Was there a reason why US 3rd party A8 compat. disk drives didnt come to UK

[carmel_andrews]

From the point of view that according to the various mentions of such disk drives in page 6 and DB pub's ATARI USER, the only Atari supporter even daring to stock these drives were Home Entertainment centre in Brum (Birmingham for those that hate shortforms)

 

Even then the only one they stocked was the Indus GT, nothing by trak data, Percom or Rana

 

 

Where there problems with Atari dealers importing these drives from the US, or were they pressured by Atari UK to not selling or stocking these drives

 

That is one possible theory, the only possible other one i can think of was that, given the popularity (as well as plethora) of disk drive upgrades/mods, like Warp lazer/lazer USD/Hyperdrive 1050, Happy, The chip/Archiver/Sup. Archiver 1 and 2, The Duplicator, USD, Speedy/Super speedy and lastly IS plate 1050, which essentially gave 1050 (or 810) users the same densities and capabilities of these 3rd party A8 compatible drives but without the double sided format option

 

I was lucky enough to have briefly owned an Indus GT which i bought from CEX's retro store in euston (before they shut it down) if i'd known how long my one had lasted i would have bought the other 3 that were also there, mind you, considering that CEX were selling them at 90/95 squid a pop (no PSU or SIO lead)...I don't think buying the other 3 was much of an option

 

I did know someone that had a RANA disk drive (can't remember what version, since they came in single or double drive cases) but he sold it along with his entire A8 setup/collection to someone up north

 

prior to buying the one at CEX, I was offered one by someone in southfields (just the other side of putney, south london), I chickened out and bought his Sa2 upped 1050 instead

[Bryan]

Home computers took a while longer to take off in Europe/UK, so there wasn't much of a market for costly add-ons. Also there were many other machines more popular than the US brands. Atari was still shipping cassette drives to the rest of the world long after they were considered obsolete in the US.

[high voltage]

The 1050 was very popular in Europe, small fdd makers didn't have a foreign distribution network so they didn't bother

Edited March 12, 2013 by high voltage

[oracle_jedi]

Atari was a niche player in the European market in the early 80's, and with the limited disposable incomes, most users were stuck with tape and could not afford disk.

 

Remember the UK had its own third-party disk drive manufacturer; Cumana provided drives for the BBC Micro, Sinclair QL and later the Atari ST. Neither Cumana nor the US 3rd party manufacturers saw any benefit in shipping Atari 8bit drives for the UK market.

 

For Percom or Rana to access such a market, they would have needed to adapt their products to 240V/50Hz as well as open up a UK distribution and post-sales support operation. UK consumer laws meant that those firms would have had to honour 12 month warranties instead of the 90-day warranties US law allowed for. Currency fluctuations would have meant potential profits could easily have been wiped out by external factors. Before the EU, drives packaged and shipped to the UK might not have been suitable for sale in Germany or Ireland.

 

That's alot of cost and risk for limited gain, and for small companies that risk is unmanagable.

[MEtalGuy66]

Well, after commodore engineers reverse engineered the atari chipset and stole the technology for use in the C=64, atari decided to flood the market with 1050s in order to crush any chances that aftermarket disk drive companies might have of selling products that were based on stolen/reverse engineered atari technology. There were already several well established aftermarket disk drive manufacturers in the US which already had a decent domestic market share prior to the big chipset reverse engineering scandal at commodore.. Atari did it's best to make sure they didnt grab any market share internationally. Jay Miner and Kurt Vendell (then a child, but secretly averting child-labor laws and working for atari) both spearheaded this operation by making secret visits to the UK and various European countries to buy up any aftermarket disk drive stock that may have made it to vendors' shelves..

[KLund1]

the big chipset reverse engineering scandal at commodore..

 

What was this? Never heard about it.

[sack-c0s]

I think from a UK perspective the simple answer applies to all the 8-bit machines except the Acorn BBC machines:

 

Things tended to be (and still are) more expensive when they arrive here so you blew all the cash you could scrape together (by begging, part-time jobs,chaining birthdays+christmases from now until the second coming together, exaggerating the educational potential, etc) on the machine itself. There's no way in hell you could afford a diskdrive for a good long time after buying the machine - if ever.

