In 1991, the Sega Genesis was at the cutting edge of videogame technology in America and enjoying strong sales. NEC's Turbografx-16 was a distant second, and the Super Nintendo was yet to be released. Rumors swirled about various new peripherals and consoles - Genesis and Neo-Geo CD drives, the Sony Playstation, and a CD drive for the forthcoming Super Nintendo. Another rumor to circulate in 1991 was that Atari was back with a new 32-bit console called the Panther that was set to debut against the Super Nintendo later that year. However, after the Summer CES that year, Atari announced that the Panther was cancelled so that they could concentrate on a new machine, the 64-bit Jaguar. Behind the scenes, Atari had actually been developing both systems at the same time, but the Jaguar had progressed at such a rate that it made sense to skip the Panther.
Atari was very tight-lipped about its new machine at first, but then it began sending out press releases announcing the Jaguar with various technical specifications. Atari said they planned to debut the machine in 1993, and that there would definitely be a 64-bit RISC based processor at its core. This was exciting news to gamers, as it would seemingly make it the most technically advanced machine, well beyond the 16-bit Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Even better, Atari said the price would be between $100 and $150.
Technically, the Jaguar was impressive. Five processors reside in three chips, two of them being proprietary (Tom and Jerry) with a third being a Motorola 68000 coprocessor. The GPU runs at 26.591Mhz and is rated at 26.591 MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second). There is a 64-bit data bus for communication and two megabytes of fast-page mode DRAM. Development systems cost between $7,500 and $9,000 and ran on IBM PC or Atari TT030 computers, with art development possible on various other machines.
When Atari finally announced the official launch of the Jaguar, the price tag was $200 and was bundled with a Cybermorph cartridge and one controller. However, when it actually hit store shelves the price had climbed to $250. Even with a higher price tag, sales were brisk. IBM was manufacturing the system for Atari, and things were looking up. Atari was set to market the Jaguar with a $3 million advertising budget, a telephone support line, and promised support from over 20 third party developers. However, retailers and the media were still skeptical that Atari could deliver quality software and keep all of its promises.
When the machine actually hit the streets, the reaction was mixed. Some gamers were excited by the increased power, while some felt that the system fell short of its promises. Some people claimed that the the Jaguar wasn't actually a true 64-bit system, that it was simply two 32-bit processors working in parallel. However, Atari was pressing forward with their advertising campaign touting its 64-bit power, and an impressive number of third-party titles had been announced in development. Unfortunately for these developers, the Jaguar proved very difficult to program for and Atari did not have sufficient development tools. Many Jaguar games were consequently delayed, and others were rushed out the door and were less than impressive. Ultimately, many announced developers simply did not develop any Jaguar titles.
Showing posts with label Atari Jaguar CD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atari Jaguar CD. Show all posts
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sunday, October 15, 2006
The Jaguar Modem
The Jaguar Modem is a finished product that connects to the Jaguar's DSP port. It came equipped with a combination headphone-microphone headset so gamers could talk to one another while they played against each other. The modem got its power from the Jaguar's power supply and had two telephone jacks, a power switch and 2 LED lights (for power and data connection).
We tried out the modems with Ultra Vortek, the only game known to have code written into it for use with the Jaguar modem. We managed to connect at 19,200 at each end (the apparent maximum connect speed) and the game played beautifully. So much so that we were going at it for hours! There was nary a hitch in the game's speed, although the voice quality was slightly less than optimal.
The Jaguar voice modem is truly a work of art. Had games like Battlesphere, Doom, Iron Soldier II and others supported this device (not to mention being delivered on time), the modem may have provided powerful ammunition against rival videogame systems.
We tried out the modems with Ultra Vortek, the only game known to have code written into it for use with the Jaguar modem. We managed to connect at 19,200 at each end (the apparent maximum connect speed) and the game played beautifully. So much so that we were going at it for hours! There was nary a hitch in the game's speed, although the voice quality was slightly less than optimal.
