Its 1993, you're in charge of the Jag, what do you do?

[Gorf]

16MHz 68030

 

1995 'Jaguar console'

 

16Mhz 68030 ( Just for compatibility )

 

Compatibility? Good luck. Compatibility would end at the 030.

[walter_J64bit]

:sleep: :sleep:

[Gorf]

Would the arcade Jag hardware have been better (area 51)?

 

That is exactly what an 020 does to the Tom and Jery chipset. The coJag is

indeed a Jaguar with an 020 and a few moer goodies.

 

68EC020 @ 25Mhz

Graphics Chip : "Tom" @ 26MHz

Sound - I/O Chip : "Jerry" @ 26 MHz

Hard Drive

8megs ram

[Crazyace]

Compatibility? Good luck. Compatibility would end at the 030.

 

If a 'falcon' console came out in 1991 and gained market share , then having 100% backwards compatibility would be important in my opinion. The hope would be that the new 'Jaguar' style console in 1995 would be riding the success of the old console.

[carmel_andrews]

why stop at the 030, before atari and jts got together the 060 was with us

[Christos]

why stop at the 030, before atari and jts got together the 060 was with us

 

 

Because a 060 console would be more expensive than 2 Neo Geo's + 1 3do?

[kool kitty89]

Compatibility? Good luck. Compatibility would end at the 030.

 

If a 'falcon' console came out in 1991 and gained market share , then having 100% backwards compatibility would be important in my opinion. The hope would be that the new 'Jaguar' style console in 1995 would be riding the success of the old console.

 

The problem would be including all the necessary hardware to be backwarsds compatible, I don't thing the emulation idea would work there, and I don't know how weel the system would work using the Falcon type video display hardware rather than the OP. (not capabilities, rather, compatibility issues)

Also, including a lot of this hardware would be expensive and messy, particularly if youre just throwing it in there for no other reason. If you were to actually be using the 030/020 as part of the Jag (possibly at a 2x clock speed mode) that might be something worthwhile.

I don't know how practical it would be to integrate the two in a practical manner (making use of as much as possible, and avoiding having parts for BC only), I really don't think it would be practical. It would kind of be like trying to make the N64 backwards compatible with the Super Nintendo. They're just too different. (now the Jag and Jag 2 are another story, as one in built directy on the other's hardware)

 

Otoh, had you designed such a Facon based game system (optimized for this purpose as mentioned) there's no reason you couldn't continue support through a good length transitional period to the Jag. (say taper off games within a year, but continue sale of the old system as long as profitable, particularly if 3rd party releases are still pretty strong) Granted these are things that should be done with any good trasition to a new console. (which some companies have notobly botched)

 

Also, I'd probably keep the Falcon's DSP, it really is a good addition, and the rest of the sound hardware is pretty weak, granted CD audio could supliment this in some ways. I think it would be good to switch to the EC020 though (inless the seperate MMU is really an issue), open up the 32-bit bus, and go with a full 1 MB, you could probably cut down the Falcon's video capabilities as you proposed, particularly the resolution is rather high for what's necessary here. (which would be difficult to notice on most TV's at the time, particularly through composite or RF) Cutting the resolution in 1/2 would probably be OK.

Edited May 28, 2009 by kool kitty89

[Gorf]

Compatibility? Good luck. Compatibility would end at the 030.

 

If a 'falcon' console came out in 1991 and gained market share , then having 100% backwards compatibility would be important in my opinion. The hope would be that the new 'Jaguar' style console in 1995 would be riding the success of the old console.

 

 

The trouble is the original Falcon would have a rough time competeing at a price you know will be as much

as the 3DO. Jaguar was the best choice at the time. Panther was a joke and the F030 would not be competitive.

The price would be high enough that most folks would not consider it.

[Gorf]

Compatibility? Good luck. Compatibility would end at the 030.

