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From: ali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: And the winner is...
Message-ID: <421@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Tue, 14-Jul-87 17:47:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocky.421
Posted: Tue Jul 14 17:47:46 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Jul-87 01:08:07 EDT
References: <17680@cca.CCA.COM> <2394@alvin.mcnc.UUCP>
Reply-To: ali@rocky.UUCP (Ali Ozer)
Distribution: na
Organization: Stanford University Computer Science Department
Lines: 69

In article <2394@alvin.mcnc.UUCP> ravi@alvin.UUCP (Ravi Subrahmanyan) writes:
>In article <17680@cca.CCA.COM> jack@cca.CCA.COM (Jack Orenstein) writes:
>>A while ago I sent the following request to the amiga and atari groups:
>	It's definitely our fault for not having responded to this guy
>and all that (see most of the names he quoted?), but this is hysterical..  
>Isn't it amazing how people get carried away while talking about stuff
>they haven't the faintest idea about?  
>>
>>According to Ali Ozer:
>>| If you want to expand above 1 Meg [on the Atari 1040ST],
>>| you need to start kludging things, and you can't go above 4 even with the
>>| biggest hacks. 
>
>	Well, lessee, how does one kludge things?  One walks or runs
>to a dealer, or calls mail order, shells out big bucks for a board
>(price varies with amount of memory plugged in, but its very
>reasonable.  I know because I almost ought one), pops open the ST,
>pulls out the MMU, plugs the board into the socket, plugs back the
>MMU, and then of course the usual crossed fingers, black cats &
>lizards, chants etc. take over.   Ali was right, you can't go
>over 4 meg, but a kludge?  

I haven't got the faintest idea about things, but I was right about something.
Must've been a lucky guess...

Anyway, hmm, it's that easy to expand your 1040's memory, huh?
I called four local and two mail order
Atari ST dealers. Guess how many of them carried memory expansions for the
1040ST? *None*. These were all places that sold STs, mostly picked
out of Atari ST magazines. Two of the places did not know about such an
expansion. Another, Winner's Circle Systems, said they'd heard about the
4 Meg expansion to the 1040ST but they did not sell it because "they were
not authorized to install them." Hmm. The other three had heard of memory
expansions to the Ataris. When I pressed further, they either did not know
anything else or it turned out to be the 512K expansion to the 520ST they
were thinking about...

The reason I said "kludge" is all the memory expansions to the 1040ST
that I've ever heard of have been in the form of brave souls who open
up their machines and solder in their own memory chips. If it's as easy
as "pop open the ST, unplug the MMU (?), plug in the new board, and
voila," then why don't more ST owners have 2 Meg machines?  It's 
difficult to see how an average 1040 user can upgrade his/her machine to
2 or 4 Megs. As an Amiga user, on the other hand, I can go to
The Computer Attic (5 minutes away) or either HT Electronics store (15 & 25
minutes away) and pick myself a 2 Meg expansion, come home, and install it
without even "popping" the Amiga open. For less than $600. Or I can do it
mail order, for about $450. So there.

> Ali, objective as far as the ST goes?  Best laugh I've had all month...
Well I'm glad you were amused. 

>>prices for the Amiga disks are slightly higher than for the Atari. The Amiga
>>prices I've heard are about $1000 for a 20 meg drive.
>	So the difference would be $300-400 for a 20Meg drive.  And,

Yes, hard disk prices for the Amiga are a bit higher. Supra 20 Megs is about
$800 for the Amiga and $575 for the ST, mail order. 

>... $2000 for an A2000 and $2500 for a CSA (this was mentioned for the
>68020/68881 expansions) with something more than the
>card-rack,  we're getting up to the price range of the Mac II. 

The $2500 is for the giant Turbo Amiga, which is a computer in itself
that lives off of the Amiga. 68020/68881 cards for under $1000 will be
available for the 2000, and even maybe for the 500. And the Mac II doesn't
multitask. 

Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu