From: falavi@bach.mth.kcl.ac.uk (Farrukh Alavi)
Subject: Falcon is an Ape
Organization: J. Random Misconfigured Site
Keywords: Me Too!
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 07:19:12 GMT
X-Posted-From: bach.mth.kcl.ac.uk
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu


I recently got the chance to see a Falcon at the European Computer Trade  
Show. Atari had a small stand there, the first time they have had a stand  
at *any* show for several years now. There were not all that many people  
interested in the Falcon, judging from the few who were in attendance.  
Some of Atari UK's top brass were there as well. I stopped by, pretending  
to be a casual onlooker. One of the Falcons was running a space flight  
simulator. It was SLOW (not sure whether this was due to bad programming  
or the crippled graphics bus). The Atari person demoing the machine kept  
rebooting it to show the new GEM desktop, some still graphics, a paint  
package that utilises the new palette and this space simulator. During one  
of the GEM desktop sessions, I started to grill him. It went something  
like this...

ME: How many colours is that?
HIM: 65000

ME: From ... ? (I knew the answer, but still)
HIM: Unlimited.

ME: *Unlimited*??? It can't possibly be unlimited. Unlimited implies an  
infinite number of bits
HIM: <speechless> (someone else overhearing the conversation nearby  
started to giggle)

ME: You mean from 256000 colours. That's not *unlimited*, it's just very  
large.
HIM: <sorta nods in agreement>

ME: I hear that it's got a built-in genlock
HIM: Yes

ME: You mean no external hardware is required? I can just plug in incoming  
video?
HIM: No, you need external hardware.

ME: Then it's not built-in. You mean it has genlockable modes.
HIM: <sorta nods in agreement>

At this point, I started to pity him. I started to ask him about the sound  
capabilities, but one of his colleagues came over and interjected on his  
behalf. This guy looked quite unfriendly. He affirmed, with a sense of  
finality, that the Falcon still uses the same 8-bit sound chip as in the  
STe, and 8-channel 16-bit audio is possible only through the DSP. I  
decided to say goodbye at this point, and picked up some of the literature  
being given out. It says in there that the Falcon is incompatible with the  
STe, and that Atari is confident of selling 20,000 this year (worldwide or  
in the UK?). As for software availability, it mentions forthcoming stuff  
like D2HD recording and conferencing software that uses the DSP. Atari is  
leaving no doubts, however, that this machine is being aimed squarely at  
the consumer market.

Verdict: The Falcon is an Ape - you know, imitate everyone. A bizarre  
cocktail (pun intended:) of a machine whose hardware is a combination of  
features inspired mainly by the Amiga and the NeXT, plus a few others. For  
instance:

 The colour palettes and resolutions are very much SVGA-like (8/15/16-bit   
colour from an 18-bit palette). The 32K/65K "TrueColor" modes remind one  
of some of the cards you can get to run Windows in. 
 Overscanning, interlacing, genlocking - wonder where they got those  
from!! Around the time of the launch of the TT, Sam Tramiel was  
interviewed by a magazine, and he criticised the Amiga 3000 for its  
flicker. Now he builds a machine with interlace.
 Mucho NeXT emulation in things like their choice of DSP, the SCSI-2  
port, the black colour of the case. Even things like BLiTTER and MiNT are  
dead giveaways. Again, in the aforementioned interview, Sam was quoted as  
saying that he hoped that the TT would "clobber" the NeXT. Imitation is  
the sincerest form of plagiarism....
 That built-in LocalTalk networking port appeared very similar to  
AppleTalk ports you find on any Mac

I don't mean to incubate :) another Falcon flame war here, so any Atari  
fans reading this please note that the above does not include anything  
other than raw facts. I will, however, say the following (mainly because  
it is too difficult to resist:):

"Amiga - the computer for the creative mind"
"Falcon - the computer for birdbrains"

:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)

(note the smileys)