 

The BBC being the exception because it was an expensive machine that 'teachers pet'-types or teachers tended to own and if you had the cash to flash for one of those then a diskdrive was either within reach or a necessity.

 

No conspiracy involving industrial espionage or anything like that - just a boring lack of cash

Edited March 14, 2013 by sack-c0s

[Lazarus]

What was this? Never heard about it.

The engineers looked around on the market when designing the VIC-II, mainly at TI99, Intellivision and Atari machines. They looked at the features those platforms offered and extrapolated what they would need for a future platform. Some guys (like MEtalGuy66) turn this into "reverse engineering the chipset" which is bollocks ofcourse.

[potatohead]

There was zero reverse engineering. VIC II works entirely differently from the Atari 8 bit chipset.

[sack-c0s]

if you reread the post it all mentions a pre-pubescent Kurt Vendel working undercover. With this is mind maybe that post isn't intended to be taken so seriously?

[Innovative Leisure]

Well, after commodore engineers reverse engineered the atari chipset and stole the technology for use in the C=64, atari decided to flood the market with 1050s in order to crush any chances that aftermarket disk drive companies might have of selling products that were based on stolen/reverse engineered atari technology. There were already several well established aftermarket disk drive manufacturers in the US which already had a decent domestic market share prior to the big chipset reverse engineering scandal at commodore.. Atari did it's best to make sure they didnt grab any market share internationally. Jay Miner and Kurt Vendell (then a child, but secretly averting child-labor laws and working for atari) both spearheaded this operation by making secret visits to the UK and various European countries to buy up any aftermarket disk drive stock that may have made it to vendors' shelves..

 

*Evil laugh* Bwahahahaha!

 

 

Actually didn't Shiraz Shivji and the other ex-Commodore engineers attempt to use Commodore disk drive technology for future Atari Corp. products when they had the injunction filed against them?

Edited March 14, 2013 by Innovative Leisure

[Rybags]

Actually, the magnetic flux direction will be reversed depending on which side of Greenwich you're on at the time.

 

This presents a conundrum for drive manufacturers since in the UK you might be on one or the other, or in fact travel betwen the two.

The simple solution is to incorporate a switch to allow the user to select the correct polarity depending on the longitude of their location but increases the cost of the drive to the point where it might have been more expensive than the Atari offering.

 

Modern day manufacturers have the benfit of GPS which is incorporated into the controller chips of HDDs and the firmware can simply detect location and switch polarity to suit.

[Innovative Leisure]

Actually didn't Shiraz Shivji and the other ex-Commodore engineers attempt to use Commodore disk drive technology for future Atari Corp. products when they had the injunction filed against them?

 

Sorry, forgot to attach the link.

 

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1985/Judge-Rules-Against-Commodore-in-Computer-Secret-Allegations/id-2828db7c7a0f046850244ea1eb43f406

[MEtalGuy66]

 

The engineers looked around on the market when designing the VIC-II, mainly at TI99, Intellivision and Atari machines. They looked at the features those platforms offered and extrapolated what they would need for a future platform. Some guys (like MEtalGuy66) turn this into "reverse engineering the chipset" which is bollocks ofcourse.

 

 

 

http://www.ataritimes.com/article.php?showarticle=463

 

Carmel did that years ago, and we've been giving him hell over it ever since. If you aren't astute enough to detect ENORMOUS and FRIVOLOUS sarcasm, then I hope this clarifies it for you..

 

Nothing I said in that post was meant to be taken seriously by anyone except Carmel.. He's special..

 

Want a REALLY good laugh? Read this:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/147811-what-if-atari-8bit/page__st__100

 

Ahh the good ol' days.. When Carmel still had an avatar photo...

Edited March 14, 2013 by MEtalGuy66

[potatohead]

@all, no worries. Better safe than sorry. Tensions there are sometimes ugly as it is.

[sack-c0s]

This also explains why brits are better at some games - we played the life out of them because we didn't have the patience to wait for another to load from tape

[Bryan]

I remember the feeling of when dad got me a disk drive and a buddy at school copied a disk of 5 or 6 games for me. After being stuck with two games for almost a year, I was just about pissing myself. If they made a drug that gave the you the feeling of being a kid in the early '80s with his first computer, I'd OD on it.

