From: dmb@case.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: ADVOCACY: Re: a blurb
Date: 12 Jan 93 05:26:31 GMT
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
NNTP-Posting-Host: case.ai.mit.edu

In article <1993Jan11.205852.13486@bsu-ucs> 01mbmccabe@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu writes:
>The arguement was: for people with a more limiterd cash-flow than _you_ are
>used to, a computer that can/was-designed-to run without a hard-drive is
>_STILL_ the best option.  I'd like to see you try to get around on that clone
>without your hard-drive.

I don't recall that being the argument at all.  I recall the argument
being a general "MS-DOS machines suck" one.  You can do just as much
with a hard-drive-less PC as you can with a hard-drive-less ST.  You
don't HAVE to run Microsoft C; you can use Manx, which (I think) costs
$19 too.

There *exist* programs on the PC that do far more than their ST
counterparts, and because of that they take more room.  But there are
plenty of things you can run from floppy that are perfectly decent.
(Of course, if you had a PC you'd probably have a 1.4M drive so
floppies would be less of a problem.)

>First of all, the OS doesn't give me problems as is, so the $50  stays in the
>bank for me. 

The "if it ain't broke don't fix it" argument, round 117.  The OS *has*
plenty of problems, in my view.  For one, the 40 folder bug is STILL
with us.  On a more "abstract" level (bear with me here), we have
missed out on such wonderful improvements as multitasking (MiNT isn't
part of the ROM chips, of cours) and support for international
character sets.  One major reason I'd like to have a Mac (and yes, I
know I can run Spectre GCR, but I want System 7), is that you can do
Japanese word processing on it seamlessly.  Where is Atari's answer
to WorldScript?

>Second of all, I'll ask you not to be my finance advisor.  I'm a
>quite-typical college student with no spare money.

Again: don't buy the Ferrari if you can't buy the wiper blades.  So
you've overinvested in your hardware and now you can't buy any
software.  Is there any other way to slice it?  BTW, you're not saying
anything unfamiliar to an Atari developer when you talk about not
having money.

>I have no (and I don't need) knowlege of the shareware dimension of
>the clone-realm).  This machine still has the more-affordable software
>for me.

So ignorance is bliss, huh?  I don't like that philosophy myself, and
when I started looking into the PC market carefully a year or so ago I
was surprised at what I found: shareware terminal programs that beat
Uniterm, editors for $50 that annihilate Tempus and are programmable in
C, all the GNU stuff, 4-DOS, Borland's excellent source level debugger,
etc. etc.  There's a world out there!  Why do you *want* to stay
uninformed?  Wouldn't it be better to know all the facts and then
DECIDE to stay with Atari?

>It is the money, it isn't the money.  I can't argue on dualistic gounds as
>those.  And really I don't have much inconvenience getting PD stuff, which has
>consistenly been enough to keep me going (hopefelly will be until I can
>actually afford to shop the commercial district again.)

Well, we're not going to be writing PD stuff for you much longer, so
you better start thinking about paying for software if you want to keep
your machine alive.

>It's not even a matter of mediocrity!  It's a matter of whether or not yopur
>computer does what's expected of it!  Stop trying to spread the clone-disease
>and start spreading some common sense!

"The clone disease."  An unbiased statement for sure.  You don't even
know what's out there, yet you call anyone who dares to praise the
clone world "infected."  Common sense says your machine is going to be
a doorstop within a few years at the rate the community and Atari Corp.
are going.  One day you'll wake up and all of us who have been writing
all that free software (or -- HA! -- "shareware") for you have stopped
doing it because we had bills to pay JUST LIKE YOU DO.

>> Again, I hope you're happy being less productive than you could be.
>> I'm not.
>
>I also ask that you not be my time manager.  I haven't hit any speedbumps on
>this road yet, and I don't anticipate any in the near future.

Look, can the stupid semantics games all right?  Are we having an
argument here, or are you telling me why I'm not a nice person?
Wouldn't you think it was funny if someone told you they were doing
just fine with a 1960 UNIVAC that only accepts punched cards?  Wouldn't
you want to convinced them that there's a whole generation of software
and hardware improvments available waiting to make their lives easier?
Not *wanting* multi-tasking is a clear sign that you've never had it,
or have never had to do any serious work with a computer.  We've
had multi-tasking since the 60's!

>Or the people are raving for some of the wrong reasons...
>("My computer has slightly newer technology, and an AWESOME pirate base!")

Sigh.  I hate to be demanding, but do you have any facts regarding
piracy on the ST and PC that we can compare?  "It seems like there's
more piracy on the PC" is hardly any evidence.  Keep in mind that even
if there are 100 times as many pirates in the PC world as there are in
the ST world, we're still even percentage-wise.

>> The main thing I spend time with nowadays on my PC is TADS 2, which is
>> shareware and registered, thank you.  (And yes, I did buy my copy of
>> Microsoft C, which was $139, and Ultima Underworld, which was $50.)
>
>I'm glad someone's making money around here!  If I don't gradute soon, I'm
>gonna have to buy the place!  This is crazy!

I'm a student too, and the day I got an eviction notice a few years ago
it was accompanied by a letter from someone who told me they wanted one
of my shareware games but "didn't have the $10 because they were a poor
college student."  It was so ironic it made my day.

>P.S. Is Ultima Underworld, the Ultima that's a lot like the old Dongeon Master
>game?

Yes.  Like Dungeon Master with complete freedom of movement in 3D.

Dave Baggett
--
dmb@ai.mit.edu           MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory                  
ADVENTIONS: interactive fiction (text adventures) for the 90's!
dmb@ai.mit.edu *** Compu$erve: 76440,2671 *** GEnie: ADVENTIONS