gusbucket13

Hi, I found this about the Mirage emulator from a german site dont know if its of any use:- The real-time CD emulator Mirage has three SCSI interfaces for a production computer, a test computer and for connecting the CD writer, when the virtual CD has been tested. The production computer generates the data for the CD application and transfers them via SCSI bus to the CD emulator. There the CD type and disk type (4X or 8X) are set using various parameters, so Mirage can also emulate the playback timing of a CD-ROM drive. I also found the telephone number and Fax number, of Cross Products if anyone wants them, I believe they merged with another company around 2000. Cheers Chris C

Well I asked the eBay vendor this is what he had to say, this is his reply:- Thanks for your interest in my Auction. First question I'm afraid I have no idea. As I say in the description, I purchased this as a result of a bankruptcy - I am not a developer, and have no knowledge of it's capabilities. The details of the auction were from a review of the unit by Byte.com - Do a Google search for "Mirage CD Emulator", and you will find several references to it. As Byte is such a highly regarded technical website, then I would say that it CAN handle Atari Jaguar. Hope this helps. JunctionSales (First question was Ref Dreamcast GD Rom discs) Adds a little but not a lot. Cheers Chris C

Greetings folks, Im back on the case of the JagDuo, after an enforced break of a couple of years due to personal familly commitments.. Has anyone on this august forum got any relatively clear pics of the prototype Jagduo units either the grey or the black(?) versions, especially if they have anything in the pic that could act as a scaling device for working out dimensions, or failing that has anyone got or have worked out the dimensions of the JagDuo demo unit. Ref the item in the available pics - Was this just a mock up or a functioning item? I vaguely recall a pic of the black version under someones arm showing a cart in the cart port at the rear. I would dealy love to know what the text markings were along the front edge too. Lastly and perhaps more difficult I need the populated but non functioning innards of a Jag CD Unit anyone got one beyond saving? Not expecting a freebie, can pay by Pay Pal a reasonable price. Cheers, Chris C

Has anyone actually asked for clarification from the vendor yet? I have to ask about its compatability for Dreamcast GD Rom emulation so will tack a question in about the jag with that and see if they bother to reply. Cheers, Chris C

Heres my games collection most obtained via eBay a few years ago when atari games got really cheap for a while - I think a load were found in Holland like Atari Karts, Ruiner pinball, Iron soldier, Bubsy & Iwar all boxed & sealed at around $12 each. Next my 4 main core consoles I use the front 2 regularly 1 NTSC US and one UK PAL - I like to vary the LED power light colors occasionally , I have 6 Boxed Jags in the attic plus a further 8 unboxed picked up at car boot fairs and flea markets in varying degrees of completeness - these are my unwitting victims for my experiments Muahahahahahaha. If I get the chance in the next few days Ill drag em out for an airing and quick photo. Cheers Chris C.

So basically its just another con artist charging 25 quid for sod all work! Thanks for the advice I have no doubt that you are right it makes perfect sense, Fortunately It was in time to stop me sending off a jag to find out. If thats the case Ill just uncrate one of my US NTSC Jags and fire it up for the same results! Cheers Chris C

Wow that would be so cool if someone has found a way to tweak the Jag past perfection! The guy offers the service regularly on eBay and has no bad feedback so I guess he must have found a way to do something like you suggest, Tom and Jerry being custom made have no candidates for substitution. I have a spare Jag unit stashed in the attic, I think Ill give him a go and report back to the forum.

I was just wondering if any of the more regular contributors had knowledge of the fellow who is offering the following service on eBay UK atari jaguar conversions Item number: 8200644790 claims to reduce flicker, run 17.5% faster, eliminate top and bottom black lines onscreen and make unit regionfree (I guess that means it can be used with PAL or NTSC TV's) Is this possible? I havent seen anything on any forums about such a conversion and before I part with £25 for the work and P&P both ways I want to be sure its not yet another eBay scam. Cheers Chris C Ps Pics of some of my Jag collection just to brighten things up