 

If a 'falcon' console came out in 1991 and gained market share , then having 100% backwards compatibility would be important in my opinion. The hope would be that the new 'Jaguar' style console in 1995 would be riding the success of the old console.

 

The problem would be including all the necessary hardware to be backwarsds compatible, I don't thing the emulation idea would work there, and I don't know how weel the system would work using the Falcon type video display hardware rather than the OP. (not capabilities, rather, compatibility issues)

Also, including a lot of this hardware would be expensive and messy, particularly if youre just throwing it in there for no other reason. If you were to actually be using the 030/020 as part of the Jag (possibly at a 2x clock speed mode) that might be something worthwhile.

I don't know how practical it would be to integrate the two in a practical manner (making use of as much as possible, and avoiding having parts for BC only), I really don't think it would be practical. It would kind of be like trying to make the N64 backwards compatible with the Super Nintendo. They're just too different. (now the Jag and Jag 2 are another story, as one in built directy on the other's hardware)

 

Otoh, had you designed such a Facon based game system (optimized for this purpose as mentioned) there's no reason you couldn't continue support through a good length transitional period to the Jag. (say taper off games within a year, but continue sale of the old system as long as profitable, particularly if 3rd party releases are still pretty strong) Granted these are things that should be done with any good trasition to a new console. (which some companies have notobly botched)

 

Also, I'd probably keep the Falcon's DSP, it really is a good addition, and the rest of the sound hardware is pretty weak, granted CD audio could supliment this in some ways. I think it would be good to switch to the EC020 though (inless the seperate MMU is really an issue), open up the 32-bit bus, and go with a full 1 MB, you could probably cut down the Falcon's video capabilities as you proposed, particularly the resolution is rather high for what's necessary here. (which would be difficult to notice on most TV's at the time, particularly through composite or RF) Cutting the resolution in 1/2 would probably be OK.

 

 

 

I thought cost was an issue here? A f030 console would be way too expensive. Ifyou thought an 020 wuld add cost

an 030 would almost cost as much as the Jaguar itself.

[Crazyace]

The problem would be including all the necessary hardware to be backwarsds compatible, I don't thing the emulation idea would work there, and I don't know how weel the system would work using the Falcon type video display hardware rather than the OP. (not capabilities, rather, compatibility issues)

Also, including a lot of this hardware would be expensive and messy, particularly if youre just throwing it in there for no other reason. If you were to actually be using the 030/020 as part of the Jag (possibly at a 2x clock speed mode) that might be something worthwhile.

I don't know how practical it would be to integrate the two in a practical manner (making use of as much as possible, and avoiding having parts for BC only), I really don't think it would be practical. It would kind of be like trying to make the N64 backwards compatible with the Super Nintendo. They're just too different. (now the Jag and Jag 2 are another story, as one in built directy on the other's hardware)

 

This wouldn't be the jaguar chipset we know , but a souped up version of the falcon h/w with the GPUs and blitter. The video on the new 'jaguar' would really only be the old modes with 2x resolution/colour and VGA/aliased TV output ... ( Think of the dreamcast ) - I think that in chiparea the video out would be way smaller than the original Jag Object processor ( no OP, no dual linebuffers, no palette memory )

 

Otoh, had you designed such a Facon based game system (optimized for this purpose as mentioned) there's no reason you couldn't continue support through a good length transitional period to the Jag. (say taper off games within a year, but continue sale of the old system as long as profitable, particularly if 3rd party releases are still pretty strong) Granted these are things that should be done with any good trasition to a new console. (which some companies have notobly botched)

 

Also, I'd probably keep the Falcon's DSP, it really is a good addition, and the rest of the sound hardware is pretty weak, granted CD audio could supliment this in some ways. I think it would be good to switch to the EC020 though (inless the seperate MMU is really an issue), open up the 32-bit bus, and go with a full 1 MB, you could probably cut down the Falcon's video capabilities as you proposed, particularly the resolution is rather high for what's necessary here. (which would be difficult to notice on most TV's at the time, particularly through composite or RF) Cutting the resolution in 1/2 would probably be OK.

