
                      ----------------------------------

                      *  F  A  L  C  O  N  *  I  N  F  O

                      ----------------------------------


                     FALCON030 MEMORY -  Is 1 Meg Enough??

                      By Len Stys of Znet Online Magazine


 The Falcon030 "personal integrated media" system was designed to be a
 contender in the home multi-media market.  Atari's engineers made the
 Falcon so that it is excellent at mixing high resolution graphics with
 better than CD-quality sound.  This is absolutely necessary for the
 system to have any chance of success in this area.  Multi-tasking is
 another important part of multi-media and thanks to "Multi-TOS", the
 Falcon030 now has this capability.

 The Falcon030 is also the first low-cost personal computer to have a DSP
 chip and port.  The DSP will allow the Falcon030 to do things that are
 impossible to do on other multi-media systems.  And lastly, at $799, the
 Falcon030 is priced as a mass market product to sell in large
 quantities.  Atari's management must have felt that the more systems
 that sell, the more market share Atari captures.  This is smart thinking
 since the more market share Atari captures, the more systems that sell.

 So, where's the problem?  The problem is that Atari's mass market Falcon
 030 at $799 only comes with 1 Meg of memory.  The Falcon030 with 1 Meg
 is pretty much the same as a Mega STe.  Programmers cannot really use
 the Falcon's enhanced graphics and sound with this amount of memory.
 Let's look at what it would take to make a video game in the resolution
 of 384x480 in "true color":

 To display a still screen:  384 x 480 x 16 / 8 = 368,640k (369k)

 Animation requires two screens to reduce flicker.  This is called
 "double buffering":  737k

 The computer already uses 737k of memory WITHOUT any game logic code,
 sprite data, sound effect data, and operating system overhead.  If all
 of this was taken into consideration, a video game in this resolution
 would need close to 2 Megs.

 Let's look at what it would take to make a video game in the resolution
 of 640x480 (PC games) in "true color":

 To display a still screen:  640 x 480 x 16 / 8 = 614,400k (614k)

 Double Buffering:  1.2 Mb

 Add the game logic code, sprite data, sound effects, and operating
 system overhead.  The minimum amount of memory needed to produce a game
 in this resolution with these colors would be 3 Megs.

 The only thing you could do with 1 Meg of memory in these resolutions
 and colors is display still pictures.  And even though a lot of people
 do this, I am sure most people would like to use these resolutions for
 other things besides viewing pictures.

 The Falcon030 with 1 Meg is also incapable of multi-tasking.  And as
 mentioned previously, multi-tasking is a very important part of multi-
 media.  On Saturday, January 23, 1993, Eric Smith, author of MiNT and
 programmer of Multi-TOS wrote in the "Atari Corporation Online" category
 (14) on GEnie:

 "Just to inject a bit more reality into this: even if MultiTOS is free,
 it still won't be on everybody's machine right away or even at all.  The
 present version of MultiTOS is loaded into RAM, and that means in
 practice that you need 2 megabytes of memory to use it (and 4 megabytes
 is a lot more comfortable).  Also, it's really targetted for the 68030
 machines; on a 68000 it will be somewhat sluggish and will also lack
 memory protection (i.e. it won't be as safe).  Eventually we hope to
 have a ROM version of it, but for now it *is* a memory hog."

 Atari's mass market home multi-media system soon becomes just another
 ordinary single-tasking, low-resolution, mediocre sounding, personal
 computer.  The argument that you can always add memory to take advantage
 of these features is silly.  Can you imagine a company selling a product
 for a certain purpose with intent that the consumer get it expanded
 before he or she can use it for what it was created for?  Besides, most
 of the consumers purchasing the Falcon030 will be people that are
 unfamiliar with computers.  How is a dealer going to explain to a
 consumer that the computer he or she wishes to buy for $799 needs to be
 expanded for an additional $200 before it can be used for multi-media?