Well this is good news! London will be a pain with regard to costs , probably Birmingham will be better as accommodation on the outskirts at B&B hotels is around £13 - £15 a night which usually includes a massive full english breakfast, Theres still Birmingham international airport nearby for international arrivals, I can make some enquiries with friends about meeting halls - preferably above pubs For those in the brum area Im thinking of N Birmingham the Erdington/Sutton/Aston area, I go up there to work on accasion and have always found the area cheap and friendly with lots of availability. I can make available for record attempts/whatever 3 complete Jag CD units 8 UK Jag base units, 14 controllers, 1 pro controller, 1 USA Jag for speed comparisons, one memory track, two Team Taps, two Jaglinks, 2 Jag Scart Leads, 6 doom carts, 3 WMCJ, a library of 42 different cart games and 6 CD games, Ill bring whatever is needed basically. I dont have many rare games just some of the moderately uncommon - Towers II, Protector SE, Atari Karts, Space war 2000 playable demo & flashback. being about the limit of my budget. I have signed up to the MSN Group and must admit I am quite excited about the whole prospect. Chris C PS If were gonna let any other system in my vote goes for Sega Dreamcast, another deceased system that had great potential and was screwed by poor marketing (that and software piracy!)

Since a co jag is about the closest many of us are ever going to have a chance of getting any where near to a Jag II, why dont the Jag community pool skills and resources to use the co-jags potential? The games Maximum Force and Area 51 are still regarded as modern arcade games, their internals - ie the main mother board and the 2 or 4 GB hDD can be picked up for less than a Jag CD unit, I am desperately seeking one of these boards to finish development on mu own pet project of the CoJag as seen in its final mock up form back in 95, these things can be done, and whilst a lot of people say it cant be done others quietly behind the scenes get it done. Cheers to all who really try, Gusbucket 13

Hi Edson You sure you quoted the correct link for your trades page - angelfire couldnt find it the old error 404 strikes again! and again, and again Cheers Gusbucket13

You are quite righ Agent X getting my knickers in a twist there - sorry Gusbucket13

Apparently it appeared briefly as an Atari coin op arcade machine right on the end of Ataris coin op success run, the main motherboard was a heavilly modified Co-Jag board with a 4Gigabyte hard disk drive and a Motorola 68030 processor plus over 4 Mb of RAM memory, this represented the pinnacle of true jag board development - after that it was handed over to Jamma boards, all this is documented on the internet Hoping this helps in some small way Gusbucket 13

Clint told me that he sold it to a collector with a whole development team on hand to get it working - thats mega bucks on any Jag forum $3000 + Id guess, and goes against what has been so far put out on the net about it working but only playing current jag games without any noticeable improvements, it was defunct - and currently remains defunct, Oberon without Titania aint no play at all, = current state of play. Whoever put it around that it was working was A) Very idealistic B) Misleading people. Clint would you care to elaborate? A lot of people have dead-ended Atari prototype development kit into their collections in the well founded but greedy assumption that it will be worth something in the future, This speculative investment is a TOTAL loss to the Jaguar community and the sooner active Jag community members recognise this the better. Out there somewhere is all the stuff we need to bring Atari Jag back to life Gusbucket 13

I would just like to point out for any that may be put off by the thought of "Aargh its all in french" - the actual interview and questions are reproduced in English. I particularly was interested in the Jag II info on the oberon and titania chips successors to tom and jerry and the fact that he has somewhere a manual for oberon - wonder if that will ever see the light of day? Cheers Chris C

Hi, Im quite new here myself but in answer to your question I switch off the Jag, pop the CD Lid and watch till the disc has stopped spining then use a wooden cocktail stick to lift the edge of the CD enough to get my fingers on the edges for a smooth lift - I try to avoid any contact with the Disc surface at all, they are supposed to be robust things but in practice one small scratch can ruin a CD in a split second! Basically I think yes you are doing the right thing! Cheers Gusbucket13

I heard somewhere recently that the Jag could handle 6Mb of RAM which it what prompted my initial question, I have seen that a lot of the new DRAM advertised on E Bay are tiny wafer thin credit card sized items for Laptops and start at about 4Mb - if only they could be used Im sure there would be internal room for such thin devices if only the hardwiring hookup could be sorted out. The External High Ram Uploader Cart has its merits too If any of the more technically minded would care to investigate this further please contact me privately. Cheers Gusbucket13

