Xebec Posted April 25, 2021 Share Posted April 25, 2021 Hey All, I know Atari ended / exited the Atari 8-bit business effective January 1992; though it seems like sales (and some kind of support?) continued a little bit beyond that, especially in Eastern Europe. What's the official timing of Atari exiting the ST (and Falcon) platforms? I see the generic date of '1993', but I was looking for some more specifics: - When Atari introduced the STe in late 1989, did they immediately stop production of the original ST(f)? or did they coexist in production for a year or so? - When did Atari officially/publicly pull the plug on the Atari STe in 1993? I think it was later in the year - was it at the very end - December? or earlier? Not related, but I thought it was interesting that Atari (unlike C=) took advantage of Moore's Law / manufacturing to lower cost of some components within the ST line twice -- once with the STe (combining MMU+GLUE into the GST MCU single chip, and some other consolidations), and again with the Falcon 030 (COMBEL = MMU+GLUE+Blitter). I'm curious if the Falcon040 had planned any further consolidations? Did the TT030 share any components with STe or Falcon that were consolidations of the original ST chipset? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 25, 2021 Share Posted April 25, 2021 I don't think that Atari stopped production of ST machines when STE was launched - which in 1989 already were not same as in 1985-87 - it was rather STFM, with built in floppy drive. Well, I say it because I saw even in 1991 STs in German shops. Was it because they sold slowly, so remained in stocks, or Atari still made them - really don't know. And in same time I saw C64 machines for sale, for about 200 DEM. So, some kind of retro buying existed even then. Surely motivated by plenty of SW available and attractive prices. Falcon has no any same custom component as ST. All needed to be redesign, and integrated in less chips. And it has no ACSI port. Actually, there is something what was probably present in all them - but I never looked about - PSG (or Yamaha) sound chip - not manufactured by Atari, was very spread, so cheap - not worth to integrate in custom chips. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 It was exactly at 11 am. Pacific time, of course. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 1 hour ago, Tillek said: It was exactly at 11 am. Pacific time, of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec Posted April 26, 2021 Author Share Posted April 26, 2021 12 hours ago, Tillek said: It was exactly at 11 am. Pacific time, of course. Excellent! Updating Wikipedia now.. More seriously - just curious if it was year end -- December, or did Atari actually pull the plug in early 1993? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calimero Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 21 hours ago, Xebec said:Did the TT030 share any components with STe or Falcon that were consolidations of the original ST chipset? TT had e.g. Shifter that could address 153.6KB for higher resolution. It had 64bit access to RAM memory: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TT030 there is a list of IC but I am not sure how correct are information on that wiki page... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calimero Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 Also maybe this database could help: http://milan.kovac.cc/atari/chipmunk/ to bad that we do not have “decypher” for Atari ST serial numbers (like we have for Falcon serial numbers...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMaddog Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 Don't know the exact date, but it was definitely 1993... I remember going to the nearest Atari dealer at a mall and hearing the guy behind the counter saying, "Oh, Atari is not going to sell computers anymore!" And this was exactly one year after my mom, who bought me an STe for graudation, asked them if Atari will still be around and they said, "Oh sure they will!" It would be one thing if they canceled production of the STe models for the Falcon but nope, Sammy T. wanted to make a vida game system which ended up as a flop and destroyed the company again. What, me upset? 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zogging Hell Posted April 27, 2021 Share Posted April 27, 2021 There was an article in ST Format saying (I think it was Darryl Still) that Atari would still produce small batches of ST's if the companies buying them ordered enough at once, and that was fairly shortly before the collapse of the company. I don't know if this ever happened. There was some talk of some of the Atari die hard firms clubbing together to put an order in, again not sure if this happened. I suspect this would have been cobbling together unsold inventory even so. I imagine this was just keeping an iron in the fire so to speak, in case the Jaguar was successful and they could afford to put some money back into the computer line. