HD Error Codes STR InfoFile¿ Back by popular demand! =========================== HARD DRIVE AND CONTROLLER STATUS MESSAGES $01 No index/sector signal. $02 No seek complete. $03 Write Fault. The operation was terminated with an unrecovered error condition probably caused by a flaw in the media. This indicates that there is a problem, probably a bad sector. $04 Drive Not Ready. $05 Drive Not Selected. $06 No Track Zero Found. $10 ID or CRC Error. $11 Unrecovered read error of data blocks. $12 No address mark found in ID field. $13 No address mark found in data field. $14 No record found. $15 Seek positioning error. $17 Recovered read data with controller/drive READ retries. $18 Recovered read data with controller/drive error correction code. $19 Defect list error. $1A Parameter overrun. $1C Primary defect lsit not found. $1E Recovered ID with controller/drive ECC. $20 Invalid command operation. $21 Illegal logical block address (LBA). Address greater than the LBA returned by the read capacity data with PMI bit not set in CDB. $22 Illegal function for device type. $24 Illegal field in CDB. $25 Invalid logical unit number (LUN). $26 Invalid field in parameter list. $27 Write protected. $29 Power on or reset or bus device reset occurred. $2A Mode select parameters changed. $30 Incompatible cartridge. $31 Medium format corrupted. $32 No defect spare sector available. $40 RAM failure. $44 Internal controller error. $45 Select/reselect failed. $46 Unsuccessful soft reset. $49 Inappropriate/illegal message. *********************************************************************** :HOW TO GET YOUR OWN GENIE ACCOUNT: _________________________________ To sign up for GEnie service: Call: (with modem) 800-638-8369. Upon connection type HHH (RETURN after that). Wait for the U#= prompt. Type: XTX99587,CPUREPT then, hit RETURN. **** SIGN UP FEE WAIVED **** The system will now prompt you for your information. *********************************************************************** > Hard Disks STR InfoFile¿ Affordable Mass Storage.... ======================= NEW PRICES! & MORE MODELS!! ============================ ABCO COMPUTER ELECTRONICS INC. P.O. Box 6672 Jacksonville, Florida 32236-6672 Est. 1985 _________________________________________ Voice: 904-783-3319 10 AM - 4 PM EDT BBS: 904-786-4176 12-24-96 HST FAX: 904-783-3319 12 PM - 6 AM EDT _________________________________________ HARD DISK SYSTEMS TO FIT EVERY BUDGET _____________________________________ All systems are complete and ready to use, included at NO EXTRA COST are clock/calendar and cooling blower(s). -ALL ABCO HARD DISK SYSTEMS ARE FULLY EXPANDABLE- (you are NOT limited to two drives ONLY!) (all cables and connectors installed) * ICD HOST ADAPTERS USED EXCLUSIVELY * OMTI HIGH SPEED CONTROLLERS * * ICD ADVANTAGE+ HOST ADAPTERS * FULL SCSI COMMAND SET SUPPORTED * * SCSI EMBEDDED CONTROLLER MECHANISMS * 51mb #SGN4951 519.95 65mb #SG60101 649.95 80mb #SGN296 709.95 100mb #SG84011D 839.95 120mb #SGN120FH 989.95 120mb #SG120DD 1128.95 170mb #SGN2962 1369.95 260mb #SG60102 1849.95 WE HAVE A COMPLETE LINE OF 3.5 LOW PROFILE HARD DRIVES for USE IN MEGA ST COMPUTERS AND RELATED CONFIGURATIONS. 