[Homebrew WIP: Steps]

Will this get the cartridge treatment?

[atarihq and jag interactive]

Oh yeah, Redsun. I was over there as well.

I'd like to see an archive of JI2 but these things are difficult to preserve.

[Song Of The Grid]

This earworm has been in my head for decades. Nice cover (and samples!).

[The Original “Universal” Port by Atari]

Quote

The Atari 2600’s joystick port had a history that survived for nearly two decades on a variety of systems, from the Sega Master System to the 3DO. Not that cross-compatibility is exactly perfect.

https://tedium.co/2022/08/24/atari-2600-joystick-port-history/

[Is Baseball Heroes bad?]

On 5/7/2022 at 2:31 AM, Cobra Kai said:

I don't care for it, it's kind of like jgkspsx said, it's tolerable in short sessions, but I couldn't play a whole game. Most of the sports game are pretty bad IMHO. I actually like Hockey, though.

 

EDIT: Well, Awesome Golf is really great too, forgot that one.

Hockey hijack. That's a great game.

But yeah, I can never get into Baseball games. I own Baseball Heroes. Seems better than most. But I still have trouble understanding the strategy here.

[Be Wise]

It is a bit of an usual topic to be found in Atari Age. But I'm an American (dollar) that spends a lot of time in Europe (euro) that is occasionally in the UK (pound). For what it's worth, Wise is the way to go.

[Battlemorph is criminally underrated]

I love BattleMorph. I can't say it is definitively better than Iron Soldier II to claim top spot on the Jag CD, but both are excellent titles.

 

BattleMorph was definitely a bigger leap and has an emphasis on exploration. They managed to introduce three modes - tunnels, land, and underwater - and make them all meaningful. The music is killer and the visual effects are super creative.

 

It's a total gem and certainly holds up even better in hindsight.

[Ultra Vortek is pretty awesome]

Ultra Vortek is a good fighting game. It doesn't have the balance of Super Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat 2 or 3, but it is certainly better than the original versions of these games.

 

Crafting a fighting game is a delicate art. It's not something you get perfect the first time around. Beyond Games were talented developers, but it's their first fighter AFAIK.

 

While imperfect, it has a distinct aesthetic style and some memorable characters. I never struggled with the controls, but I've also put a lot of hours into fighting games. Maybe that's why. So yeah - I loved this game.

 

Early magazines called it Ultra Vortex. Is this a case of the magazines just getting it wrong? Or was there some IP conflict? Does anybody know?

[My Atari song by Suzanne Ciani]

@Savetz - the original interview is great. It spans a lot of ground - from Atari, to the music business, to synthesis (Buchla, vocoder). Super interesting! And, as usual, you've done a great job of archiving this significant piece of history. Thank you!

[From Karateka to Ram Dass]

Yeah, the bird gets me too. If only I had the power to duck!

[From Karateka to Ram Dass]

On 12/31/2020 at 4:06 AM, electronicsibley said:

BTW, I’m actually a fan of the port, and possibly a bit of a sadist.

I have mixed feelings on the port. How far have you been able to get?

 

I got used to the controls, and do enjoy playing it, but I have trouble getting very far.

[From Karateka to Ram Dass]

I recently wrote a post about Ram Dass, David Padwa, and Jordan Mechner that intersects at the Atari 7800 version of Karateka. Specifically around the "Mommy and Me Are One" easter egg in the cartridge. It may be of interest to folks here: Be Here Now.

 

Jordan Mechner read the post and also commented. That was a treat.

[Impulse X is back on cartridge!]

I've had Impulse X for a while now. It's a must-have homebrew. If you don't have it, definitely pick up a copy on this run.

[Alice's Mom's Rescue perfect score]

I have it on cartridge. Lots of fun to complete. I think I was near-perfect.

[So I asked for some "Jaguar" stuff for Christmas.....]

A couple of procontrollers. Theyre amazing!!

