If Atari released panther instead Jaguar

[Lost Dragon]

It really cannot be understated just how much of a laughing stock Atari had become by annoucing unrealistic technical specifications of it's upcoming hardware, to the very UK Coders who'd worked on earlier Atari hardware.

 

Another prime example..

 

Paul Shirley, who'd written the impressive Marble Madness clones, Spindizzy and Spindizzy worlds:

 

 

Talked openly of his enjoyment about quizzing the people behind that 850 million pixels a second animation speed for Jaguar, a figure Paul described as ridiculously high..and Paul then went onto tell people just how the figures had been achieved and how unrealistic they were.

 

Atari was just turning away the very people who had once been a key part of what made their hardware successful, by marketing such nonsense claims.

 

That's not how you attract people to develop on your hardware.

[00010000]

Well, to Atari's credit, at least they didn't arrogantly blow their own numbers up to unrealistic proportions the way Sony did with PS1 and PS2; incredible to think how many people fell for the whole Matrix and Toy Story-esque graphics hype they did leading into PS2. That stuff was at least a generation away.

 

With Atari it seems more like they bought too much into theoretical numbers and ran with those rather than using numbers taking real-world use considerations into account. Key thing tho is they didn't do that to the point of using it as marketing collusion with the press at the time the way Sony's seem like in hindsight.

[Eltigro]

What are you guys talking about? They did the math!

 

[00010000]

Lol, maybe they could've just made the Jaguar controller a regular controller and threw in a calculator pack-in for the keypad stuff instead. Would've saved some scrutiny from the press at the time.

 

Actually though, the concept itself is interesting. I'm kinda surprised more modern controllers haven't tried it especially given how prolific FPS games have become. It'd balance things out between console and PC players w/ crossplay that's for sure.

[Eltigro]

Even if modern console manufacturers found an awesome way to implement a keypad such as was on the Jaguar, I really think it would be dismissed before it was given a chance. People would immediately equate it to the Jaguar and its notoriety.

 

I do really wish they would have made some aftermarket controllers... some officially licensed different controllers (other than the Pro controller)... I'd love to have a joystick with turbos for games like Raiden. I understand, though, that it never got popular enough to justify different controllers... and never popular enough for third party manufacturers to put forth the effort to design and make controllers. Just wish it would have happened...

 

Edit: And I know that people have made their own, and some might be available, but... well... you know what I mean... where's the ones made by ASCII or Atari themselves or, hell, even MadCatz? I want something like that... but it never happened.

Edited October 3, 2018 by Eltigro

[TigerSuperman]

From what I can tell the Panthers graphics were so limited it gotto the point you could call it an 8-bit system. If we are talking fantasy here Atari should have just put out a consolized ST gaming console with proprietary software. The ST computer was already falling apart by the 90's, there was no saving it. So just make a dedicated ST based gaming console, bump up the specs a little which honestly might not even be necessary, port the top-rated and best-selling games and then have all new ST releases be only for the console.

 

It would be better than releasing an outdated Panther or a Jaguar that had the 3D capabilities of a wet blanket.

 

The SNES and Mega Drive weren't going to run games like F1, Hunter, or Vroom so a consolized ST based game system would be the real answer to this fantasy question. Instant library of games, powerful enough for arcade ports and 3D. Would be the most powerful gaming machine of the early 90's until the PlayStation came out.

 

Other than that expect no changes. Same with Sega, outside of an imaginary scenario where all the leads of Sega and Atari suddenly died from the LOL virus and were replaced by competent gentlemen, no 'slight change' was going to do anything more than delay both these companies demise by a year or two at most.

Edited October 3, 2018 by TigerSuperman

[Serguei2]

A quick read of the following threads should explain the situation easily enough:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/80735-panther/page-1

 

 

 

http://assemblergames.com/threads/the-atari-panther-the-game-claims-uk-press-coverage-etc.66307/

 

 

1.Atari themselves admitted Panther was behind schedule on development and they didn't have the resources to support 2 console launches at once.

 

2.The hardware didn't live upto Atari's claims of number of sprites on screen at any 1 time in terms of actual in game performance. It was also bugged and had a pathetic amount of Ram.

 

3.It had it's fans in terms of Jeff Minter and Guildo H, but the majority of people whom i contacted who'd actually written demo code for it, started on actual games or written it's O/S and these are people from Atari Corp, Hand Made Software etc, feel it would of done nothing to save Atari.

