Stumbled across a Falcon and Mega STE

[ThumpNugget]

Sorry for the bragging but in Idaho you don't get many finds out in the field

 

Two weeks ago I was bugging this guy I work with who has a mother that worked at Atari. He has a drawer full of chips (Eproms or Roms I am assuming) from when he was a kid that she had brought home over time that he stuck in a cart and placed in his 2600. I've been working on him to get out to his shed and find them and bring them to work for inspection..

 

Anyways a person overheard our conversation mentioned that a local store just recently replaced two Ataris that they were using as point of sale systems. It just so happens that my son (teenager) was doing some work for the store owner and was able to rescue the machines for me.

 

I was assuming these would be 800XL or 130Xe or another of the 8-bits which is what I mostly collect.

 

This is what my son brought home:

 

 

I don't know a lot about the ST series.. I had a 520ST years ago and don’t remember much. I know the Falcon was the last that of this model that was made. The Mega STE I thought was a TT when I pulled it out. I had no idea the Megas looked like the TTs.

 

I have not tried to boot the Falcon yet. The STE booted fine from the hard drive directly into the Point Of Sale software but it was easy to exit out into TOS. The hard drive says it is a Supra drive. The monitor is an Atari monochrome monitor with some severe screen burn unfortunately.

 

Beyond that and a couple of mice I have nothing for these systems. No floppies, documentation, anything. I'm not sure where to start.. The falcon doesn't have a port for the monitor I have so I guess it is the TV or nothing for now.. What are the monitor options for these beasties?

[Sincity]

LOL...the pup looks disinterested.

[TwiliteZoner]

Sorry for the bragging but in Idaho you don't get many finds out in the field

 

Two weeks ago I was bugging this guy I work with who has a mother that worked at Atari. He has a drawer full of chips (Eproms or Roms I am assuming) from when he was a kid that she had brought home over time that he stuck in a cart and placed in his 2600. I've been working on him to get out to his shed and find them and bring them to work for inspection..

 

Anyways a person overheard our conversation mentioned that a local store just recently replaced two Ataris that they were using as point of sale systems. It just so happens that my son (teenager) was doing some work for the store owner and was able to rescue the machines for me.

 

I was assuming these would be 800XL or 130Xe or another of the 8-bits which is what I mostly collect.

 

This is what my son brought home:

 

 

I don't know a lot about the ST series.. I had a 520ST years ago and don’t remember much. I know the Falcon was the last that of this model that was made. The Mega STE I thought was a TT when I pulled it out. I had no idea the Megas looked like the TTs.

 

I have not tried to boot the Falcon yet. The STE booted fine from the hard drive directly into the Point Of Sale software but it was easy to exit out into TOS. The hard drive says it is a Supra drive. The monitor is an Atari monochrome monitor with some severe screen burn unfortunately.

 

Beyond that and a couple of mice I have nothing for these systems. No floppies, documentation, anything. I'm not sure where to start.. The falcon doesn't have a port for the monitor I have so I guess it is the TV or nothing for now.. What are the monitor options for these beasties?

 

 

You hit the mother load my friend! I would love to have a Falcon. I always thought the Falcon had a VGA out. I might be wrong.

[Christos]

Falcon... VGA is the way to go. You can easily make an adapter. Schematics can be found here. I am extremely jealous but in a helpful and not bitchy mood .

[ThumpNugget]

Falcon... VGA is the way to go. You can easily make an adapter. Schematics can be found here. I am extremely jealous but in a helpful and not bitchy mood .

 

Thanks for the site. That looks like the way to go. I took the falcon apart today to clean it up. Lots of dust on the inside but all of the keys had a piece of tape over them so they are in very good shape when the tape was removed.. I was surprised there was no hard drive (at least I think there was not, there is a lot of shielding). I am curious how they booted up the Point-of-sale on this one.

 

Actually I'm surprised they would run a POS on machines this expensive in the first place. Seems to me that a 1040ST of a 520ST would be a better bet... or a machine with a smaller footprint Talking with my son he said the reason these were retired was because of the monitors. They could not get replacements and had gone through quite a few in the time they had the machines.

