Atari Falcon040
 | |
| Falcon040 prototype main board | |
| Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Atari Corporation |
| Type | Prototype personal computer (not released) |
| Released | Announced 2 June 1992; planned for November 1992; not released[1] |
| Discontinued | Development ended during 1994[1] |
| CPU | Motorola 68040 (clock rate not known); Motorola 56001 DSP planned[1] |
| Memory | Six 72-pin SIMM sockets[1] |
| Storage | — |
| Display | — |
| Sound | — |
| OS / Firmware | TOS 4 (unfinished beta known as TOS 4.92)[1] |
| Predecessor | Atari Falcon030 |
The Atari Falcon040 was a 68040-based computer that Atari Corporation developed as the top model of its Falcon range and never released. Only prototype boards exist.[1]
History
[edit | edit source]Atari first mentioned the Falcon040 at its annual general meeting in Sunnyvale on 2 June 1992, as a machine to appear with the Atari Falcon030 in 1992; the technical data give November 1992 as the planned date. It was postponed soon afterwards. Atari planned three Falcon models: the Falcon030, a desktop Falcon030 "Microbox" and the Falcon040 at the top. Development appears to have stopped during 1994, when Atari left the computer market to concentrate on the Lynx and Jaguar consoles.[1]
Hardware
[edit | edit source]The prototype main board is meant for a desktop or tower case and has no built-in keyboard.[1]
- Seven PGA sockets: one for the 68040 and the others for the DSP, the VIDEL II video chip, the COMBEL II system chip and other custom chips. Five of them have 209 pins, one 299 and one, probably the processor socket, 179. According to Leonard Tramiel, quoted by the museum from a Facebook group in October 2019, the new custom chips were never finished.[1]
- Six 72-pin SIMM sockets; the maximum memory is not known.[1]
- Three expansion slots in the PCI layout, one of them turned through 180° at the left end of the board. It is not known whether they follow the PCI standard or carry Atari's own bus. One card that was built carries the parallel port, both MIDI ports, the Dallas clock chip, two ACIAs and two Motorola PLCC chips.[1]
- Five PLCC chips, including the TOS ROM and the SCSI controller, and the AJAX floppy controller used in the TT030 and Mega STE.[1]
The clock rate planned for the 68040 is not known.[1] The connectors listed for the prototype are SCSI II (50-pin), a 25-pin printer port, MIDI in and out, an 8-pin mini-DIN LAN port, an RJ11 keyboard socket, a 26-pin high-density DSP connector and a 15-pin high-density VGA monitor socket.[1]
Operating system
[edit | edit source]The Falcon040 was to run a new version of TOS 4, which was not finished. A beta version is available online as TOS 4.92; compared with the Falcon030's TOS 4.0x it can load desk accessories at any time and minimise windows.[1]
68040 accelerators for the Falcon030
[edit | edit source]A 68040 Falcon seen running today is a Falcon030 with an accelerator. The Afterburner 040 was a third-party 68040 board with two 72-pin SIMM sockets that connects to the Falcon030's internal expansion port and to points on the main board, and disables the original 68030.[2]
Related pages
[edit | edit source]References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 Atari Computermuseum, "Unvollendet: Der Atari Falcon 040" (last edited 25 August 2024): history, main board, chips, expansion, operating system, connectors and technical data. Community source.
- ↑ AtariForumWiki, "Afterburner 040". Community source.