♪♪
Two of the hottest new computers on the market are this 520ST from Atari and the Amiga from Commodore.
What can they do and which one may be right for you?
We'll help you find out today as we take a look at two new computers with a lot of power for the price
on this edition of the Computer Chronicles.
♪♪
The Computer Chronicles is made possible in part by grants from AFIPS,
the American Federation of Information Processing Societies,
a non-profit federation of 11 national societies for computer professionals.
AFIPS, leadership and service in computer and information technology.
Additional funding is provided by McGraw-Hill, publishers of Byte.
Byte's detailed technical articles on new hardware, software, and languages
cover the latest in microcomputer technology worldwide.
Byte, the international standard.
♪♪
Welcome to the Computer Chronicles.
I'm Stuart Shafae and this is Gary Kildall.
Gary, these two rather old-looking computers are really just about a year old here,
the Commodore 64 and the Atari 800.
These represented the battle between the low-end manufacturers just about a year ago.
The 64, very successful.
The 800, really the last machine before Jack Tramiel took over Atari.
Today, the battle is different.
There's the Commodore Amiga, the Atari 520ST, very sophisticated machines.
Both have received lots of critical praise,
but people are trying to figure out what you do with them.
Is this another case of computer technology in search of a market?
Well, Stuart, the 64 and the 800 really took us through the first generation of home computers,
but people have gone back to their VCRs and TV sets now.
And to get the consumer attention, the second generation machines have to have
higher resolution, more color, faster animation, better sound capability.
That means higher performance processors and more memory.
Now, these new machines, the 520 and the Amiga, give us that hardware capability,
and it's really up to the software developers to make it happen.
Today, we're going to get up close and personal with the Commodore Amiga and the Atari 520ST
to see if one of these machines is just right for you.
Now, before the computer manufacturer can sell you on a computer,
he's got to sell the retailer first.
So we're going to begin by going to Comdex in Las Vegas, the computer dealers' expo,
to see how Commodore and Atari are pitching the middlemen.
Comdex, Las Vegas, 1985.
At the world's largest computer show,
Atari held court at one of the biggest booths on the floor,
and at the centerpiece of the display was the star of Atari's computer lineup, the 520ST.
Nestled inside Atari's sprawling booth were dozens of software vendors,
each with a sign and just enough space for a chair and a computer.
Atari seemed to have at least two goals in mind.
A highly visible presence at the show, and a message to dealers
that this was one computer company that didn't forget about software.
From business to education to sophisticated graphics,
the substance of Atari's show was the extensive variety of its software.
Atari's most likely competition, the Commodore Amiga,
was conspicuously absent from the Comdex show,
although Commodore did hold private meetings with potential dealers.
But in spite of its low key sales pitch, Amiga has successfully wooed some unlikely dealers.
Our focus as a store has primarily been on business software, business computers, business users,
so this is a little bit breaking new ground for us in that this machine has certainly a lot more of a
home kind of focus than what we normally deal with.
The Amiga's dazzling graphics and advanced hardware
has attracted equally sophisticated retail buyers.
So far it's kind of been half and half between people who are just kind of anxious to have the latest and greatest
and people who are interested in writing software for it.
There are a lot of people who are extremely interested in writing software who haven't got into it yet
because they're just kind of hanging in there waiting to see what the consumer response is going to be
and the consumer response has been great.
♪♪♪
Joining us now in the studio is Rick Geiger, General Manager of Commodore Amiga,
and next to Rick is Tim Mott, Vice President for Product Development
and a co-founder of Electronic Arts, a software company which is writing for the Amiga. Gary?
Rick, I think everybody would like to see what the Amiga does and I would like to go right into the demo.
Okay, fine. What we see here is what we call the workbench,
which is the graphic user interface of the Amiga
and it works in a fashion like other graphics user interfaces.
In addition, we also supply a command line interface down here
so that people who are more familiar or have applications for command type interfaces
can deal with something familiar.
Now, of course, I'm sure that you've heard about the famous graphics and sound of the Amiga
and here's one of our classic demos we call the bouncing ball.
It's really impressive.
Now, Rick, this is an impressive demo, but I want you to tell me why it's impressive.
What are we seeing that the computer can do?
Well, what you're seeing is synchronized moving color graphics with the sound all at the same time.
In addition to this, we still have down here below an application running.
So you're running a word processor while you're carrying on this sound graphics demo.
Yep, and I can correct my typos.
Now, Rick, we've heard a lot about special graphics hardware that's available on the Amiga.
What basically is behind this?
Well, what's behind this is 25 DMA channels that provide...
You may want to lower the bouncing ball, Rick, so we can hear you, but the sound...
