--- title: Atari FALCON 030 MicroBox categories: - Computers types: - Professional Computer origins: - U.S.A. years: - '1993' cpus: - Motorola MC68030 params: name: FALCON 030 MicroBox company: /companies/atari company_name: Atari specs: - label: NAME value: FALCON 030 MicroBox - label: MANUFACTURER value: Atari - label: TYPE value: Professional Computer - label: ORIGIN value: U.S.A. - label: YEAR value: '1993' - label: KEYBOARD value: Full-stroke keyboard with numeric and editing keypads - label: CPU value: Motorola MC68030 + Motorola DSP 56001 - label: SPEED value: 16 MHz (68030) / 32 MHz (56001) - label: CO-PROCESSOR value: optional FPU (Motorola 68882) - label: RAM value: 4 MB (up to 14 MB) - label: TEXT MODES value: 40 or 80 chars. x 25 lines (bitmapped graphics) - label: GRAPHIC MODES value: ST Modes, TT Modes, VGA (640 x 480), True Color - label: COLORS value: 'Two modes : 16 bit with True color mode or 262144 with paletted mode' - label: SOUND value: 8 channel 16 bit PCM audio system - label: I/O PORTS value: RGB, VGA, PAL, DSP, SCSI, Stereo IN/OUT, Midi (2), LocalTalk, Cardridge, RS232c, Centronics, Joystick (2) - label: BUILT IN MEDIA value: 3.5'' FDD (internal Hard Disk ?) - label: OS value: TOS + GEM tabs: - photos - hardware - emulators - links - docs photos: - title: ATARI FALCON MICROBOX subtitle: '' text: |- nother Atari Falcon Microbox design, which is slightly newer than the version presented on the description page. Thanks to Malcolm Ramage for this picture image: null - title: ATARI FALCON MICROBOX subtitle: '' text: |- ...with keyboard Thanks to Malcolm Ramage for this picture image: null - title: ATARI FALCON MICROBOX subtitle: '' text: Thanks to Malcolm Ramage for this picture image: null - title: ANY RESEMBLANCE IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL subtitle: '' text: 'On my left : The Sony PlayStation2, on my right, the Atari Falcon030 MicroBox. Mmmmm...' image: null hardware: - title: SF-354 subtitle: Single density disk-drive text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_st_sf354-diskdrive_1.jpg - title: SF-314 subtitle: Disk-drive text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_st-disk-drive_sf314.jpg - title: CUMANA DRIVE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_520_cumanadrive_1.jpg - title: SUPRADRIVE subtitle: 20 Mb hard-disk text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_supradrive_20mb.jpg - title: 170MB QUANTUM HARD-DRIVE subtitle: '' text: This unit has an ICD Host Adapter. image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_st_quamtum_hd170.jpg - title: ATARI MEGAFILE 30 subtitle: '' text: This hard-drive has a 30Mb capacity. image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_st_megafile30_1.jpg - title: INSIDE THE MEGAFILE 30 subtitle: '' text: |- **(1)** Seagate MFM 30 MB hard-disk Type ST-238\ **(2)** Power supply\ **(3)** Logical board\ **(4)** Power and disk access LED's image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_megast_insidemegafile_1.jpg - title: ATARI UNIVERSAL MODEM subtitle: '' text: |- The SX212 modem was one of the rare Atari peripherals that could be used with all the Atari computers range, from the 400/800 series up to the Falcon. It had both the Atari I/O ports for the 8-bit systems and a standard RS-232 connector for ST's It was a 300/1200 baud modem compatible with the well-known Hayes 'AT' commands.\ Cable and software was sold separately, depending of the computer used. image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_520_modemsx212_1.jpg - title: SML-804 subtitle: Laser printer text: |- The SLM-804 was actually a Kyocera F1000 printer but without neither on-board processor and memory nor buttons other than the on/off switch. It was first delivered with the Mega ST but could be connected on all of the ST series computers through a dedicated interface box.