[+wood_jl]

Want a REALLY good laugh? Read this:

 

http://www.atariage....t/page__st__100

 

You are very funny! Thanks for the laugh!

[carmel_andrews]

Well, after commodore engineers reverse engineered the atari chipset and stole the technology for use in the C=64, atari decided to flood the market with 1050s in order to crush any chances that aftermarket disk drive companies might have of selling products that were based on stolen/reverse engineered atari technology. There were already several well established aftermarket disk drive manufacturers in the US which already had a decent domestic market share prior to the big chipset reverse engineering scandal at commodore.. Atari did it's best to make sure they didnt grab any market share internationally. Jay Miner and Kurt Vendell (then a child, but secretly averting child-labor laws and working for atari) both spearheaded this operation by making secret visits to the UK and various European countries to buy up any aftermarket disk drive stock that may have made it to vendors' shelves..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seeming as though you want to dredge up history (re: posts 5 and 14) perhaps I should ‘return the favour’, after all…One good turn deserves another, as the old line goes

 

I seem to remember back in the annals of Atariage history (sorry can’t be arsed or bothered to find the link or use the search service) that a certain person (who shall remain nameless) wanted to sell his Atari 8bit disk games on ebay (I believe there was a thread about said auction/listing on this v. forum)

 

Now, you may ask, what’s wrong with that, however there was something very interesting regarding the disks…..According to the person placing the auction/listing that the disks were ‘all originals’ (i.e. not pirate/copies) however in the 20 years or so that they’d kept them they had somehow magically ‘lost their original labels’, if I recall the thread/auction correctly all or most of the disks had ‘lost all their original labels’ (hence the fact that all the disks had homebrew or self written labels attached to the ‘original disks’), which naturally or obviously lead to suggestions that the disks might not be as ‘original’ as the auction seemed to state or infer/imply

 

I will, for the purpose of this post refrain from using the exact words that suggested that the disks were not as ‘original’ as the auction seemed to state, and only because I seem to recall or remember that a certain person here (who shall remain nameless) started spitting his dummy out and threatened anyone that suggested that the disks were not originals with legal action (I guess the certain persons angle would have been, suing them for libel, slander or defamation or similar)

 

Perhaps the person concerned can remind me, did they manage to sell the disks on eBay, or did eBay somehow get wind that the disks might not be ‘originals’ as stated in the listing/auction and promptly removed the auction or listing

 

Couple of reasons why I bring this up now (apart from dredging up history like the person concerned seems to want to) firstly, I still have all my old boot menu disks and dos/PD disks from when I was heavy into actually using my A8 hardware (some 500 plus disks) I’d say that over ¾’s of those disks are 20 years or older and the remainder are no later then 1997/8, most of the disks were put in an industrial supplies box with some other stuff and another large industrial box placed on top of that box (the ones with the disks in)

 

Late last year I decided to see if the disks were OK, so I dug the box out and thumbed through all the disks and guess what, not a single one had managed to loose their original label

 

Interesting that none of my disks managed to lose their original labels yet in a certain persons eBay auction/listing, all or most of their disks had ‘magically’ lost their original labels

 

The 2^nd reason why I bought this up, If as the person concerned claimed, that the disks they were selling on eBay were ‘originals’ then why did they feel the need to threaten people with legal action and since they did (if I recall correctly) post comments in that thread, why didn’t the person concerned provide evidence to back up their claim that the disks were indeed originals….After all if you have nothing to hide (i.e. the disks were indeed originals) then you have nothing to fear by providing evidence to back up your claim

 

If eBay did get wind of the fact that the disks that the person concerned was trying to sell were not ‘originals’ as the person claimed they were in the auction and therefore removed the auction, why didn’t the person concerned appeal the removal and get the auction reinstated or just re-advertise the disks, if as the original auction claimed that all the disks were ‘originals’

[Bryan]

[Lazarus]

If you aren't astute enough to detect ENORMOUS and FRIVOLOUS sarcasm, then I hope this clarifies it for you..

