What if the 1090 had been released?

[tyranthraxus]

I am not one who is ever up to speed on prototypes so the recent 1090

auction was a pretty interesting revelation. So for the sake of discussion

and Marvel comics tradition. What If... the 1090 made to stores?

 

My personal opinion is that it would have bombed. Like the Commodore 128 developers would not program for the extra power because that would cut out the larger number of C=64 owners. So only diehard Atari users would have got it. Unless Atari came up with some hot software to utilize the expansion, it would have been like the C= 128.

 

However, while I don't think it would have sold well, it is an intriguing piece

of hardware. If it caught on, I wonder if the 8-bit market could have lasted longer with the ability to upgrade it. I imagine Commodore would have eventually come out with their own version and perhaps the Apple II as well. Being able to upgrade a few components could have stretched their life.

 

John

[Albert]

You're certainly correct in that Atari would not have sold a huge number of 1090 expansion units, but I sure as heck would have bought one! This could have extended the life of the Atari 8-bit considerably, especially since the device supported bus mastering, which effectively allowed a different CPU to be installed in one of the cards. The possibilities for further expansion would have been endless, just as having card slots in the IBM PC allowed incredible flexibility.

 

I can't imagine Atari ever thought they'd sell a huge number of these, but damn, it would have been cool if it had been completed. Other companies could then have produced inexpensive cards to fit in the chasis, rather than having to design complete solutions like the expensive MIO board from ICD. Thus, I think we could have seen a larger variety of hardware taking advantage of this box, compared to the very few number of products that connected to the PBI.

 

..Al

[+Allan]

Apple never had to come out with their own 1090 because it was built right in to all their computers except for the Apple IIc. What they also did was come out with the Apple IIgs, a sixteen-bit 65816 computer with 7 expansion slots. We have to thank the Woz for this though. If it wasn't for him Apple would have just dropped the Apple II line earlier and went on with the Mac. If only Commodore and Atari built a 65816 version of their computers. Well, at least we may have the 16-bit Commodore One soon and maybe a 65816 Atari as well if rumor is true and the woman developing the Commodore One decides on the Atari as her next project.

 

Allan

[Goochman]

Look how long it took folks to use 64K in the 8bit series after 1200XL/800XL came out. No one woulda done much with the 1090 - After the ST came out (and the software market was pretty much dried up for the 8bits) no one would've dumped the $$$ into the 1090 - Atari would've lost money putting all the units together for shipping.

 

Def a cool item that would've help us diehards later on (adding HDs, CDROMs, IBM emu , etc....), but at the time not much woulda be done IMHO.

[Callipygous]

Remember that the XL series was introduced in 1982 (1200XL). This was years before the 16bits (Mac/ST/Amiga). If the 1090 came out in early 1983, surely there would have been some development. I would agree that it is not a mass market item. Perhaps direct marketing would have worked, i.e., just call Atari and they ship you one. No fancy ads, packaging etc. Given the inventive nature of Atari hackers, today I would probably on the internet with my Atari via some card in the expansion box.

[tyranthraxus]

So aside from being a museum piece does the 1090 have any functionality today? I mean can the few lucky owners of them hook them

up and take advantage of the ports? Or does the lack of drivers make it

a display piece only?

 

John

 

BTW what is the Commodore One that was mentioned?

[Tempest]

Well the one on Ebay right now is sorta useless because it doesn't have any of the cards. Curt has a few of them, but I don't know if they have the drivers.

 

Tempest

[ataribernie]

If Commodore hadn't of bought Amiga, we may have seen an expansion box for the 1850XLD!

[Maury Markowitz]

Consider this: TI had a basically identical system for the 99/4. They sold so few that during the crash they started giving them away for free if you bought anything that plugged into one. Sales remained very close to zero.

 

I really can't imagine that that 1090 would have been any different. It might have if it was a part of the system all along -- an external version of slots that were internal on the 800 or something -- but as others have pointed out this would have been one of those things you don't develop for because "no one has one".

 

Maury

[Curt Vendel]

Consider this: TI had a basically identical system for the 99/4. They sold so few that during the crash they started giving them away for free if you bought anything that plugged into one. Sales remained very close to zero.

 

I really can't imagine that that 1090 would have been any different. It might have if it was a part of the system all along -- an external version of slots that were internal on the 800 or something -- but as others have pointed out this would have been one of those things you don't develop for because "no one has one".

 

Maury

 

TI was having a lot of trouble over all, they had a superb computer, but were pushing it heavily as an educational computer with good old Bill (There's always room for jello) Cosby, this and the fact that the TI was very expensive (many people at the time had no idea it was a 16bit computer.

