| Well, I was disappointed, here's my report:
The people who own the Atari dealers were there - I recognized the ones
that have been at Abacus meetings - and a few people from Atari were
there. I got business cards from:
- Mike Dendo (VP Sales at Atari)
- Nathan Potechin, from ISD Marketing (Calmus, Accounts, DynaCADD,
Masterplan, and VIP Professional)
- Jerry Feldman, the Director of the Atari ST user Group of the
Boston Computer Society.
At 3:00 there were this small group of people milling around aimlessly
in a large almost empty room The room could have held 30 or 40 people,
and there were at best 12 people there. No organization whatsoever. No
presentation or anything like that, just some mingle time. A lot of
people were leaving just as I got there, including Mike Dendo.
While Jerry (from BCS) was being introduced to people, I got pushy
enough to say "and I'm Jeff Lomicka from the Acton/Boxboro user's
group", which generated a humph or two. Jerry (from BCS) was the
friendliest of the people I spoke to.
When I got there at 2:45, they had a Folio out on a table with some
dealer types playing with it, but at 3:00 it was taken away for some
sort of meeting in the lobby of four people in business suits. I
eavesdropped for a few seconds to hear things like "we had to modify
the battery compartment to ...". If you were really pushy, and came
earlier than I did, you might have been able to actually try it. (I
didn't care, since I consider the Folio to be unrelated to the ST.
It's just another pocket calcualtor to me.)
They did have a Viking monitor from Moniterm on display, the 19-inch
high resolution tube, attached to a Mega, running Calmus. That was
nice to see, and was the high point of my brief visit. There was a
Megafile-44 (the cartridge drive) sitting on a table, and a 1040. Both
disconnected and off.
They didn't have a Stacy, which is what I most wanted to see. I asked
Mike Dendo about the Stacy, and if it was really going to ship in
September, and he said "Yes it will". I told him I was anxious to see
what it looked like, and that was why I came, so he took my name and
address and said he'd send me some marketing stuff on it. (I'll be
sure to let you know when or if it shows up.) He said "There is only
one Stacy in the U.S. right now". and that "There was some trouble
with the tooling", the mold for making the case. He also said that the
one that was broken at the Dearborn show is now "history". It was a
hand-made case.
As they were leaving, I spoke to Mike Cohan from Computer Bug, and the
guy that wrote NeoDesk (who I've met twice now but I never remember his
name). They attended the dealer program. I asked "Okay, did you learn
anything?". They only thing they heard, that they didn't already know,
was the dealer price for the Folio. This means he will be able to
figure out what he can afford to sell it for. (No he didn't tell me
what the dealer price is, and I didn't ask.) Mike's feeling is that
there is no way Atari can come through with the Stacy is September.
The machine wasn't mentioned ONCE during the dealer presentation.
Somewhere along the way something doesn't add up. They tell him it's
held up "by FCC", but other SMALLER hardware manufactures he knows can
get 48 hour turnaround at a testing facility. And how do you expect to
sell in quantity in September, where here is is mid-July and there is
"only one in the U.S.", and not even talk to the dealers about it? - in
theory it will be here in 6 weeks! Mike figures it MIGHT be here by
December, but that I shouldn't hold my breath.
Buzz said he was going to be there, but by 3:15 I still didn't see him,
so I left. Perhaps he was there earlier or later, and had a better
experience than I did. Personally, I've learned more at Abacus meetings.
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