Falcon 030 Microbox board

[KLund1]

I was cruising through the Computer History Museum web site and saw this, & the case for it.

Anyone know anything about it? Just wondering?

[alexh]

It's was the next Atari Corp computer to be produced after the Falcon. Never released. There is quite a bit of information on the Microbox and higher resolution photos over the net.

The Falcon040 Microbox case is widely considered to be the inspiration for the PS2 case.

http://www.defunctgames.com/shows.php?id=freezeframe-43

[wongck]

I think it suppose to have some slots for expansion.
would have been great....

[EvilFranky]

It's was the next Atari Corp computer to be produced after the Falcon. Never released. There is quite a bit of information on the Microbox and higher resolution photos over the net.

The Falcon040 Microbox case is widely considered to be the inspiration for the PS2 case.

http://www.defunctgames.com/shows.php?id=freezeframe-43

Not just an inspiration, it's in the patents for the PS2!

[DarkLord]

I think it suppose to have some slots for expansion.
would have been great....

When you read the stats on it, it just makes you want to cry that it never
made it out the door.

[EvilFranky]

I know

It would have been the A4000 killer...not that the Falcon030 was far off mind

[wongck]

When you read the stats on it, it just makes you want to cry that it never made it out the door.

well. i think the falcon040 ought to be the one I rather have my hands on than the micobox falcon030.
the micorbox falcon030 advantage is just the 32 bits TT bus.
The Falcon040 with 3 expansion slots... now that will do nicely.
I guess it's something like the hades.

[Frank B]

I'd have liked them to put the jaguar hardware in there. That would have been really cool.
It's a shame they didn't release the 040 based Falcons. They would have been nice

[wongck]

yeah. falcon040 had rumored of Jaq hardware. That work have certainly be awesome.

[Dark Willow]

I must admit I really don't understand some decisions Atari made at that time. There's a load of things which have confused me:

Starting work on a whole new console with the Panther (never made it to production) when the ST was out and the 8-bit consoles showing their age. I don't see why they didn't get more mileage for their money by designing a console version of the STe in paralell with the STe computer project. The XEGS was a good take on the theory but basing it on the 8-bit technology in 1987 was very shot-sighted, what with the Mega Drive / Genesis being just around the corner. Tweaking the STe graphics to allow for a 256 color low-res mode (which I believe was originally intended for the STe anyway, and did make into the TT in the end) and either having more cartridge ROM directly addressable (or even just using bank switched carts) would create a system that would have required only the most modest new design work compared to the panther, whilst holding it's own against the Mega Drive, and could probably even have given the SNES a run for its money.

Similarly, the whole process of development for the Falcon and Jaguar seems slightly bizzare. Using the ST case and the MultiTOS debacle both looked bad, as did hobbling the system with slow RAM and a 14mb maximum. This was done when the TT was sitting there not doing much. Adding the DSP, VIDEL and improved sound to the TT would have achieved a significantly better and more mature system for essentially the same development cost, and could have been promoted to a wider number of markets (i.e. small office, DTP and CAD as well as the music industry and home users).

Additionally when the Falcon failed, Atari didn't attempt to re-imagine it as a console, again despite the Videl having obvious gaming potential as an early 32 bit system. There was even an un-marketed CD-ROM project sitting around, so making it a CD based system would have been comparatively simple compared to the amount of effort being poured into the Jaguar, essentially reinventing a lot of Falcon technology.

[Dal]

As I remember, the Atari press had strong reasons to believe that Atari were designing a new 'PC-Style' case for the Falcon. However after delays and their clear intention to get it out the door to focus more on the Jaguar, it was just released in the STE-style case.

[Dark Willow]

As I remember, the Atari press had strong reasons to believe that Atari were designing a new 'PC-Style' case for the Falcon. However after delays and their clear intention to get it out the door to focus more on the Jaguar, it was just released in the STE-style case.

I remember similar things being said as well, though they could have used the MSTe / TT case which was already sitting around as well *headdesk*

Sometimes I think the Atari marketing bods actually went to great lengths to try and make absolutely sure their systems would fail in the market

[DarkLord]

Sometimes I think the Atari marketing bods actually went to great lengths to try and make absolutely sure their systems would fail in the market

You ain't the only one...

[calimero]

Similarly, the whole process of development for the Falcon and Jaguar seems slightly bizzare. Using the ST case and the MultiTOS debacle both looked bad, as did hobbling the system with slow RAM and a 14mb maximum.

same thing bother me to.

I think that management at Atari set limits to cut cost of F030:

- you need to use existing case, we will not invest money in production of new case
- Rodolphe Czuba explain why Falcon have 16bit CPU bus to memory: if it had 32bit bus, than Falcon would need to have 8MB as standard and that will increase price

I even read somewhere that top management of Atari would not release Falcon030 at all! but lower level management manage to persuade them to produce Falcon 030 with compromise (e.g. ST case). As I read, only 60.000 were made and sold.


and something else bother me: TT was done by Shiraz Shivji, he left Atari just before TT was release. (btw TT use two Shifter chips to achieve high res and 256 colors. right?)

as TT is built on ST architecture, expend it, I would say that Falcon is totally another story (VIDEL, DSP, SDMA...); it looks like that _different_ team of engineers make it from scratch!

who was "father" of Falcon? (as Shiraz was father of ST and TT)... and is VIDEL Atari custom made chip or standard, existing one only choose by Atari?

