Atari Jaguar
Manufacturer	Atari Corporation
Type	Video game console
Generation	Fifth generation era
First available	US November 18, 1993
CPU	Motorola 68000
Media	ROM cartridge, CD-ROM
Units sold	500,000 (as of May 15, 2007)[1]
Predecessor	Atari 7800

The Atari Jaguar is a video game console, released by Atari Corporation in 1993. A console manufacturer is a company that manufactures and distributes Video game consoles It is also known as a first-party Video game publisher. Atari Corporation was a manufacturer of computers and video game consoles from 1984 to 1996 Video games were introduced as a commercial entertainment medium in 1971, becoming the basis for an important entertainment industry in the late 1970s/early 1980s in the United The fifth-generation era (more commonly known as the 32 bit era and occasionally after the release of the Nintendo 64, the 64 bit era and more rarely The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Events 326 - The old St Peter's Basilica is consecrated 1302 - Pope Boniface VIII issues the Papal bull Year 1993 ( MCMXCIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar) The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC Microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly Motorola Semiconductor A ROM cartridge is a removable cartridge that contains ROM devices and commonly Flash memory devices to allow some read-write capability CD-ROM (an initialism of "Compact Disc Read-Only Memory " is a pre-pressed Compact Disc that contains data accessible to but not writable This is a list of Video game consoles and Handheld game consoles that have sold or shipped at least one million units Events 1252 - Pope Innocent IV issues the Papal bull Ad exstirpanda, which authorizes but also limits the Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a Video game console released by Atari Corporation in June 1986 Events March &mdash In Sweden, the Swedish Video game Magazine Super PLAY (SP starts It was designed to surpass the Mega Drive/Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in processing power. The is a 16-bit Video game console released by Sega in Japan in 1988 North America in 1989 and the PAL region in 1990 The Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Super NES (also called SNES and Super Nintendo) is a 16-bit Video game console that was It was in competition with 3DO and later consoles that made up the Fifth generation of video game consoles. 3DO Interactive Multiplayer (often called simply 3DO) was a Video game console originally produced by Panasonic in. The fifth-generation era (more commonly known as the 32 bit era and occasionally after the release of the Nintendo 64, the 64 bit era and more rarely The console was first released in selected U. S. cities in November 1993, and the rest of the country in early 1994. Events 1994 &mdash Nintendo calls this year "1994 The Year of the Cartridge" Although it was promoted as the first 64-bit gaming system, the Jaguar proved to be a commercial failure and prompted Atari to leave the home video game console market. As a hit-driven business the great majority of the Video games industry 's software releases have been commercial failures Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. Despite its commercial failure, the Jaguar has a large fan base that produces homebrew games, making the console a cult classic. A cult following is a group of fans devoted to a specific area of Pop culture. ^[2]

Contents 1 History 2 Arcade games 3 Technical specifications 3.1 Processors 3.2 Other Jaguar features 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

History

The Jaguar was the last game system to be marketed by the Atari Corp. Flare Technology, a company formed by Martin Brennan and John Mathieson, said that they could not only make a console superior to the Sega Mega Drive or the SNES, but they could also be cost-effective. Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. Flare Technology was a Computer hardware company based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Martin Brennan is an electronics engineer who developed pioneering personal computers such as the Loki (for Sinclair Research) and the Atari Jaguar John Mathieson is a Computer Science graduate who initially worked for Sinclair Research before going on to found Flare with fellow ex-Sinclair colleagues Martin Impressed by their work on the Konix Multisystem, Atari persuaded them to close Flare and, with Atari Corp. The Konix Multisystem was an unreleased game console by British computer peripheral company Konix. providing the funding, to form a new company called Flare II.

Flare II initially set to work designing two consoles for Atari Corp. One was a 32-bit architecture (codenamed "Panther"), and the other was a 64-bit system (codenamed "Jaguar"); however, work on the Jaguar design progressed faster than expected, and Atari Corp. The Atari Panther was the 32-bit predecessor to the Atari Jaguar, developed by the same ex-Sinclair team Flare Technology responsible for the Flare One canceled the Panther project to focus on the more promising 64-bit technology.