[Jag CD Stats, Facts & Views - Future Pod Discussion]

The real mystery is why they released the Jag CD when it offered nothing other than increased storage over carts. No additional RAM, no extra sound chips, no extra processing power, nothing. I think CJ said it slightly reduced the amount of RAM available on the Jag. The PCE CD released in the 80's offered more of an improvement than the Jag CD. The pack-in was Blue Lightning which without the FMV clips likely could've fit on a cart. People trash the 32X, but it was a far better add-on than the Jag CD. And it has better games, too.

 

For sure. The Jaguar CD strategy felt like the dawn of PC CD-ROM for me. Pretty unimaginative.

 

But I think the Jag CD was more well conceived than the ST CD-ROM.

[Did my Jaguar Short Out?]

If whoever looked at it didn't even test something as obvious as the power switch, I'd question their competence.

 

Me too.

 

Considering the guys at J&L Game in Manhattan fix hundreds of retro consoles, it's quite odd they don't know what the problem is with my Jaguar. But all this is immaterial to the original question.

[Jag CD Stats, Facts & Views - Future Pod Discussion]

Yeah, not much mystery there. I'm surprised they even bothered to release it, though at that time Atari wasn't known for making the best decisions.

 

I can't imagine being a kid back then having dumped money into the Jag CD when it was released at full price. The Sega CD has an infamous reputation for having had mostly junk FMV games, but there were a lot of excellent games for that add-on. The Jag CD? Not so much.

 

I mean, there is a reason much has been written around sunk costs in economic theory. It's widely established (not without exception) that sunk costs should not affect the rational decision maker's next move, but it often does.

 

I can easily imagine being in an Atari Corp. board room in 1995 and making the decision to release the unit. Most marketing around the Jaguar was based on the perception of power, and I believe the Jaguar CD offered the Jaguar a "790 Meg Tune-Up." Seems in line with the entirety of the product's conception. Hell, even the controller made sure to have more buttons (i.e. "more power") than any competitor.

 

Classic sunk cost fallacy. Rather than alter a failed game plan (which would seemingly waste all investment to this point), you feel compelled to stay the course to its bitter end.

 

I enjoyed my Jag CD, BattleMorph, and the VLM in 1995, but I'm obviously in the tiny minority.

[Mike Price - Jag Game Tester of Dante's Inferno & Video Game Journalist]

 

That's the video where he commented..

 

Fingers crossed you can make contact with him.

 

This is probably trivia at this point, but Conrad was a Lisp guy and has since moved onto Clojure. I'm a Clojure developer, so imagine my surprise when I hear the reference to working with 90s Atari in this recent interview: https://defn.audio/episodes/2018/02/26/conrad.html.

 

If you're interested in Lisps, his Land of Lisp book is highly reputed.

 

I don't know him, but he should be easy to get in contact with.

[Did my Jaguar Short Out?]

 

Thanks for troubleshooting this with me. No, the led does not light up. I think it might be a power switch issue as well. It "felt" a little flaky before all this happened. Like not as springy. If that were the case, am I correct to presume this could have caused a short anywhere in the system, or is there a specific place where something like this might be localized?

 

How would a faulty power switch cause a short at an arbitrary point in the system?

 

I'm confused by this response. I do not know enough about how the Jaguar is powered. Presumably, neither did the engineer who looked at it. I wish I could answer your question, but thus far the only thing I know is that this problem could be at anywhere along the path where the system is powered.

 

Stephen suggested the power switch might be the issue. This is actually a great lead. More conversation might reveal other common areas that I can further discuss with the engineer. If he ultimately sees a problem outside of the power switch itself, which is not behaving perfectly, I'll be able to answer your question.

[Did my Jaguar Short Out?]

I would of thought they could have fixed it, if the power was ok the other primary areas to look would be the clock oscillator and reset pins as any of those not operating correctly could cause major problems, particularly if not getting to the BIOS chip although I would expect them to have checked those if they had a schematic/check for anything getting hot.

