Retro Video Gamer

[align=center:225lgdi9]This thread is especially for DCultrapro who was asking about what the Atari Falcon was on one of his You Tube videos 

The Atari Falcon was released in 1992 and was the 32-bit follow up to the Atari ST/TT line. It shipped in the same case as the ST to save money and was barely supported leaving it to bomb massively and was scrapped by Atari only the year after so they could concentrate on the Jaguar. It did however, like the ST, carve a nice niche in the music scene.

Wikipedia Page (//http)

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G50TjygLoSg/T0S7pQQ9jWI/AAAAAAAAIm8/9GcZDErRZ0A/s1600/Atari+Falcon+030.png)

Along with the release of the machine Atari also announced several games including Jeff Minter's Llamazap!, Road Riot 4WD, Steel Talons (both conversions of Atari arcade games), Evolution: Dino Dudes and Raiden. The latter of which was never finished or released, there is a prototype version though.

Road Riot 4WD Atari Falcon version (//http)[/align:225lgdi9]

The machine still has quite a hardcore cult following and fans still produce homebrew games and demos for it.

Starstruck by The Black Lotus - Atari Falcon version (//http)

fantastic post...I completely forgot about the Falcon.

Very nice.  I had heard about the Falcon but had never seen one.  Yet another one of Tramiel's many blunders, I suppose.

Wow what a fantastic machine that was..

This is a great home brew game for the machine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W2Tmo3Mais (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W2Tmo3Mais)

Great stuff, looks like a Jaguar game

Quote from: "Minerals"Great stuff, looks like a Jaguar game

Funny because several people in the comments said that and suggested that the programmer port it to the Jag, would definately be a good fit.

sounds awesome, whats that game in the bottom of your first post mate? have you got any gameplay? nice little machine thanks for the info!!

Quote from: "dcultrapro"sounds awesome, whats that game in the bottom of your first post mate? have you got any gameplay? nice little machine thanks for the info!!

The second video in my first post is a demo 

yeah, it says starstruck or something on the youtube description? looks awesome but it all looked like fmv or prerendered movies rather than gameplay... is it something that is coming soon? looks awesome

Quote from: "dcultrapro"yeah, it says starstruck or something on the youtube description? looks awesome but it all looked like fmv or prerendered movies rather than gameplay... is it something that is coming soon? looks awesome

No its just a graphics demo using realtime 3D, people showing off basically 

Atari own conversion of the Steel Talons arcade game on the Falcon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV184eUA5Gk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV184eUA5Gk)

I just came across this awsome sounding and looking Falcon game 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd-fv4qlBJE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd-fv4qlBJE)

This would also make a great Jaguar conversion!!!

That looks awesome!  Is it hard to convert these games to the Jaguar?

Quote from: "TrekMD"That looks awesome!  Is it hard to convert these games to the Jaguar?

Not too difficult because the Falcon uses a 68030 CPU, which is backwards compatible with the 68000 chip in the Jag, so you can port the main code fairly easily. You need to convert all the graphics to run on the GPU, which is the hardest part. The sound isn't usually a problem as its just MOD music / samples on the DSP so easy to convert. The lost Jaguar version of Ishar III was just a pure Falcon port according to the programmer.

So, what you are saying is that it needs someone willing to do it since it is technically possible.

Quote from: "TrekMD"So, what you are saying is that it needs someone willing to do it since it is technically possible.

Pretty much, would be a good project for somebody. Certainly more worthwhile than some of the crap that's appeared on the Jaguar.

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "TrekMD"So, what you are saying is that it needs someone willing to do it since it is technically possible.

Pretty much, would be a good project for somebody. Certainly more worthwhile than some of the crap that's appeared on the Jaguar.

If I knew how to program for the Jaguar, I'd give it a try.  Alas, I know nothing about programming!  With the Jaguar community being so split, I don't see it as an easy task to find someone to do this, though.

Here is another really cool Falcon game for you, Jeff Minter's Llamazap. This was originally going to be a game for the Atari Panther console.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVnuSrunKI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVnuSrunKI)

Just a reminder for anyone reading this thread I have now added Atari Falcon (//http) to the reviews section! 

Here is a great development I wanted to share with you!

Some clever bugger has ported the Sharp X68000 version of Pac-Mania over to the Falcon and hopes more conversions will follow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HELyQzBSB9M (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HELyQzBSB9M)

QuotePac-Mania X68000 ported to the Atari Falcon 030 (16 MHz, 14 MB RAM). A first and buggy experimental test version. The sprites are emulated in realtime so the framerate goes down on more sprites visible. Only about 10 lines of the original disassembled X68000 source code have been modified! Screen size: 384x240 pixel. 65536 colors. No sound emulation yet though.

