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Panther 32-bit page is back up


Curt Vendel

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After taking this page down over 10 years ago because of numerous erroneous chucks of information from former employee's who were wrong. The information has been updated and all of the netlists, PLA's, PAL's, developer schematics, production schematics and developer tools and files are now back up. (Centipede is included, still looking for Breakout for Panther). Also internal Panther cancellation memo from Same Tramiel is posted up as well.

 

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/jaguar/panther/

 

 

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Very nice read but I'm not sure I understand one thing.

 

"The Cartridges would be manually inserted flat into the front of the Panther like a front-load VHS tape recorder (or for those who have used a NES, a similar approach)."

 

It doesn't look like much space for a cartridge, would this have used floppy disks instead?

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Yeah, floppy disks were very popular for consoles in the early 90s. This most certainly would've used floppy disks.

No way. Floppy disks are way too fragile. A kid will play with that shutter in no time. That morning breakfast cereal magnet toy will erase those disks in a second.

 

What consoles used floppy disks? It must not have lasted long as all the systems I remember used cartridges, cards or CDs.

 

As someone else mentioned above, PCMCIA cards like the TurboGraphix Hue Cards are more likely to be the system's cartridge.

Edited by atarian1
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Thanks Curt! I sure wish we could have seen this unit.

 

(Centipede is included, still looking for Breakout for Panther).

 

I may have missed this one. Which archive holds the Centipede source? I thought it was the CENT2.C file but that is a a utility.

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The TG16 used PCMCIA cards? That's news to me as none of my cards are PCMCIA.

I should have said "PCMCIA-like" cards. I don't recall if there was name for those flat credit card-like cards that stored RAM/ROM on them that were used on the TG-16, SMS, lots of synthesizers, Atari Portfolio, etc.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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No way. Floppy disks are way too fragile. A kid will play with that shutter in no time. That morning breakfast cereal magnet toy will erase those disks in a second.

 

What consoles used floppy disks? It must not have lasted long as all the systems I remember used cartridges, cards or CDs.

 

This was huge in Japan. Even had kiosks to rewrite a new game to your floppy:

FDSKiosk.jpg

 

The combo unit is highly sought after and very slick IMO

sharptwin1-500x332.jpg

 

HuCard type set up more likely. Floppy not out of the question with the Tramiel PC/Amiga hardware background...

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The FM Towns Marty used floppies to save games.

 

Used floppies all the time as a kid; everyone in our school did. Don't remember too many problems. Even if someone did pull off the cover you could keep it safe in an envelope, like a 5.25" diskette. If I remember correctly the FDS used smaller 2.5" diskettes w/o an attached cover; they had a removable cover.

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Great stuff Curt and fascinating reading. Anyone going to attempt a FPGA with this generous info. That would be incredible.

 

I wouldn't go FPGA'ing anything until one out of the some odd 11 or so owners of a Panther box is able to actually get one of their units running, not to mention what code is actually runnable. Still waiting for that TXG/MNX guy to get off his arse and get his working ;-)

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