 

4.Would games like The Crypt..moved from the ill fated Konix Multisystem, Strider II (Tiertex) awful on everything it did arrive on, Shadow Of The Beast, Jeff Minter doing an Ian M.Banks inspired Star Raiders affair and some original games by Rob Z.and Gary Johnson of done anything to draw people away from the SNES and Genesis with their vast line up's of original games and big name conversions?

 

No.

 

Even if Imagitec Design were at least planning to convert (i remain very skeptical they were actually started until some concrete proof is found, not just Martin Hooley is convinced they were in case of 1st 2..3rd is a possible) Raiden, Humans and possibly Daemonsgate an over hyped, under delivering Ultima style RPG, born from the ashes of Imagitec Design's failed attempt to do an RPG for Ocean based on Clive Barker's Nightbreed game, you still have a very weak selection of launch games.

 

Panther was yet another Atari disaster in the making.

 

I say that as an ST,2600,800XL,Lynx and Jaguar owner.

 

We didn't need another console to add to the things could of been so different, if only....saga of Atari.

 

I read there is a demo made for the Panther.

 

I wonder what's the panther graphic looks like.

[Lost Dragon]

Sony (who speaking as a day 1 Playstation 1 owner who became a day 1 PS2 owner) did go go all out to destroy the Dreamcast with totally unrealistic polygon counts (and became very arrogant to deal with in my personal experience), but unlike Atari at the time they were trying to court developers for the Panther...

 

Sony had such huge clout in the industry and market place, having come seemingly from nowhere and causing utter havoc for Sega and Nintendo.

 

Ball was very much in the court of Sony whilst Atari had a mountain to climb due to their track record.

[Lost Dragon]

From what I can tell the Panthers graphics were so limited it gotto the point you could call it an 8-bit system. If we are talking fantasy here Atari should have just put out a consolized ST gaming console with proprietary software. The ST computer was already falling apart by the 90's, there was no saving it. So just make a dedicated ST based gaming console, bump up the specs a little which honestly might not even be necessary, port the top-rated and best-selling games and then have all new ST releases be only for the console.

It would be better than releasing an outdated Panther or a Jaguar that had the 3D capabilities of a wet blanket.

The SNES and Mega Drive weren't going to run games like F1, Hunter, or Vroom so a consolized ST based game system would be the real answer to this fantasy question. Instant library of games, powerful enough for arcade ports and 3D. Would be the most powerful gaming machine of the early 90's until the PlayStation came out.

Other than that expect no changes. Same with Sega, outside of an imaginary scenario where all the leads of Sega and Atari suddenly died from the LOL virus and were replaced by competent gentlemen, no 'slight change' was going to do anything more than delay both these companies demise by a year or two at most.

The ST console or ST+ etc was exactly what Atari were thinking of releasing along with it's old arcade conversions..Moon Patrol, Crystal Castles , Battlezone etc...

 

Before the Panther project.

 

If you look through the various press clippings on the Assembler thread i linked to earlier you can see the UK Press talking about the rumours and see how the games themselves were received on the ST.

http://assemblergames.com/threads/the-atari-panther-the-game-claims-uk-press-coverage-etc.66307/

Edited October 4, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

There's often a lot of talk about the hardware design of both the Panther and Jaguar, if only Jaguar had used a different processor than the 68000, had issues with the RISC chips adressed etc.

 

Panther and Jaguar needing more Ram..

 

Origins of both being traced back to FLARE and so on.

 

Well both John Matheison and Martin Brennan were on the Loki "Super Spectrum" for Sinclair...

 

Which if you know your Norse Mythology was named after the Norse god of thieves, as it blatantly stole all its good ideas from other people and both then went onto work with Flare and, eventually,the Jaguar.

 

It's always been claimed by ex-Sinclair staff that the various concepts for Loki helped shape the design of the Jaguar and Panther hardware.

 

 

Loki itself encountered various stumbling blocks, such issues as palette

switching were eventually resolved, for example , but sources on the project have claimed Brennan and Matheison were

notoriously opinionated, and declared that palette switching wasn't

needed as 'it was only ever good for demos'. Everyone else strongly disagreed.

 

So i sometimes find myself thinking little wonder the 2 Atari consoles ended up with short comings in the areas they had.

[TigerSuperman]

 

There's often a lot of talk about the hardware design of both the Panther and Jaguar, if only Jaguar had used a different processor than the 68000, had issues with the RISC chips adressed etc.

 

Panther and Jaguar needing more Ram..

 

Origins of both being traced back to FLARE and so on.

 

Well both John Matheison and Martin Brennan were on the Loki "Super Spectrum" for Sinclair...