The Jaguar was released in November 1993 for a sale price of $250,^[3] under a $500 million manufacturing deal with IBM. Events March &mdash In Sweden, the Swedish Video game Magazine Super PLAY (SP starts International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology The system was initially marketed only in the New York City and the San Francisco Bay areas. The City of New York San Francisco Bay is a shallow productive Estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento A nationwide release followed in early 1994. Events 1994 &mdash Nintendo calls this year "1994 The Year of the Cartridge"

The system was marketed under the slogan "Do the Math",^[3] claiming superiority over competing 16-bit systems. Initially, the system sold well, substantially outselling the highly hyped and publicized 3DO, which was also released during the holiday season of 1993; however, the Jaguar could not shake the perception of having poor games after several dismal launch titles. 3DO Interactive Multiplayer (often called simply 3DO) was a Video game console originally produced by Panasonic in. It finally had its first hit game with Tempest 2000, and other successful games like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D followed. Tempest 2000 is a 1994 remake by Jeff Minter of the Dave Theurer 1981 Arcade game classic Tempest Doom (officially cased DOOM) is a 1993 Computer game by Id Software that is a landmark title in the First-person shooter The most successful title was Alien vs. Predator which, along with Tempest 2000, is often considered one of the system's defining titles. Alien vs Predator is a Video game developed by Rebellion Software and published by Atari Corporation for the Atari Jaguar console ^[3] The Jaguar had sold 250,000 units in its first year on the market. ^[3]

Through its lifetime, the Jaguar had an overall small library of titles,^[1] due to being difficult to develop for. This was due in part to bugs in the released hardware (such as a memory controller flaw that could halt processor execution out of system RAM and a bugged UART). Other issues included a lack of development tools, requiring programmers to develop much of the system in assembler, as well as documentation being often incomplete. Customers also complained the Jaguar controller was needlessly complex, with over 15 buttons.

By the end of 1995, after the entrance of the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn, the Jaguar's fate was all but sealed. Events May 11 – Introduction of trade magazine GameWeek (then called Video Game Advisor May 11 - 16 &mdash The 1st annual is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest Media conglomerates with The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation Video game console The is a 32-bit Video game console that was first released on November 22 1994 in Japan, May 11 1995 in North America In an interview,^[4] Sam Tramiel, CEO of Atari Corp. and son of Jack Tramiel, declared that the Jaguar was much more powerful than the Saturn and slightly weaker than the PlayStation. Jack Tramiel (born 13 December 1928) is a Businessman, best known for founding Commodore International - manufacturer of the Commodore He also predicted the price of the PlayStation to be $500 and said that any price from $250 to $300 would be price dumping and that Atari Corp. In economics " dumping " can refer to any kind of Predatory pricing. would sue to block sales, which they never did. His comments were selected as #3 in GameSpy's Top 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming. GameSpy, also known as GameSpy Industries, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related ^[4]

In a last ditch effort to rescue the Jaguar, Atari Corp. tried to play down the other two consoles by proclaiming the Jaguar was the only "64-bit" system. Technically-minded gamers debated the merits of Atari Corp. 's claim: some felt the Jaguar's principal "64-bit co-processors" were simply graphics accelerators,^[5]requiring external control from the Jaguar's primary processors; the primary GPU executed a 32-bit instruction-set, while the remaining CPU (68000) was already established to be a 32-bit unit. The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC Microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly Motorola Semiconductor Others countered that the mere presence of 64-bit ALUs for graphics, was sufficient to validate Atari Corp. 's claim. Design specs for the console allude to the GPU or DSP being capable of acting as a CPU, leaving the Motorola 68000 to read controller inputs. In practice, many developers used the Motorola 68000 to drive gameplay logic and AI.

Finally, in mid-1996, Atari Corp. ran early-morning infomercial advertisements with enthusiastic salesmen touting the powerful game system. Infomercials (or informercials are Television commercials that run for one minute or for as long as a typical Television program The infomercials ran most of the year, but did not significantly sell the remaining stock of Jaguar systems. As of May 15, 2007, the Jaguar had sold 500,000 units. Events 1252 - Pope Innocent IV issues the Papal bull Ad exstirpanda, which authorizes but also limits the Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ^[1]

Over the short life of the console, several add-on peripherals were announced. However, only the Atari Jaguar CD drive and the JagLink (a simple two-console networking device) reached retail shelves. The Atari Jaguar CD or Jag CD was a CD-ROM peripheral for the Atari Jaguar Video game console. A voice modem and VR headset (with infrared head-tracking), existed in prototype form, but were never commercialized. Virtual reality ( VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a Computer-simulated environment be it a real or imagined one (See Loki and Konix Multisystem for early development. Loki was the codename for a Home computer under development at Sinclair Research during the mid-1980s The Konix Multisystem was an unreleased game console by British computer peripheral company Konix. )

Production of the Jaguar ceased after Atari Corp. merged with JT Storage in a reverse takeover. JT Storage (also known as JTS Corporation) was a maker of inexpensive IDE Hard drives for Personal computers based in San Jose California Reverse takeover (reverse IPO) is the acquisition of a Public company by a Private company to bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public ^[6]

After the Atari Corporation properties were bought out by Hasbro Interactive in the late 1990s, Hasbro released the rights to the Jaguar, declaring the console an open platform and opening the doors for homebrew development. Hasbro Interactive was a video game production and publishing subsidiary of Hasbro, the large Game and Toy company Homebrew is a term frequently applied to Video games produced by consumers to target Proprietary hardware platforms not typically user-programmable or that use proprietary ^[7] Several game companies, including Telegames, ScatoLOGIC, and Songbird Productions, have not only released previously unfinished materials from the Jaguar's past, but also several brand new titles to satisfy the system's cult following.

