Message-ID: <13657@mgweed.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Nov-84 14:02:54 EST
Article-I.D.: mgweed.13657
Posted: Mon Nov 19 14:02:54 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Nov-84 01:00:01 EST
Organization: AT&T Consumer Products - Montgomery Illinois
Lines: 36

[]

Several people have commented on the new Atari prices, although even the
Wall Street Journal confirms these to be the new regular prices, not just
a one time deal.

As for future products, several sources, including the WSJ states that
Atari will announce 2 new variations for the 800XL.  One will have 128K
of memory built in, using bank switching.

Atari will also have a 16 bit and a 32 bit machine next year.  The 800XL's
and the 16 bit machine should be shown at the Winter CES in January.  The
32 bit machine might be announced but probably won't be available until
late spring or summer.  The big machines will use a new operating system
called TOS (Tramiel Operating System) that has been developed by the same
company that developed MDOS.

In other news, Bill Wilkinson (of OSS fame), in his regular Atari column
in December COMPUTE!, passes on some interesting information.  It seems
that Microbits is developing both a parallel floppy disk drive and a
hard disk system for the 800XL.  It can not be used with the older
systems since it takes advantage of bus out the back.  Preliminary speed
measurements indicate that you may be able to read/write over 40K bytes
per second to and from the disk.  This would certainly make playing
graphics adventure games tolerable!  No announced delivery date yet 
because development work isn't finished.  It appears, though, that both
hardware and software manufacturers are developing renewed confidence
in Atari, so we should see even more exciting announcements next year.

Happy Computing..
 
					Kit Kimes
					AT&T Consumer Products
					Montgomery Works
					Montgomery, Il. 60538-0305
					..!ihnp4!mgweed!kek