 

Which if you know your Norse Mythology was named after the Norse god of thieves, as it blatantly stole all its good ideas from other people and both then went onto work with Flare and, eventually,the Jaguar.

 

It's always been claimed by ex-Sinclair staff that the various concepts for Loki helped shape the design of the Jaguar and Panther hardware.

 

 

Loki itself encountered various stumbling blocks, such issues as palette

switching were eventually resolved, for example , but sources on the project have claimed Brennan and Matheison were

notoriously opinionated, and declared that palette switching wasn't

needed as 'it was only ever good for demos'. Everyone else strongly disagreed.

 

So i sometimes find myself thinking little wonder the 2 Atari consoles ended up with short comings in the areas they had.

 

Was the Panther weaker or stronger than the prototype ST gaming machine?

[Lost Dragon]

On paper far more powerful.

 

Atari's specification's given to the press talked of a very advanced sound chip. .

 

16 Mhz 68000 CPU

 

Upto 262,144 colours on screen from palette of 7,860..

 

Upto 2000 sprites on screen (though as Jeff Minter and Rob Nicholson have said, actual in game performance was lower).

 

The issue of the 2 individuals being so strong minded and almost flat out refusing to believe certain hardware features were needed in earlier hardware designs , is an area i would love to explore.

 

But i doubt much more info remains to be found.

 

Fingers crossed though

[TigerSuperman]

On paper far more powerful.

 

Atari's specification's given to the press talked of a very advanced sound chip. .

 

16 Mhz 68000 CPU

 

Upto 262,144 colours on screen from palette of 7,860..

 

Upto 2000 sprites on screen (though as Jeff Minter and Rob Nicholson have said, actual in game performance was lower).

 

The issue of the 2 individuals being so strong minded and almost flat out refusing to believe certain hardware features were needed in earlier hardware designs , is an area i would love to explore.

 

But i doubt much more info remains to be found.

 

Fingers crossed though

But considering games like Vroom and Hunter was the Panther really necessary? The ST game machine would still be better than the Mega Drive and even the SNES when it came out two years later. I'm basing this off your statement the ST machine was supposed to come out in 89 of course. Edited October 4, 2018 by TigerSuperman

[Lost Dragon]

I personally found during that era you needed a home micro and a games console to get the best of both worlds and ended up buying the same games on multiple systems.

 

 

I can't really say if the Panther or Jaguar were really necessary. .

 

MD received ST 3D and 2D ports as it was.

 

Vroom did appear on MD as F1:

 

 

 

 

I'm going to leave this here.

 

There's enough material in the Panther threads on here and Assembler forum for people to read through and come to their own conclusions.

Edited October 5, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[Punisher5.0]

I personally found during that era you needed a home micro and a games console to get the best of both worlds and ended up buying the same games on multiple systems.

 

 

I can't really say if the Panther or Jaguar were really necessary. .

 

MD received ST 3D and 2D ports as it was.

 

Vroom did appear on MD as F1:

 

 

https://youtu.be/GrMMfjsYez0

 

 

I'm going to leave this here.

 

There's enough material in the Panther threads on here and Assembler forum for people to read through and come to their own conclusions.

Wow that looks impressive. Im going to have to try that out on the everdrive when I get a chance

[Lost Dragon]

Why was Vroom created on the ST and then ported to the Amiga, and not the other way around like most games of that era?

When I first started the project, the Amiga was not released. After, it has been a matter of time and resources (I was working after hours, Lankhor was a very small team). After the success of "Mortville Manor", they put a lot of their resources on "Maupiti Island", also a big success. When VROOM was re-prioritized up, the Amiga was bigger than the ST but we decided to complete the ST version first. It was released in Oct 91. Then, It took 6 months for Jean-Luc to convert it to the Amiga, and after that, to the Sega Genesis (published by Domark under the name F1).

 

Snippet of background info from the Atarilegend Interview with the coder from some years back.

[MrMaddog]

I personally found during that era you needed a home micro and a games console to get the best of both worlds and ended up buying the same games on multiple systems.

 

 

I can't really say if the Panther or Jaguar were really necessary. .

 

I wished I done that, bought a Sega MD to go along the STe I was using. (I'm ok using both a PC & console now than I was back then)

 

But as a 19 year old Atari fanboi I was holding out for a Jaguar instead and looked how that turned out...

[Lost Dragon]

Looking back, i was a bloody fool in my younger days with money.

 

The ST had been bought new on the back of savings and a summer job before going to technical college.

