Buying a Falcon.... Back in 1992

[+Sauron]

I don't know why you're thinking you need a mono monitor, or even to run anything in ST High resolution. The standard VGA resolution (640x480) will give you a bit higher res than ST high, and you can use up to 256 colors onscreen at once.

 

If anything, you might want to keep your eyes open for a Multisync monitor. There is a list of multisyncs out there that should work with the Falcon, but unfortunately I don't have a link.

[Nick Harlow]

Sorry Tempest, your quite right.... thinking ahead!!

 

 

nick

[twbrown]

Best catalog has a list of the older Multisync monitors and sync rates..got a nec II multisync for like $90.00 (total inc shipping) for my Atari and Amiga 2000 (using a monitor switchbox) its just 14in but will do all atari and amiga screenmodes think i found it doing a google serch for nec monitors

[Alcopoper]

wow.l all theses are impressive stories...

I bought my F030 in Germany when they were finally available there. I think that was.. hm..... winter 93/94. But at this point they were really available. I ordered mine over the phone - it was at my house one week later. .

I guess, that is because the professional atari market was quite huge in Germany and France - other than in the US I think.

I did work for Boehringer & Roche. In both companies I worked with ST's a lot. As texting machines and also in some lab application. So, yea, I guess, atari just focused on the european market..

Anyhow - I liked my falcon.

but honestly - after I got my RISC PC I did not really use it anymore. I LOOOVED that OS (RiscOS.)

But I do whish that ATARI would have had the power to come up with more and newer Falcon Models, maybe based on DSP/Jag technology. Would have been really cool. I think, one thing they missed out on was, to develop a nice looking GUI. GEM was good. but.. maybe even in 94 not quite up to date anymore...

[+DarkLord]

Just out of curiosity, did anyone buy a Falcon from Atari when they first came out?  I heard they were almost impossible to find in the US.

 

I'm just curious about the people who actually went through the trouble of tracking one down (I think most people had to get them directly from Atari) despite all the signs that Atari was going to stop computer support.  Was the Falcon that good back then?  Was it the "killer" machine?  I think back in 92 I was using my new 486 (or possibly still using my Apple IIe, it was right around the time I got my first PC). 

 

Tempest

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Well, when I first heard they were released, I contacted the closest Atari dealer to me. Elden Computers in West Virginia. I live in Kentucky, so I had to drive 1 state over to get it, It was the base 1 meg model, no HD, for $799.00.

 

I thought then, and still think now, that it was worth every red cent I put into it. I simply thought it was awesome. I played some of the early killer demos for my cousins husband, who was a programmer at Ashland Oil, and they blew him away.

 

Blew me away too! :-)

[dark willow]

I never got a Falcon at the time they came out, as they were way out of my price range, and at the time beign a kid was more interested in games than anything, and most games were still for the ST/e rather than the new system.

 

As for the face of GEM, the big thing is it is pretty much rock solid on later machines, that's the biggest thing, and also, very quick to boot. I think Atari didn't put as much work into updating the desktop over time as they could have. When TOS first came out it was way ahead of it's time, but by the time of tos 2.x and 3.x the desktop was looking old fashioned comapred to things like NeoDesk 4 and Magxdesk, though I think it was worth bearing min mind that TOS/GEM is ROM based and at the time memory was VERY expensive so a better desktop would have taken up more space and thus pushed up the cost of the machine quite a bit.

[+DarkLord]

I never got a Falcon at the time they came out, as they were way out of my price range, and at the time beign a kid was more interested in games than anything, and most games were still for the ST/e rather than the new system.

 

As for the face of GEM, the big thing is it is pretty much rock solid on later machines, that's the biggest thing, and also, very quick to boot. I think Atari didn't put as much work into updating the desktop over time as they could have. When TOS first came out it was way ahead of it's time, but by the time of tos 2.x and 3.x the desktop was looking old fashioned comapred to things like NeoDesk 4 and Magxdesk, though I think it was worth bearing min mind that TOS/GEM is ROM based and at the time memory was VERY expensive so a better desktop would have taken up more space and thus pushed up the cost of the machine quite a bit.