Thank you.
...that provides for all of the graphics rendering functions, the hardware bit blit,
all of these controlled by DMA channels so that they don't load down to 68,000.
And, in fact, in my office I frequently run telecommunications application along with word processing
while simultaneously doing printing.
So I'm sure you're familiar with the popularity of the sidekick type programs
and with the multitasking features of the Amiga, this makes those kinds of things very simple to do.
Yeah, Tim, I want to get you in this.
Electronic Arts is kind of going heavily into writing for Amiga, as I understand it.
Tell me, number one, why you're excited about writing for a machine like that.
Well, the first reason is when we started the company three years ago,
we envisioned a home computer of the future that would support much higher quality audio visual effects
than was possible three years ago.
And we knew enough about the technology and custom VLSI technology
to realize that that was something that was going to happen around this time frame.
And when we first saw the Amiga, which was in prototype form about two years ago,
it was real clear that that was a machine that had this kind of potential.
Okay, it looks like Deluxe Paint is up here and running.
Is that one of EA's new products for Amiga?
Right, Deluxe Paint is the first in a series of creativity products for the Amiga.
Deluxe Paint is a painting program.
In addition to all the usual features that you find in a painting program,
it's got some unique features like...
Rick, are you going to show us what goes on here while Tim talks?
Is that what's happening?
Yeah, we're still loading up some disk files up, so they'll be up in a moment.
How do you see someone using Deluxe Paint?
This is, you say, a creativity tool?
It's a creativity tool.
It's unusual in that it has enough features and powerful enough features for a professional user,
but also has a lot of simplicity in the way you use it
such that it will be usable by consumers and people in the home.
What other kind of tools would you be coming out with?
As I said, this is the first in a series, all of which will enable data to be exchanged between them.
There's a Deluxe printing program, which will make it very easy to create banners and meeting notices,
greeting cards, things like that.
There's a Deluxe music construction set,
which is a version of a product that we currently have available on the Macintosh for music composition.
And the last one in this series is Deluxe video construction set,
which will make use of the unique video features of the machine
to enable someone to very simply put together video special effects.
Okay, what we see here is a rendering of Botticelli's Venus.
Now, is that an original piece of art done on the Amiga or a digitized version of the painting?
No, that was done from scratch on the Amiga using this paint program.
Someone knew how to use the program.
This was done by a graphic designer.
Here's another piece that was done.
This is a picture of King Tut.
You'll see here that what Rick's doing is using the menu features of the Amiga to bring in additional drawings.
Here's a waterfall that was done,
and this actually shows the color cycle animation capabilities in this software.
You'll see that when he turns cycle on that the water's now cycling, creating the effect of a moving waterfall.
And you're doing this by changing the palette colors?
Doing this by changing the color map registers in the hardware.
Rick, briefly, this is very impressive stuff.
What people are asking the question, as Gary and I talked about at the beginning of the show,
of who do you think is going to buy the Amiga?
Where do you see it being used?
Well, I think the major strong point of the Amiga is that, first and foremost,
it's a powerful general-purpose computer.
Added onto that is multitasking built in from the beginning.
Then we took a look at what are the kinds of constraints that people bump into
in trying to get their personal computers to do different things.
And those are typically anytime they start to do any graphics, the performance goes away.
Anytime they try and do any sound, the performance goes away.
So if you want to design a friendly graphics user interface,
then the very first thing you start having is performance problems.
And with the custom hardware, we've been able to take care of all of that.
Okay, gentlemen, thank you very much.
So we've gotten an introduction to the Commodore Amiga.
In just a minute, we'll look at the Atari 520ST, so stay with us.
[♪ music playing ♪
Joining us now are Brian Kerr, the marketing manager for Atari,
and next to Brian, Jim Tetzler, a hardware engineer at Atari who helped develop the ST.
Brian, we've seen what the Commodore Amiga can do.
How about showing us the 520ST?
Okay, well, the 520ST has been out for about four months now.
And as you can see, it's a very graphics-based system as well.
The desktop that you're looking at here now is based on the GEM technology.
And Jim will show you one feature that we like here,
which allows each user to customize their own interface.
This is what we refer to as the control panel.
It allows you to set your own color palettes, the speed of click for the mouse, the keyboard,
bells and keyboard clicks on and off, that type of thing.
From there, I'd like to show you some of the sound capability of this product.
The 520ST has a built-in MIDI interface, and I'll let Jim describe this a little fuller.
MIDI is an emerging industry standard.
It's the Musical Instrument Digital Interface,
and it allows a computer to sequence a series of notes going to a synthesizer.