 

Difficult to fix a system that does nothing as you are limited in regard to what you can test, when you say it does not power on do you mean that the power LED does not come on or that it does but you get no signs of activity from the Jaguar? If the former then it has to be a power/power switch issue, if the latter and the clock was running you would at least expect the BIOS to run and get a RSOD if nothing else

 

Thanks for troubleshooting this with me. No, the led does not light up. I think it might be a power switch issue as well. It "felt" a little flaky before all this happened. Like not as springy. If that were the case, am I correct to presume this could have caused a short anywhere in the system, or is there a specific place where something like this might be localized?

[Did my Jaguar Short Out?]

However, despite this, it stopped working a while back for reasons currently beyond me. The last few times I'd played it, it had serious controller issues; on Cybermorph, the T-Griffon wouldn't stop jetting forward and moving upward, while on Tempest 2K, I couldn't stop shooting. Not long after these incidents, my Jag failed entirely, and won't even power on.

 

All I know is that these consoles are very sensitive to electrical mishaps (shorts, overloads, etc.), and that something to do with the controller inputs failed/shorted out, and this somehow eventually led to total failure. Yet if that is the case, wouldn't that mean that one of my controllers is defective and causes shorts? I've no soldering skills, and even less of a clue on how to find the replacement parts necessary for this system, so the chances of me fixing this are slim. For the meantime, I've purchased a new Jag system (I shouldn't have to explain how expensive they've become), so I want to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

 

I can't address your specific issues, but I want to share a similar story that might help constructive commenters toss around ideas.

 

I have a Jaguar that will not power on. It just froze in the middle of a game about 4 months ago and never turned back on. I recently took it to a gaming shop in Manhattan and they couldn't figure it out. I even sent them this known issue just in case it gave them something to look for.

 

(Worth noting that I did not use the wrong PSU, but I was looking for any lead possible)

 

Not sure if there are other common issues with the system or if we're seeing any uptick in failures. Unfortunately, taking it to an engineer that specializes in game systems gave me no further leads.

[Got The Atari Jaguar Again. FINALLY!]

 

 

The three stores that has an Atari Jag one was cheap and used but very beat up and missing cables the other two have CIB USED and NEW.

 

I even made a chart list on what Im looking for in NYC

 

Thanks for sharing this chart. Turns out they can't fix my Jaguar, so I'm in the market for a new one.

 

Glad you got one that's a decent price.

[Got The Atari Jaguar Again. FINALLY!]

 

A back history I was living in NYC in 1993 I first got the Jaguar 64 at Chinatown gaming store for $199 and then in 2014 my old Jag unit, Jag CD and many box games was stolen along with other systems and games. Anyway at first I assume I would fine an used Jag for dart cheap seeing how much of a epic frailer and no one wanted to buy it even for CIB for $20 but for what ever reason on ebay and other gaming store these things go for like Neo-Geo level of pricing, WHY? > Even the games are being ungodly amount of cost even on the crappy games. But last week in NYC I finally found a CIB Atari Jaguar system and two games for $250 and yes it works now all I need is the Jag CD (GOD DAMN the price on the unit alone @_@ ) and all the missing games witch I still have the full list I made in 2004

 

Nice! I live in NYC. What store, out of curiosity? I picked up Cannon Fodder at Videogames New York in East Village a while back. It was ~$20 CIB.

 

My Jag stopped working a while back and I dropped it off at J&L Game in Midtown about 5 weeks ago. They keep asking me for one more week every time I call them. So we'll see if they can actually get it purring again.

[Electrocop \\ Level 11 Tips]

I picked up Electrocop again; I never beat it in the 1990s but I'm taking the notes necessary to actually stand a chance this time.

 

I'm having trouble with the Stingrays on Level 11. It seems that the only way to to destroy them is to fire your EMP shoulder cannon when you're right next to the doorway. Is this true?

 

If you step into their line of sight they seem to inflict significant damage, especially to your weapons. It feels pretty cheap, but maybe it's possible to approach them in a way I have yet to discover. Any tips?

 

I'm really digging the game. It lacks the depth of Alien vs. Predator on the Jaguar, but has a lot of the same level/door mechanics. I see why reviewers generally have a temperate response, but I can also see why the designers at Epyx probably thought they had a really solid title on their hands. There's a lot to like.