philipj

Hi Vladr... It's too bad the Lynx doesn't have the kind of following it once did. I wouldn't have gotten into the Jag scene if I hadn't ran into an Atari Lynx, did some internet search on everything Lynx only to run into the Jag scene by accident. I find it interesting that the recent "Ricki and Vicki" game for the Atari 7800 is using the Atari Lynx sound and music library to pull off great music for the game. Quite a nice legacy if you ask me.

I think he guy who ran "Tengen" had fell ill then passed sometime in 1994... Also Jay Miner, the guy who created the "TIA, GTIA, and the CTIA" had passed that very same year; which he was well some years with Amiga, but still that had to have did something to the morale at Atari for those who knew the guy. The following year Jack Tramiel son has a heart attack on top of the Jaguar not doing so well. That particular part of Atari was just done to do any kind of real legacy game making. I don't know what role "Midway" played, but they kept they seemingly kept the name going by rubber stamping their games with the Atari name. Seem like they would've been better to keep things going in that regard into the 2000, but they were busy keeping their own brand thriving with the more modern console of that time (the N64, Dreamcast, PS2, Original XBOX and so forth). Long live Hydro Thunder... 😎 Ok back to the topic.

Was just listening to some old chip tunes I like to hear from time to time... Would be very cool to hear the XM play tracks like "T2 Arcade" for the Geny. Great use of the old Yamaha DX sound chip.

Ok I was revisiting some old music last night that I made wanted to highlight something that bought back a bit of nostalgia and that's "Pac Man Intermission"... It's one of the first Jaytrax songs I posted here I wanted to shine a light on. The music was inspired by a track from "Ridge Racer 1" for the original "Playstation 1" called "Rotterdam Nation". Just a little something I wanted to briefly highlight during my experimental phase of music making just to see if I could make music of that caliber. It would be the second or third time I've made that kind of music and there was no better theme for such a song than the "Pac Man" theme.

Well from what I understand when they were making the game at the time, the Jaguar originally supported GPU to main without it being broken, but when Atari released the Jag 64 to the public, the GPU accessing main memory was not available to the released systems so the team had to scramble and take shortcuts in order to finish the game on time thus their reason for the game not being as good as they wanted it to be. I know personally it was one of the first games I got for the Jaguar and the box art looks amazing, but game itself just didn't live up to the box art.

Wow...

You're talking about KI for the SNES...? Yes it predates Primal Rage 2, however the graphics and animation can be downsized to something manageable for the Jaguar like the way KI's was downsized for the SNES only the Jag can handle animation much better than the SNES if "Primal Rage 2" graphics as well as the animation if done in similar manner (KI SNES) only with the same level of animation as the arcade version instead of the frame-drop version like the SNES. It's like I'd mention in a previous post a few month back, the Jaguar isn't as good as the PlayStation 1, but it's better than an SNES or Sega Genesis and is possible to hit some sweet-spots that's not quite as good as a Sega Saturn, but much better than an SNES where arcade ports of some games are much more tangible on the Jag than what credit was given to the Jaguar in it's heyday. Or even an independent game with great graphics like "Native" for example and with the Skunkboard and the highly anticipated "SD Cartridge" still in the making, cartridge space shouldn't be a problem anymore. Although the SNES version of KI was limited to smaller sprites and the "Mode 7" effect, the Jag is much more capable than the SNES and can handle SNES style graphics with more animation and some 3D if you're lucky enough to make it all fit in and work smoothly.

It still would be a great show piece for the Jaguar even if some of the animation could be scaled down... Think "Killer Instinct" on the SNES only with better animation. Something like that is possible for the Jag. As far as the human character is concerned, I think they were aiming for the "Bloody Roar" audience that was popular at the time this game was made. That's the only logic I can think of for them doing it in that way.

I thought about a "Weapon Lord" remake for the Jaguar... Not a port but a remake of the game with better graphics and animation. All of the sound and stuff is already there, just improve on what's already there and move it over to the Jaguar. I remember when I rented this game in the 90s and thought it something different than the normal games of that time, but I'd love to remake this for the Jaguar. Just a wishful thought at this point. When the Conan game would come up, I'd often think of this game for some reason.

Agreed... It was an original release title before Atari went belly up. The first game to actually crack the Jags encryption before the official Atari encryption key got released to the public and from what I understand, the game actually load faster than the games that used Atari's keys... A milestone few people could do accept they had the keys or a BJL hard wire.

Yea... The ST version is very lack luster. Atari really should've pushed a little harder for that game on their computer even if they had to do a cartridge version with extra hardware; it would've been totally worth it, but this was during a time when the arcade version was always better than the home version. Just another product of the 80s I suppose. Of course I'm very bias about "StunRunner" arcade version; that game incredible at the arcade in the 90s... I wanted to take the machine home after playing the game; felt very futurist TRON like for its time. That game is probably the result of early works they did on "The Last Starfighter" and "Air Race" back in 84 or 83 (I could be wrong). A lot of fun looking back on stuff like that.