For instance, here we have it connected to a rather elaborate synthesizer
that allows us to either play music through the synthesizer
or to actually record an artist playing at the keyboard
and do the same sorts of things with music that you would do with a word processor.
You can time sync the music or transpose it playback.
You probably ought to mention that there is a synthesizer down on the table here
that is actually producing music.
And you're just picking a song file from here, which is going through the synthesizer.
Exactly.
We also, internal to the machine, have a three-voice sound chip,
so we can do some sound synthesis.
But by building the MIDI interface into the machine,
that gives you the ability to spend as much on music as you like.
If you're really serious about music, that path for expansion is readily available.
And Jim, that graphic representation we saw was in fact synced to what we're hearing coming out of the synthesizer.
Exactly. One of the colors was associated with each of the voices that was being played on MIDI.
We will stress graphics a little bit with the machine.
And one of the paint programs that we've developed internally is a program called NEO.
And it allows some very elaborate graphic capability like we saw earlier.
And you're pulling that up now, Jim?
Yes.
This is a collection of some of the images that was created with NEO.
NEO is a very powerful drawing package that really takes advantage of the machine,
lets you play with the colors and create very nice images.
Jim, you're transferring those images from the hard disk, right?
Right. Directly from the hard disk.
Each one of those images is 32,000 bytes, and that was coming directly from the hard disk.
That shows off a feature of the ST, which is the DMA port,
which transmits information at 10 megabits per second.
That's very high speed, and it's typical of the local area networking speeds of many, many computers.
This is NEO in its implementation with one particular picture.
We're just rotating the color palette here.
What is the price of this machine, basically?
If you were to buy this configuration right here?
The base configuration is with a monochrome monitor, which has a resolution of 640 by 400,
which is a little higher than what people are typically used to seeing.
Very crisp and solid.
That configuration with the 520 ST and one single-sided 3.5-inch drive is retail-suggested $799.95.
How about this whole configuration with the hard disk, two disk drives, and we've got a color monitor.
This is sort of the top-end system.
I've had difficulty configuring systems up to the $2,000 range,
because even with the color monitor, that system is $999.
The hard disk is not out yet, so I can't really speak about price,
but it will be in the same affordability level that all the other products from Atari are.
How do you see the 520 ST getting into the home?
What's going to cause people to buy a 520?
First, I'd like to just make a distinction.
We refer to the 520 ST as a personal computer.
We, as a general rule, believe that people determine what computers are used for,
whether they're in the home, in the office, in the field, or in business.
The 520 ST is a computer system that is as powerful, if not more powerful,
than any other personal computer on the marketplace,
but yet it is priced in a consumer level.
I think therein lies the reason for owning a 520 ST.
Jim, what are you up to right now?
I was just demonstrating some of the ease of use,
the fact that I can hop from one program to another quite readily using the GEM user interface.
If we take this idea of you can use it in the home, you can use it in business,
what have you got here that would show us how to use it in business?
One example is we have a spreadsheet demonstration,
and it's very similar in function to some of the popular programs that are available today.
It gives us, however, the advantage that we've got the GEM user interface
so that it's very easy for a user to, for instance, plot a graph.
You don't have to remember a cryptic sequence of commands.
You can just get there directly using the mouse.
Is the spreadsheet on the market, Jim?
It's supposed to be shipping very shortly.
It'll be shipping next week, and it also is a Lotus work-alike,
so anyone that has worked with Lotus can move directly over here,
so you have the additional screen capability with the machine.
Now, Gary's asked you about the business applications.
I want to know if you can show a red and white soccer ball bouncing.
Oh, that's easy.
That's easy.
This seems to be the standard demonstration, though.
Well, it's a good example of graphic animation for the products.
This machine has four custom chips that were designed by Atari,
and it has a great deal of graphics power,
but it was designed in such a way that the 68000 still has a great deal of the processor's bus bandwidth,
and so the 68000 is capable of doing a great deal of calculation all the time.
Okay, one final question. How many have you sold so far?
We released numbers at the end of the third quarter that we had shipped over 50,000 units.
Now, you have to understand the ST is shipping and has been introduced worldwide,
and we are marketing the product in over 30 countries around the world.
Gentlemen, we've got to go.
Both machines very impressive.
Of course, one of the questions is where is the software?
We went out and talked to a software developer about that question.
Wendy Woods has the report.
When new hardware enters the market, software companies have to make a tough choice.
Will they write programs for it?
Stoneware, famous for DB Master, had to choose between the Amiga and the Atari ST.
They chose the Atari.
Truth is, our decision was not to develop for the Amiga right away, in part,
because the Amiga, when you develop for it, it's very hard to use your development investment for other machines.