 

Whilst still in college i bought the Sega Game Gear..

 

Straight into work and the Megadrive then later the Mega CD followed..

 

Latter a day 1 purchase.

 

Lynx Mk 1 and Mk II soon added..

 

Then Jaguar..

 

Madness.

 

But at that age, doing a lot of overtime, being paid monthly...

 

Soon as the pay went into our accounts, we blew the bloody lot.

 

Put money aside?

 

Do a private pension?

 

Nonsense to us.

 

Life gave me a severe wake up call when i wrote my car off (own fault, young, driving like a bell e#d..luckily didn't hit anyone else).

 

Had to sell my treasured Lynx collection off to raise funds.

 

But if you had the resources..owning say an ST or Amiga and SNES or MD gave you the widest range of choices.

 

None of my crowd really got into PC's for gaming until likes of Unreal Tournament and i discovered Mods for games and was rather envious :-))

[Lost Dragon]

As for the other glaring issue..just who might be starting all these threads..

 

On the 1 hand, when i joined here, people thought i was a certain banned (twice ) individual, so mistaken identity stuff has happened and the topics covered so far, do make for intelligent discussion.

 

However having made the mistake myself some time ago taking a newcomer who claimed he just wanted to help put together a new updated database on lost Jaguar games using new info that had come to light...###### and seeing some of the slandering of this site and it's staff by said individual on the comments section of YT some months ago...

 

It's doing my head in to see the site being abused yet again in this manner and i feel like a bigger bloody fool than ever for helping feeding the individuals in question, by entering into discussion with them.

 

At my age, i really should know a damn sight better.

 

All i would say is i hope some of the noise i have posted the last few weeks has been of some small use to those genuinely interested in the topics themselves.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[digdugnate]

As for the other glaring issue..just who might be starting all these threads..

 

On the 1 hand, when i joined here, people thought i was a certain banned (twice ) individual, so mistaken identity stuff has happened and the topics covered so far, do make for intelligent discussion.

 

However having made the mistake myself some time ago taking a newcomer who claimed he just wanted to help put together a new updated database on lost Jaguar games using new info that had come to light...###### and seeing some of the slandering of this site and it's staff by said individual on the comments section of YT some months ago...

 

It's doing my head in to see the site being abused yet again in this manner and i feel like a bigger bloody fool than ever for helping feeding the individuals in question, by entering into discussion with them.

 

At my age, i really should know a damn sight better.

 

All i would say is i hope some of the noise i have posted the last few weeks has been of some small use to those genuinely interested in the topics themselves.

FWIW i thought your comments were really interesting! you strike me as someone that has done a lot of legit research and it's cool to hear the history of things that i might not ordinarily look up.

[Lost Dragon]

That's very kind of you to say and i am glad you found what i have shared to be to your liking.

 

In the case of the Panther (and indeed misc lost Atari Games and comments in general), i have tried to find as share as much credible information from as many sources as possible.

 

Forgive me for repeating myself yet again, but it was Games That Weren't that originally approached me with the view of them doing a 1 off article on the Panther and the questions that were asked were as simple as...

 

1)Was there enough credible information to build such an article around?

 

2)Were there enough people willing to talk or had at some point talked about it,to get a balanced view of the hardware and what it could of offered?

 

3)What did we know of what games were actually started?.

 

 

Since any research was being on behalf of a professional site, standards had to be high.

 

This was their reputation at stake.

 

We used Press claims and coverage as a starting point,but were careful to present them as just that..

 

Then started the long slog of finding multiple sources willing to chat and putting claims about the Panther to them and asking them to Confirm or deny in cases quotes we had read from them online etc.

 

Finding the extra snippets online from Rob Nicholson and Jeff Minter were an added bonus

.

 

The hardest developer to get a bead On was Imagitec Design.

 

It took a lot of time to build up the case that for a lot of them, time had impacted on their memories,who had worked on what etc.

 

Martin gets very confused in this area, Kristi has done the same,but i am very grateful to all who took time to answer emails and add clarity to what someone was really referring to when they said.

 

I thought i had exhausted all the finds i was going to personally make, long ago, Tiertex planning Strider II (thanks to GTW themselves for that), but then found the extra Nicholson/Minter quotes, so never say never.

 

I'm not expecting anything else at this point.

[00010000]

As for the other glaring issue..just who might be starting all these threads..

 

On the 1 hand, when i joined here, people thought i was a certain banned (twice ) individual, so mistaken identity stuff has happened and the topics covered so far, do make for intelligent discussion.

