---

    Long before the Tramiels came along and created the Falcon030, Atari under Warner Communications had its own "Falcon".    Headed up by Steve Bristow, Project Falcon was Atari's all new division in the making.    According to Atari Press release brochures from the 1983 CES, after nearly 2 years of working in mystery and secret, Atari engineers had created a whole new line of cosumer electronics.  Under the Project Falcon name, all of the prototypes of the various products were given names of birds.    Features listed were as follows:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

• The Company will produce "a new, dramatically capable home network

for voice communications, communications management, appliance control,
security and environmental control.  The system incorporates new technology
and features not available in other residential telecommunications products."
 
• The AtariTel line will include conventional telephones with advanced features and styling.

• Two of the world's leading industrial designers, Porsche Design and Morison

Cousins Associates were commissioned to develop the product designs.
 
• Customer shipments are intended to begin in early 1984.

---

AtariTel CES demonstrator.   The largest of the telephones in the center of the
demonstrator was connected to an audio track that would describe the many
features of the new telephones as well as future enhanced features to come.
Photo curteousy of Erik Laba
 

Click to view the ATARITEL
"EAGLE" SPEAKERPHONE
 

Ataritel phone designs
by Porsche Designs
 

Click to view AtariTel
Concept Drawing

Original Ataritel
"New Business Opportunity"
Internal 1981 Document
(133 page, 5.5MB Adobe PDF)

 
 

The "Lumaphone",  the Atari VideoPhone in its finished form sold by Mitsubishi Electric of America.
  The phones could transmit an image in 3-5 seconds and could have a parallel printer
attached for printing out images, also a TV could be hooked up to the unit for conference
room meetings to display a larger image.   This is a "Could've Been" Atari technology.

---

        After the purchase of Atari's computer and video game division, Warner Communications retained the arcade division and was left with the AtariTel division which the Tramiels did not want, the key AtariTel engineer Bill Briskoe and many laid off in the transition that worked from the other divisions stayed at the AtariTel division.    The Atari VideoPhone was sold to Mitsubishi Electric and Bill Briskoe worked with Mitsubishi to complete the project.   The actual VideoPhone was showcased on the front page of Popular Science at one time.    As for what happened to the remaining technologies that Atari worked on in the AtariTel division, most of the features that were listed in their press brochures and articles in magazines are seen today in products sold at Radio Shack.

    On a sad note:   The Staff of AVP was in contact with Jerry Silvia of Mitsubishi's now shut-down Luma-Phone division.   Apparently we were too late in saving and preserving these precious pieces of Atari history.  Two years ago, Misubishi legal department requested that all original Atari prototypes and paperwork involving the Luma-Phone videophone project be destroyed.   This is a trajedy which we hope doesn't happen again in the future.    If you are aware of anyone with Atari prototypes, please contact the staff here as AVP and the Atari History Society so that we may contact these individuals and preserve these pieces of important history.