 

The falcon was quite expensive - so a lot of things would have to be cut to make it a console. 4MB ram down to 512k is the main one - and the DSP subsystem is quite expensive ( 56000 + 96k fast ram ) - What's left is actually quite a simple system - which would compare in cost of goods to the Mega CD ( apart from the 68030 instead of a 68000 )

The sound hardware would be weak, with software mixing - really the whole design would be 'cpu' processing over custom hardware. Having CD audio would help as well though.

The target would be $300 in 1991 for a 1xCD rom based console. ( The SNES had come out at $200 , and the Mega CD was also expensive )

 

The trouble is the original Falcon would have a rough time competeing at a price you know will be as much

as the 3DO. Jaguar was the best choice at the time. Panther was a joke and the F030 would not be competitive.

The price would be high enough that most folks would not consider it.

 

The Falcon computer cost a similar amount to a 3D0 - a falcon console would be a massively cut down version, really almost just an STe with a 68030. My only hope would be that with fixed memory the interface could be 32 bit ( rather than 16 ) allowing the blitter to run twice as fast.

With this situation there would be no Jaguar in 1993 - instead the panther would be canned completely, and the Flare team would work on a design to replace a 1991 Falcon console with a new design in 1995/6

Edited May 28, 2009 by Crazyace

[carmel_andrews]

why stop at the 030, before atari and jts got together the 060 was with us

 

 

Because a 060 console would be more expensive than 2 Neo Geo's + 1 3do?

 

 

 

 

 

lest we forget that the neogeo was fairly successful and popular, even if it has the unfortunate distinction of being probably videogame history's most expensive gaming system (to buy) and have the most expensiove games (to buy)

[mcjakeqcool]

By '93 atari had lost a lot of it's market share, in the 18 months prior to the Jaguar's launch the only Atari releaces were on the ST and Lynx, and Atari was pretty deperate to get some cash, so instead of releaceing the Jaguar in say '95 when the Jag's technology would have been finalized, it was releaced in '93, when 32 bit console were in there prime, had either the Konix Multisystem or Atari Panther been releaced by Atari, Atari would have stood more chance in competeing against Sega and Nintendo, by '93, it was to late for Atari as superior consoles such as the Saturn, ps1 and n64 were only around 18 months away. The Jaguar was miss timed, and Atari had lost the majority of 3rd party support after slip backs to Sega and Nintendo. However I do belive that even with poor 3rd party support, the Jaguar could have conviced people to buy it, if it explictly stated that it was more advanced then both the Mega Drive/Genisis and SNES, and if explictly stated that it was cheaper then the 3do, Atari did not do either of these things, and was effictively ignored by most mainstream/casual gamers.

[Gorf]

This wouldn't be the jaguar chipset we know , but a souped up version of the falcon h/w with the GPUs and blitter. The video on the new 'jaguar' would really only be the old modes with 2x resolution/colour and VGA/aliased TV output ... ( Think of the dreamcast ) - I think that in chiparea the video out would be way smaller than the original Jag Object processor ( no OP, no dual linebuffers, no palette memory )

 

At the time there was no souped up version. Lets stick wit available parts at the time. nothing consumer level

was doing what the T&J was. It's still going to cost you $400 or more. At the time,nothing was as well thought

out as releasing the Jaguar. Jaguar was the best road to take. Unfortunately the Tramiels forgot the asphalt

and it was anything but smooth.