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anzac Posted April 27, 2021 Share Posted April 27, 2021 And don’t forget the plan to “make” and sell 150k units of 520STFMs after the STe and (I think) Falcon launches even Atari supporters found that tough to swallow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec Posted April 27, 2021 Author Share Posted April 27, 2021 15 hours ago, MrMaddog said: Don't know the exact date, but it was definitely 1993... I remember going to the nearest Atari dealer at a mall and hearing the guy behind the counter saying, "Oh, Atari is not going to sell computers anymore!" And this was exactly one year after my mom, who bought me an STe for graudation, asked them if Atari will still be around and they said, "Oh sure they will!" It would be one thing if they canceled production of the STe models for the Falcon but nope, Sammy T. wanted to make a vida game system which ended up as a flop and destroyed the company again. What, me upset? Similar to this, I remember occasionally going to the mall as a kid and young teenager, and seeing the Atari software section slowly shrink from an entire wall or even multiple sections.. to a moderate section of the wall.. eventually to a single stand up thing in the middle of the floor that wasn't particularly large (i.e. 20 boxes max). Not having had access to magazines or other news sources at the time (just BBSes - where the software was plentiful.. ), it was the only solid indication I had something was wrong. I do remember thinking "Atari is back" when the Jaguar did the limited launch in NYC and appeared on track for more success.. I was a little lucky that I had access to a PC or two around 1989-1990 so I had time to transition as the market dried up for the ST. The ST had been in my rear view mirror (unfortunately) before the Falcon launched, and I never even knew about the STE until much later thanks to emulators pointing it out (i.e. mid-late 1990s). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calimero Posted April 27, 2021 Share Posted April 27, 2021 Well with launch of Windows 3.0 software companies start to port their software to Windows from Atari, Mac and Apple: https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=22856 It was matter of time... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec Posted June 23, 2021 Author Share Posted June 23, 2021 On 4/26/2021 at 12:30 PM, calimero said: TT had e.g. Shifter that could address 153.6KB for higher resolution. It had 64bit access to RAM memory: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TT030 there is a list of IC but I am not sure how correct are information on that wiki page... That's a very interesting statistic. I assume that's 4X as wide as the ST shifter, and aligns nicely with 4x-ish of 32KB of (ST Video) RAM for the Video display. It's ashame ST shifter was limited to only 32KB. 64KB would have allowed ANSI 16-colors in 80 columns without hacks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec Posted June 23, 2021 Author Share Posted June 23, 2021 Last ask on this thread (sorry ) -- was it early 1993 or late 1993 that ST production and sales stopped? Just curious :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calimero Posted June 24, 2021 Share Posted June 24, 2021 11 hours ago, Xebec said: Last ask on this thread (sorry ) -- was it early 1993 or late 1993 that ST production and sales stopped? Just curious :). Like I already mention, serial numbers are probably safest way to find out this fact (and also how many STs were produced... much safer guess than Jeremy Reimer numbers: https://www.amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?t=131 like I explain why there are flake). On http://milan.kovac.cc/atari/chipmunk/ latest date that I found among submission is board date is week 37 of 1991 for STe but we need serial number decipher to be able to know production date for each ST in table by serial number... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted June 24, 2021 Share Posted June 24, 2021 I don't see much sense in this "exact timing" - what btw. sounds really bad - like it was matter of some planning . Nobody can plan this things exactly, or even remotely exactly, and I dare to say that it is much harder to predict than weather. What I remember is that I saw STs and STEs in German shops in 1992 . And prices were not much lower than couple years ago (unlike with C64). Then, sales can go even 1 year after production stop. On the other side, Falcon sales (so production too) started some half year later than was announced - late 1992. And price was higher too, at least in Germany. So, Atari Co. still struggled. Well, I don't think that it is something with can be related with concrete date, evolution needs some time, retirement too . Especially if involved ones still want to be in it . 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec Posted June 24, 2021 Author Share Posted June 24, 2021 4 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: I don't see much sense in this "exact timing" - what btw. sounds really bad - like it was matter of some planning . Nobody can plan this things exactly, or even remotely exactly, and I dare to say that it is much harder to predict than weather. What I remember is that I saw STs and STEs in German shops in 1992 . And prices were not much lower than couple years ago (unlike with C64). Then, sales can go even 1 year after production stop. On the other side, Falcon sales (so production too) started some half year later than was announced - late 1992. And price was higher too, at least in Germany. So, Atari Co. still struggled. Well, I don't think that it is something with can be related with concrete date, evolution needs some time, retirement too . Especially if involved ones still want to be in it . I get it - I was just trying to figure out when the ST was officially dead/discontinued in 1993 (early or late). Was it really on the market in 1993 or not, and perhaps where in the market was it still being sold in 1993. Per the Atari serial # registry above, it does sound like any 1993 sales were based