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Jaguar MPEG Card


JagMX

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Most of the reviews from later 1993 to early 1994 were tentatively positive. They would basically say "This looks like it could be a good system, and hopefully Atari won't screw it up like they did with the Lynx."

 

Reviews like that were common until the PSX and Saturn and N64 were all announced. Then it was an Atari Jaguar Bashfest!

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Can anyone make out the writing on that board or the chip that's on it. I'm afraid that's just a picture of a prototype JAGCD and not of the MPEG card itself.

 

 

I've seen this once before. But this picture is a better scan of the article.

 

That chip in the middle looks just like a Butch chip. So that is defintely a prototype Jaguar CD daughter card mounted to a 2MB Alpine board. The wires running off are running to a Philips CD mech.

 

Am not completely sure how far Atari had gotten with the MPEG board. Can only speculate from the engineering notes that Curt Vendel has on Atari-history.com. Richard Miller was working on the thing. He was considering on either VCD or some other format (maybe ISO; can't quite remember - his notes are very hard to read. They're like trying to read a doctor's prescription).

 

Interesting stuff. But I haven't found anything more to indicate how close they got to a working product.

 

 

Glenn

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Can only speculate from the engineering notes that Curt Vendel has on Atari-history.com.  Richard Miller was working on the thing.  He was considering on either VCD or some other format (maybe ISO; can't quite remember - his notes are very hard to read.  They're like trying to read a doctor's prescription).

 

I was under the impression that this card would have supported the CD-i movies that were "popular" (and I use the term loosely) back in the days. I believe these movies were also playable through the Amiga CDTV and CD32, but I'm not aware of anything else that plays them.

 

I'm not sure what relation CD-i movies have to VCD's... So if they're actually the same thing, feel free to laugh at my ignorance :P

 

--Zero

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From the looks of the decoder card I'd speculate that they had working hardware for sure. The question is whether they ever wrote the drivers for the thing.

 

I wonder!

 

 

Have some basic driver code that was written around May / June 1994 by Richard Miller. Specification doc on the memory mapping of the cart, GAL source code, and OrCAD schematic design file. Don't know if the GAL source code is specific for the board that I have pictured.

 

In the picture of the Jaguar CD prototype, I see they used the cartridge connector add-on that's available on the Alpine. It would be interesting to add to my Alpine a way to plug in a cartridge to it (without the ROM's of course) to allow the ability to experiment with the cartridge without having to burn a ROM with each change in the driver code.

 

 

Glenn

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From the looks of the decoder card I'd speculate that they had working hardware for sure. The question is whether they ever wrote the drivers for the thing.

 

I wonder!

 

 

Have some basic driver code that was written around May / June 1994 by Richard Miller. Specification doc on the memory mapping of the cart, GAL source code, and OrCAD schematic design file. Don't know if the GAL source code is specific for the board that I have pictured.

 

In the picture of the Jaguar CD prototype, I see they used the cartridge connector add-on that's available on the Alpine. It would be interesting to add to my Alpine a way to plug in a cartridge to it (without the ROM's of course) to allow the ability to experiment with the cartridge without having to burn a ROM with each change in the driver code.

 

 

Glenn

 

 

I've never heard of this cartridge expansion connection add-on for the alpine. Is it a separate piece or is it something that solders onto the alpine itself?

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I've never heard of this cartridge expansion connection add-on for the alpine. Is it a separate piece or is it something that solders onto the alpine itself?

 

 

I have to retake a look at my Alpine board. I may be thinking of something that is on the Jaguar Test Board. But it's a spot that looks like a Jaguar cartridge connector can be soldered to. If at least, I'll scan some images of what I'm talking about to clarify.

 

Maybe the Jaguar CD prototype in the picture was mounted specially to the Alpine and wires underneath to tap into the various signals available on the cartridge slot.

 

But to have such a cartridge connector mounted to an Alpine would be neat for some hardware prototyping...

 

Glenn

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I'm pretty familiar with the alpine, having had to repair the brand-new one Normen Kowalewski sent us when we first signed on. It had a solder bridge between two legs on one of the chips under the plastic case.

 

I don't recall there being anything resembling an expansion port on it.

 

There is a huge unpopulated IC (like 32 pins) on the board up top, but no cart port I recall.

