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Atari
In Argentina
by Facundo
![[Photo: Atari 1040ST]](images/argent1.jpg)
As you can see,
this is my 1040STFM, with 4 MB of RAM. I had a
dream of having it fully
working with a hard disk drive and connected to the internet.
I had a dream of being a GFA developer. I had a dream of being part
of Atari meetings
here in my country. Now, it's resting, lonely,
under my bed. Why? It's
very hard to be an Atari fan in some corners
of the world:
- I bought it
for almost US $200, two years ago (Think it's
too much? Keep reading).
- I wanted to
have a hard disk for it, I paid $200 more to ICD
for a Link II. They never
sent it.
- I bought a
Supra 20 MB hard disk on eBay ($60). It arrived broken,
it never worked.
- A friend of
mine from England sent me a complete set of
hard disk, SCSI adapter and CD-ROM drive.
It never reached my country (the mail office
have lost it, I paid
$40 for it).
- Now my country
is having economical difficulties, and we're
in "default".
That means all the people here have three times
lower salary than two
years ago. So, it's impossible for me to
buy even a $50 Ethernet
adapter or SCSI adapter.
- The only technician
who knows the Atari hardware and could help
me to improve my Atari
doesn't reply to my mails (he's having lots
of work I heard).
- I started to
develop software for the ST. My first project
was HTMLGen (http://www.myatari.net/issues/apr2001/html_gen.htm),
a very tiny automatic
HTML generator. But without a hard disk it's very
hard to keep different
versions of source code, and compilation times
are long. So I
gave up. Hey! I wanted to make my contribution.
When I entered
the Atari scene almost three years ago, the
story was completely different.
There was even an "Atari Fan Club"
with almost ten members. Today,
no more fan club. Although there are many Atari
fans here in Argentina, it seems that there are no efforts
to
make a meeting, a party or something
like that. Sad...
Another interesting
thing is that in my country the STs had a golden
age, they were
even built here in Argentina. My 1040 was built
in the province of San
Luis. Because of that, there are many
STs going from here to there
in this country, but there are only three or four Falcons
(which made me realize
that I was never going to have that incredible
machine), and
no TTs.
![[Photo: Atari made in Argentina]](images/argent2.jpg)
I also had a
web site called Alternarama, a site
fully dedicated to alternative platforms
such as Atari, Amiga, Mac OS... The site
was in Spanish and after almost two years I decided to
stop it
because of the very poor
visits it had (no more than 15 per day).
As you can see,
I tried everything. I tried being a member of
a fan club, I tried
to have a hard disk for my 1040STFM, I tried to have
a web site for alternative
platforms, I tried to develop new applications...
and everything was
a disaster. Incredible, huh? Yes, it's way
too much. I give up. But don't misunderstand
me, I'm not against the platform.
I love it. I love Atari. But as it seems, I'm
not chosen to be
an Atari fan.
farena@tectimes.com
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