off of existing stock from 1992. My use of the word 'exact' was poor but I'm glad everyone had fun with the word here Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Kay Posted June 26, 2021 Share Posted June 26, 2021 (edited) The Annual Reports shed a wee bit more light on this. The phase-out of the ST began in 1992, though a date is not revealed in the 1992 annual report: "The Company began to phase out this series of computers in 1992 preparing for the transition to the Atari Falcon030" Full text of "Atari Corporation Annual Report 1992" (archive.org) The Falcon, it appears, was not manufactured after the first quarter of 1993, though it's hard to say for sure. The 1992 report says: "Production of the Atari Falcon030 series of computers commenced in the first quarter of 1993 in small quantities." and the 1993 report says: "Since introduction in the first quarter of 1993, the Company has shipped small quantities of this product. The Company does not expect sales of this product to be material in the future." Full text of "Atari Corporation Annual Report 1993" (archive.org) Notice in the 1994 report, the Falcon030 inventory was written off either in the third or fourth quarter of 1993: "During 1993, the Company wrote down inventories by $7.5 million and $10.6 million in the third and fourth quarters, respectively. These write-downs were attributable to older 16-bit and below personal computers and 8-bit video game products and write-downs of Lynx and Falcon products to estimated realizable values" Full text of "Atari Corporation Annual Report 1994" (archive.org) Edited June 26, 2021 by Joey Kay clarification 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calimero Posted June 26, 2021 Share Posted June 26, 2021 (edited) ^ in serial number database you will find bunch of Falcons produces in July 1993. what is more odd, are Falcons produces in April 1994! (By serial numbers). There is at least two such Falcons in database. Even in septmber of 1994! This Falcon have board revision K! There are also Falcons from january of 1994. oldest one is from September of 1992. But it also have TOS 4.04. These are not c-lab mk falcons! Edited June 26, 2021 by calimero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec Posted June 26, 2021 Author Share Posted June 26, 2021 2 hours ago, calimero said: ^ in serial number database you will find bunch of Falcons produces in July 1993. what is more odd, are Falcons produces in April 1994! (By serial numbers). There is at least two such Falcons in database. Even in septmber of 1994! This Falcon have board revision K! There are also Falcons from january of 1994. oldest one is from September of 1992. But it also have TOS 4.04. These are not c-lab mk falcons! Are those C-Lab Falcons by any chance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calimero Posted June 26, 2021 Share Posted June 26, 2021 No. They are not. http://milan.kovac.cc/atari/chipmunk/index-table-view.php?model_filter_select=Atari+Falcon+030 There are separat entries for c-lab falcons... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Kay Posted June 27, 2021 Share Posted June 27, 2021 6 hours ago, calimero said: what is more odd, are Falcons produces in April 1994! (By serial numbers). There is at least two such Falcons in database. Even in septmber of 1994! This Falcon have board revision K! There are also Falcons from january of 1994. I'll be damned... certainly no economies of scale in producing such small runs, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calimero Posted June 27, 2021 Share Posted June 27, 2021 (edited) As far as I read, Atari management (US) did not want to release Falcon at all! They already decided to leave computer market and to focus on game console (Jaguar) at time when Falcon was finished. Probably EU management pushed to release Falcon at least as some small production. UK head of Atari at the time, said that 14.000 was produced but it seems that even less Falcons was produced based on serial numbers that we collect. It is really shame that nobody interviewed some Atari Corp employees from Falcon/TT era. (Although I would like to read Shiraz Shivji interview in first place) It seems that there were two separate teams that worked on TT succesor... even TT history is a mistery: it seems that Shiraz Shivji worked on 32bit 68020 ST succesor, referenced as EST (1986.) when he left and Atari bring Roy Good, Unix guru, as succesor to Shiraz. He probably bring idea of Unix TT, and thus postpone TT release. More: https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=23603 Regarding TT, there is Usenet group (now Google host it) where you can read Atari official messages regarding TT development. Edited June 27, 2021 by calimero 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calimero Posted June 27, 2021 Share Posted June 27, 2021 Mikro make nice analysis of Falcon production: https://mikrosk.github.io/clockpatch/history.html he concluded that around 22.000 Falcons were produced... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyprian Posted June 28, 2021 Share Posted June 28, 2021 On 6/27/2021 at 7:19 AM, calimero said: Regarding TT, there is Usenet group (now Google host it) where you can read Atari official messages regarding TT development. Do you mean net.micro.atari16 - predecessor of comp.sys.atari.st? https://groups.google.com/g/net.micro.atari16 or just net.micro.atari https://groups.google.com/g/net.micro.atari ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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