Falcon Drives

Hell hath no fury like a platform scorned, and Atari's neglect of the Falcon drives the mild‑mannered Ofir Gal to rancorous recrimination...

Anyone trying to second‑guess the logic behind Atari's business decisions is on a sure track to insanity. It's not that they make bad business decisions — obviously, as Atari is still a going concern — but logic? Forget it. Just try to make sense out of the latest press releases to come from Sunnyvale, California.

Last year, Atari made it quite clear in several statements that it is no longer interested in computers, conceding defeat to the mighty PC‑compatibles. Atari, we were told, was going to concentrate its efforts on its games console — the Jaguar. What exactly was meant by 'efforts' is anyone's guess, but they seem to have failed — the Jaguar is now retailing at $99, less than half its original price. Apparently, this move was planned even before the Falcon was launched. So much for building consumer confidence.

A few months later, and further announcements talk of Atari moving into the 'PC entertainment arena', or in other words into games publishing. A new division called Atari Interactive is to produce a range of games for the Jaguar, Mac and PC. A quick scan of their internet pages reveals that only one game, Tempest 2000, is actually available. Three other games are to be released soon. Atari, we are told, will continue to support the Jaguar. Read what you will into that, but they said the same thing about the Falcon — and MultiTOS development was completely and quietly abandoned.

I don't know if this move was also planned before the Falcon release, but I doubt if that was ever the case. My guess is that Atari released the Falcon because it was relatively easy to do so, and the management was playing things by ear. Had the Falcon become a success, further models that were already in development would have followed. As things turned out, the Falcon wasn't much of a success, partly due to PC and Mac prices falling at an alarming rate, and also because the Falcon was late — very late.

Buyouts And Mergers

Atari has now merged with JTS, a relatively new hard drive manufacturer. JTS may be a new name, but the people behind it have been involved in hard disk making for some years, heading companies like Seagate and Conner among others. JTS is concentrating on a new generation of 3‑inch drives for portable computers, and the new company will maintain the JTS name, while Atari Interactive will become one of its independent divisions. "We are very excited about its [the new company's] prospects" said managing director Jack Tramiel, the man who was just as excited about the Falcon not that long ago. The merger cost Atari $25,000,000.

Atari also published its sales and profit figures for 1995. These show that Atari lost nearly $50,000,000 in 1995 compared to a net income of almost $10,000,000 in the previous year. Most of the income in 1995 came from a licensing deal with Sega, which was the culmination of Sega's use of some old Atari software patents related to game programming. Consequently, the company had to lose some more of its workforce.

Rumours of another deal abound on the internet. Apparently, Wizztronics have bought or licensed the rights to TOS and the Falcon, and is planning a major upgrade to TOS. If the name Wizztronics sounds vaguely familiar, that's because they have been promising an 040‑based Falcon accelerator called the Barracuda for the last two years. I have not managed to speak with anyone who actually saw a working prototype of the accelerator, so this deal does not inspire much confidence either.

Is any of this of any significance to the average Atari owner? Probably not. It's been a long time since Atari participated in the development of new products, and an even longer time since it led the scene. Jack Tramiel certainly knows how to get Wall Street excited — Atari share prices are going up again, just as they did when the Jaguar was announced. It only serves to add to the 'feel bad factor' on the Atari scene. It's a great shame to see an excellent computer platform wasting away. When you think about it, it's amazing that a ten year‑old computer is still in service in many recording studios around the world.

End Of The World As We Know It

As if you haven't had enough bad news already, Specialist Magazines, publishers of Atari World have gone into liquidation. Atari World rose from the ashes of ST Review, when the latter was bought by Future Publishing and promptly closed down. The magazine was launched mainly thanks to the efforts of Neal O'Nions of Compo UK, which has also gone into liquidation, and Vic Lennard, editor of ST Review and author of numerous articles and books about MIDI and Atari computing — most notably in this very column before the current author took it over! The magazine was aimed at the more serious Atari user, covering topics such as DTP, MIDI and programming among others. After 11 issues it became clear that the magazine could not be sustained, and the decision was made to end its short life.

Although ST Format is still going in a somewhat reduced capacity, the closure of Atari World is regarded as very bad news by both the industry and users. Several parties have expressed interest in buying the title, and discussions of a rescue plan are taking place — but no final decisions have been made as yet. Sources at Pearson's, publisher of ST Format, have indicated that publication of ST Format is to continue for the foreseeable future, so there's still some hope.