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Before I reveal the answer I think it's time we covered some background. What exactly is an FX card? Developed by BlowUp - the same people who bought out one of the first Falcon screen enhancers - It is a hardware modification capable of carrying out three separate functions. The first and probably the most important function for many Falcon owners is the curing of the memory upgrade problem. There is no longer any need, with this board installed, to jump from four megabytes all the way too fourteen. The card is supplied with four standard inline memory module (SIMM) slots. These are split into two banks of two which have to be kept balanced. For example you can have 2x1Mb plus 2x4Mb giving you 10Mb of extra memory. This is used along side you Falcons existing RAM and is treated as Fast RAM, or more correctly alternative RAM. You can leave one bank unpopulated, as I have, and end up with six megabytes of total memory.

       This dialog is used to set up the FX card Simm banks.  As
       you can see the banks are numbered 0  - 3.  Banks 0 and 1 
       are on the card, banks 2  and  3 will be  available after 
       fitting a  future expansion  card to the FX.  It is hoped 
       that this will allow Falcon users to access more than the 
       current memory limit of 14Mb RAM. One of the great things 
       about the card is in its ability to be  updated via soft-
       ware. The main chip on the board can be reprogrammed. All 
       BlowUp have to do is send you a floppy containing the new 
       code.  After running  software on  the disk the FX's main 
       chip will have  been updated.  With this approach Blow Up 
       will also be able to refine the accelerator code. An easy 
          and cheap method of keeping the FX card up to date.

As if all these rectifications aren't enough you also get the screen resolution enhancer Blowup Hard One, a floppy disc containing all the software required to drive the board and a 23 page fitting guide.

Fitting, if you can't wield a soldering iron like a third arm forget it. I highly recommend that this board is fitted by a professional Atari technician. Having said that, if you're only buying the board to take advantage of the memory modification, fitting is very straight forward. You merely plug it into the Falcon's expansion port and install the software. Yes, the FX uses the expansion port, those of you already using this needn't worry however as the FX is supplied with a through port. The only thing you'll need to do is recase the Falcon, there simply isn't room inside the original case to have a card plugged into the FX's through port. There is another disadvantage if using the memory expansion feature, you'll have to cut away part of the metal shielding or the SIMMs won't fit. This shouldn't be a problem however and hasn't caused any on my machine.

Right back to the original question is the FX worth all the hassle? Booting up your new faster Falcon doesn't reveal any drastic changes in speed. The reason is simple, the accelerator isn't activated until the FX control CPX is loaded. A small Auto boot program called FXDRIVE.PRG introduces any new memory to the operating system. Every Auto program and accessory that runs after this software will be loaded into alternative memory. BLOWBOOT.PRG, another Auto program supplied with the FX activates the screen enhancer. As you arrive at the desktop the FX's set speed is quickly displayed and then everything appears as normal apart from an increase in screen size. The screen size can be customised to your monitor by using the Blowup software, altering the running speed of the FX is done from the supplied CPX. Remember if the Xcontrol panel or a suitable equivalent isn't loaded the FX won't be activated.

        From this CPX you set the amount of acceloration applied
        to the system. My Falcon has problems when set at 40MHz. 
        System Solutions did tell me at the time of fitting that 
        some early Falcons will have a problem at 40Mhz.  Having 
        said that what's 4MHz between friends. Set at 36MHz I've 
                     had no problems whatsoever.

Once I'd discovered what was causing the incompatibility problems and had set the program flags to suit I had no more problems. Not one piece of software has taken a dislike to the speed increase. My initial fears of the FX causing my Falcon to become unreliable have proved to be false. I've been using it now for some weeks with no lose of data and no crashes which can be attributed directly to the FX. In fact the Falcon Xtender has delivered exactly what I hoped it would, sixteen colour speed in a 256 colour resolution. I've even had my monitor displaying a resolution of 800 x 600. This I've reduced slightly as my monitor tended to flicker too much for comfort. This is nothing to do with the FX I just need a higher quality monitor (Donations gratefully received).

        Using this program you can set up your resolution. Always 
        take care when using this type of software.  It is remark-
        ably easy to use and very compatible. I haven't found one 
                 piece of software that clashes with it.

1) The DSP test.

2) The CPU test.

3) The FPU test.

4) The System test.

An overall average increase of about 30 percent.

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