 Let's suppose that most of the Falcon030 systems sold were the 1 Meg
 configuration.  We can assume that many of these Falcon owners will not
 expand to 4 Megs much like many 520 ST owners did not expand to 1 Meg or
 greater.  Most developers will write software for the 1 Meg
 configuration since they will want their software to be purchased by as
 many users as possible.  The developer may have to use a lower
 resolution or less sound then he or she wishes.  The software may not be
 fantastic, but at least it will run on a 1 Meg machine.  The developer
 then writes the same software for the Commodore A1200.  But since the
 lowest amount of memory that the A1200 is sold with is 2 Megs, the
 developer can use a better resolution or add some things not on the
 Falcon030 version.  A consumer looking to purchase a personal computer
 will see that the A1200 has better software and will purchase it over
 the Falcon030.

 What happens if developers ignore the 1 Meg Falcon030 computers and just
 write software for the 4 Meg machine?  The new computer user will find
 that most of the software for their computer will not work without more
 memory.  What do you think their feelings will be towards Atari for
 selling them a system that needs to be expanded?

 In order to find out what Atari users and programmers thought of the
 Falcon030 memory, I posted a questionnaire on the Usenet
 comp.sys.atari.st newsgroup.  There were 34 responses.  These are the
 questions and results:

 Do you believe there should be a Falcon030 without memory?

 No: 82.35%        Yes: 17.65%

 What do you believe should be the lowest amount of memory sold with the
 Falcon030?

 1 Meg: 17.65%      2 Meg: 17.65%     4 Meg: 64.70%

 Do you believe there should be a Falcon030 memory configuration between
 4 megs and 14 megs?

 No: 23.53%        Yes: 76.47%

 If so, how much:

 6 Meg:  5.88%      8 Meg: 64.70%
    No: 23.53%   Anything: 11.76%

 What configurations would you choose?

 Falcon030 1 Meg:          11.76%
 Falcon030 4 Meg:          23.53%
 Falcon030 4 Meg/65 Mg HD: 64.70%

 (Atari Works & SpeedoGDOS)
 Does the Atari Works package influence your decision?

 No: 29.41%        Yes: 70.59%

 Please note that the memory amounts between 4 Megs and 14 Megs were
 written in.  There were no answers to choose from.  Also, everyone that
 replied knows how to program computers.

 Many people felt that the Falcon030 should not be sold without memory
 because it would confuse new computer buyers.  But others commented that
 this may not be a bad idea.  If a user wishes to move from 4 Megs to 14
 Megs then he or she can just sell their 4 Meg memory board to a friend
 that just purchased a Falcon030 without memory.  This way, no memory
 boards are thrown away.

 Most people felt strongly that 4 Megs should be the minimum.  The
 reasons given were similar to what was said above.

 A large number of people felt that there should be a memory
 configuration between 4 Megs and 14 Megs.  The number that most people
 suggested was 8 Megs.  They claim that they could use more than 4 Megs,
 but would not need 14 Megs.

 Atari's marketing department seems to be making a smart move by
 including Atari Works and SpeedoGDOS with the Falcon030 w/4 Meg/65 Meg
 HD system.  This is because the addition of this software will influence
 70% of the people that responded.

 About half the people commented about the hard drives that Atari is
 including with the Falcon030.  A good number of these people said that
 65 Megs is too small for their needs, but they would consider buying a
 larger Atari hard drive if they included Atari Works and SpeedoGDOS.
 These are the sizes that were suggested: 65 Megs, 120 Megs, and 200
 Megs.  Though, Atari's hard drives would need to be competitively priced
 with other hard drives.

 The general feeling is that if Atari wants to sell the Falcon030 as a
 home multi-media system, the company needs to sell it with more memory.
 If Atari can lower the Falcon030 4 Meg version to $899, the computer
 will most likely continue to be a mass market product.

 As of now, there are no known Falcon030 1 Meg configurations on the
 market.  Maybe Atari's management has already thought of all of this.
 And if they haven't, maybe you will consider all of this before
 purchasing the Falcon030.


----------------------------------------------------
