Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!asuvax!hrc!force!covertr From: covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Where's the Spectre GCR??? Summary: For Pete's Sake!!! Message-ID: <45ea3ee9.14a1f@force.UUCP> Date: 28 Sep 89 21:46:28 GMT References: <9195@saturn.ucsc.edu> <45da38d0.14a1f@force.UUCP> <22585@cup.portal.com> Organization: gte Lines: 79 In article <22585@cup.portal.com>, Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes: > Rich Covert> Spectre GCR was NEVER vaporware my friend. Just because > Spectre has been delayed it does not mean that it was > vaporware - some things do take time - like SLM804 support. > (and espedcially when only one person is working on the whole > shibang.) > > Spectre GCR is shipping as of September 21 with pre-orders > going out first. New orders are backlogged until November. > > Peter Szymonik > Xorg@cup.portal.com I try to write a simple little note saying that I read on GEnie that the GCR is being shipped and I get flamed!! I did NOT say that the GCR was Vaporware. But, lets be fair about this. GCR was delayed, as you admit yourself. If it was a product of Atari, and not Gadgets By Small, wouldn't you classify it as VaporWare?? That's because Atari has promised many products (Vaporware) which have NEVER been marketed. But, GBS has produced every product that they have announced, hence it wouldn't be expected for the GCR to be Vaporware, even though it was months late. In fact, I was *TRYING*, in my own clumsy way, to help publicize the availablity of the GCR. Not all USENET readers have GEnie accounts. And GBS has an active GEnie RoundTable were the latest news can be read. So, calm down a little. I didn't mean to criticize GBS and/or the GCR. Boy, some people just have to jump all over me because of even an implied criticism of Dave Small. !!!!!!!!!!!!!! DON'T READ THE REST WARNING BAD THINGS SAID ABOUT GBS & OTHERS !!!! And I don't even want to get into the Spectre support of the SLM804. Please don't even mention SLM804 and Spectre 128 in the same article. That is one subject that is guaranteed to start a war!! Dave Small has provide a limited (144 dpi) printer driver for the SLM804, and has indicated that Spectre will not go 300 dpi. If you want better printouts with a SLM804 then you need to buy the $500 UltraScript package, and have a LARGE hard disk drive with 3 types of partitions. One native ST partition, one Mac HFS partition and one Mac MFS partition. And have plenty of time to transfer the PostScript files from Mac MFS and/or HFS partitions to native ST partitions, and thence to UltraScript. That is a very clumsy way to get 300 dpu print outs!! It would be much nicer to get 300 dpi directly from inside Spectre. Then, I wouldn't have to spend $500 for UltraScript just to get a decent printout of a Mac drawing!! But, if you want 300 dpi printouts on the SLM804 that is your only alternative. Correct me if I am wrong, but that is my understanding of Spectre support of the SLM804 laser printer. By the way, GBS isn't the only emulator to have troubles printing on the SLM804. Never pc speed and pc ditto II will print out on the SLM804. And both have promised SLM804 in the Next Release. sounds like GBS last year!! But this time I am not buying the emulator until I see the SLM804 printing under it!! I refuse to go through another year like the last one waiting for the promised support, and then being disappointed with each release. I bought my Spectre 128 in Sep 1988 and to this day I still can't print out at 300 dpi w/o being force to use UltraScript. So, pc speed and pc ditto II will not be sold to me until I see a working SLM804 printer driver!! On a side note, GBS being small doesn't excise them from not making schedules. I remember last year when Publishing Partner was released. Softlogic was also a very small company when they announced the PP upgrade called Page Stream. When PgS was a year late, being small didn't stop people from flaming Softlogik. Customers expect vendors to release a product when announced, and don't care about excuses like 'We are too small'. So, Softlogik was deservedly flamed. Softlogik would have been better off if they hadn't announced PgS until it was ready to ship. Even though that would have meant some lose of sales, it would have built a better reputation for the company. Avant-Garde is an example of a responsible company. A-G wanted like mad to release pc ditto II as soon as possible, but they didn't send out the upgrade coupons UNTIL pc ditto II was ready to ship. So, even though pc ditto II was months late, A-G didn't have a bunch of customers with $$ yelling at them. A-G didn't start accepting the upgrade coupons, with the $$, until A-G had pc ditto II. Softlogik, on the other hand, accepted upgrade $$ for PgS as much as a year before they shipped PgS. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! END OF FLAMES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! P. S. Pete, I have given you all kinds of words in this message to twist into whatever kind of warped meaning that you want to make. I mean, if you could take one word (Vaporware) and twist it, then you should have a field day with this message!! Richard (Enjoy yourself Pete) Covert