From: davidli@simvax.labmed.umn.edu
Subject: Re: I am NOT making this up, OK?  (was Re: Closed ... <ho hum>)
Reply-To: davidli@simvax.labmed.umn.edu
Organization: Health Computer Sciences, U of MN, Mpls
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 19:39:35 GMT

In article <1gnve3INNhd9@life.ai.mit.edu>, dmb@case.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett) writes:
>It's just *amazing* to me how you can twist everything around so that
>it's not Atari's fault.  We met with the group that was the Falcon
>games development group.  Many of them happened to have been Lynx
>programmers.  Any cluelessness on their part with respect to the Atari
>computers was certainly beyond our control.

Exactly.  Now, if you had quoted my ENTIRE posting, then the part you pulled
out of context would have made a bit more sense.  Someone else has already
posted with a clearer reading than your own of my intent.  I would suggest that
you are acting under the false assumption that I am either personally attacking
you or acting as a 'cheerleader' for Atari.

By the way -- you could have sent me e-mail with the names or phone numbers of
the folks you quoted in a previous article, rather than boring the network with
useless "non-commercial policy" statements.  I know that you get e-mail, since
you mentioned it yourself.  As it is, I have to thank Bob Retelle for the
information.  I don't purchase copies of PC Sources.  The information would
have been put to use, since I *have* been looking at what to do with two
relatively useless HP Vectra machines we have on hand at work.  Why "useless"?
286 machines run Windows in much the same way that PC Ditto runs MS-DOS.

Now, with regard to Atari...

If *I* had a general meeting with Atari staff, and were treated in the manner
with which you feel you were treated, I would have walked out after the first
quip from a Tramiel about 'lawsuits'.  Nothing further would have been (and,
from your postings, was) gained by further discussion.

[As far as the brouhaha over the Syquest cartridge drive ... either you should
have set up the machine yourself or put something into that blank "C" partition
so that normal people would find something in that partition upon bootup... I
don't know many people who would think to look for a SECOND partition on a
cartridge drive when the first (and apparently only) partition is blank. 
Corporate types are NOT generally computer whizzes.  They're not paid to do
hardware...]

The people with whom you (the software house, Double-Click, is 'you' in this
context) should have been talking are not associated with Atari Corporation. 
You should have been talking with the high-end compiler companies and with the
Atari-oriented game companies.

Quite frankly, you should have hired a couple of experienced technical writers
and got the damn thing out shortly after the release of the snowball fight game
-- I personally know several programmers who would still be writing for the
Atari ST if GW had come out a year ago.  ('You' is, again, the software house.)
If Double-Click couldn't do it, another software house should have been sought
immediately.

So, some bad business choices were made by the folks at DC.  The libraries were
written well before the Falcon ever came out, and could have been on the
market in 1991, not in 1992.  The success of the libraries would have given you 
a bit more leverage in incorporating Falcon technologies into them (upgrade
time!).

I'll state it again, but in a more cogent manner, so that even Bob Retelle can
understand it ...

I don't know what in hell Atari LYNX programmers were doing at a meeting to
show off a game library system suitable for the Atari ST/Falcon line.  You
should have asked to talk with someone who actually knows something about the
ST computer, rather than people who use Amigas to program hand-held game
machines.

-- David Paschall-Zimbel
Xref: sparky comp.sys.atari.st:18575 comp.sys.atari.st.tech:6324