START VOL. 3 NO. 9 / APRIL 1989 / PAGE 11 START VOL. 3 NO. 9 / APRIL 1989 / PAGE 11by Stephen Mortimer
and the START Staff
Toronto-based Photopreneurs, Inc., has released their Sportscard system, based on an ST and the Atari SLM804 Laser Printer. The Sportscard software was written by Alan Page, author of Flash and X*Press and now an employee of Photopreneurs. The system is used to create personalized sports cards similar to those of professional athletes. The Atari system is used to create the backs of the cards. The name, date of birth, height, weight, team, position and sport are entered into the software that then prints out a custom card on the Atari Laser. The card is then combined with a picture and heat-sealed in a plastic holder.
Photopreneurs chose the Atari system for its fast, quality output and inexpensive price compared to other systems. The system will be sold to concession stands at amusement parks, sports arenas and other locations.
Atari Games Corporation of Milpitas, California (not affiliated with Atari Computer of Sunnyvale), has filed suit in Federal District Court charging Nintendo, the home video-game giant, with several antitrust violations. The lawsuit follows an earlier Atari decision to develop and market its own game cartridges for the Nintendo hardware.
According to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, Atari's decision threatens to undermine Nintendo's recent lock on the lucrative home videogame market. With control of 80 percent of that market, Nintendo of America, Inc. expects 1988 sales of over $1.7 billion. Much of the growth has come from careful control of the development and distribution of its games. Atari alleges that this control is expressly meant to stifle competition.
In what has been called a "major victory" in the software copyright field, a Federal Court of Appeals reversed an earlier decision that Epyx, Inc. had violated copyrights of Data East, a Japanese video-game maker.
The suit, brought against the computer game publisher based in Redwood City, California, was an attempt to secure copyright protection for Data East's Karate Champ Game. The appellate court upheld the right of game developers "to create and distribute products that express the same ideas, even if the products are similar."
Commenting on the decision, Epyx chairman and CEO David Morse said, "We believe this is the first time in the computer industry that a 'look and feel' lawsuit has been decided in favor of the defendant."
The TAXI controller board lets the ST connect to Ethernet networking systems and has many other options. Developed in Canada, TAXI stands for The Atari eXtended Interface and is being developed by FutureDOS. TAXI comes in three configurations: a stand-alone box with its own 68000 processor, a board for the Mega's internal bus connector, or a unit that connects to the DMA port on 520 and 1040 ST systems.
TAXI can be custom-designed for each application. Features available on TAXI include the aforementioned Ethernet interface, a true SCSI interface, up to eight full duplex bidirectional serial lines and two parallel printer interfaces.
The Ethernet interface will be the first one available in the United States for the ST. Ethernet is one of several industry-wide communications interfaces and is used on PCs and mainframes. An Ethernet network among ST systems will allow file serving and peripheral sharing in addition to the ability to interface with almost any computer. The serial lines allow the ST to act as a multiplexing system between computers and serial peripherals.
According to Avygdor Moise of FutureDOS, TAXI will cost "somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000," depending upon component costs and options installed. TAXI is still under development at press time. For more information, contact FutureDOS R&D, 1207120 Torresdale Ave., North York, Ontario M2R 3N7, (416) 736-0321.
Atari Corp. achieved sales of $153.9 million for the third quarter of 1988, an increase of 91 percent over 1987. In the same period, operating income fell $15 million to $5.2 million. Net income was down $9 million to $900,000. For the first three quarters this year, sales are up 126 percent due in part to the purchase of Federated Group. Overall, net income has fallen from last year's $38.7 million to $12.1 million.
The Computer-and-Video-Game division accounted for $97 million of Atari's total sales. This represents a 21 percent increase over the $80.4 million of the year before. Operating income was $11.9 million compared to $15 million.
Growth of the Computer division was restricted by the high price and shortage of memory chips. The higher cost of memory chips adversely affected profit margins and contributed to the lower earnings. Also, Federated Group had an operating loss of $6.7 million on sales of $56.9 million.
Positive notes include the announcement of a contract between Atari and a major DRAM producer that assures Atari of enough chips to expand the Computer division in 1989. Also, research and development expenditures were almost $6 million, the highest they have been since the fourth quarter of 1987.
ISD Marketing, distributors of Calamus, the desktop publishing program for the ST, has just signed a major agreement with Font Technologies, a subsidiary of Compugraphics. The nature of the agreement involves the licensing of 84 Compugraphic Fonts, beginning in February 1989. Some of the fonts include Garamond, Old English and Cyrillic.
An interface has been developed for the ST that allows Calamus to print directly to Linotronic typesetting machines at resolutions in excess of 2,000 dpi. The interface connects from the ST directly to the LI-2 port on the Linotronic machine and actually bypasses the RIP (Raster Image Processor). ISD hails this as a major breakthrough for DTP on the ST.
After many months of development, TOS 1.4 is nearing release. It may in fact be available by the time you read this. Atari is considering the release of a disk-based version of the new TOS before the ROM-based version is available. According to Atari, the new version of TOS fixes almost every known bug. There are also many new features that the user will appreciate. It is faster in almost every respect, especially with hard disks. With several minor changes, TOS 1.4 is compatible with the 68030 processor that is reported to be the heart of the forthcoming Atari TT.
The major changes in TOS 1.4:
Programmers should also find the following additional changes interesting:
Stephen Mortimer is a Contributing Editor for START.
If you have a hot tip let us know atNews, Notes & Quotes, START Magazine, 544 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107.