[Mal7921]

- Rodolphe Czuba explain why Falcon have 16bit CPU bus to memory: if it had 32bit bus, than Falcon would need to have 8MB as standard and that will increase price

That does not explain why the TT030 and the 32 bit A1200 shipped with 2MB, indeed if the base memory was set at 4MB (Which it generally was as 1MB would not have left much RAM once extended screen resolutions/colours and additional RAM for TOS were taken into account) a 32 bit bus would have been fine and resulted in a far better machine.

What is more likely is that since the initial development was done in a butchered STe to see if the dual processor config of 030 and DSP would work, the initial hardware development and prototype chips would also be integrated into the same bus to see what was possible. As rumors of the STe graphic specs closely mirror some of the features of the shipped Falcon (Colour palette and enhanced resolutions), it is also possible that past research and development was also reused and as this was most likely done for the ST series, sticking with the ST bus design would be a logical cost saving.

Sticking with the same case design was just stupid though, that was penny pinching that even Amstrad would be ashamed of (Since it was the decision to remove some resistors that caused many of the problems with the PC2000 series, all for the sake of a couple of pence per machine).

There is also something else to consider, the Apple effect. Apple released the LC series with the same compromised design idea (32 bit chip on a 16 bit bus) to stop the low end colour Mac from cannibalising sales of the Mac II series, as Atari were supposedly planning to release a high end Falcon at some point, it also stands to reason that they did not want the home sibling to cannibalise sales of the higher end machine. After all, up until the launch of the STe, Mega STe and TT, whichever ST you got was pretty much the same, except for the addition of a BLiTTER chip and a different case with the Mega's (Ok, and an expansion slot and internal connector for the ASCI port and battery backed clock, but the main hardware was identical).

Lets face it, Atari spread themselves too thinly and made some stupid decisions, for example developing a piece of hardware up to the point of production then pulling it at the last minute (Panther). All that money wasted, had it been released it may well have at least paid for itself if not allowed for cashflow within the company. Instead they relaunched the STfm at £99 in the UK into a retail channel clogged with unsold STe's claiming they were going after the console buyers.

Bad mistake after bad mistake once Sam took the reigns, shame really.

[calimero]

Regarding 32bit ram - rodolphe explain exactly that: if you put 32 bit bus than you must have 2MB or 8MB of ram. 2 is not enough, 8 is too expensive in 1992.

Regarding Sam - it look likes that. Not sure when Jack step down and when Sam take CEO position? But when Sam have hearth attack, Jack come back as CEO and review everything, all curently projects, and his decision was that Jaguar is only viable option and shutdown everything else and focus only on Jaguar. (only F030 manage to survive this shuting down of everything)

Btw does anybody remeber Atari SST ? (super st) - I read in ST Format about this SST somewhere in 1991 so it is possible that this was falcon in early phase. I still wonder if Videl is custom mada?

[Mal7921]

There is as all page over at the Atari Museum on the SST, though does not say much more about the machine than basic specs. Would have been interesting to see, though likelihood is that it was lost or destroyed at some point.

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/16bits/est.html

[nativ]

Lets face it, Atari spread themselves too thinly and made some stupid decisions, for example developing a piece of hardware up to the point of production then pulling it at the last minute (Panther). All that money wasted, had it been released it may well have at least paid for itself if not allowed for cashflow within the company. Instead they relaunched the STfm at £99 in the UK into a retail channel clogged with unsold STe's claiming they were going after the console buyers.

I can see why they did that.. however it would have been probably a better idea to include the Panther design into the ST..... and let TOS1.62 STe's be PanSThErs ... That's the Falcon kinda...

It really didn't help instill confidence in the developers though, with relaunching the FM. Now we are able to do the fixing to run on all machine's but then I guess it would have been seen as another obstacle, and there were probably no documents to support it...? Also the rise of VGA gaming and the overcoming of the 640k limit.... etc...

[calimero]

@mal at atari museum there are infos only about EST. i will try to find ST Format issue with info about SST.

There are lot infos about Jaguar, Loki, Panthere, VM labs, ATW, Helios... on net but there is no background info about Falcon!

[Mal7921]

Wasn't Loki the codename for the ultra-secrete super spectrum at Sinclair research? Killed off by amstrad, even though the cpc464+ and cpc6128+ machines had a suspiciously similar specification...

The plot thickens there...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[calimero]

As I see it there are two "stream" inside Atari Corp.:

- 1st Shiraz Shivji: C64 - ST - TT

- 2nd Richard Miller: MetaComCo, Loki, Transputer ATW, Bloosom video, Flare, Jaguar

I can not only figure out from where Falcon come??

Shiraz was father of three machine. After Shiraz leave and Atari investement in ATW transputer and bringing Richard Miller at Sihraz ex position everything went wrong (at same time Sam take Jack role). Sinclair and dotcomo have great idea from this point of view, they try to outperform Amiga but at the end Atari have to many waste projects. They try to merge Bloosom with ST (Panther)... and than again VM Lab project with same people involved in Sinclair and Loki/Flair/Jaguar... This is not original Jack Tramiel Atari this is more unproffesional "we have great idea but we lack experince in execution" story..

I will try to make visual time line with people, project, company involved with Atari corp.

[nativ]

@mal at atari museum there are infos only about EST. i will try to find ST Format issue with info about SST.

There are lot infos about Jaguar, Loki, Panthere, VM labs, ATW, Helios... on net but there is no background info about Falcon!

Codename : Sparrow

[DarkLord]

Right Sparrow. Several of the Atari mags had pre-release reports on it, as well as
pictures 'n stuff...

[calimero]

Codename: Sparrow - that even sarrows on tree know

Anything more? Btw SST article in ST format was before Sparrow, in 1991.

[Mal7921]

Codename : Sparrow

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=635