20mb #AI020SC 379.95 30mb #AIO3OSC 419.95 50mb #AI050SC 449.95 65mb #AI065SC 499.95 85mb #AI085SC $559.95 >>> ALL ABCO DRIVES ARE HIGH SPEED UNITS <<< (500 - 600k per sec @ 23 -33ms) CALL FOR SUPER SAVINGS ON ALL OUR OTHER CUSTOM UNITS FROM 30mb @ $419.00! Ask about our "REBATE SPECIALS" --==*==-- SHIPPING AND INSURANCE INCLUDED ============================================ * SYQUEST 44MB (#555)>> ABCO "44" << REMOVABLE MEDIA DRIVE * - SYQUEST 44 MB DRIVE - ICD ST ADVANTAGE PLUS H/A - ICD Utility Software - 3' DMA Cable - Fan & Clock - Multi-Unit Power Supply (1) 44 MB Syquest Cart. COMPLETELY ASSEMBLED AND READY TO RUN! >> SPECIAL NOW ONLY __$849.00__ << *** SPECIAL SYQUEST OFFER!! *** ORDER YOUR CUSTOM SYQUEST UNIT NOW AND GET A SECOND COMPLETE UNIT! ***** for $50.00 LESS! ***** -> DO IT YOURSELF BARE SYQUEST UNITS $600.00ea 2 for $1100.00 Syquest Mechanism - 2 year warranty * TWIN SYQUEST 44MB REMOVABLE MEDIA DRIVES ... PROGRAMMER'S DELIGHT * SPECIALLY PRICED $1539.00 * SYQUEST 44MB REMOVABLE MEDIA DRIVE AND HARD DRIVE COMBINATIONS * - Syquest 44 Model [555] and the following hard drives - 50mb SQG51 $1179.00 30mb SQG38 $1099.00 65mb SQG09 $1239.00 85mb SQG96 $1299.00 LOWBOY - STANDARD - DUAL BLOWER CABINETS CUSTOM CONFIGURATIONS AVAILABLE Listed above are a sampling of the systems available. Prices also reflect various cabinet/power supply configurations (over sixty configurations are available, flexibility is unlimited) *** ALL Units: Average Access Time: 24ms - 34ms *** ALL UNITS COMPATIBLE WITH --> SUPERCHARGER - PC-DITTO/II - SPECTRE/GCR LARGER units are available - (special order only) NO REPACKS OR REFURBS USED! - Custom Walnut WOODEN Cabinets - TOWER - AT - XT Cabinets - Keyboard Custom Cables Call for ALL POWER SUPPLIES UL APPROVED -* 12 month FULL Guarantee *- (A FULL YEAR of COVERAGE) QUANTITY & USERGROUP DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE! _________________________________________ DEALERS and DISTRIBUTORS WANTED! please, call for details Personal and Company Checks are accepted. ORDER YOUR NEW UNIT TODAY! CALL: 1-800-562-4037 -=**=- CALL: 1-904-783-3319 Customer Orders ONLY Customer Service 9am - 8pm EDT Tues thru Sat *********************************************************************** NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY COMPUSERVE WILL PRESENT $15.00 WORTH OF COMPLIMENTARY ONLINE TIME to the Readers of; STREPORT ONLINE MAGAZINE """""""""""""""""""""""" "The Original 16/32bit Online Magazine" NEW USERS; SIGN UP TODAY! Call any of the STReport Official BBS numbers (Listed Above) or Leave E-mail to STReport - R.Mariano Be sure to include your full mailing address so your Compuserve kit can be immediately mailed to you! NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE *********************************************************************** > A "Quotable Quote"¿ ================= "SPOILED BRATS ALWAYS RUIN THE PARTY!" ...Alfred E. Newmann -------------------------------------------------------------------------- STReport "Your Independent News Source" July 07, 1990 16/32bit Magazine copyright ½ 1990 No.6.28 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Views, Opinions and Articles Presented herein are not necessarily those of the editors, staff, STReport¿ CPU/STR¿ or ST Report¿. Permission to reprint articles is hereby granted, unless otherwise noted. Each reprint must include the name of the publication, date, issue # and the author's name. The entire publication and/or portions therein may not be edited in any way without prior written permission. The contents, at the time of publication, are believed to be reasonably accurate. The editors, contributors and/or staff are not responsible for either the use/misuse of information contained herein or the results obtained therefrom. --------------------------------------------------------------------------