Falcon: yes or no?

[atarilux]

Until '96' I had a Falcon, with the stock 4mb, HD and maths co-pro. I sold it with loads of dev software and games for about 500 quid.... enough (I hate to admit it) to buy a PC so that I could get through uni. These days I have seen them sell for about 1300-1900 Euro, this I find high.. I just wondered, what is a fair price for such a beast? Also, is it worth buying one or are the emulators good enough to get an almost full hardware experience? While I liked the machine, I have to say the messy OS situation was a major downer, it was frankly unstable. The hardware was, however, fantastic.

 

My primary interest is to explore programming on it and perhaps to experiment with some hardware projects, much as I do with the 8-bits.

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by atarilux

[Justin Payne]

Don't beat yourself up for selling it. It's just the natural progression of buying the latest thing and if you can get a bit of cash for it to get that next thing, that's completely understandable.
Now, as far as a fair price, shit be gettin' real for retro equipment and in the US I've seen Falcon's sell for close to $2k....which makes me really consider selling mine. ?
What kind of hardware projects are you considering?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Falcon was manufactured in low quantity - max some 25000,  and that's the reason for high prices, + of course that count of working ones now is much lower, and repairing them, finding their custom chips is big problem.

There is no really faithful Atari Falcon emulator SW. Hatari emulates it,  but not accurately in all details.

So, if money is not problem, better go on real HW, especially if plan some HW stuff.

[atarilux]

Thanks for all your replies.

 

I don't regret getting rid of it at the time, the PC was a better piece of kit by that point and was actually useful, I can feel the flame war. Sadly, what I needed to do was simply not available on the Atari, plus the game choice was very limited. Unless you were willing to just play ST stuff which kind of negated the point of the Falcon. I had actually bought my Falcon used from a software company which gave up doing Falcon development. I cannot remember their name now but they had a few titles around at the time. It is also sad to say, but Windows 95 was more stable that the mess that was the Falcon in terms of OS (more flames now I am sure).

 

I have been messing around with electronics kits and robotics for the Raspberry pi. These are standard off the shelf kits, with anything from LEDS through the sonar and infrared etc. The idea was to do similar things on the Falcon, I have messed around a bit with this via the joystick port on the 800XL I have too to undertake similar projects. I guess the slightly better chipset on the Falcon should make some more advanced things possible.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by atarilux

[anzac]

Didn’t see anything close to a “flame war”, both answers were pretty supportive and well explained

[bfollowell]

21 minutes ago, anzac said:

Didn’t see anything close to a “flame war”, both answers were pretty supportive and well explained

 

I think he meant that he felt his comments were controversial and may start a flame war. I guess that remains to be seen. Let's hope not.

 

[Justin Payne]

1 hour ago, anzac said:

Didn’t see anything close to a “flame war”, both answers were pretty supportive and well explained

Probably because it's not a conversation about the Jag or the NEW AtariVCS.
I try not to "flame" anything and generally just resort to snarky memes that I make. ?
For the projects atarilux is considering, it's not something specific to the Falcon so it would be cheaper just to stick with his RPi....but the heart wants what the heart wants. ?

Edited July 25, 2021 by Justin Payne
typo

[+DarkLord]

Not starting a flame war - probably best not to even respond to this...

 

But it's hard for me *personally* to call any Microslop product "stable". 

 

Just my 2 cents worth and I know I'll be in the minority and yes, I do use

Windows to run a few games that I can't get to run anywhere else so there.

 

I'll always feel more at home and secure/stable/comfortable in front of an

Atari or Linux of some flavor or the other... 

 

Now...just so I'm actually responding to the OP and staying on topic - yes,

get a real Falcon if you can find one and afford it...

 

HTH's...and I'll butt out now...

 

PS and just to show that yes, I truly am trying to help:

 

(that first link is...ugh)

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174853814931?hash=item28b6197a93%3Ag%3Aw-gAAOSwFoFg-qFh&LH_ItemCondition=2500|3000&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&siteid=3&campid=5338071934&customid=&toolid=10001&mkevt=1

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/174853814931?hash=item28b6197a93:g:w-gAAOSwFoFg-qFh

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/203493033589?hash=item2f61214675:g:JvMAAOSwi3FgxqVt

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/194253818173?hash=item2d3a6e093d:g:e24AAOSwNHNg-0Ax

 

[Tillek]

Dude... you suck more than Monica Lewinski in Bill Clinton's Oval Office.

 

Eh... actually... I tried... I got nuttin.  I don't think you can really call or expect "flame war" on a "Well, at the time, back in the 90's, the PC was a better way to go".  And all the attempts since, are just lame.  DarkLord not loving windows... well, string that bastard up!

 

Nah.. more like preaching to the choir that's too tired to even say "Amen"?

 

Back to the topic.... at the end of the day, as with all things... it's about... will your wife let you?

[Chri O.]

Quote

Monica Lewinski

This is freaking funny ?

[mdivancic]

2 hours ago, Tillek said:

Back to the topic.... at the end of the day, as with all things... it's about... will your wife let you?

So true…

 

…oh and all the links that Darklord posted are trending to $2,000 USD (or already there).

[Chri O.]

Back in the day (90s) Windows suck and it's BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) on Windows 3.1.

[+DarkLord]

5 hours ago, Chri O. said:

This is freaking funny ?

 

Have to admit, I belly laughed - can always count on Tillek to brighten my day. 