 

Look here for more info! (//http)

Brilliant stuff indeed.

14mb!? 

Quote from: "AmigaJay"14mb!? 

I think that might have been a typo, a standard Falcon 030 is 4mb.

Great choice of game to port.

They have ported Galaga '88 now too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P3WOcDrtKM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P3WOcDrtKM)

Technically it was a very advanced machine.  Dare I say that it was superior to the Commodore Amiga A1200, as it had a DSP and a '030 processor.  Just a shame that it got little specialised software support and Atari pulled the plug on it.  Doubtless it would have been under pressure for the VGA and soundcard PC market at the time as well. 

I don't think that I ever saw one in a computer shop or a Dixons at the time.  Hmmm, maybe that was part of its problem. 

Quote from: "Katzkatz"Technically it was a very advanced machine.  Dare I say that it was superior to the Commodore Amiga A1200, as it had a DSP and a '030 processor.  Just a shame that it got little specialised software support and Atari pulled the plug on it.  Doubtless it would have been under pressure for the VGA and soundcard PC market at the time as well. 

I don't think that I ever saw one in a computer shop or a Dixons at the time.  Hmmm, maybe that was part of its problem.

On memory stick i'm sending Laird, there's an article from C.U Amiga where the Falcon is PRAISED and A1200 Slamned by an Amiga user and jurnolist, Falcon indeed seem superior to A1200 in key areas (weaker in others).Hopefully Laird will put the article up on here for the benifit of the community here.

On paper the Falcon was indeed more powerful, but with any hardware the proof is in the games and program's, which the A1200 had loads more of. More bad marketing by Atari.
I still think the AGA chipset was Commodores demise though, the original plan was AA (AGA) in 1991 and AAA in 1994, but Commodore delayed launch because of the success of the A500, cancelled the AAA chipset in early 1993, and started work on a 64-bit RISC chipset (Hombre) the lead designer looking back said it was on par with the Sega Saturn at shifting 3D but in higher resolutions, due out late 94...it came too late and Commodore might still be here...but of course by delaying AGA and having no fpu and only 020 CPU it was still a nice machine but indeed too late to save them.

Just been glancing over the original Falcon piece in C.U with writer saying A1200 was more powerful than Falcon only in terms of it's higher res display (256,000 colours from Palette of 16.7 Million), but changing from 1 colour to another was slow.

He goes onto say 'thanks' to Atari Corp, the Falcon had '..more false starts than a deaf sprinter, whilst the A1200 quietly appeared in Dec and sold 50,000 units in the week prior to Xmas'.

More interesting was C.U's later feature, 'What Computer', Falcon looked at in detail.Under PRO'S we see it scoring with:

DSP chip, true multitasking, SCSI+MIDI as standard and being reasonably expandable.

Under CONS we see it scoring minus points for:

(being) limited to 256 colours, 16 Bit Ram, slow CPU speed and... 'It's an ATARI'

Reading the article they say it was silly to sell the standard model in a 1Mb configuration, as with this amount of memory, it's impossible to multitask effectively or make any significant use of the DSP.

This is a video from K Kart, an unfinished Mario Kart clone for the Falcon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xa6RPJ8ymA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xa6RPJ8ymA)

Funny how they are called Mario Kart clones.

Quote from: "onthinice"Funny how they are called Mario Kart clones.

Your post reminded me of how often I've seen others refer to Breakout clones as being 'Arkanoid clones'. Grrrr!  >:(

Quote from: "DreamcastRIP"

Quote from: "onthinice"Funny how they are called Mario Kart clones.

Your post reminded me of how often I've seen others refer to Breakout clones as being 'Arkanoid clones'. Grrrr!  >:( :D I think more often it's a refined version that is often remembered and used as a 'genre' clone.
As for Mario Kart clone, it's normally only used when games used the same rotation for the track similar to mode7 on the snes. Which obviously that Falcon game was based on.

Quote from: "AmigaJay"

Quote from: "DreamcastRIP"

Quote from: "onthinice"Funny how they are called Mario Kart clones.

Your post reminded me of how often I've seen others refer to Breakout clones as being 'Arkanoid clones'. Grrrr!  >:( :D I think more often it's a refined version that is often remembered and used as a 'genre' clone.
As for Mario Kart clone, it's normally only used when games used the same rotation for the track similar to mode7 on the snes. Which obviously that Falcon game was based on.

:-) Not as bad as when ever TV shows tried to show say a kid off shot or in shot but not acting, playing a videogame, i.e ANY videogame be it a MD or PS1, they'd put in sound FX from the NES!!