[ThumpNugget]

Falcon after the cleanup:

 

[tjlazer]

Nice find! Both are high end Ataris and fetch a lot even today. I would get a VGA adaptor (or make your own) for the Falcon.

 

Also check out my site to download system disks for both...

 

http://www.vintagecomputercafe.com/atarisystemdisks.htm

Edited April 14, 2008 by tjlazer

[jens]

There were Falcons without hard drives and with just one meg of Ram.

You should be able to see the amount of Ram from the desktops' extras menu I think (don't have an English TOS, so I'm not too certain).

If there is about 750 kb free ram space it's a one meg machine, if it's 3750 it's four megs.

Don't think it's a fourteen megs machine, else you'll find 13750 kb.

It's easy to find cheap four meg ram cards on eBay or from users that upgraded to fourteen megs.

Fourteen meg ram cards can be ordered from Petr Svoboda iirc.

 

An IDE hard drive can easily be fitted and have been replaced, else the machine might have used an external SCSI drive up to now.

If there has been no hard drive it's possible you need a whole hard drive kit with screws and a hard drive holder.

Those should be found on eBay as well.

 

The POS software could have used the Mega/STe as sort of a server and the Falcon as a client that just needed a floppy though.

There were systems like that being used in Germany as well as I heard.

Never saw one unfortunately.

If you could rescue the software from the Mega/STe's drive I'd be very lucky about getting a copy for having a look at it.

 

If you need original system software for your machines try the Falcon disks that are on my webserver.

You'll find them in the downloads section.

[Christos]

you can also mount the hard drive on the rf shield. You need to remove the internal speaker though (you would also want to do that).

[ThumpNugget]

There were Falcons without hard drives and with just one meg of Ram.

You should be able to see the amount of Ram from the desktops' extras menu I think (don't have an English TOS, so I'm not too certain).

If there is about 750 kb free ram space it's a one meg machine, if it's 3750 it's four megs.

Don't think it's a fourteen megs machine, else you'll find 13750 kb.

It's easy to find cheap four meg ram cards on eBay or from users that upgraded to fourteen megs.

Fourteen meg ram cards can be ordered from Petr Svoboda iirc.

 

An IDE hard drive can easily be fitted and have been replaced, else the machine might have used an external SCSI drive up to now.

If there has been no hard drive it's possible you need a whole hard drive kit with screws and a hard drive holder.

Those should be found on eBay as well.

 

The POS software could have used the Mega/STe as sort of a server and the Falcon as a client that just needed a floppy though.

There were systems like that being used in Germany as well as I heard.

Never saw one unfortunately.

If you could rescue the software from the Mega/STe's drive I'd be very lucky about getting a copy for having a look at it.

 

If you need original system software for your machines try the Falcon disks that are on my webserver.

You'll find them in the downloads section.

 

I booted the Falcon today and I am embarrassed to say it did have a hard drive in it. It was divided into four logical drives (C,D,E,F) each with 32 Megs so.. 128 Megs total. The Mega STE has the exact same four logical drives. The STE says it is a 1 Meg model on the bottom (I have not verified this), the falcon showed 3,799,000 bytes free so four megs is correct! I assume the hard drive is an after market add on as the back of the unit does not have anything listed by the hard Disk label:

 

 

... I'd be happy to get a copy of the POS software to you. I'm not exactly sure how to get it off of the machine yet

[thrax]

That's awesome, i'm really happy for you!

[stirrell]

I booted the Falcon today and I am embarrassed to say it did have a hard drive in it. It was divided into four logical drives (C,D,E,F) each with 32 Megs so.. 128 Megs total. The Mega STE has the exact same four logical drives. The STE says it is a 1 Meg model on the bottom (I have not verified this), the falcon showed 3,799,000 bytes free so four megs is correct! I assume the hard drive is an after market add on as the back of the unit does not have anything listed by the hard Disk label:

 

I believe that the hard drive probably was added after purchase. If I'm correct, I don't think Atari offered Falcons with anything but no hard drive or an 80 meg hard drive. That is a really nice find.

[jens]

Well, fine so far.

The Falcon was sold with 40/ 60/ 80 megs hard drive originally.

