The ST line of computers was concieved as Atari's answer to the Apple Macintosh by Jack Tramiel after his purchase of the company from Warner Communications. Atari had previously lent Amiga Corp. money to finance the developement of the 'Lorraine' prototype and signed an agreement with the company allowing Atari access to the technology. The ST series, often referred to as the 'Jackintosh', incorporated such items as the blitter into thier design.

Atari dropped all remaining support for the 8-bit computer line on January 1, 1992. Atari was bought out by disk drive manufacturer JTS Corp. on July 30, 1996, and production of it's computers stopped. The Falcon was sold to C-Labs of Germany who enhanced it and continued it's production. On February 23, 1998 JTS sold it's Atari division to Hasbro Inc. for $5 million, forming Atari Interactive Inc. Atari Games, the coin-op division which remained seperate from Atari Corp. and was later known as Time-Warner Interactive, became a subsidiary of Midway Games Inc.