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TOS has always been one of the biggest draws for me. I sat my CT60'ed beside my 1733mhz Linux box, running KDE, and had my son open windows and do file copies at the same time I did. He was amazed that the '92 Falcon (albeit updated) was faster than a modern computer running a solid OS. :-)

[Paolo]

TOS has always been one of the biggest draws for me. I sat my CT60'ed beside my 1733mhz Linux box, running KDE, and had my son open windows and do file copies at the same time I did. He was amazed that the '92 Falcon (albeit updated) was faster than a modern computer running a solid OS. :-)

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Aaah, I LOVE when I do these kind of things to my friends and co-workers

 

My typical routine is this:

compare boot sequences, HA!

compare opening windows and doing keyboard tricks (you know, up one level, close all, ...)

 

Later, after they swallow the fact that the OS is amazingly faster and they start annoying me with the power of their applications, I challenge them at a Papyrus vs Word game.

 

This is when they start crying like babies! (basic formatting, power formatting like microspacing, converting things to html and analyze the output, textboxes, ...)

Edited June 26, 2005 by Paolo

[+DarkLord]

I remeber back in the early 90's when the Falcon appeared. There was a big article (well one page) in an Australian computer magazine (IBM PC mind you). The reviewer was amazed ats its 32,000 colour potential, stating that this computer had amazing graphics potential, even over current IBM compatibles.

As we all know IBM's only ever had 256 colours back in the day. That article made me proud to be an Atari supporter. To bad I lived in Australia, because Falcons were almost non-existant. It took over 10 years later for me to get any kind of 16-32bit Atari computer, let alone a Falcon. Glad I did, best computers in my opinion. I use mine everyday! Which is more than I can say for my grumpy windows machine!

513506[/snapback]

 

Reminds me of that review in Byte Magazine when the Falcon first came out - very positive, very solid review. I showed it around to a lot of my PC owning friends (the ones who said you never saw anything Atari in mainstream magazines). :-)

[+DarkLord]

I remeber back in the early 90's when the Falcon appeared. There was a big article (well one page) in an Australian computer magazine (IBM PC mind you). The reviewer was amazed ats its 32,000 colour potential, stating that this computer had amazing graphics potential, even over current IBM compatibles.

 

Did it look anything like this?

 

This is from Byte magazine, which was PC (naturally.)

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Hmm, got a "404" not found error returned here. Do you have another link?

 

Thanks! :-)

[geosteve]

There was 3 places in MA that sold the Falcon, guess I was lucky

 

As for the topic, I knew a local Atari dealer who managed to get a Falcon030 in mid-1993, after several unanswered or un-helpful calls to Atari's offices regarding a whole shipment of them, he got a whopping 4 delivered.

 

I was somewhat impressed with TOS 4 but not enough to cover the $1200 price tag per feature when I already had a STE system.

Edited June 27, 2005 by geosteve

[doctorclu]

Here in Dallas, what I remember was in the late 80's a bunch of people went to the ST scene from the 8-bit... there was much rejoicing, and then much silence. A year or so later the Atari BBS's died off, and with me standing with my Atari 400 (modified) I saw tumberweeds running across what I believed to be left of the Atari scene.

 

The Atari Users of North Texas however continued on till practically a little after the turn of 2000. During their time, most of them were Mega STE users, getting TT030 computers in mid 90's. They had heavily modifed ST computers in that club.

 

I can not say for sure, but my impression was the Falcons appeared in that club in like '94 - '95. One user in the group made the "pot belly pig" song from a ST.

 

Around 1997-1998 that club saw a Hades and a C-Lab Falcon 040 with afterburner. By the time I arrived in 1999 the club was mainly STE, TT, and Falcon users.

 

When I was more with them, I tinkered with getting a 1040ST with adspeed, STE and TT030 to do various things. One of which, getting on the internet, which thanks to that C-Lab Falcon user, Mike White, I was able to get on the internet to use on a regular basis.

 

I continued to use it connecting with STik till my internet provider changed the dialup log in proceedure. I was rather bummed when they did that, and after a month (literally) of working on the phone with them, and working with the lists, I finally let it go.

 

CAB 2.7 was quite nice all things considered.

 

Would love to try Highwire.