 

Commodore kinda did it in for the low end computer industry with its VIC and C64, IMHO they were shoddy knock offs of Atari's and undercut the whole industry. Atari foolishly went after Commodore in the low end price war instead of pursuing Apple and IBM on the high end. Quite Frankly Atari had the knowledge pool to put out phenomenal systems, but choose the low end route and priced themselves into an overlap with their videogames, this plus the string of crappy video games from 3rd parties and Atari itself all balled together into people not buying video games, going to low end computers and being very careful in their game purchases and added to the crash....

 

The 1090XL would've done a lot for the line, expansion cards were the lifeblood of the Apple ][e's and the IBM PC's..... Atari far outperformed the Apple ][e, but the Apple ][e kicked its butt due to low cost disk drives and extremely flexible expansion.

 

 

Curt

[Maury Markowitz]

TI was having a lot of trouble over all, they had a superb computer, but were pushing it heavily as an educational computer with good old Bill (There's always room for jello) Cosby, this and the fact that the TI was very expensive (many people at the time had no idea it was a 16bit computer.

 

It was expensive only for a very brief time though, after something like six months it was already down to $299, about the same as the 400 was selling for during the sell-off in '81.

 

Commodore kinda did it in for the low end computer industry with its VIC and C64

 

Absolutely, it was the dump-n-burn strategy. And it worked, sort of. But this is how it always works, commodities have that effect on markets.

 

IMHO they were shoddy knock offs of Atari's and undercut the whole industry.

 

Well I don't know about that. The SID was certainly better than POKEY, and while the graphics were never as clear as the Atari due to the analog side, the modes themselves were arguably even better. And the keyboard was certainly an improvement over the 800, let alone the 400!

 

I won't argue that they were "better", but they certainly weren't trash.

 

Atari foolishly went after Commodore in the low end price war instead of pursuing Apple and IBM on the high end.

 

Impossible. I think you're underestimating the market. Technical excellence means almost nothing to the market, name means everything. IBM had the name, not even Apple could compete.

 

The 1090XL would've done a lot for the line, expansion cards were the lifeblood of the Apple ][e's and the IBM PC's.....

 

I have to disagree. Cards were the blood of the Apple and PC because they HAD to be. The Atari had enough in the box to stand alone (as did other similar machines like the TI and 64).

 

What exactly did the 1090 get the _average_ user? Nothing. So in other words it would be used by the hobbiest and fringe. That's unlikely to do a lot for the _platform_ as a whole.

 

Maury

[mos6507]

>>

What exactly did the 1090 get the _average_ user? Nothing. So in other words it would be used by the hobbiest and fringe. That's unlikely to do a lot for the _platform_ as a whole.

<<

 

Faster floppy drives, hard drive expansion, and a serial port that could be used simultaneously with disk access (unlike the 850 interface).

 

Atari was already planning to offer parallel floppy drives in the 1400 series.

 

Sure, there were Happy and USDoubler solutions, but these were hot rod bandaids over the limitations of the SIO, not really solutions.

 

It could also have been used for graphics and audio cards. A better 80 column solution would have been the key item to get for those interested in word processing. (Tthe XEP80 was basically a glorified VT100 terminal in a box with a slow serial interface.)

 

It could also be used for expanded memory without having to do any internal soldering.

 

Most of these things were provided via the Black Box/Floppy Board, but many years later than they could have been.

[Maury Markowitz]

Faster floppy drives, hard drive expansion, and a serial port that could be used simultaneously with disk access (unlike the 850 interface).

 

Certainly the speed of the drives would have improved, but I really question how much of an advantage that would have been. I can't imagine many people buying a $xxx box so they can spend even more money to plug in the drives.

 

Consider the horrid drives on the C64. If people can live with those, they could live with the SIO. Remember, you already paid for the SIO, its free. A reasonable solution would have been an additional SIO perhaps, and certainly the later DOS versions improved things greatly.

 

It could also have been used for graphics and audio cards.  A better 80 column solution would have been the key item to get for those interested in word processing.

 

Absolutely. But again, this is for a tiny tiny part of the Atari using population. People didn't buy Atari's to do 80-column word processing. It would have perhaps made it more interesting if it were built in, but can you really imagine someone buying one, and an expansion box, and the card AND a monitor just to get what the Apple gave them standard?

 

It could also be used for expanded memory without having to do any internal soldering.

 

Ditto. With the XL's coming with 64k anything more than that would be once again for the hacks. Now of course the Atari market had a lot of hacks, because it was such a great machine for that.

 

But if the idea is to improve the market, the 1090 is selling to the wrong crowd. Its not entirely clear what the right solution would have been, but history strongly supports the point that external expansion solutions WILL NOT BE USED.

 

Simply consider the right cartridge slot in the 800. Few users means few users. Unless you can come up with a staggeringly obvious must-have feature so that every single user with an XL would have one, no one would develop for it.

 

Now there is an entirely other reason for releasing the 1090, and that's because NOT releasing it pissed off a lot of people.

 

Maury