Please bear with me old hands, but in my ignorance I need to beg your help again. Id like to know if such a thing as a DRAM daughter board could be made to expand the Jags own onboard meagre 2MB DRAM, if so would there be a limit to what the Jag architechture could usefully use, this I believe would allow much bigger CD ROM games to be written and run on the Jag. I was prompted to propose the Idea when I saw the BJL modification process being done in a how to article on the web. Cheers Gusbucket13

Just a thought to be tossed into the arena - has anyone tried Russia as a source for cheap chips - they are definately a lot cheaper and they might have older type chips still in production. The only problem would be deciphering which is the equivalent of what. They do exist, I spent several hours scouring the internet late last week, and established at least that much, just most electronic component suppliers lists on the internet charge a subscription fee just to view the sources and the equivalents datalists. It is acknowledged by most that whilst optically inferior they are every bit as good as western originals in electronic function & performance. Cheers Gusbucket 13

That is interesting Thunderbird, would it not be possible now you know what the encryption was looking for ie the value inserted - to reverse engineer it and come up with the encryption code itself. sort of saying heres the answer now what was the problem I know, but when you have lots of answers - like using quadratic equations in algebra you can eventually establish values for the equation and solve it. I guess that you never actually got to see the successful cheat values inserted by your hacking rig up or you would have worked this one back for yourself and obtained the encryption code. Cudos on doing that anyway - it was pioneering work that had to be done by someone or the death knell really would have been sounded for the Jag! Cheers Gusbucket13

One has to congratulate Carl at Songbird for going the extra mile and getting the new cart boards designed and made, presumably the EPROM chip they are designed to use is a more common and therefore cheaper example? I wonder if Carl will be gracious enough to let others buy into the product of his labours and buy blank boards from him for new game development work? Anyway on a different note - Best electronics list some EPROMS too the 27C512 at $6:50c the 27C010 (1 meg) at $8 and the 27C101 (also 1 meg) at $10 other ones which are probably the proper ones for the Jag carts are listed as Call for price - which always seems to be a euphamism for bloody expensive! Hope this helps in some small way Cheers Gusbucket13

I tried today to burn an unencrypted downloaded Jag demo on to a CD and use the Protector SE encryption bypass to run the CD, it appeared to all work well except the CD just kept spinning and spinning with a blank screen like its looking for a reference point to start running the program which it cant find, - bum oh well 50c wasted! I now understand that with anything CD youre limited to the Jags onboard DRAM 2mb - so in effect you have less capacity than a 4 Mb game cart even though the CD has 650mb of storage space, cos on a cart the jag can use some of the spare memory in the cart - but it cant use it in the CD - Is this a correct understanding of the limitations? Surely the question that cries out then is - is there a way to increase the Jags DRAM capacity without too much major surgery, like was done for the Co Jags? Lastly what are the ROM chips that are in short supply for new carts? (designation and equivalents) Perhaps there may be quantities in the UK or Europe as yet untapped? It shouldnt hurt to look - Cheers Gusbucket13

Is it theoretically possible to download freebie demo code off the internet such as available at the Jagudome and instead of using the BJL to download it into the BJL EProms - to burn it into a CD? Well yes I know you can physically do that bit. But would the CD play on a standard Jag CD then? (If you had a bypass cart in the cart port) if not what would you have to add to the code to make it run before you burn it on to the CD? You have to manually port the code to a specific start address on the BJL EProm, will a Jag CD do that automatically? Cheers Chris C Always testing the impossible

So have we established that B&C computervisions are willing to send stuff out at the cheaper air letter rate as long as customers waive any right to compensation, well as long as you get a free proof of posting certificate - Ill buy into that - humm if you agree to that Ok then Ill be ordering your demolition man / captain blood demo CD air mail. Gusbucket13

If they are real $5 is very reasonable still does not excuse the postage charges though Gusbucket13