If the Falcon was in my hands, I'd back everything up, make up one single partition, install some nicer things onto it (like ICQ client, IRC client, Highwire or Cab web browsers) and surf the web.

Beside that you can, if you like, listen to internet radio streams by using FalcAmp.

Looking at Falcon demos or playing some nice Falcon games might be good ideas as well.

The Falcon will accept bigger hard drives and use their disk space up to 120 or 128 gigs.

However you will need to install MiNT or MagiC together with HdDriver to to so.

 

The Mega/STe should tell the amount of ram the same way as the Falcon does.

If it's just one meg you can easily upgrade it to four megs by unplugging the simms and replacing them by four one meg simms.

It hold hard drives with a usable capacity of up to one gig, which must not be asking for bus arbitration or parity due to the scsi controllers restrictions.

 

As for the POS software:

Just take a floppy and copy it to your PC.

[STGuy1040]

Sorry for the bragging but in Idaho you don't get many finds out in the field

 

Two weeks ago I was bugging this guy I work with who has a mother that worked at Atari. He has a drawer full of chips (Eproms or Roms I am assuming) from when he was a kid that she had brought home over time that he stuck in a cart and placed in his 2600. I've been working on him to get out to his shed and find them and bring them to work for inspection..

 

Anyways a person overheard our conversation mentioned that a local store just recently replaced two Ataris that they were using as point of sale systems. It just so happens that my son (teenager) was doing some work for the store owner and was able to rescue the machines for me.

 

I was assuming these would be 800XL or 130Xe or another of the 8-bits which is what I mostly collect.

 

This is what my son brought home:

 

 

I don't know a lot about the ST series.. I had a 520ST years ago and don’t remember much. I know the Falcon was the last that of this model that was made. The Mega STE I thought was a TT when I pulled it out. I had no idea the Megas looked like the TTs.

 

I have not tried to boot the Falcon yet. The STE booted fine from the hard drive directly into the Point Of Sale software but it was easy to exit out into TOS. The hard drive says it is a Supra drive. The monitor is an Atari monochrome monitor with some severe screen burn unfortunately.

 

Beyond that and a couple of mice I have nothing for these systems. No floppies, documentation, anything. I'm not sure where to start.. The falcon doesn't have a port for the monitor I have so I guess it is the TV or nothing for now.. What are the monitor options for these beasties?

 

 

 

Impressive! I'd be proud to add those to my collection.

Edited April 16, 2008 by STGuy1040

[thrax]

What I like about your story also is that it was an "alternative way" to obtaining a vintage computer. Most people get vintage stuff from ebay/craigslist/thrifting. In one of my other vintage forums a member obtained a rare hard to find computer not by searching for that computer but by searching for a used "security surveillance" system that happened to use that rare CPU.

 

What was the name of the POS software used in that Atari? Maybe members here can keep an eye out for that POS system's company name while doing searches in order to obtain a vintage Atari that way! For example if the company is called hypothetically 'ABC POS Systems' then maybe searching sites like ebay for that name might yeild some fruit....

[rustynutt]

Wow, that never happens to me!

There are some that would pay handsomely for those machines, two of the best I'd venture to say

 

If you like graphics and want to see what a simple little Falcon can do, get a copy of Apex Media for messing around with clips and transformations, and Rainbow Multimedia for more artistic portraits. List go on and on for that machine, but those two apps simply smoke in execution and totally utilize the Falcons graphics capabilities.

 

If you tire of them, surely let me know, always looking to add one more to the collection

[ThumpNugget]

What I like about your story also is that it was an "alternative way" to obtaining a vintage computer. Most people get vintage stuff from ebay/craigslist/thrifting. In one of my other vintage forums a member obtained a rare hard to find computer not by searching for that computer but by searching for a used "security surveillance" system that happened to use that rare CPU.

 

What was the name of the POS software used in that Atari? Maybe members here can keep an eye out for that POS system's company name while doing searches in order to obtain a vintage Atari that way! For example if the company is called hypothetically 'ABC POS Systems' then maybe searching sites like ebay for that name might yield some fruit....