[Gorf]

By '93 atari had lost a lot of it's market share, in the 18 months prior to the Jaguar's launch the only Atari releaces were on the ST and Lynx, and Atari was pretty deperate to get some cash, so instead of releaceing the Jaguar in say '95 when the Jag's technology would have been finalized, it was releaced in '93, when 32 bit console were in there prime, had either the Konix Multisystem or Atari Panther been releaced by Atari, Atari would have stood more chance in competeing against Sega and Nintendo, by '93, it was to late for Atari as superior consoles such as the Saturn, ps1 and n64 were only around 18 months away. The Jaguar was miss timed, and Atari had lost the majority of 3rd party support after slip backs to Sega and Nintendo. However I do belive that even with poor 3rd party support, the Jaguar could have conviced people to buy it, if it explictly stated that it was more advanced then both the Mega Drive/Genisis and SNES, and if explictly stated that it was cheaper then the 3do, Atari did not do either of these things, and was effictively ignored by most mainstream/casual gamers.

 

Wait till summer '93, use an 020 and have 50 or more title ready at launch.

Edited May 28, 2009 by Gorf

[Crazyace]

This wouldn't be the jaguar chipset we know , but a souped up version of the falcon h/w with the GPUs and blitter. The video on the new 'jaguar' would really only be the old modes with 2x resolution/colour and VGA/aliased TV output ... ( Think of the dreamcast ) - I think that in chiparea the video out would be way smaller than the original Jag Object processor ( no OP, no dual linebuffers, no palette memory )

 

At the time there was no souped up version. Lets stick wit available parts at the time. nothing consumer level

was doing what the T&J was. It's still going to cost you $400 or more. At the time,nothing was as well thought

out as releasing the Jaguar. Jaguar was the best road to take. Unfortunately the Tramiels forgot the asphalt

and it was anything but smooth.

 

It was a possible new console in 1995/1996 after launch of a Falcon console in 1991

[mcjakeqcool]

Atari DEFINTLY should have based one of there consoles on either the Konix Multisystem or Atari Falcon processor wize, as they both had some impressive specs. The only issue Atari may have is makeing it hard to program for, like how they messed up with the Jaguar's Tom and Jerry processor.

Edited May 28, 2009 by mcjakeqcool

[kool kitty89]

By '93 atari had lost a lot of it's market share, in the 18 months prior to the Jaguar's launch the only Atari releaces were on the ST and Lynx, and Atari was pretty deperate to get some cash, so instead of releaceing the Jaguar in say '95 when the Jag's technology would have been finalized, it was releaced in '93, when 32 bit console were in there prime, had either the Konix Multisystem or Atari Panther been releaced by Atari, Atari would have stood more chance in competeing against Sega and Nintendo...

 

Are you serious??? The Panther was a joke (it might have had some potential wth some major changes, but that's work much better put toward the Jag) But the Konix Multisystem... what?!

 

And again you still haven't seemed to have gotten the "bits" concept down, and evne the 32-bit consoles out there (3DO and CD 32) were hardly prime examples of success, the prime of hat the gaming media in general considders the "32-bit era" (misnomer btw) is the 5th gen (also called the 32/64-bit era, again misnomer), which is roughly from mid 1993 to ~1999, with the "prime" of theem coming around 1996/97. (the misnomer comes mainly from the fact that nearly all subsequent consoles through the current gen, were driven by 32-bit processors) But I'm probably waisting my breath...

 

Atari DEFINTLY should have based one of there consoles on either the Konix Multisystem or Atari Falcon processor wize, as they both had some impressive specs. The only issue Atari may have is makeing it hard to program for, like how they messed up with the Jaguar's Tom and Jerry processor.

You're saying an 8086 is impressive??? (in 1991)

 

 

Wait till summer '93, use an 020 and have 50 or more title ready at launch.

 

Did you mean summer of 1994? (even the limited release of the Jag in RL in November of 1993 with only Cybermorph and Trevor McFur available)

Edited May 28, 2009 by kool kitty89

[kool kitty89]

The falcon was quite expensive - so a lot of things would have to be cut to make it a console. 4MB ram down to 512k is the main one - and the DSP subsystem is quite expensive ( 56000 + 96k fast ram ) - What's left is actually quite a simple system - which would compare in cost of goods to the Mega CD ( apart from the 68030 instead of a 68000 )

The sound hardware would be weak, with software mixing - really the whole design would be 'cpu' processing over custom hardware. Having CD audio would help as well though.

The target would be $300 in 1991 for a 1xCD rom based console. ( The SNES had come out at $200 , and the Mega CD was also expensive )

 

The Falcon computer cost a similar amount to a 3D0 - a falcon console would be a massively cut down version, really almost just an STe with a 68030. My only hope would be that with fixed memory the interface could be 32 bit ( rather than 16 ) allowing the blitter to run twice as fast.

With this situation there would be no Jaguar in 1993 - instead the panther would be canned completely, and the Flare team would work on a design to replace a 1991 Falcon console with a new design in 1995/6

 

I totally agree on the Panther, but I think that's been established.

 

However, I'm not sure it's practical to build a backwards compatible Jag/Falcon (even using the Falcon video hardware -assuming it was possible) would be a good option, it would be messy and costly and backwards compatibility is hit and miss, the most successful examples of it being on systems built from the ground up building off older hardware with compatibility in mind frmom the start. (Flare's chipset not really fitting this, and who knows what issues would crop-up with adapting them) The Gameboy line, PS2, Wii, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, and Atari 7800 are the best examples of this in the console market. (granted the 7800 had it's issues, and the Genesis requires a passive adaptor) -cost being minimized and the old hardware (generally) still having some use.

As a side note: Technically speaking even the Nintendo DS has all the internal hardware necessary to be compatible with the rest of the line -the included GBA ASIC has the older hardware on-chip. (the Micro does too, they just chose to elliminate the switch that activates the GB/GBC compatibility mode -and made the cart slot only fit GBA carts; even the DSi should have the hardware as some DS games utilize it too -particularly the audio portion)

 

 

 

I really don't think it's practical to keep the 030 as you mention (too expensive, EC020 if possible). It would simply be too expensive otherwise, and the 020 is a perfectly capable chip, particularly with the 32-bit bus opened up. (I think its performance was similar to the 030 at comperable clock speeds, but lacked the double 256 byte cache and on-chip MMU, the latter not present in the cost-reduced EC030) If you want to make a console at a reasonable cost (especially with a CD drive in '91 or '92), launching at $300

I think the addition of the CD drive might still be pusing it. Then again, getting added audio from that might be a trade-off you'd otherwise need the DSP for with a cartridegs based console, and with neither, the soud hardware would be rather limited. (though there is the possibility of adding a relatively cheap Yamaha FM synthesis chip) Of course the CD has the added advantages for cost of individual games, though you'd probably get a fair amount of those FMV games too. (which were popular while the fad lasted, and wouldn't be an issue if they weren't overemphesized like with the Sega CD in the US market, and 3DO to a lesser extent)

 

So if the CD drive pushes the cost too far you could drop to cartridges, which were still the norm for consoles at the time. And as I mentioned, you could probably get by with the STe sound hardware plus an added FM synthesis chip.

 

Also I beleive there was a 1 MB version of the Falcon as well.

 

With the CD, it would be somewhat like the CD32. However I think the major problems with that were high cost, aging hardware, and advertising, in addition to somewhat limited software support (it was basicly an A1200 so many games were ported over as CD versions, plus some older Amiga ports). With the cost cutting, and earlier release date, those could largely be improved. Atari had a bigger name in the Video Game market than commodore to work with, however tarnished it had become. (particularly important in the US, as Commodore's computers had seen limited popularity, with their greatest success in Europe -which was also the CD32's strongest market I beleive, but still fairly weak)

 

 

Oh, and Gorf,

Just throwing this out there, but what effect would switching to a 68010 have? The differences are limited, and the 16-bit (+ DSP) and 1/2 clock speed bottlenecks would still be there, but would the 010's "loop mode" mini instruction cache make a difference. (I think it was also a bit more cycle efficient than the 68k)

Edited May 28, 2009 by kool kitty89

[carmel_andrews]

Its 1993, you're in charge of the Jag, what do you do?

 

....Close Atari down (since it had stopped hardware manufacturing by then) and get someone else to sell and market it

[triverse]

I personally think that Atari should have focused on handheld gaming back then. Sure Nintendo had a stranglehold on the market with the Gameboy line but with the right marketing and games a new, better, handheld could have at least gotten a good start making in-roads on that market.

[kool kitty89]

They could have released a Lynx III, even further cost reduced and more compact, no backlighting, fewer batteries, and optimized for power efficiency for a longer battery life. (if the last one isn't possible, it would probably still be OK, another option would be, knock it down to 4x AA's, but with a 5th slot with dummy normally there, to allow 1.2 V NiCd rechargeable AA's to be used)

Maybe get some good commercials and promotion for it, and attempt to get more developers working on it (it's extremely programmer freindly).

 

If the'd got the Lynx going a bit more successfully, you could probably forego the Falcon console idea entirely; in fact a Lynx standalone home console might be interesting (kind of like the PCE/TG-16 and Express), though that would likely be a bad idea given the relatively poor resolution, color count, and audio hardware (the PCM playback was pretty good).

Edited May 29, 2009 by kool kitty89

[Gorf]

Atari DEFINTLY should have based one of there consoles on either the Konix Multisystem or Atari Falcon processor wize, as they both had some impressive specs. The only issue Atari may have is makeing it hard to program for, like how they messed up with the Jaguar's Tom and Jerry processor.

 

 

Neither system was as cheap or as powerful as the JAguar. Forget the Panther and the F030 based console.

Both very bad Ideas for a number of mentioned reasons.

[kevincal]

Ok, I think Atari only made 2 fatal errors with very simple fixes.

 

First impressions really do count for a lot in life. The Jag only had 4 games available for something like the first 4-6 months after it was released. And none of these games were systems sellers. CyberMorph was a really good game, unfortunately most people that played it weren't up to the task of the high difficulty of the game. The same could be said for the other 3 games. Trevor McFur is another game with a steep learning curve. Dino Dudes is easy for only the first 5 levels, then becomes VERY hard. Raiden takes quite a bit of time to get good at.

 

So then, all Atari had to do was wait until Tempest 2000 was ready (April 1994) and launch the Jag with Tempest 2000 as the pack in. The game is the ULTIMATE system seller! THIS would have left a GREAT impression on the videogame community. An awesome pack in, plus a nice variety of other games to choose from. Atari simply jumped the gun by 4-6 months. Exactly the same mistake Sega made with the Saturn in the US...

 

The other thing, even though the Jag is 64 bits technically, Atari should have chosen a different approach to advertising the system. By bragging about how powerfull and 64 bits the Jag had, this created a feeling in people that they expected A LOT from the Jag. Atari should have just called it 32-bit, and altogether just not worried about forcing the bits thing down everyone's throat. Instead they should have just focused on making awesome games. The best advertising for videogames is word of mouth anyway. The prime audience is middle school and high school kids for videogames. They all talk with each other about what systems and games are good.

 

So that's it really. The Jag was released too early and the 64-bit campaign was a huge mistake...

[Christos]

Nope, the ultimate system seller would have been DOOM. You needed a costly pc to run it at the time and with the low price of the system it would sell like crazy.

[kevincal]

Problem is, Doom wasn't ready until November 1994 and even then, it was rushed out with bugs in the multiplayer portion of the game. Late 1994 would have been too late for Atari to have a chance against the Saturn or PS. Late spring / early summer 1994 would have been perfect. Most kids would just be getting out of school for summer vacation. They could mow the neighbors lawns or get another summer job, and buy a Jaguar to play all summer. Or just beg mom and dad for an early xmas / bday gift. After all the Jag wasn't insanely expensive. Was quite affordable.

Edited May 29, 2009 by kevincal