samson7point1

Yep, it's a known issue. SaiNT has said he'll look into it, but I think it's a bit low priority since there are alternative image formats that are working fine.

I can help with the non-contiguous bit. That refers to how the files were written to the SD card. Contiguous means that they’re written one byte after another all in a row. Non-contiguous means that Windows (or whatever OS you use) fragmented the files when writing them to the SD card. Normally fragmentation isn’t considered an error as most programs don’t care about jumping around in the storage to the different spots where the data actually exists, but the JagGD is working on very thin margins in terms of speed and can’t tolerate fragmented files. You can’t see fragmentation without special tools and unfortunately you can’t tell your OS not to fragment files when writing. Your only option for fixing the non-contiguous ones is to reformat your SD card and copy everything back. When you do that it should copy the files serially and the fresh file system won’t want to fragment your files. Once you start deleting files from your SD card they will leave gaps and you’re likely to run into fragmentation again so you may have to do this more than once.

I'm a bit confused by this. I can't seem to get any CCDs to work. bin/cue and cdi work fine, but the CCDs just exit without doing anything - I've tried this on three different images with the same results. I've tried placing the image and the executable in the same directory and specifying the full path to the CCD instead of just the relative path and vice-versa. I was able to find bin/cues for most of the ones I had in CCD but not everything.

I'm sincerely not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you suggesting that you don't think it's reasonable for me to be able to re-download the same piece of digitally delivered software without having to pay for it a second time?

You know, this is just my personal opinion and probably not even worth the traditional two cents, but I think I'd rather not see a game released at all than to see DRM schemes slip into the back door of retro gaming. (Yes, I know the JagGD already uses DRM for its firmware to stymie hardware counterfeiters, but in my opinion this is very different.) From a technical standpoint it's actually kind of cool that you can do that (lock a ROM to a cart), but it also means that if my JagGD gets stolen or ruined in a flood and I replace it then I either can't play that game anymore or I have to jump through hoops to re-authorize it. In short it diminishes the authority of my ownership and the ability to actually own games is a large part of why I'm so enthusiastic about retro gaming. I _may_ be in the minority in that I eagerly pay people doing active development for their work even if the ROM is freely available, but I think it's more likely that a majority of people in this community are aware and respectful of the fact that retro development takes time and hard work and if those things are not rewarded people will stop developing. For the developers I get that it's scary to give up control and trust people because some people are absolutely going to betray that trust and play your game without paying you, but many more people are going to keep that trust and reward you for your work. You can still recoup your investment and make money even if you don't assume your customers only pay because you use technological barriers to force them to. There are plenty of examples of this out there - GOG being a great one. Here's an idea: decide what you need to make from a title and set up a crowdfunding campaign to release the ROM. It's not perfect but with a little creativity I'm confident there IS a way for everyone to get what they want that doesn't require adding in DRM.

I just checked EBay and there isn’t a single Jaguar GD up for sale there right now. It won’t stay that way forever, but the fact that no one who recently placed an order is overtly trying to price gouge desperate fans really says something about this community.

I think I was #86 on the list at AA. Still got my link within a couple days of Al announcing that he was notifying people, so not everyone is actually buying when their number comes up. In fact I had managed to get an order in at RetroGamerStuff the week before so I didn’t use my link from AA when it came around either. Just be patient - every 48 hours the links expire and the next people on the list are notified. There may still be unsold units working their way down the list. If I understand correctly though, around the end of this month the flood gates are going to open and everyone who wants one should have their shot. Then everyone can move on to the next obsession which is pestering SaiNT to wrap up CD support! (But we’re all going to be polite about it, aren’t we, class?).

Understood.

Just got my Jag GD today. Before today I didn’t know Jaguar Doom had no music. It’s so weird! Glad someone decided to fix it. I realize this project is done when it’s done, but is there some sort of burn down list to give some idea of what remains to be done?

Just got my cancellation email from RetroHQ which I take as a good sign that I might be hearing from AA in the near term. The wait is not over quite yet but I might risk letting myself start to get a little excited again. Thanks, SaiNT, for pouring so much of yourself into these projects and sticking it out! And thanks Albert for providing the means to shoulder some of the burden to make this possible!

I hope my subsequent replies made it abundantly clear that this was not my intention in any way. If I had an inkling that it would have been received that way I would have have chosen my initial words much more carefully.

This was supposed to be a playful and subtle implication but you just made it more serious so I'll be more explicit. I'm just trying to get a conversation started within the community in the hopes that it will reach the team that developed it as it's not at all clear what they are and aren't reading these days. If the growing community of Jag GD owners start asking this question it's my hope that it will get back around to them that more and more people want this and prompt them to either release it themselves or consent to have it released by someone else. My "tip jar" comment was intended to indicate that I don't think they necessarily need to release the dump for free as I, and I'm sure others, would be willing to pay them for it. I'm frankly offended that you'd even suggest that I was offering someone money to subvert them, but given that I've seen unscrupulous people ask for worse I get that you thought it necessary.

Who said “copy” meant “physical cartridge”? While I’d be willing to pay the $60 or whatever they originally charged for the cartridge releases, that’s a pretty dry well. The rumors of a third run are extremely cold at this point so I’m hinting very hard that someone should release the ROM already. I’d be more willing to put a little jingle in the tip jar for it.

I've decided that instead of being anxious about when I'll be able to get a Jaguar GD I'll be anxious about whether I'll be able to find a copy of Another World to go with it.

Is it appropriate to ask the approximate size of this first batch?