Haha! Yeah I've noticed that!

Apparently certain people are claiming that my Atari Falcon reviews on this site are based on You Tube videos, yes you did read that correctly. Somebody actually thinks you can review a game from watching a You Tube video 

Just because somebody doesn't own a machine, doesn't mean they have never played on one. Don't see anyone questioning my Archimedes, NES or Master System reviews.

So I must have been dreaming about all those Jagfest events I attended and the multiple Falcons that filled the room. I must have imagined my friend Steve picking up the Falcon that can be seen on the NERG website. The two Falcons present at the last Revival (belonging to my friends Mark Branson and Nick Harlow) must have been an illusion and these photos were obviously done in photoshop:

[align=center:1fhzmxxf](https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/t1/1000113_10151819567573596_748948802_n.jpg)

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t1/1454691_10151819565708596_1089574382_n.jpg)[/align:1fhzmxxf]

This Falcon from the previous Revival (belonging to the computer museum guys) is just a mirage:

[align=center:1fhzmxxf](https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/t1/541559_10151435893668596_698771740_n.jpg)[/align:1fhzmxxf]

This photo from Jagfest UK in 2005 must be magic!

[align=center:1fhzmxxf](https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/t1/75773_173797832636210_8011911_n.jpg)[/align:1fhzmxxf]

I think you get the picture . . . . .

It's amazing some of the things I get accused of! Next somebody will be saying it was me and not 10PSEX who made the fake Atari Age page . . . OH WAIT!

Lol who cares fella, you review them and thats all that matters..

Quote from: "zapiy"Lol who cares fella, you review them and thats all that matters..

Sadly some people do. I just wanted to set the record straight.

The bottom picture (with one Falcon with a red mouse mat) and the other with the TFT screen are actually Falcons that belong to myself and CiH. We're both active Atari sceners and regularly attend demoparties based abroad, such as Outline and Sillyventure. Here in the UK though we do have the multiformat Sundown demoparty and this is a recommended visit to anyone here on the forum who fancies doing something a bit different.

Quote from: "felice"The bottom picture (with one Falcon with a red mouse mat) and the other with the TFT screen are actually Falcons that belong to myself and CiH. We're both active Atari sceners and regularly attend demoparties based abroad, such as Outline and Sillyventure. Here in the UK though we do have the multiformat Sundown demoparty and this is a recommended visit to anyone here on the forum who fancies doing something a bit different.

I thought one of those was yours! I have loads of old Jagfest photos, those were the days!

I wish I could have gone to Sillyventure but money was just too tight  :113:

Hey that's some photoshop skills right there  :21:

The Falcon was alittle bit a mystery. It was released at a time the PC completed it's domination at home and also in offices. It was a quite good piece of hardware but as usual too late and too expensive with less support.

Specially as the machines were not sold anymore by electronic shops it disappeared within weeks out of focus by potential customers. Atari provided no ads nor any distribution channel to keep customers informed.

During that time I went out of Atari Business as no projects was targeted for that platform, neither for Amiga or any other machine beside PC (my Acorn Archimedes was only an expensive hobby). I sold my complete Atari 8-Bit collection for about $500 on ebay. Followed by Amiga 1000, Atari 1040STF and all the other devices as there was no demand anymore. Previous customers offered me their old devices as switching to PC. But the business was simple dead with that machines.

Today a Falcon is very rare and auctions at ebay offers them for $500 or higher whereas Atari ST and TT are within the $20-$50 price range.

From "Personal Computer World" November 1992.

(http://www.diffusedion.co.uk/images/AtariFalcon1-s.jpg) (//http)

(http://www.diffusedion.co.uk/images/AtariFalcon2-s.jpg) (//http)

(http://www.diffusedion.co.uk/images/AtariFalcon3-s.jpg) (//http)

[align=center:1x5ap2yl]Metal Slug emulated on an Atari Falcon 030 (16 MHz, 14 MB RAM) (//http)[/align:1x5ap2yl]

The Falcon is the most underestimated computer ever! Only a few month available, no advertising and silent approach and cancellation.

Sadly to say that if Atari and Amiga may have joined their forces the computer industry may look in another way today. The Falcon was equal to the Amiga after the Amiga run through serveral redesign phases and finally was delivered with the right chipset (the first version was outdated but available as CBM run out of money).

[align=center:1svfeelb]"Aero Fighters 3 (Sonic Wings 3)" on the Atari Falcon 030 (//http)[/align:1svfeelb]

That looks like a pretty cool game. 

Quote from: "TrekMD"That looks like a pretty cool game.

This is another Neo Geo to Atari Falcon conversion, really impressive stuff!