Where Maggie speculates a hypothetical improvement in a poor situation. The Falcon 030 is relaunched!

It is 1992, you suddenly wake up in the body of the marketing manager of Atari and you have a promising but underdeveloped new computer coming out. The Atari Falcon 030, is already lauded by the die hard fans, but not well understood by anyone else.

Your 2015 jaded self has a major advantage over the 'back then folks'. You have access to the entire back catalogue of software of all categories made for this machine from then until the day before you were pitched back in time so abruptly.

So, your task is to construct a new and awe inspiring software catalogue for the Falcon's launch, with the outstanding titles that would provide a massive boost for its future prospects. Well for the next couple of years or so at least. The aim is to get it at least to the completed development and release of the famed Atari Microbox Falcon.

For reference, we are talking about a stock Falcon, as of 1993, with no accelerators and 4 MB RAM. So no CT60 (yet!) sorry people.

Just the one FAQ..

"Why didn't you include *******, CiH, you unintelligent person?

Answer:- It's entirely a personal and subjective viewpoint. These are the choices I would make. They are not necessarily the choices that other people might make. I think we will have at least some of the more obvious ones in common though.

Anyone who wants to make a case why ******* is a killer app for the Falcon 030, if it turned up at its launch in 1992-3, is welcome to write in with their detailed reasons why. I could then produce a follow up for this article. so everybody is a winner!

Graphics:-

The Falcon 030 was never historically short of various kinds of art, design and pixelling programs. Early efforts tended to come with a GEM interface and may well have been optimised for the still faster Atari TT with a suitable third party graphics card.

The flagship release for this category is going to be Apex Media. As well as a smart custom interface, it also plays to the Falcon's particular strengths with DSP support and extensive special tools. There will be a lot of morphing demo's going on here!

Music:-

This can be subdivided into several categories. The Falcon was intended as a strong contender in this area, with early support for its enhanced audio capabilities. So there would be direct to disk recording programs, there would be special versions of established favourites like Cubase.

But a killer app would have to do something unique. For this reason, we're going to pull Ace Tracker in from the future, probably in its MIDI version. This is most definitely something that should have been there at the start. It could have secured the production of the Falcon for another year on its own! It may well cause a major rethink by other professional music software makers as to how their own products look and perform.

Runner up:- Some form of tracker has got to get in there too. I opt for Flex Tracker, also by New Beat, especially hooked up to a good stereo system. Digital Home Studio is in with a shout as well. Much as I love Graoumf Tracker, it is a tad unstable for prime time.

Games:-

In spite of all the people who are glad that there aren't many games on their computer, this is an important part of a new machine's appeal. Fortunately, over the fullness of time, some very promising releases have come to the Falcon, with a few stand-out productions.

First person shooter will be the classic 'Running'. Yes I did think of 'Bad Mood', but we've still only got 4MB Falcons right now. 'Bad Mood' will need to wait until the 14MB model is around in numbers. It may even be kept back for the Microbox launch. 'Running' still offers a very immersive experience, with a reasonable speed on a standard Falcon.

Other categories, we can include 'Racer 2' as a high end game for the launch. Sparkling presentation and lots of varied track action make this into a hit. One cautionary note is that the original 65 MB hard disk size may not be enough for a game of this size. Atari would need to go to a 120 MB internal hard drive at least? We have also got the single level demo of the karting game 'K'. I wonder if this could be inspired to completion?

I would also throw in the demo level of 'Willies Adventures' to get Thomas to finish the damn thing!

I'd like to get 'Crown of Creation 3D' in here, for another demonstration of the state-of-the-artness of the Falcon and DSP coding.

Something completely different - 'Killing Impact' by Rebel Vision. It's 'Joust' for the nineties, with some unique features such as entirely DSP synthesised music.

Finally, to round up the launch titles, a total mood change with 'Chainz' by Paradize Software. A gentle and great looking puzzler using the rarely utilised 640 x 480 VGA mode.

*Another one to put in for the MicroBox launch. 'Elansar', or Myst for the Falcon. It needs a CD-ROM so would promote sales of that kind of hardware too.

Demos:-

Although these aren't as important to a commercial software scene, apart from early spotting of potential future skills, a couple of good looking demos wouldn't go amiss here.

For a wonderful showcase of the capabilities for this early period, I would paradoxically choose a very recent release, namely 'Tere Ra'i' by Dune. This shows off high level skills in still graphics and dynamic coding that could be applied to future game releases.

My second choice would show off the 'multi-media' side of the Falcon, with the classic 'Lost Blubb', which handily has a shop window mode as well.

Runner-Up Spot:- 'Sonoluminescenz', 'Hmmm' Demo, 'Beams', too many to list really.

Pack in software with the machine at release:-

I'm happy to leave this *mostly* alone. However, I'd replace the bloody awful official Atari GEM version of 'Breakout' with 'Tautology 2' from the Reservoir Gods, to show them what a worthwhile game looks like!

And I'd add in a small mod file player, nothing too elaborate, four channels, 50 KHz, that ought to do it.

CiH for Maggie - Feb 2015.

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