ST - YOUR FUTURE?
A few people wrote in after the
last issue complaining that we devoted too much space to the ST.
Understandable comment perhaps from those who have no intention
(at the moment) of buying an ST, but stop a minute and consider.
The ST is your future. In more ways than one. Let's face it, Atari
were in grave danger last year of sinking without trace and they
needed new products which would make the world sit up and take notice.
Those products had to be products of the future and the future of
home and personal computers will be firmly based on 16-bit machines.
Maybe not for a number of years, but it will come. Jack Tramiel
has done a remarkable job in making people sit up and take notice
and can now push Atari forward in both the 16 bit and 8 bit markets.
Without the ST there may have been no company to push forward, so
in one sense supporting the ST means continuing support of the existing
machines. There is another side though. All the publicity surrounding
the ST has made the public and the trade, particularly, more aware
of the Atari name with the result that many companies who have never
produced software for Atari are being tempted to dip their toe in
the water. Some of these are releasing only ST software but there
are others who are new to the 8 bit market and who are bringing
out some excellent titles. It is doubtful if these companies would
have been interested if Atari had maintained its low profile of
the past couple of years. There is a third way in which the ST represents
your future. If you become interested in programming you will undoubtedly
want to delve deeper into the capabilities of your machine. You
may want to learn machine language and eventually you may seek new
challenges. At that time you will be drawn to the greater power
of 16 bit machines and the ST will be the next logical step.
Just as you may, at the moment,
turn past more complex articles, turn past the ST pages if you want
to, but one day you may buy that ST and then you will be glad of
all that reading from past issues. In the meantime there is plenty
more in each issue for everybody. Don't worry, we won't desert you!
THANK YOU ... THANK YOU
I must say thank you to everyone
who put kind remarks on the Survey form with the last issue. The
'Comments' section was intended to allow you to comment on what
you thought was good or bad about the magazine but I was astonished
at how many of you just put down, in many different ways, how much
you enjoyed the magazine. The most popular request was that we go
monthly but it is a very big step to take and there are still many
tens of thousands of owners out there who don't know about us. Spread
the word, if enough people get to know about PAGE 6 who knows what
might happen!
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