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Text File | 1985-11-20 | 12.7 KB | 273 lines

From CIS Atari Fora .... a sensitive topic is addressed. Falcon niche market? #: 75018 S8/Hot Topics 10-Nov-92 14:32:55 Sb: #74998-#Falcon niche? Fm: SYSOP*Ron Luks 76703,254 To: John J. Amsler 70275,676 (X) I think a very fair representation regarding the Falcon is this: Based upon reports from Dusseldorf and the BCS meeting, the Falcon does indeed have the potential to be Atari's salvation from near-death. It appears to deliver on the hardware promises that Atari has been making. However, that is only half the solution to Atari's problems. Marketing is the other half of the equation and that takes into consideration some of the more minor hardware items. For example, will there be a 2nd model of the Falcon with a detachable keyboard? etc. There are critics and enthusiasts on both sides of the debate drawing very different conclusions from the same pieces of evidence. As an interested observer, I can see some merit in the statements from both sides. Let me try to summarize my feelings as they stand today: I'm encouraged by the fact that Atari seems to have delivered on the basic hardware design. Although I have not yet seen the Falcon, enough people I know and trust have seen it and they are basically satisfied. Now, the marketing decisions, advertising decisions and final form of distribution will make or break it for Atari. This first machine does not have to be perfect, does not have to satisfy everyone completely, no be priced at 1/3 the price of a comparable clone. *BUT* (and this is a big but) it must be GOOD ENOUGH, SATISFY ENOUGH PEOPLE, and BE PRICED LOW ENOUGH to be ENOUGH of a success to enable additional models to be manufactured and sold. Quite frankly, hardware design has not been a big problem for Atari as they have shown in past models and reaffirmed with the new Falcon. Its the marketing/advertising/sales follow-up that has gotten them into the precarious situation they are in now, and thats where all eyes are focused. In my opinion, we need to focus less on what the Falcon CAN do but rather on what will be done with the Falcon. In reply Peter Joseph comments.... #: 75593 S8/Hot Topics 19-Nov-92 23:02:28 Sb: #75018-Falcon niche? Fm: Peter J. Joseph 71540,3347 To: SYSOP*Ron Luks 76703,254 Well said Ron. You know, I'm frustrated. I haven't been around here much the last couple of months. I've spent some time over the last few days reading hundreds of messages here to try to catch up on what's been going on. I didn't even know about the Falcon until just a couple weeks ago. What I've found here is that nothing has really changed. I think I've figured out why people bought STs over PCs. They're using the hundreds of dollars saved to log on here and compare their STs to PCs. I've read over 200 messages that are basically repeats of the same stuff I read last year when the TT appeared and again with the STBook; everybody wants to be as good as a PC but noone wants a PC. It's ludicrous. It's a waste of time. The way I see it, several people here think they could do much better in the computer industry than Atari. They've got all the best ideas for what would make a perfect computer; but what would it cost? Hey, I'm not trying to defend Atari's business practices. Quite frankly, their business practices suck from where I'm sitting. But, I also know that from where I'm sitting I can't see what is going on inside Atari Corporation so I'm not gonna waste time bellyaching about a company that is trying to stay afloat in an industry that is virtually monopolized by the IBM standard. So, the ST was great but 'it lacked this and it should have had that' and so on, so Atari gave us the Mega. That was great too 'but it still should've had this and that, and we want a portable' so Atari replied with the STacy; 'oh, we don't like that at all, that won't sell' so it didn't and that's a piece of history. Portfolio. 'Cute, for a toy PC'. "Here, try a TT", Atari said. 'Nice! But alas, it's still weird here and there, and compatibility, and it's pricey'. MegaSTe. 'Now there's a computer; oh wait, only 16Mhz? Ick! Gee Atari, you're just not scratching our backs where they itch'. "Well take a look at this STBook!" says Atari. 'WOW! A true laptop with..aww, no backlit screen or floppy drive'. "Well, I guess they don't want that either; pull 'em in. Gee, what's gonna make these folks happy anyway?" they said. "Ok, let's get it right this time....folks, you're gonna love this new Falcon." 'Don't be so sure Mr. Atari, as always we've got our best naysayers picking it apart and comparing it to their PCs before you even get it finished. In fact, why don't you just not bother trying anymore Atari, we're so closed-minded about your ability now that we'd rip your products apart even if they plugged directly into our brains and 'became' just what we wanted them to.' Atari: "Fine, we've gotten a bit tired of you spoiled babies anyway; you're impossible to please. <Hey guys, I guess they still don't want our stuff in the U.S. Let's redirect our efforts to the other countries again and forget this useless market altogether.>" Get the point? It's boring. It's a waste of energy. All we get is delayed or cancelled computers. The bottom line? My old 1040ST has _served my needs_ very well. I was going to upgrade to a MegaSTe but it looks like I won't do that now. Maybe I'll wait for the Falcon, I don't know; I really don't care. I'll lose more sleep wishing some Atarians were more productive than I will wishing Atari were. 