Yea true that... The ST is still being used today in some studios. Would've been great though if it had that synth chip in it considering it was supposedly a better synth chip than the YM2151. The AMY was inspired by the work of "Bell Laboratories" work in music synthesis, which had a broader range of synth attributes to simulate real instruments. Certain would've only added to what the ST was offering. Now back to the topic. lol

I might be over-reaching a little, but It think it would be jaw dropping to see "Primal Rage 2" on the Jaguar... I've always been a Killer Instinct fan and if PR2 can be ported to the Jaguar, that would technically prove the Jag can do KI arcade style games. Man is someone could pull off porting that game and make it a reasonable close arcade port to the Jag, that would just be awesome. If KI can be ported to the SNES and still relay a close arcade port, Primal Rage 2 would be an awesome game for the Jag, but that's just me dreaming at this point. lol

I was looking at the Lynx version and was thinking the Jag's blitter can pull off what the Lynx did with the sprites... It'd be cool to maybe create a sprite and 3D based version of the game to get a close proximity of the arcade version.

Sounds like some audio clipping with in the decibel; too much loud audio for the speaker to pick-up... I like how the Sega CD module had a mixing audio jack in the back of it to cover stereo sound exclusively from the module. It's possible to do the same on the XM using some cheap method to compensate to whatever changes will be made to the hardware.

Hmmm...? Isn't that what Atari did with the "Amy Chip" for the ST...? They had problems getting it to work so the ditch the whole thing all together and ST users were stuck with the mediocre YM-2149? A slightly better chip than the Pokey, but still no where near as good as what the AMY chip had to offer. Sounds a little bit like a repeat of history if you cancel the YM 2151. Just saying that's all, but I can certainly understand the impatience for a final release of the XM module.

Thanks for the response... For a minute I didn't think I was going to get one; was thinking I might be asking the wrong question. lol Yea I was thinking about that considering that the Genesis was created 4 years ahead of the Atari ST... Great little system; I think it was the Sega CD that had hardware zoom. The last few days I was at www.archive.org looking at some books on the ST hardware as well as "Wikipedia" and finally get some kind of rough understanding about what made the ST hardware a little more affordable to buy than the other competitor computers during its heyday, which were the IC chips inside the ST that really kept the whole system "GLUE(ed)" together versus a typical standard system, which I thought was a bit clever and a bit risky at the same time. Jay Miner were responsible for those 8bit chips... Enough said. lol Yea I think it would've been cool if they had put a better version of a GTIA in the ST; although I think the ST video SHIFTER coupled with the 68000 CAD and 3D applications. The ST seems to shine a little bit with racing games like "San Francisco Heat" that uses pseudo 3D style graphics and such. What's the name of your book and where can I find it? I'm always looking for new material on the ST versus the dated material I've been reading.

Hi... I just purchased an "Atari ST 520" off of ebay for the first time "Ever"; I never really owned one before so I am a first time of one of these machines. I was wondering has anyone ever programmed Mode 7 style graphics on the Atari ST? I've posted picture of a demo of mode 7 on a Sega Genesis and wonder if anyone ever tried to pull it off on the ST yet? It sounds like a neat little project for somebody.

For those who might be curious about "HammerHead" or "TS 404" programs I used with Jaytrax, I've attached a song I made using both programs called "Super Comet" back in 2001. You'll hear both loop machines / samples in action with this song. Super Comet (Philip Wood (c) 2001).zip

It's been a while since I posted anything here in this topic... This is a bit known "Jaytrax" specific, but very music composition related. Having looked at the history of music composition using midi interface, I felt a bit compelled to get my hands on an "Atari ST" to do a little retro digging into what the old computer had to offer. Never having owned one before, in the 90s, my first computer wasn't really a computer; it was but it wasn't... It was an "IBM Portable Word Processor" that came with it's own printer so I was doing homework and writing poetry in my teen years. I did have a couple of keyboards in the mid 90s, but nothing to really do any real composition back in those days so to get an Atari ST now really served as bit of a "What-If" throwback. I probably should post this in the ST section, but it's kind at the heart of my curiosity of what I could've really done with the old ST if I had it back in those early 90s versus discovering the "Jaytrax" sequencer in the late 90s as well as some other great programs like "HammerHead" beat machine for beat loops or the "TS-404 synthesizer" program to make synth loops. Among other thing like learning to program the "Motorola 68000" for other experimental projects and ideas, I might be prematurely putting this out there... Screw it; I'll take my chances anyway. To be honest the Atari ST actually looks better than the eBay post, which are the last three pictures.

In terms of graphics in my opinion... My only interest with the 5200 is learning to program using a Atari XL computer an possibly porting over to the 5200, but I've been wanting to make games for the 7800 for a while.

You're right... Ever since the "Cuttle Cart" the 7800 has been an interest of mine for some time and I'm currently without one at the moment. I'll eventually get a 7800 at some point in time, possibly before the year is out. It's just when the XM ships, I'll most likely be getting much sooner than later.

I just purchased an "Atari 5200" with 12 games for it yesterday and a 600XL computer... Looks like I'm going to have to get myself an Atari 7800 system as well where as I sold my old one a couple of years ago. Can't wait to get my hands on the XM; I've been wanting to learn to program the 7800 for a long time.

I use to own that game before I sold it a couple of years back... Wish I'd kept; thank God for "Everdrive Cartridges".

It reminds me of "Sub-Terrania" for the Sega Genesis. The company made this also did "Red Zone, Batman & Robin", and a 32X demo. I think they were in the Amiga demo scene.