With the ST, it's much easier.
The success of Stoneware's filing program, which will be marketed under the Atari Soft label,
of course depends on the success of the Atari ST.
They're betting that the low-cost machine will sell, and the company's management will sell it.
And if you're out on the streets in a very competitive market in a tough business situation,
I'd probably bet on those guys. I certainly wouldn't bet against them.
Stoneware realizes there are big risks, but the company is known as a risk-taker.
Stoneware wrote the first serious business software for the Apple and the Macintosh.
The hundreds of thousands of programs they've already shipped are testimony that they made the right choice.
In the case of the ST, Stoneware expects the machine's revolutionary low price will make it a big seller.
Stoneware eventually plans to make software for the Commodore Amiga,
but for the moment, they'll concentrate on more Atari ST products,
certain that getting in there first with low-price software for a low-priced machine will pay off.
For the Computer Chronicles, I'm Wendy Woods.
Joining us now is Lewis Moore, president of Home Computing Centers, a chain of retail computer stores,
and Tim Beharin, vice president for microcomputer research at Creative Strategies.
Lewis, I understand that you sell both the 520ST and the Commodore Amiga.
We've seen a price that goes from $800 on up to $2,000, I think that's what Brian said, for configurations of the 520.
What is a comparable price, say, for an Amiga?
Well, the basic system for the Amiga is $1,295, but you have to put a monitor on it.
And to take it up to $512K, with those two things, you're at $1,985.
Now, what is the customer response on this?
Do they see these two different computers because of the price range, or are they comparing them directly, or what?
Well, there's a lot of comparison, but we're also seeing people seeing them as two different systems.
I think they're both going to do fine.
What do you hear from the consumers when they walk in and look at the two side by side?
You're one of the few dealers that has both of them in your store.
Well, we hear a range of comments.
One is that the Amiga has a lot more features, but it's not worth twice the price to most people.
We're also seeing quite a few customers who came in intending to buy a less expensive system
or one that's comparably priced, like a Commodore 128, switching to the ST.
Tim, one of the questions people have is trying to define the market for these two machines.
I mean, is it a classy game machine? Is it really a business computer?
Where do you see these machines being sold?
Well, in the Atari category, because of the Atari name and image in the past,
the Amiga is looking more towards a home game entertainment market rather than a business crossover.
Whereas the Commodore, though Commodore has had a strong background in the same area,
the Amiga, with its PC compatibility and the emulation as it does,
has the possibility of crossing over both the high-end home specifically because of its price
and possibly even getting that small, small business market that we're just beginning to see emerge.
Tim, you brought up the point of the IBM emulation. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
Well, my understanding, and watching the demonstrations on it,
is that it makes the 68000 chip believe it's an 8088, and it does it through an emulation process in software.
Unfortunately, by doing it that way, it is very, very slow.
And it is our assumption that the best way, of course, to do that would be to go to a hardware interface,
and perhaps someday Commodore Amiga will do that as well.
Lew, apart from the Amiga versus the ST, how are they positioned versus the other machines?
I mean, is Amiga really going up against Mac? Is that how buyers are perceiving this?
Quite a bit, yeah. But also we're seeing new buyers, really, who haven't purchased computers before
and have been thinking about it and thinking about it.
And now that it's here, they're coming in to look.
There's a lot of interest. There's been a lot of press on the machine.
And so we get 20 or 30 calls a day on it. We have waiting lists for it.
And it's gotten a great deal of attention from people who weren't in the market.
Now, if you could kind of characterize a consumer of a computer system like this,
what is it that they really want when they walk in the store?
They look at this and they say, well, we'd really like to have... what is it?
Well, in the early life cycle of this product and the ST as well,
you're getting mostly people right now who are enamored of the hardware.
Because there's not much you can do with it as of today.
And then we're getting people who know the software that's coming out and are interested in it.
And the MS-DOS part is important to people too.
Tim, we have just about a half a minute left.
What about the software? Do you think it's going to be there for both these machines?
Well, our survey right now with the software dealers is that there's a wait-and-see attitude.
They see that both machines have potential.
They are looking at both companies' financial positions, which have been somewhat rocky over the last year.
And they're waiting to see what will happen after the first of the year.
And if the channels begin to open up and they begin to see the distributors having a demand,
the machines can be delivered on a timely basis, then the software guys will start following suit.
But it's still a wait-and-see game from that standpoint.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
Well, we've seen two very impressive machines today.
Of course, the question is, will they make it in the marketplace?
We'll turn to our commentator, George Morrow, for his thoughts.
Will either or both of these innovative machines be successful?
Well, the Mindset computer was also innovative and had excellent graphics, but fell flat in its face.
