Originally posted by 3351:
And odds are, if they even come up with anything like it it won't work as well, cost tons (or be free and crap) and the support for it will probably be n/a...
That's the strategie of MS (and sometimes Linux?) but not the one of Atari. TOS was a stabil operating system because it was small. All other possibilities that the hardware provided came as a support of a special program (special to its function). This concept is the best you can find.
Why trying to put all programs in the OS with an army of programmers because it must be released within the next half year. Do you mean you will get a qualified work out of it? I don't think so...
Originally posted by 3351:
Sorry man, passion for old Ataris is one thing (and we all share it BTW) but the practicality of owning one today and expecting to get as much out of it as one can get out of their Mac G5 is another fantasy.
I don't share this opinion because the 68k CPU was lightyears ahead of all the other CPUs. In 1996 we had a MC68060 CPU@66MHz that brought us 110 MIPS and was designed with an internal 64x64 bit multiplicator. No other CPU in 1996 has reached toward such high performed parameters including the first 3 Motorola's PPC CPUs.
Can you imagine? A CPU@66MHz is running faster than my old AMD K6/II @500MHz which ran even faster than a Pentium III @600MHz. I tell you if the new Atari will come the rest of the computer world will search for a new income...
Sure at first we 'Atarians' will be left behind the others because we only have some older programs to offer but they are mostly better than actual PC software.
One of the most advantages on Atari computers were the many competent software developers which made exclusivly good software products. Also the public domain market supplied many good programs for the TOS world.
BTW: Wasn't PD an invention by the Atarians?
Otherwise, Linux started with nothing more than a server kernel but what's on now? Linux kicks Windows away because the users did learn...
What do you have today? Many programs without any sense and a hand full of rain...
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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)