'Nuf said. < Peter > P.S. Heh heh. I bet I'll get a few replies to this. :^) #: 75614 S8/Hot Topics 20-Nov-92 03:42:00 Sb: #75343-Falcon niche? Fm: Greg Wageman 74016,352 To: SYSOP*Ron Luks 76703,254 Here's another bit for the stew. Today I got a flyer from Radio Shack, advertising their new "Multimedia PC" (their words), and coincidentally saw a TV ad for the same machine. It is a 25 MHz 80486SX with SVGA monitor, CD-ROM drive, 3.5" 1.44Mbyte floppy drive, 4 Megabytes RAM, 107 MByte hard drive, 16-million color Tandy palette chip, send fax/modem, WinMate(tm), MS Bookshelf, MS Money, MS Works for Windows, MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows, for $2200, plus $100 for their under-monitor stereo amp with built-ion speakers. I have the feeling that the ability to access CD-ROM ware on a true-color display at SVGA (1024x768) resolutions is going to sell more PC's than a DSP is going to sell Falcons with no software base. Especially since the prices for equivalently-equipped systems will be competitive. -Greg FALCON ->NEW CASE & BUNDLE ========================== by Dazz Freeman The Falcon range will expand in 1993. A consumer version and a CD Drive will be available. The consumer version will be repackaged in a new case and sell for 399 and be a 1Mb version (ie no MultiTOS just a games machine) and launched around May 1993. The consumer version will be packaged to appeal to games players but there will be only 1 or 2 games bolstered by productivity packages such as those available now. The idea is to get at the console users with the graphics and sound quality and make them see that a keyboard and processing power does have benefits (sounds like the same challenge that computers companies had in the early-mid 80s). The Falcon CD drive will be compatible with the dominant CD format at the time. Atari doesn't believe that it will be the CDTV format. It does believe that the format will emerge as Full Motion Video is incorporated into new systems. The 10,000 Falcons shipped this side of Xmas will sell to the techies, Atari reckon. There will be around 10 titles available this year but unlikely to be games. The vast majority will be published by Atari. Development machines are now being sent to the big games house, Ocean, US Gold etc. (Note that these houses have had the new Amiga 1200 for months!). In Jan 93 to May 93 the range of "life-enhancing" software will increase "dramatically" and around 5-10 games will appear. Gleadow admits that they will be "good rather than great titles" (dear oh dear!) and most published by Atari (I wonder why?) but developed by third parties. Space Junk is being worked on by Mirage, for instance. Some third parties will publish anonymously ;-). Gleadow reckons that the majority of the major houses will come online in June - Dec 1993, the theory is that they will have had the Falcons for 6 months and the techies will be demanding to get to grips with them. He also reckons that Comet and Dixons will be so impressed by now to start selling the Falcon. The big licence for Xmas 1993 will be available on the Falcon as Atari will get it for the Lynx any way. Gleadow reckons that 200-250,000 units will sell in 1993 making it the biggest selling home computer. (I personally can't see this at all and is a tactic to build up confidence in the retail and software house which has all but disappeared for the ST). In 1994, the new Sega and Nintendo machines will arrive presumably with interactive capabilities and backed up with advertising budgets that make Atari's losses for this year look like peanuts. Gleadow doesn't yet have an answer for them and is relying on the Falcon (and presumably the Amiga) having taken over that market (10-15 year olds). The Commodore Amiga 1200 was released last week featuring 32-bit architecture and the AA custom chip set, IDE internal interface, 2Mb RAM and a floppy disk drive. Selling at 699 and hitting stores this week, it will be a serious challenge for the Falcon. As all the major games publishers have games already written for it the Falcon doesn't have much of a chance up till Xmas this year attracting the console market they are clearly aiming at - a market not in the least interested in DSP because they don't know what it is or what benefits it will give them. Commodore plans to sell 30,000 units this year (compared to 10,000 Falcons). Falcon discussion from Cat. 14, Topic 20, Msgs. 72-90... From Jim Allen (Fast Tech) - The blitter question is: During DMA and graphics operations, does the blitter chip place onto the 68030 address bus, and 68030 data bus, the address of and data of the operation. In other words, when the blitter draws a line, does the 68030 chip "see" the accesses as they occur, so that a _cache_ at the 030 chip's location can be kept up-to-date with the memory alterations the blitter makes. This will be ESPECIALLY important when a 68040 chip is used, so I HOPE Atari has done the correct thing, otherwise there will need to be OS changes to "flush" the 040 caches every time the blitter blits, etc. Also, does the 68030 always get put asleep using the standard DMA handshake pins when the blitter does it's thing? In other words, when the blitter does DMA/graphics, is the 68030 bumped off the memory bus using the DMA lines...this would allow an external cache to be "flushed" on all blitter activity, if the answer to the first question is NO. As for QIndex numbers: Running in ST HIGH compatibility mode, compared against TOS 1.4 in ST MONO, the Falcon (production, rev 4) produces: Memory 487 Register 406 divide 507 shift 1737 text 167 string 172 scroll 219 draw 204 Obviously it could use Warp9 ;-) Answer from John Townsend (Atari Corp.) - The Falcon030 has a 24bit Address Bus and a 16bit Data Bus. The expansion port on the machine represents that bus. The Falcon030 can have a minimum of 1 meg of RAM and a maximum of 14 megs of RAM. Possible RAM configurations are 1meg, 4meg, or 14 megs of RAM. Jim.. Here are some answers to your BLiTTER questions: 1. Yes, during DMA and graphics operations, the BLiTTER does place on the A24/D16 bus the address and data of the operation. It works exactly like the ST BLiTTER did. In addition, the A24/D16 bus is the PDS bus in the Falcon030. In regards to your comments about flushing the cache in the 030, TOS currently does this. 2. Yes, the 68030 is bumped off the memory bus when DMA is active. I was told that it uses the standard 68K bus handshaking methods.