Hehe yeah, but on some people you might think they are sarcastic but they are dead serious with it

[flashjazzcat]

Sarcasm is almost impossible to reliably detect (or perhaps it would be better to say "reliably express") in forum posts, in my experience, without the liberal use of emoticons.

Edited March 15, 2013 by flashjazzcat

[Magic Knight]

This also explains why brits are better at some games - we played the life out of them because we didn't have the patience to wait for another to load from tape

 

Especially the first batch of kikstart by mastertronic with the enormous 32 minute loading times due to 10 second gaps between cassette bleeps.

 

Once this loaded that was it for the day!

[Magic Knight]

Seeming as though you want to dredge up history (re: posts 5 and 14) perhaps I should ‘return the favour’, after all…One good turn deserves another, as the old line goes

 

I seem to remember back in the annals of Atariage history (sorry can’t be arsed or bothered to find the link or use the search service) that a certain person (who shall remain nameless) wanted to sell his Atari 8bit disk games on ebay (I believe there was a thread about said auction/listing on this v. forum)

 

Now, you may ask, what’s wrong with that, however there was something very interesting regarding the disks…..According to the person placing the auction/listing that the disks were ‘all originals’ (i.e. not pirate/copies) however in the 20 years or so that they’d kept them they had somehow magically ‘lost their original labels’, if I recall the thread/auction correctly all or most of the disks had ‘lost all their original labels’ (hence the fact that all the disks had homebrew or self written labels attached to the ‘original disks’), which naturally or obviously lead to suggestions that the disks might not be as ‘original’ as the auction seemed to state or infer/imply

 

I will, for the purpose of this post refrain from using the exact words that suggested that the disks were not as ‘original’ as the auction seemed to state, and only because I seem to recall or remember that a certain person here (who shall remain nameless) started spitting his dummy out and threatened anyone that suggested that the disks were not originals with legal action (I guess the certain persons angle would have been, suing them for libel, slander or defamation or similar)

 

Perhaps the person concerned can remind me, did they manage to sell the disks on eBay, or did eBay somehow get wind that the disks might not be ‘originals’ as stated in the listing/auction and promptly removed the auction or listing

 

Couple of reasons why I bring this up now (apart from dredging up history like the person concerned seems to want to) firstly, I still have all my old boot menu disks and dos/PD disks from when I was heavy into actually using my A8 hardware (some 500 plus disks) I’d say that over ¾’s of those disks are 20 years or older and the remainder are no later then 1997/8, most of the disks were put in an industrial supplies box with some other stuff and another large industrial box placed on top of that box (the ones with the disks in)

 

Late last year I decided to see if the disks were OK, so I dug the box out and thumbed through all the disks and guess what, not a single one had managed to loose their original label

 

Interesting that none of my disks managed to lose their original labels yet in a certain persons eBay auction/listing, all or most of their disks had ‘magically’ lost their original labels

 

The 2^nd reason why I bought this up, If as the person concerned claimed, that the disks they were selling on eBay were ‘originals’ then why did they feel the need to threaten people with legal action and since they did (if I recall correctly) post comments in that thread, why didn’t the person concerned provide evidence to back up their claim that the disks were indeed originals….After all if you have nothing to hide (i.e. the disks were indeed originals) then you have nothing to fear by providing evidence to back up your claim

 

If eBay did get wind of the fact that the disks that the person concerned was trying to sell were not ‘originals’ as the person claimed they were in the auction and therefore removed the auction, why didn’t the person concerned appeal the removal and get the auction reinstated or just re-advertise the disks, if as the original auction claimed that all the disks were ‘originals’

 

Shouldn't this be on the 'why ebay sucks' thread or something?....

[MEtalGuy66]

No, Carmel just completely missed the point. I was trying to derail the thread into a carmel-ridicule session.. And somehow, he seems to have "retorted" with some completely irrelevant crap. heheh.. I dont know what connection he thinks this floppy-disk Ebay auction has to any of this. Maybe somewhere in that thread that I linked earlier, there was some discussion of this.. I guess he missed the posts where I was acting like him, or the retard pics in the very end..

Edited March 18, 2013 by MEtalGuy66