 

Sorry to take so long in responding to this.. The POS software was written in GFA Basic and was used in all of the Hobby Towns. It was called H.O.S.T. (HobbyTown Ordering SysTem). I booted up the Mega STE and took a couple of photos in case someone wants to call a few of them up to see if they still have them laying around:

 

 

This is what is burned into the screen:

 

 

The Mega STE was about the same as the falcon as far as setup. The hard drive was smaller (there were 4 logical hard drives, two 16 megs, and two 8 megs) and the machine was upgraded to 4 megs (originally it had just one).

 

 

If you are looking around remember I already got the ones from the Boise store It looks like from the HobbyTown site that there are at least a couple hundred stores though so who knows.. maybe some of the others held onto them as well. Good luck...

[thrax]

Thanks for giving the info.

I got the idea from people trying to obtain a "Cannon" computer workstation that runs the NeXT operating system. THere was a manufacturer called 'skout' which made a security system using said computers so people have just as much luck finding the Cannon searching for used skout systems as they would looking for Cannon directly.

 

Maybe now people can also search for "HOST" or Hobbytown if they are seeking falcons!

[+Guitarman]

I have a HobbyTown here in Carson. I went by there but, alas, they are a newer outlet and didn't have the Atari's. I have to try the other in the area.

[VW]

Living in Boise, I am extra jealous of you. Nice find!

[ThumpNugget]

Living in Boise, I am extra jealous of you. Nice find!

 

 

As small of town as it is there are actually some interesting stores still around from back in the day. The store I used to get my 8-bits repaired at is still in business and looks as old as it did back then (BASIC computing out on Orchard). Also near that location there is an old Commodore dealer that still was in business not too long ago.. He still has the big commodore sign on the building and the dot matrix printouts from the 80's in the windows saying "WE FIX ALL COMMODORE 64's and 128's" The dot matrix printouts were finally removed about three months ago but the big C= sign is still on the side of the building (I need to get a picture). I think the only place left selling anything Atari is the video game place on Fairview.. They had a Jaguar and a few 2600s for sale when I went in a few months ago. They had maybe 500 or so 2600 carts as well.

 

I moved here from Salt Lake in late 1983. I didn't really get into any of the user group stuff until 85 and it was like being in a sea of Commodore here though we did have an Atari user group here.. It never seemed to make the move from 8-bit to the ST (or I didn't, maybe they did) but it just kinda faded away...

 

Sorry off topic I know! It's great to see another local!

[VW]

I've never been to Basic Computing but I have checked out the Commodore store, found a mint condition Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back for Amiga there a few years ago that I was able to trade a friend of mine for Atari ST versions. I might have to go back to the Fairview store, haven't been there for a few years but they didn't have much 2600 stuff when I was there. If you ever have spare time in Salt Lake, check out this guy's store oldsoftware.com, he has a lot of interesting stuff but as usual not as much 8 bit stuff as you would like to see. I did find a nice SC1224 color monitor for my ST there though. By any chance, do you know of any good old computer stores in the Portland area as I am going there later this year.

[ThumpNugget]

I only get to Portland at best once per year and I've never checked out whats available. I do head south from there (the Eugene area - actually a bit farther to Roseburg) and there seems to be a lot of stuff coming from there for some reason even though its not exactly a high population area.

 

I went by the Commodore store today to snap a few pictures. I wish I had done it last year. Lots of stuff is gone, all the signs on the windows are gone.. and there is a trailer in front of the outside sign but I did snap a few pictures through the windows:

 

[VW]

Here's a picture I took of the window of that store a few years ago (yea I'm a nerd) that I thought you might want. Not great admittedly but it has the signs. I wonder why they took them down, I wonder if the owners are retiring somewhere. And if so, what will they do with their stuff? </vulture>

[ThumpNugget]

I have to laugh that you actually have a picture on hand of the place. I had never noticed that sign, the one I was talking about was on the other half of the store all in giant dot matrix printout. Unfortunatly that part of the store is all blocked out so I couldn't see into it to see what other interesting stuff was there.

 

I don't think it is used for anything other than storage anymore.. What with the motorcycles in there and everything The huge window actually is plastic and pops right out (my girlfriend leaned on it when I was taking the pictures and almost fell in). It may be time to contact the guy before someone walks off with the stash one night. I saw an early PET that looks like it could use a new home.