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Atari Falcon production numbers - the final truth?

ChrisTOS lately entered the extensively debated territory of Falcon production numbers.

We find speculations and numbers from few thousands up to several ten-thousands across the net, with a unreliable tendency to agree on about 12.000 machines, according to information from various approaches or Atari witnesses (edit: e.g. Mikro's in depth derivation).

Our Greek Atari fellow now used Calimero's serial number database and applied a statistical approach known as "the German tank problem" to the subject. His estimate and interpretation of total  produced Falcons can be glamorousely followed in an Atari Works workflow video performed on Zerkman's zeST machinery.

 

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0
mikro
Friday, 10 October 2025 12:08
ChrisTOS should have contacted me first, I have a far bigger database for my https://mikrosk.github.io/clockpatch/history.html statistics. That number is a complete nonsense.
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0
ChrisTOS
Sunday, 12 October 2025 15:29
Hi mikro,
Can you point to a mistake in the data I used?
I ve read your post in GitHub and I think you mean either that I misread the serial numbers, which is a possibility, or that Atari's serial numbers aren't in series.
I would be really interested to know what is wrong in the data. I'd be glad to send you the spreadsheet files if you would like to run the numbers yourself.
Note, that I also made an assumption that we got the last falcon of each batch and I still get twice the number of falcons you say.
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0
mikro
Monday, 13 October 2025 20:29
Quoting ChrisTOS:

Can you point to a mistake in the data I used?

If I had the exact data, I wouldn't need to guess. :) What I have is a different (far more reliable, IMHO) method -- I'm collecting the data for over a decade. So I can confidently say how often I have to update the total number of each batch. And I haven't updated it in nearly two years...

So that says a lot. Of course, sooner or later we are going to find a s/n which is bigger than what I have but it surely wont be plus 20k. ;)
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0
ChrisTOS
Tuesday, 14 October 2025 17:11
Quoting mikro:


Quoting ChrisTOS:

Can you point to a mistake in the data I used?

If I had the exact data, I wouldn't need to guess. :) What I have is a different (far more reliable, IMHO) method -- I'm collecting the data for over a decade. So I can confidently say how often I have to update the total number of each batch. And I haven't updated it in nearly two years...

So that says a lot. Of course, sooner or later we are going to find a s/n which is bigger than what I have but it surely wont be plus 20k. ;)


That really doesn't answer my question though. I don't know either your data or the method you used.
From the data I got from Calimero's db, the lowest amount is around 40K.
If what you are saying is correct, the only way that I can think of is that  the serial numbers don't restart in each batch. So you have week 02 goes to 8000 and week 03 goes to 8001 but that doesn't seem to be the case since we have lower numbers. 

I understand that you are not willing to explain to me how you got the number you did so I have no way to verify your claim. I guess the best way to find out is if we get a number from some official Atari document. 

Anyway, it's just a fun YouTube video. It's not that important really. 
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5o5
Saturday, 18 October 2025 18:44
ChrisTOS, I liked your fun video a lot and the interesting approach. And I intended to share it here for geeky entertainment. Of course I didn't seriously expect any "final truth" on this very important matter, just thought the headline is fun.

But that sort of humor isn't for everyone. I will think about how to improve the articles and captions...

Thanks for the video nonetheless, happy tto see you back on Atari matters!
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Karl
Monday, 20 October 2025 19:46
If it's any use to this discussion, Richard Miller (ex.Atari R&D VP) told me his "best recollection" of Falcon numbers was ~20-25K in batches of 4,164 units per shipment including any last systems/parts to C-Lab. The proviso here is that Richard was providing his best knowledge on the numbers in 2019, so many years have passed since 1994. I did read an article (I would need to check my notes) that Atari France sold 6K units in 1993 alone.
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