 

However having made the mistake myself some time ago taking a newcomer who claimed he just wanted to help put together a new updated database on lost Jaguar games using new info that had come to light...###### and seeing some of the slandering of this site and it's staff by said individual on the comments section of YT some months ago...

 

It's doing my head in to see the site being abused yet again in this manner and i feel like a bigger bloody fool than ever for helping feeding the individuals in question, by entering into discussion with them.

 

At my age, i really should know a damn sight better.

 

All i would say is i hope some of the noise i have posted the last few weeks has been of some small use to those genuinely interested in the topics themselves.

 

 

Your stuff's been very insightful to me, personally speaking, as it's nice to have accounts from people who actually have spoken to people in the industry around that time, outside of the glamour of the media press or commercial pressures of systems at the time. It's about as close you can get to true info on these things, tho there's many still I wish were more forthcoming (most of Sega of Japan's corporate brass from the MegaDrive and Saturn days, for starters).

 

What sucks about the people who've been making these threads, is that the topics themselves are actually very interesting and good topics to discuss on....provided all parties are being as fair and balanced as they can, even with preferences in play. The problem, at least for me, is I've felt those drumming up the convos haven't necessarily been trying a lot to prevent their preferences from playing out as clear bias, to the point of negatively driving discussion into territorial drivel that shouldn't need to be an issue. IMO if people find themselves doing logic bending that'd make Neo from the Matrix blush, just to support their own POV, maybe they aught to take a breather and look over what they're really saying.

[Lost Dragon]

Again many thanks for the very kind words, very humbled to hear people have appreciated my random postings.

 

I know the subject material isn't for everyone and i'm certainly not everyone's cup of tea.

 

It would be nice if someone used the very raw and random research conducted by myself and others, to produce a properly written and presented article on The Panther.

 

I know Unseen64 have talked of liking to do such a thing, but with real life issues meaning time is a luxury, i sadly doubt it will happen.

 

I did pass on all the finds as they came in,to an Australian Retro site who were looking to do a revamp of an earlier article on the Panther they had put up, but again if that ever happens..

 

It would make for a nice Machine Obscure article in something like RetroGamer magazine and i have suggested it to a suitable Freelancer of the magazine,who is a very capable writer and is able to write with no personal bias in either direction towards Atari hardware, but he has a full time job etc.

 

So for the moment, if people can manage to read through my poor grammar and punctuation and my scattergun approach, the information is there to read through.

 

I'm not a writer and don't have a team of editors and the like to turn it into something presentable which is a resource magazine freelancers can take for granted, but it's free to read content.

 

My biggest regret is perhaps not looking into it earlier.

 

It wouldn't of done anything to prevent the attempts to spread misinformation i still occasionally see, but it might of meant people from the industry were more avaiable?.

 

A good few i had hoped to be able to reach are now in very high up positions and haven't the time to answer questions.

 

Also memories would of been fresher..

 

I never expected to find actual development code, various people have been sat on development kits for many,many years and nothing has been found.

 

Plus Panther development was from an era people didn't perhaps back up data the way it has been more recently.

 

As for the other aspects..

 

Hmnnn.

 

Whilst water off a ducks back to myself, it was sad that Atarimania had to waste valuable time deleting certain comments on their FB page just because they shared a link to an interview i did with Jim Gregory, i mean come on..i found Jim online and also sent him a physical letter, he was happy to chat and i was most grateful for his time, his views were his own, sure some of it was old news, i thought it important it was documented and i personally wanted to know more about the Panther work HMS had done,after reading it being mentioned in Lynx User fanzine all those years ago.

 

Being able to add Rob Nicholson comments to it was just superb.

 

Jeff Minter i approached years back for ST Gamer, Unseen64 tried to get him to chat about Unity, GTW approached him at 2 Retro events to try and ask about Panther, he never got back to any of us,it happens,so instead i have shared his online comments and what he told Edge in an interview.

 

No shame in being totally transparent is there?

 

But transparency seems a bigger issue for some on here now and some now ex-posters, pretending to be only looking to help other people's projects or start discussions for benifit of the community.

 

If you come in with an agenda, your going to get caught.

 

There are a lot of bloody smart folk on here with years of experience.

 

They will bend over backwards to offer help and assistance, but if your here to f##k about and play silly little social media experiments, more fool you.

 

Forums are in decline as it is, why not simply embrace what we have left and just create topics for genuine reasons?.

 

None of us are experts,we are just here to share personal experiences and bits n bobs of info we have picked up on our travels.