However, these machines are linked with one of the magic names in this business, Jack Tramiel.
He started Commodore and salvaged Atari.
The mention of Tramiel stirs strong emotions within the industry, and his power in the marketplace is legion.
He is a beacon only to IBM in the ability to establish de facto standards,
and he is the major reason the press and public is willing to give these two machines a chance.
But a computer is never more successful than the software written, which exploits its potential.
And while much of the existing software can be ported to these machines,
that in itself is no reason to go out and buy either.
There is today three major operating environments occupying the energies of programmers,
two from Apple and one from IBM.
It seems unlikely the available pool of software developers is expanding rapidly enough
to support even one more operating system, let alone two.
That's how I see it. I'm George Morrow.
[♪ music playing ♪
In the Random Access file this week, an encouraging report,
if you're a consumer, that software prices are going to fall.
Federal industry executives and analysts are predicting price cuts for all kinds of software,
from games to business packages.
A DataQuest report says there are now 27,000 software programs on the market,
with a new product being introduced every 11 minutes.
One New York analyst predicted that software prices could fall by as much as 50% by next year.
A company called Kozen Systems of Connecticut has introduced a new product called SoftStrip,
which encodes data or program information on ordinary paper.
These strips can then be read by a scanner directly into a computer.
Kozen says 17 magazines and text publishers will soon be including the SoftStrips in their publications.
That means you can just slip the page into a scanner and enter the data or program directly into your computer.
Desktop publishing was one of the hot topics at the recent Comdex show.
Some vendors were showing complete personal publishing systems for under $10,000,
and there were also new laser printers for under $2,000.
Although PC publishing must be hot when in today's climate,
two new magazines have just been introduced on the subject,
Desktop Publishing and Personal Publishing.
Time now for this week's software pick, and here's our reviewer, Paul Schindler.
When I was a kid, if you wanted to buy and sell things, you did it on a Monopoly board.
We used to play for days on end.
Eventually, it got a little dull because you always knew the prices,
and eventually you got to know community chest and chance pretty well, too.
Well, since greed is such a fundamental human emotion, it was only a matter of time
before a trading game came to the world of personal computing.
It's here. Its name is Wizard of Wall Street.
This program has a great opening screen.
You begin each month of trading with research and a review of your net worth.
It's interesting that new research costs money, but old research reports are free.
You can buy and sell, or, for the esoteric, there are puts, calls, and options.
This is a real-time game with a news ticker and a stock ticker.
If you don't execute your trade fast enough, prices change, and you make or lose money pretty fast.
If you panic, you can freeze the trading day to give yourself time to think about things.
Wizard of Wall Street was written by Multisoft of San Rafael, California,
and is distributed by Synapse Software.
The program offers a lot of fun for $45.
For the Computer Chronicles, I'm Paul Schindler.
The Japanese company Ricoh has introduced a fascinating new product called the Write Board.
It's an electronic blackboard, it's actually white,
that automatically captures whatever is written on the board and saves it in a computer.
You can then display the blackboard's contents on CRTs at other locations
or get hard copy printouts to keep a record of what was on the board.
The Ricoh Write Board can handle graphics as well as text.
In our legislative update file, the United States, Japan, and Canada
have agreed to eliminate most tariffs on computer parts and peripherals.
The American trade representative to the negotiations said the agreement would lower costs in the U.S.
and save the industry about $172 million a year.
A major computer problem at the Bank of New York last week
held up the delivery of $25 billion in government securities.
The computer problem forced a large overnight loan from the Federal Reserve Bank
and temporarily drove federal fund interest rates down
when reserves rose after securities were not delivered.
The transfer of government securities is done almost exclusively by computer
with no actual paper transactions.
This was reported to be the biggest computer snafu ever in the federal banking system.
Finally, if you own a new Buick Riviera,
you are the proud owner of 10 computer systems hidden inside your car.
The 1986 Riviera's computer system takes over the functions of 91 controls
and gauges found on conventional cars.
All the computer controls are represented on a touch-sensitive computer screen,
and when you take the car in for servicing,
the mechanic simply plugs your computer into his computer
and the car's systems report out on what's wrong.
Maybe.
That's it for this week's Chronicles. We'll see you next time.
The Computer Chronicles is made possible in part by grants from AFIPS,
the American Federation of Information Processing Societies,
a non-profit federation of 11 national societies for computer professionals.
AFIPS, leadership and service in computer and information technology.
Additional funding is provided by McGraw-Hill, publishers of Byte.
Byte's detailed technical articles on new hardware, software, and languages
cover the latest in microcomputer technology worldwide.
Byte, the international standard.