Some time later, Imagin Systems, a manufacturer of dental imaging equipment, purchased the molding plates for several of the Jaguar's casings as, with minor modification, they were the right size for housing their HotRod camera. Dentistry' is the "evaluation diagnosis prevention and/or treatment (nonsurgical surgical or related procedures of diseases disorders and/or conditions of the oral cavity Molding is the process of Manufacturing by shaping pliable raw material using a rigid frame or model called a pattern. ^[8] Even the game cartridge molds were reused to create an optional memory expansion card. Later product casings also bear a significant resemblance to the Jaguar.

Arcade games

Atari Games licensed the Atari Jaguar's chipset for use in its arcade games. Atari Games Corporation was an American producer of Arcade games, and originally part of Atari Inc The system, named COJAG (for "Coin-Op Jaguar"), replaced the 68000 with a 68020 or MIPS R3000-based CPU (depending on the board version), and added a hard drive and more RAM. The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC Microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly Motorola Semiconductor The Motorola 68020 is a 32-bit Microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. MIPS (originally an acronym for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages) is a RISC microprocessor architecture developed by MIPS Technologies It ran the lightgun games Area 51 and Maximum Force. Area 51 is a Light gun Arcade game released by Atari Games in 1995 Maximum Force is an on-rails Light gun first-person arcade game developed by Mesa Logic for Atari Games in 1997 Other games (3 On 3 Basketball; Fishin' Frenzy; Freeze; Vicious Circle) were developed but never released.

Technical specifications

From the Jaguar Software Reference manual:^[9]

"Jaguar is a custom chip set primarily intended to be the heart of a very high-performance games/leisure computer. It may also be used as a graphics accelerator in more complex systems, and applied to work-station and business uses. As well as a general purpose CPU, Jaguar contains four processing units. These are the Object Processor, Graphics Processor, Blitter, and Digital Sound Processor. Jaguar provides these blocks with a 64-bit data path to external memory devices, and is capable of a very high data transfer rate into external dynamic RAM. " (page 1)

Processors

• "Tom" Chip, 26. 59 MHz
  • Graphics processing unit (GPU) – 32-bit RISC architecture, 4 KB internal cache, provides wide array of graphic effects
  • Object Processor – 64-bit RISC architecture; programmable; can behave as a variety of graphic architectures
  • Blitter – 64-bit RISC architecture; high speed logic operations, z-buffering and Gouraud shading, with 64-bit internal registers. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. A bit is a binary digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1 Binary digits are a basic unit of Information storage and communication A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix Kilo -, meaning 1000 is a unit of Information or Computer storage equal to either 1024 In its simplest embodiment an object is an allocated region of storage In a Computer system a blitter is a Co-processor or a logic block on a Microprocessor that is dedicated to rapid data transfer within that computer's In Computer graphics, z-buffering is the management of image depth coordinates in three-dimensional (3-D graphics usually done in Hardware, sometimes in Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is a method used in Computer graphics to simulate the differing effects of light and colour across the surface of
  • DRAM controller, 32-bit memory management
• "Jerry" Chip, 26. 59 MHz
  • Digital Signal Processor – 32-bit RISC architecture, 8 KB internal cache
    • Same RISC core as the GPU, but not limited to graphic production
  • CD-quality sound (16-bit stereo)
    • Number of sound channels limited by software
    • Two DACs (stereo) convert digital data to analog sound signals
    • Full stereo capabilities
  • Wavetable synthesis, FM synthesis, FM Sample synthesis, and AM synthesis
  • A clock control block, incorporating timers, and a UART
  • Joystick control
• Motorola 68000 "used as a manager. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. A bit is a binary digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1 Binary digits are a basic unit of Information storage and communication Stereophonic sound, commonly called stereo, is the reproduction of Sound, using two or more independent audio channels through a Symmetrical Motorola Inc ( is an American, multinational Fortune 100, Telecommunications company based in Schaumburg Illinois. The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC Microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly Motorola Semiconductor "^[10]
  • General purpose 16/32-bit control processor, 13. 295 MHz

Other Jaguar features

• RAM: 2 MB on a 64-bit bus using 4 16-bit fast page mode DRAMS
• Storage: Cartridge – up to 6 MB
• Support for ComLynx I/O

References

See also

• List of Atari Jaguar games

External links

• Atari Jaguar at the Open Directory Project

This is a list of games for the Atari Jaguar Video game system as well as Atari Jaguar CD games organised alphabetically by name The Open Directory Project ( ODP) also known as dmoz (from directory

---

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic