Atari's most advanced computer ever designed

[carmel_andrews]

Link only

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Transputer_Workstation

 

 

Interesting that the people behind amigados had a hand in developing the hardware (jointly with atari) and also the o/s

 

Somewhat unsurprised that it didn't quite take off, since it uses certain aspects of the ST and since most people saw the ST as a souped up games computer, by association i guess the transputer suffered

 

I wonder how games like elite or hard drivin would have faired on that system

Edited January 23, 2010 by carmel_andrews

[ovalbugmann]

The Jaguar was the most technically advanced computer system ever released by Atari. Yes, it is a console but there is still the heart of a computer in there, and Atari was actually thinking about taking the Jaguar system and making a PC version of the Jaguar architecture - they decided against that since Microsoft/Intel and IBM at the time had that market all sewn up!

 

Jaguar!

 

Did you know the world's current fastest in the world, Supercomputer is named "Jaguar." Look it up.

 

[Goochman]

The ATW was a waste of time/resources - Atari had no possible way of supporting such an endevor and yet wasted time/effort building a 'super computer' and trying to pitch it.

 

I feel sorry for those few folks who bought them - Atari could've put that time/money to better use - esp back when they released this thing.

[Curt Vendel]

Its actually mostly smoke and mirrors...

 

The ATW800 Transputer was just a collaboration with Atari and Inmos.... the main board is an Inmos design of their transputer. An Atari Mega-1 (1MB memory) ST computer was used as a terminal to the Transputer. The system used Helios, so really there wasn't much of Atari in the design, its really just a Mega ST connected as the front end to a Transputer.

 

 

 

Curt

 

Link only

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Transputer_Workstation

 

 

Interesting that the people behind amigados had a hand in developing the hardware (jointly with atari) and also the o/s

 

Somewhat unsurprised that it didn't quite take off, since it uses certain aspects of the ST and since most people saw the ST as a souped up games computer, by association i guess the transputer suffered

 

I wonder how games like elite or hard drivin would have faired on that system

[+DarkLord]

What I wouldn't give if Blossom could have made it

into the Atari line of computers...

[landondyer]

Its actually mostly smoke and mirrors...

 

 

It was also an utter surprise to the software and hardware folks in Atari Sunnyvale. The folks in the UK just did a press release one day, we had /no/ clue about it.

 

Not surprising it didn't go very far...

[carmel_andrews]

Mr Landon...Fancy doing a Abaq/atw hack of the centipede clone you did on the A8 (myrapede unless i am mistaken)

[wongck]

Its actually mostly smoke and mirrors...

 

The ATW800 Transputer was just a collaboration with Atari and Inmos.... the main board is an Inmos design of their transputer. An Atari Mega-1 (1MB memory) ST computer was used as a terminal to the Transputer. The system used Helios, so really there wasn't much of Atari in the design, its really just a Mega ST connected as the front end to a Transputer.

 

 

IIRC, transputer was the rage during those days. Even in my uni back then, they were talking about creating a super computer with some transputer grid.

[wongck]

It was also an utter surprise to the software and hardware folks in Atari Sunnyvale. The folks in the UK just did a press release one day, we had /no/ clue about it.

 

Not surprising it didn't go very far...

 

I am not at all surprise as the Transputer was a British thing rather than an American thing.

[wongck]

The ATW800 Transputer was just a collaboration with Atari and Inmos.... the main board is an Inmos design of their transputer. An Atari Mega-1 (1MB memory) ST computer was used as a terminal to the Transputer. The system used Helios, so really there wasn't much of Atari in the design, its really just a Mega ST connected as the front end to a Transputer.

 

LOL I remember the transputer also hooking up to a BBC micro.

[Atari_Falcon]

The Jaguar was the most technically advanced computer system ever released by Atari. Yes, it is a console but there is still the heart of a computer in there, and Atari was actually thinking about taking the Jaguar system and making a PC version of the Jaguar architecture - they decided against that since Microsoft/Intel and IBM at the time had that market all sewn up!

 

I really thought about your post and although I am a great Jaguar fan I doubt that. The jaguar was developed by flare and had nothing to do with the ST line of computers. *Maybe* when Atari saw the Jaguar in action, they thought about making a computer out of it, but that´s just rumors. I don´t think they ever had serious plans to do so... and also I doubt that the Jaguar is more powerful than an atari falcon (beside 3-d special chips). Having said that, I know that the falcon has even less games than the Jaguar and so there´s no real proof for that, but when I look at the compareable games (Obession/Pinball Dreams vs. Pinball Fantasies, Willies Adventures beta/Blum vs. Rayman, Dinodudes - Falcon version includes movies, Raiden beta/Xmoon beta/Painium desaster vs. Raiden, Radical Race vs. Power Drive Rally, Moongames/Road Riot 4WD/Reeking Rubber beta, vs. any Jaguar racing game...) and hardware, I would say they are at least equal with light advantages for the falcon (more RAM, better DSP, CACHE, better resolution). On the other hand, sure the Jaguar has the better and more games... It´s a little like comparing the Jaguar to other gaming systems it *could beat in theory*, but the other way round

 

As I said, I love the Jaguar, but I doubt it is the most powerful system atari did release... But it has the most enhanced 3D features of any atari system (at least out of the box without accelerators and gfx cards)

[kool kitty89]

The Jaguar was the most technically advanced computer system ever released by Atari. Yes, it is a console but there is still the heart of a computer in there, and Atari was actually thinking about taking the Jaguar system and making a PC version of the Jaguar architecture - they decided against that since Microsoft/Intel and IBM at the time had that market all sewn up!

The Jaguar chipset (including the custom RISC chips) seems to be mainly graphics oriented, not the makings of a good general purpose computer (even with the bugs smoothed out and the system expsded upon -past the constraints of a low cost game console). It seems to me like the Jaguar chipset would have been best used as a powerful graphics accelerator onboard acomputer rather than a complete computer itsself. (and indeed it's a good bit more flexible than the 3D accelerators which became standard on PCs a little later -far more polygon oriented by comparison, more texture mapping oriented too for that matter) I think Jerry could be left out entirely if it was to be a dedicated graphics chipset.

 

I really thought about your post and although I am a great Jaguar fan I doubt that. The jaguar was developed by flare and had nothing to do with the ST line of computers. *Maybe* when Atari saw the Jaguar in action, they thought about making a computer out of it, but that´s just rumors. I don´t think they ever had serious plans to do so... and also

Flare had been working with Atari since ~1990 I think (long enough for Atari to consider releasing the Panther in 1991) and I think the Jaguar chipset was conceived while they were with Atari, while the Panther was still in the works (which was cancelled of course, and for good reason), the Panther is the predicessor to the Jaguar chipset in some respects (the object processor mainly), I think the old Flare 1/Konix Multisystem design may have had soem contribution as well. But yes, it wasn't Atari corp engineers who developed it (though Atari management seems to certainly contributed to the configuration of the final product -that includes the russhed nature, bugs, and slection of the 68k over various other supported CPUs -including any other 680xx, MIPS, or x86 CPU)

 

I don't think there were likely any serious plans to turn the Jaguar into a computer, especially as Atari under Sam had been moving away from computers in general in the early 90s, sure they were getting pushed out along with Commodore, but he didn't seem to care to push back. (or have the same kind of management skills in general as his father) The Jaguar is a graphics chipset at its heart (with audio, I/O and general processing functionality as well, but graphics foremost).

 

I doubt that the Jaguar is more powerful than an atari falcon (beside 3-d special chips). Having said that, I know that the falcon has even less games than the Jaguar and so there´s no real proof for that, but when I look at the compareable games (Obession/Pinball Dreams vs. Pinball Fantasies, Willies Adventures beta/Blum vs. Rayman, Dinodudes - Falcon version includes movies, Raiden beta/Xmoon beta/Painium desaster vs. Raiden, Radical Race vs. Power Drive Rally, Moongames/Road Riot 4WD/Reeking Rubber beta, vs. any Jaguar racing game...) and hardware, I would say they are at least equal with light advantages for the falcon (more RAM, better DSP, CACHE, better resolution). On the other hand, sure the Jaguar has the better and more games... It´s a little like comparing the Jaguar to other gaming systems it *could beat in theory*, but the other way round [/

Hmm, you'd probably need one of the real tech guys to answer that, but in terms of sheer power, I'm almost positive the Jaguar outstrips the (stock) Falcon in every aspect. However, the Jaguar chipset (namely TOM) replacing the falcon video hardware in the system would probably have made a pretty awesoem computer. (the Falcon already has soem nice sound hardware, so no need to keep Jerry) Not crippling the 030 with a 16-bit bus would have helped a lot too...

 

Also, I don;t think the Jaguar has a DSP as such (not a formal Digitial Signal Processor), it has a RISC microprocessor (same core as the GPU in TOM) in the "Jerry" ASIC intended for sound controll and labeled the "DSP" but I think that simply stands for "digital sound processor" (like the "DSP" in Creative's soundblaster line), it's more of a general purpose microproprocessor from what I understand. (it may have some DSP-like features though, but I don't think it would formally be considdered a DSP core)

 

 

 

As I said, I love the Jaguar, but I doubt it is the most powerful system atari did release... But it has the most enhanced 3D features of any atari system (at least out of the box without accelerators and gfx cards)

Conventional "3D" (ie polygons -especially textured) weren't the jaguar's strongest point; it could handel them OK, but its flexibility in other areas really are its main strengths. It's amazing in 2D (both the blitter and OP), high color depth, exelent smoothe shading, as well as some interesting non polygonal 3D methods (voxel rendering especially).

 

But, as above, the Jaguar itsself is more like a graphics accelerator than a desktop computer, or at least would be much more efficient as such. (mainly Jerry, and especially if the bugs were fully worked out -plus as a video accelerator the shared RAM problem shouldn't be much of an issue as it should have its own RAM to work in separate fromt eh system RAM of the computer -especially if faster DRAM -let alone VRAM was used)