\ The printer used the processing power and the RAM memory of the ST computer for printing at 8 pages per minute and 300 DPI. The paper tray held 250 sheets. Thanks to **Francois Michaud** who donated us this printer. image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_megast_slm804printer_s1.jpg - title: SMLC-804 subtitle: Laser printer interface text: This interface allowed the SML-804 printer to be connected to any Atari ST holding at least 1 MB RAM. image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_megast_slmcinterface_s1.jpg emulators: - title: Pacifist ! url: http://www.pacifist.fatal-design.com/ platform: MS DOS text: Pretty good emulator - title: Gemulator url: http://www.emulators.com/gemul8r.htm platform: Windows text: '' - title: MagiCPC url: http://www.application-systems.de/magicpc/index.html platform: Windows text: '' - title: SainT url: http://saint.atari.org platform: Windows text: The best Atari ST Emulator ! - title: Steem url: http://steem.atari.st/ platform: Windows text: Excellent emulator for 1040/520 STE ! - title: Tos2Win url: http://www.aixit.com/tos2win/ platform: Windows text: A good Atari GEM Emulator ! - title: MagiCMac url: http://www.application-systems.de/magicmac/index.html platform: Apple text: '' - title: NoSTalgia & PowerST url: http://users.skynet.be/sky39147/ platform: Apple text: '' - title: STonX Homepage url: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/nino/stonx.html platform: Unix / Linux text: '' - title: Atari ST Emulator url: http://www.atari-st.lovely.net/ platform: Other platform text: Written in Java ! - title: ARAnyM url: HTTP://ARANYM.ATARI.ORG platform: Multiplatform text: Multiplatform project - title: Hatari url: http://hatari.sourceforge.net/ platform: Multiplatform text: Hatari is an Atari ST emulator for Linux, BSD, BeOS, Mac OS X and other systems that are supported by the SDL library. More precisely, Hatari is an adaption of the WinSTon source code to the SDL library. links: - title: Atari & Commodore Home Computer Museum url: http://www.best.com/~hmk/ text: '' - title: Atari Music Network url: http://www.atarimusic.net/ text: Atari Music Network welcomes and celebrates all vintage digital musicians no matter what their computer - title: Atari ST Demo History url: http://wwwbrauer.in.tum.de/~brandtf/ataridemos.html text: '' - title: Atari ST Download Area url: http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Services/PDA/atari.shtml text: Atari 400/800/XL/XE & ST/TT/Falcon Software download page - title: ATARI.ORG url: http://www.atari.org/ text: Looking for something on any Atari machine ? Follow the links ! - title: Dead Hackers Society url: http://www.dhs.nu/ text: Atari demo scene - title: Little Green Desktop url: http://www.atari.st/ text: Largest Atari ST ressource! - title: Medusa computer url: http://www.kingx.com/kingx/medusa/thes.html text: You can still buy an Atari ST family clone computer - title: MiNTOS Distribution url: http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~steve/mintos.html text: '' - title: Musique.Atari.Org url: HTTP://MUSIQUE.ATARI.ORG text: Web site dedicated to the ATARI and the Music... - title: PLOPBOX - Atari music archive and jukebox url: http://www.plopbox.net/ text: listen to atari tunes directly from your browser - title: Polish Atari Wikipedia url: http://atariki.krap.pl text: A lot of info about Atari (in polish) - title: ST Anwender Bern url: http://my.blackpoint.ch/stab/ text: Atari ST Usergroup Bern (Swiss) - title: The Atari Historical Society url: http://www.atarimuseum.com/ text: The complete history of Atari Arcade and Home games and computers. Complete site with pictures, commercials (streaming), and full text articles. Amazing site ! - title: The Atari ST Quick FAQ url: http://www.megacom.net/~q-funk/ST/ text: '' - title: The Atari WebRing Homepage url: http://b.webring.com/hub?ring=atari text: Useful ! - title: The Ultimate ATARI Resource url: http://www.atari.org text: '' - title: What is TOS url: http://www.vanc.igs.net/~roughley/tos_main.htm text: '' - title: Index of -~archive-atari- url: http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/ text: '' - title: Web Wiz CAPTCHA url: http://www.webwizcaptcha.com text: French forum docs: - title: ATARI 520 ST OWNER'S MANUAL url: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/atarist/index.htm cover: /media/museum/docs/couvs/atari_520st_user_doc.jpg text: |- [**ATARI 520 ST OWNER'S