Re: [steem] Classic Video Games Make a Comeback, Thanks Mike
- From: "Lance J Armstrong" <larmstrong@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: steem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 11:23:27 -0500
Mike,
Thanks for setting me straight about the windows thing Mike.
Seems like a lot of my friends also didn't know this either. Back
when we got our ST's running GEM, I remember how much we
wanted a similar graphical environment on our PC's at work. And
I remember waiting and waiting, and then finally it appeared.
I was also told that Atari didn't have the greatest marketing and
thus it lost the market. That was too bad. I remember hearing
this too, that before MAC developers would release their software,
they'd test it out good on an ST first before they felt comfortable with
it. Hummmmmm makes you wonder..... I bought my 1st Atari over
a MAC basically because it already had MIDI built in (smart thinking
there!)
and because of the price, and I think the Atari had a color screen 1st.
But then I could be wrong about that too. Except that I do
know in the Dallas area, color ST's were available here 1st.
I played in a band called "Orion" for several years in the DFW area.
I guess you'd have to call us a computer band, even though there were
3 live musicians and a lead singer. I had two Atari's on stage,
one running the light show automatically, and the other running
all the MIDI gear, and I had an Apple IIe doing a lot of real time MIDI
utilities
stuff. The guys who developed Laser, a great Atari ST windows
type development package, owned a local club and kept us pretty busy
for a year and a half, once they saw us blow into their club the 1st time
with all the computer gear. One guy said it looked like the stock market
up
on stage as I had 5 monitors in a row set up high on the keyboard racks.
It was a crazy time.
Remember the animated big bird and other Sesame characters that you
could
put a cassette in the back of and they'd talk? I had them rigged up
thru our Nova
MIDI light show system, and hooked that all up to our ST's and sync'd
their mouths
to the chorus parts in our songs. One big bird was fed from the lead
singers mic,
so whatever he sang, the big birds mouth followed him in sync. We once
ticked off
the lead singer one time by turning off his spot light, and leaving the
Big Bird's spot on.
We had the Atari's running all the spot lights and all other sorts of
crazy manner, and
had people falling out of their chairs laughing when they saw it all.
We had a sign that
said, "Don't Drink and Listen to our ST's".
Well.....we couldn't have done all that without our ST's. The fact
that they already
had MIDI already built into them was the instigating element that started
us off on
all this funny business. I miss those days.
Thanks for the reply Mike.
LA
"Mike Fulton"
<mfulton@glamour To: <steem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
soft.com> cc:
<larmstrong@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: Subject: Re: [steem] Classic
Video Games Make a Comeback
steem-bounce@fre
elists.org
06/24/2004 03:26
PM
Please respond
to steem
Lance, your message says Atari had the Windows environment "many many years
before" and that Bill Gates "stole" the Windows idea and put it on the PC.
The release of the PC version of Windows was delayed, for a wide variety of
reasons, so it didn't actually hit the market until after the Atari ST was
on sale. But it was in development LONG before the Atari ST existed in any
form.
I guess you're not aware that the Tramiels negotiated with Microsoft to put
WINDOWS on the Atari ST computer *before* they spoke to Digital Research
(DRI) about GEM. They ended up going with GEM in large part because DRI
also had CPM68K already running on the 68000 processor, and Atari still
needed a DOS. Microsoft had nothing similar to offer for the 68000
processor, and despite how they might have felt about GEM versus Windows,
Atari wouldn't have been able to get the machine to market on schedule if
they had to write their own DOS from scratch. So they went with DRI.
Mike Fulton
(Former Atari employee)
-----Original Message-----
From: steem-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:steem-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Lance J Armstrong
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 8:09 AM
To: steem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [steem] Classic Video Games Make a Comeback
...
Atari had the Windows environment many many years before it finally started
appearing on PC's. In case the youngsters out don't know the truth about
Gates, Gates 'STOLE' the Windows idea and put it on the PC, and he got
away
with it. That's right, Mr. Rich Man Gates, alias "the Thief", didn't
come up with the idea, he stole it from the guys who did. Just look at
the
Atari TOS environment.
Windows looks so much like it it isn't funny. Well, there you have it.
As you know
in this world we live in, money rules.
...
LA
Plano, Tx
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