 

[zzip]

On 7/25/2021 at 3:18 AM, atarilux said:

I just wondered, what is a fair price for such a beast? Also, is it worth buying one or are the emulators good enough to get an almost full hardware experience? While I liked the machine, I have to say the messy OS situation was a major downer, it was frankly unstable. The hardware was, however, fantastic.

I don't think there is a complete emulator for the system.   Hatari is hit and miss running Falcon software.   Aranym seems to be focused on emulating theoretical hardware to make a kick-ass Atari compatible rather than actual Falcon hardware,  I'm not sure what Steem can do with Falcon.

[zzip]

13 hours ago, Chri O. said:

Back in the day (90s) Windows suck and it's BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) on Windows 3.1.

Yeah 90s Windows crashing was constant.  I remember Windows 98 even crashed during a Bill Gates demo.

 

But my friend's Falcon was also crashing constantly.  Not sure if that was just his unit or that's how they were.   I couldn't believe how many times he had to reboot.   As an ST user, I was used to the bombs, but not as frequently as I saw them on his Falcon!

[+DarkLord]

I've owned 3 Falcons - never saw that with any of them...

 

[Justin Payne]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

Yeah 90s Windows crashing was constant.  I remember Windows 98 even crashed during a Bill Gates demo.

 

But my friend's Falcon was also crashing constantly.  Not sure if that was just his unit or that's how they were.   I couldn't believe how many times he had to reboot.   As an ST user, I was used to the bombs, but not as frequently as I saw them on his Falcon!

Yeah, the home OS's were a bit unstable although 98se wasn't bad but ME was just garbage and IMO, a cash grab. The good news is I had access to the company store so I got my copy for cheap. Now NT was pretty solid and what we used at work. Then, we moved to XP which was also pretty solid....but Vista and 8 were horrible. I've been pretty happy with 7 and 10 but Window has that Star Trek movie curse of every other one being bad. Now, if 10 was good then 11.....well, there are already signs that we should wait for 12 to be released....unless it's code named Nemesis. ? 
I've had my own troubles with Linux as well but that was in the past. We use it at work for our servers and it's been pretty solid but I don't maintain em, I just use them for installing and configuring software. I've used Linux at home many times but as far as my day to day PC, I just tend to prefer Windows. 

[zzip]

5 minutes ago, Justin Payne said:

Yeah, the home OS's were a bit unstable although 98se wasn't bad but ME was just garbage and IMO, a cash grab. The good news is I had access to the company store so I got my copy for cheap. Now NT was pretty solid and what we used at work. Then, we moved to XP which was also pretty solid....but Vista and 8 were horrible. I've been pretty happy with 7 and 10 but Window has that Star Trek movie curse of every other one being bad. Now, if 10 was good then 11.....well, there are already signs that we should wait for 12 to be released....unless it's code named Nemesis

NT was solid, but lacked many drivers so wasn't great for gaming / home use.   XP was when they finally unified the NT and 9x codebase.

 

I never used ME, but heard nothing but bad things about it :)

[Justin Payne]

43 minutes ago, zzip said:

NT was solid, but lacked many drivers so wasn't great for gaming / home use.   XP was when they finally unified the NT and 9x codebase.

 

I never used ME, but heard nothing but bad things about it

yep, which made sense since it was mostly for servers. I remember the first time I used NT 3. We had Windows 3.11 where I worked and the porn distributer in the same complex was having some issues with his computer. The guys in our shipping department knew I was the most computer savvy but when I started to investigate it with only Windows 3.11 experience, I was a bit out of my league at that point. Even when I moved into a computer support role, our daily use PC's were Windows 95. It wasn't until I start working up at Microsoft that we used NT 4 and I became waaaay more familiar with that OS. I was amazed at how it never crashed on me but my Win98 at home was, well, unstable. Of course, when we all went to XP, there were some issues with software that wasn't used to having to be concerned about permissions in the registry but knowing about those things I just modified some of those and the software ran fine after that....even though I was possibly opening up security holes.
Yes, ME was very crashy for me. I have a retro dual boot machine but I chose to use Win98se for the 9x flavor. I think I kept my copy of ME and I also have a couple pre-release picture discs for it as well as XP.

[Leeroy ST]

Do Falcons plug into TVs? Never used one outside a monitor in the past.

[Justin Payne]

13 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Do Falcons plug into TVs? Never used one outside a monitor in the past.

Yes. RF output. I just wish they left that out and instead gave us the ability to have a second external floppy. ?

Edited July 26, 2021 by Justin Payne
Added content

[zzip]

15 minutes ago, Justin Payne said:

Yes. RF output. I just wish they left that out and instead gave us the ability to have a second external floppy. ?

Interesting--  so it didn't have ports for ST Monitor or ACSI either?   I thought it supported these things.

[+Sauron]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Interesting--  so it didn't have ports for ST Monitor or ACSI either?   I thought it supported these things.

If I remember correctly, it shipped with an adapter for ST monitors.

 

[Cyprian]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Interesting--  so it didn't have ports for ST Monitor or ACSI either?   I thought it supported these things.

I had a VGA adapter and also SM124 adapter.

Regarding HDD port, Falcon has SCSI II instead of ACSI

[zzip]

13 minutes ago, Cyprian said:

I had a VGA adapter and also SM124 adapter.

Regarding HDD port, Falcon has SCSI II instead of ACSI

I see that.   For some reason I thought it had both?    It would just be kind of annoying for someone with an ACSI enclosure (like me) migrating from an ST.