The Jaguar voice modem is truly a work of art. Had games like Battlesphere, Doom, Iron Soldier II and others supported this device (not to mention being delivered on time), the modem may have provided powerful ammunition against rival videogame systems.
Check it out at: http://www.atarihq.com/museum/jaglynx/jagmodem.html
Atari Jaguar CD - Review - Console History
The Atari Jaguar CD or Jag CD was a CD-ROM peripheral for the Atari Jaguar video game console.
Late in the life span of the company, Atari released this long-promised CD-ROM unit. The device sat atop the Jaguar console, plugging into the cartridge slot, the physical design of the system sometimes compared to a toilet. The drive had its own cartridge slot to allow cartridge games to be played without removing the CD drive. There was a separate "Memory Track" cartridge for storing saved game position and high scores.
The Jaguar CD unit featured a double speed (2x) drive and built-in VLM (Virtual Light Machine) software. The VLM, which provided a sophisticated video light show when an audio CD was played in the machine, was as popular among buyers as the games themselves. Packaged with the drive were two games (Blue Lightning and Vid Grid), a music CD (Tempest 2000 soundtrack), and a Myst demo disc.
Jaguar CD games could include as much as 790MB of data, considerably more than conventional CD-ROMs. The designers chose to ignore established CD-ROM formats and instead created their own based on the audio CD format. While allowing for dramatically more storage on the disc and foiling casual piracy, the format only provided limited error correction.
The drive was manufactured for Atari by Phillips in the United States. The initial shipment was 20,000 units. Comments from Atari a few weeks after the unit was launched stated that the entire inventory had been sold, and that another batch would be ordered. However, with the JT Storage reverse takeover looming just a few months away, it is possible that those 20,000 drives were the only units ever produced.
While the ratio of CD to cartridge games is fairly low, the CD add-on unit has always held an interest to gamers. In particular, the value of the CD add-on has gone up dramatically in the past few years, mainly due to low supply. Also, it is now possible to (legally) download and burn several encrypted demos (Black Ice/White Noise, Native, Atomic) to play on an actual CD unit with no modification. Due to this, the homebrew sector is active with several titles in progress (Eerievale). However, a third-party cartridge (Protector SE, B&C's cart) is still required for unencrypted games (Painter).
Late in the life span of the company, Atari released this long-promised CD-ROM unit. The device sat atop the Jaguar console, plugging into the cartridge slot, the physical design of the system sometimes compared to a toilet. The drive had its own cartridge slot to allow cartridge games to be played without removing the CD drive. There was a separate "Memory Track" cartridge for storing saved game position and high scores.
The Jaguar CD unit featured a double speed (2x) drive and built-in VLM (Virtual Light Machine) software. The VLM, which provided a sophisticated video light show when an audio CD was played in the machine, was as popular among buyers as the games themselves. Packaged with the drive were two games (Blue Lightning and Vid Grid), a music CD (Tempest 2000 soundtrack), and a Myst demo disc.
Jaguar CD games could include as much as 790MB of data, considerably more than conventional CD-ROMs. The designers chose to ignore established CD-ROM formats and instead created their own based on the audio CD format. While allowing for dramatically more storage on the disc and foiling casual piracy, the format only provided limited error correction.
The drive was manufactured for Atari by Phillips in the United States. The initial shipment was 20,000 units. Comments from Atari a few weeks after the unit was launched stated that the entire inventory had been sold, and that another batch would be ordered. However, with the JT Storage reverse takeover looming just a few months away, it is possible that those 20,000 drives were the only units ever produced.
While the ratio of CD to cartridge games is fairly low, the CD add-on unit has always held an interest to gamers. In particular, the value of the CD add-on has gone up dramatically in the past few years, mainly due to low supply. Also, it is now possible to (legally) download and burn several encrypted demos (Black Ice/White Noise, Native, Atomic) to play on an actual CD unit with no modification. Due to this, the homebrew sector is active with several titles in progress (Eerievale). However, a third-party cartridge (Protector SE, B&C's cart) is still required for unencrypted games (Painter).
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