MANUAL**](http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/atarist/index.htm)written by Atari  compiled/archived by Daves Old Computers\  type of document : PDF\  size : 5 Mb\  source : [Daves Old Computers](http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield) **... READ THE ONLINE VERSION BY CLICKING BELOW :** comments: - author: AEX (Ireland) date: Monday 10th January 2011 text: |- Great site! This was to be the new case for the Falcon 030. The Falcon Microbox is part of the official Sony PS2 Patent mostly pertaining to ergonomic design. All tooling and parts were ready for this case to be turned on but Atari abandoned the computer business in favour of supporting the Jaguar gaming platform. An 040 version was also designed to motherboard stage and a project called "Painter" utilising Jaguar tech was proposed. Another case design was found in proto form and it was based on the "Painter" spec, but it is unclear if this was another "Microbox" design or specifically for "Painter". - author: Sco77y date: Friday 28th May 2010 text: Your right about the PS2 case design, they (Sony) bought the rights to the "GRILL" section if memory serves correctly..? I believe in the time the PS2 was launched Atari was nothing more than a rights and patents company.. (I.e still holding all the copyright and patent designs)... It was either this design or the jaguar design grill section that SONY Bought the rights to use? (Very vague but there is truth in this somewhere!) Peace out.. - author: Malcolm Ramage (United Kingdon) date: Thursday 21st April 2011 text: This was supposed to be what the falcon should have been all along. The data and address buses were to be full 32 bit and a proper 68030 expansion bus with access to the 68030 burst mode for fast data transfer. The picture here is of one of the case designs, I have another picture of a case design with a CD ROM drive in the top and an Atari logo embossed onto the front. This may have been for the later proposed 68040 model but to be honest, I cant really be sure. - author: Nathan (USA) date: Wednesday 11th February 2009 text: I saw one of these about a year ago on ebay. No one knew what it was so it only ended up selling for about 400 dollars. It was complete, with case and motherboard, and I am sure it worked. - author: Desert Eagle (Brazil) date: Sunday 17th October 2004 text: Anyone have more pictures of Microbox? It's a very interesting system ^\_^ - author: Ben Booth (Leeds/UK) date: Monday 12th August 2002 text: |- It looks very similar to a PS2\ Looks like Sony's contemporary design was not that comtemporary after all!! - author: Markus (Boston) date: Wednesday 13rd March 2002 text: |- Wow! I have never seen a picture of the Microbox.... It really existed! :)\ Nice!\ To bad ATARI is gone ..... related: - /museum/atari-130-st-260-st - /museum/atari-4160-ste - /museum/atari-520-1040-ste - /museum/atari-520-1040-stf-stfm - /museum/atari-520-st-st-stm - /museum/atari-falcon-030 - /museum/atari-fx-1-sparrow - /museum/atari-mega-st - /museum/atari-mega-ste - /museum/atari-st-book - /museum/atari-stacy - /museum/atari-stylus-st-pad - /museum/atari-tt-030 oc_id: 270 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230603022728/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=270 date: '2023-06-03' --- Few time after the [Falcon 030](/museum/atari-falcon-030/), Atari decided to launch its successor. They worked then on the Falcon030 MicroBox.\ Basically, it is a Falcon030 in a new case with a full 32bit data bus. (Remember that the Falcon030 has only a 16bit data bus). An other version was planned with a bigger case and three expansion slots.\ The MicroBoxes CPU were supposed to be upgradable to a 68040.\ It was never released (How typical!). Only few prototypes were produced, then abandoned when Atari decided to launch the [Jaguar game system](/museum/atari-jaguar/). Atari worked for a while on a Falcon040 and one prototype was almost finished, but we can consider the MicroBox as the last attempt from Atari in the world of Computing.\ You can find a photo of the motherboard at [cyberroach.com](http://www.cyberroach.com/cyromag/two/b09.jpg).