Author: Ragstaff (nme-pr1.tpgi.com.au)
Date: 06-09-2003 13:47
Well GD, I think it's positive what you're doing, whether it's x86 or not :-)
I'm not sure if you should try to please us Atari people - it sounds to me like you're idea should be aimed at music people, midi etc.
The music scene is probably more closely related to the Atari scene than anything else... mainstream computer-users and people don't know about the atari, and more importantly, don't have that "fondness" for them.
The "fondness" factor is a bit hard to quantify, but I think it's one of the reasons you still have sites like this one running, with active communities on them.
Now, I can meet musicians around the place, of many ages (15 to 50) and not only do they know what ataris are, but they have the "fondness" - they'll say "Oh, yes I know those old things! They're still one of the most reliable little sequencers you can get", "I've been meaning to pick one up second-hand and have a play with it" . I meet people who say things like that everywhere - at university, at gigs etc.
I believe these people would really like your idea - packaged up like an atari, maybe smaller, portable, etc - they'd love it. Especially if it were cheap.
If you were going for that market, the most important thing to concentrate on, software wise, would be a really good sequencer....
Investing time in an OS - that'd be part of more longterm goals, of establishing the platform a little, getting a user base etc.
To do that, to be flexible enough to grow and support a good operating environment, then yeah, a good OS etc would be required, but it depends on the amount of time and money you have, and your aims... all you need to deliver to the music scene is cute little desktop and the sequencer running on something that is reliable, portable, and robust.
The extra work on an OS wouldn't really be appreciated for a while yet, and only then if the platform experienced some growth (hey, 10,000 users worldwide would be an achievement).
Those are my (perhaps not so coherent!) thoughts anyway.
Good luck,
Tom P
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