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I have to retake a look at my Alpine board. I may be thinking of something that is on the Jaguar Test Board. But it's a spot that looks like a Jaguar cartridge connector can be soldered to. If at least, I'll scan some images of what I'm talking about to clarify.  

 

Glenn,

 

I know the test fixture has the cartridge connectors on the board, so it may indeed be that you're thinking of.

 

Jason

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That's some interesting stuff, I've not seen a scan of the MPEG cart (or indeed the JagCD proto) before. Glenn: any idea what goes in the lower-left corner of the board? looks like a DIP4 chip...

 

To Thunderbird's question: it looks like the board says 'Atari JAGCD Daughter Card' but I'm not sure. The last two words are definitely right tho. I was trying to work out how it was affixed to the Alpine, but I guess they just used some cunning hack method (ie lots of wire) soldered to strategic point on the board. Still cool though.

 

Glenn: Any chance of burning a GAL with the prelim driver and populating the blank card you have? Now you know what U2 is supposed to be, I'm sure you can work out U3/4/5 :)

 

Stone

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I'm pretty familiar with the alpine, having had to repair the brand-new one Normen Kowalewski sent us when we first signed on. It had a solder bridge between two legs on one of the chips under the plastic case.

 

Very nice -- Atari shipping developers unteched boards. No wonder why people liked to work with Atari so well.

 

Eric

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That's some interesting stuff, I've not seen a scan of the MPEG cart (or indeed the JagCD proto) before. Glenn: any idea what goes in the lower-left corner of the board? looks like a DIP4 chip...

 

 

A clock crystal goes there. Can't remember the specific speed though.

 

 

Glenn: Any chance of burning a GAL with the prelim driver and populating the blank card you have? Now you know what U2 is supposed to be, I'm sure you can work out U3/4/5 :)

 

 

That is my goal one day. I don't have any of the CL450 chips available by themselves. I have a Diamond video card MPEG and Apple Power PC MPEG boards that I can pull the chips from.

 

But I'm waiting to see what I can find in the surplus market for surface mount re-work equipment before I make this attempt. Going to Livermore, CA at the end of the month to see what I can find. Good electronic swapfest that occurs in the East Bay Area.

 

And still need to find the necessary DRAM chip for the CL450 chip.

 

 

Glenn

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  • 2 years later...
Hello,

 

I'd really forgotten about this post, with these photos of the MPEG proto.

Did anything ever come of this, did you have any success, or are you

still looking for the bits. Of course, I hope I'm not treading on a project?

 

Cheers,

JustClaws.

 

Hi Rich,

 

It's definitely NOT the MPEG card. I have an identical setup. It's just the butch daughter board.

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Hello,

 

It's definitely NOT the MPEG card.  I have an identical setup.  It's just the butch daughter board.

I was and still am then confused about what this board does.

Perhaps I am just confused by the thread title, but reading

the thread seems to mix Butch add-on with the MPEG issue.

 

:? If you could clarify, I'd be grateful, but I do understand

that the board is not an MPEG board, but is it related or not?

 

Cheers,

JustClaws.

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Hello,

 

It's definitely NOT the MPEG card.  I have an identical setup.  It's just the butch daughter board.

I was and still am then confused about what this board does.

Perhaps I am just confused by the thread title, but reading

the thread seems to mix Butch add-on with the MPEG issue.

 

:? If you could clarify, I'd be grateful, but I do understand

that the board is not an MPEG board, but is it related or not?

 

Cheers,

JustClaws.

The hardware shown in the pics (with incorrect captions :roll:) is a proto JagCD of a slightly earlier revision to mine. When they were still developing Butch they made up some boards which plugged into the system somehow (Not sure how. I think it was an extra card-edge connection at the back of the JagCD PCB) so they could prototype it more easily. In fact you can just make out the text on the PCB which says 'BUTCH ASIC DAUGHTER CARD' :)

 

The Alpine just looks like a standard one - it's got a cart case and the upper-right corner of the board isn't populated, like the majority of them out there.

 

As to whether the board is related or not: you need one for that model of JagCD to work, but beyond that it doesn't do any MPEG decoding at all :) Just a slightly confused article.

 

Stone

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