I’m trying not to be indelicate here, but the bottom line is that SaiNT doesn’t have to do anything. He can pack this all in and walk away without owing anyone anything. In fact that’s very nearly what he did in response to all of the entitlement and negativity he got hit with during that first run. If you find the process too eccentric for you then perhaps it’s best if you just pretend to yourself that the JagGD has been discontinued, and in a couple of years when the thought occurs to check in again you can be pleasantly surprised to see them in stock at AA or SAG.

The orders you placed with AtariHQ aren’t cancelled exactly. The whole situation seems to be much more fluid than that. The _plan_ is for all future orders to be fulfilled by AA, but I don’t think SaiNT has completely ruled out the possibility of making more himself - he just hasn’t committed to doing so because the hope is that AA will soon be ramped up to the point where these are just always in stock. If that winds up taking longer than expected who knows, maybe he will find the time to make more himself. If he does, he will email you first to confirm before charging and shipping. If you placed an order on RetroHQ and you put yourself on the list at AA, just take whichever one gets back with you first. A lot of us have waited a very very long time for this - you’re not in a unique situation. If you want to compare stories, I have been watching this thread since it was a subtopic on the Lynx SD thread (maybe 3 years now - I’ve lost track). As the release approached I watched like a hawk checking every couple of hours for over a month because there was never any announcement of what day they would go on sale. After staying up for four hours refreshing and waiting for these to drop I made the mistake of going to bed out of exhaustion 10 minutes before these initially went on sale. I was told there would be an email sent out so I had an alert set to wake me up, but the email never came. Complaining about it is just going to create stress, it’s not going to suddenly make the process move faster. In fact complaining is partly to blame for this taking as long as it has. So for your sake and the sake of everyone involved, please just relax and be patient.

Given that the wide availability of this device is starting to feel legitimately imminent, has there been any progress convincing the folks that have the rights to the Jag version of Another World to release/sell the ROM for users of the JadSD? Last time I asked I was told they were planning another run of physical carts, but I’ve been on the list for 3 years now and there hasn’t been any activity or, as far as I can tell, even any conversation for over a year now - it really seems like a “third run” is a dry well.

Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought this last batch was _the_ last batch SaiNT was making and selling directly. Basically if you’re going to get one at all going forward it’s going to come from a reseller like AA. Is this correct? Is AA sufficiently ramped up to sell these that there’s a chance of getting one before the end of the year (assuming you’re sufficiently close to the start of the list)?

I have the FZ-10 version and it works fine with the 240p and citrus3000psi RGB mod (and I assume any other RGB mod). The FZ-10 is a bit tricky to install because the drive controller IC is on the motherboard so it can’t just be unplugged- you have to remove the IC and do a fair bit of soldering. I blogged about it here and included a couple pics: https://yesterware.blogspot.com/2018/09/3do-fz-10-usb-host-controller-review.html?m=1

Earlier this year I finally broke out my Tron joystick only to find it didn’t work. Opened it up and sure enough the flexible ring had cracked and broken. After searching for a replacement I came to the conclusion that there weren’t any so I worked with a friend to try to make a 3D printed replacement. He came up with a pretty great design which is actually more durable than the original while retaining good flexibility. I figured I would share it with the community for anyone else looking to restore one of these Tron joysticks to full function. Enjoy! Tron Joystick insert

I literally just finished my 2600 RGB project and received my Harmony Encore on Saturday, it was awesome to grab this demo and give it a spin on real hardware. Really really impressed. Can't wait for complete version.

You should be able to log in to retrohq.co.uk and answer that question for yourself by looking at your orders. That being said none of the orders at retrohq.co.uk are actually guaranteed to ship as it’s all down to how many SainT has the energy/interest to make before giving the third parties the go-ahead to start mass production. Once that happens, as I understand it, he will probably cancel the remaining orders. The bottom line is that if you want to be sure of getting one as soon as you can, hedge your bets by pre-ordering elsewhere. From what he has said none of the third party sellers will be able to start fulfilling orders until after he has made all that he is going to so there’s no chance of accidentally buying two. Scenario 1: you preorder at AA or DB, SainT ships your original order and you cancel with AA or DB. Scenario 2: you preorder at AA or DB, SainT reaches the end of the carts he’s going to make himself, cancels your original order and you wait for AA or DB to ship.

Once you find the sweet spot and decide how many you're going to ship yourself, can you take whoever's left and send that list to Atari Age so the people who have been waiting the longest can get priority in the notification list? (To my mind what I'm asking is materially different from "transferring pre-orders" because you're just giving us opportunity to keep our place in line when making a new order with AA.) Maybe it doesn't matter because AA is planning to just notify everyone simultaneously and make it a race to checkout, but on the off chance that they're going to notify people in sign-up order, I would selfishly like to be rewarded for my patience and any effort you could spare toward that end would be greatly appreciated. Is the new firmware update over Wi-Fi or something? Was the firmware update process changed to make things harder for counterfeiters?

Although it was probably not an entirely successful effort, I have tried to refrain from pestering questions about "my pre-order" because I would rather not contribute to your (SainT) fatigue. Even so I am a little bit anxious over the idea that an authorized reseller - say Stone Age Gamer puts these up for sale while I still have what appears to be a valid pre-order through the RetroHQ shop. Is this something that might happen? If so, what would you prefer I do in a situation like that? Should I cancel my RHQ order and order from SAG? Would you rather I let the SAG order window close and held on to my RHQ order so you get to keep more of the price of the cart?