Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
From: ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk (Iain Laskey)
Subject: Re: Jaguar, Falcon, Atari generally
Reply-To: ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 20:54:00 +0000


In article <92351.130615SML108@psuvm.psu.edu>, SML108@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>Those of us that are Atari ST, Lynx, Falcon or potential Jaguar fans
>would be well advised to read the most recent issue of ST Report...
>
>Double Click Software, a small company which has made some utterly
>fantastic software for the ST, spent $3000 of its own money to go
>visit Atari Headquarters to show off their product _Game Designer's
>Workbench_,  here are some highlights but I do not do this terrifying
>article justice merely by describing it, read it for yourself, I beseech
>you as I think I have finally been convinced to abandon atari by it...
>
>1) DC software asked atari if they had a removable hard drive so they
>   could just bring a cartridge from their hard rive and load it there.
>   Atari sad "Suuuuuuurrrrre", so they that's what they did.  When they
>   arrived they were first told that they didn't have any such drive but
>   then they cobbed one together after an hour or so.  After fiddling
>   with the drive for an hour and failing to load the software the
>   Atari Engineers proclaimed that "the cartridge was formatted with
>   s___tty 3rd party software."  As it turned out, it had worked just
>   fine but that it had an empty C partition and all of the software
>   was on the D partition.  By the way, the s___tty 3rd party software
>   was from ICD, a really good company...
>
>2) Leonard Tramiel and his idiot engineer friends constantly heckled
>   these developers during their visit with such lines as "What would
>   be your reaction if we sued you for copyright infringement for
>   HacMan II?"  And remember, this is the guy who's now in charge of
>   the Jaguar...  Way to go Lenny Boy!  Bring atari back to the top
>   of the fortune 500 by suing all of its former developers!  Genius!
>   Master Stroke!
>
>3) Upon showing the lynx developers the Game Designer's Workbench,
>   they heckled it and said that it stunk because it didn't contain features
>   for automatic sprite scaling and rotation.  The DC people attempted to
>   explain that the reason the lynx had that feature was because it was in
>   the lynx hardware not the software and that additionally they had written
>   such routines for GDW and could easily incorporate them, but this just
>   got them a chorus of boos... So now we know why most recent lynx games
>   are lame...  Additionally, Atari has been trying to get the lynx developer-
s
>   to move to the TT, but they refuse to do so because that would mean they
>   would lose access to their favorite text editor making them incapable of
>   of programming.  Oh the PAIN!  Oh the PAIN!
>
>3) The one shining star in this visit was Bill Rehbok.  He gave DC software
>   a Falcon for their troubles and apparently he along with the TT programmer-
s
>   were the only people who were polite to these people.
>
>Well, those are some highlights.  READ THIS ARTICLE!  There's a lot more
>idiocy from the Katzenjammer kids I haven't mentioned...  I have an ST, a lyn-
x,
>and an atari 800.  I was planning on buying a Falcon and I may still do so.
>After reading this article, I was ready to buy a new Amiga instead.  However,-

>all it took was an hour of articles on comp.sys.amiga.advocacy to make me
>realize that they have similar problems as big as Atari's.  So now I'm in
>coast mode ready to abandon them if only some third party would come
>out with a computer with the best features of the Falcon (DSP), and the Amiga-

>(Graphics), and a 32 MHz 68030...   I hear Electronic Arts is working on
>something interesting along these lines...
>
>Scott
>"What would be your reaction if we sued you for copyright infringement for
> HacMan II?"
>
>
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours,                    
   But I think that God's got a sick sense of humour - ML Gore
 ------------------------------+---------------+----------------------
   ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk | Iain R Laskey | Atari ST & Unix user

Xref: sparky comp.sys.atari.st:18570 comp.sys.atari.st.tech:6322