MAYAman Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 It was great at the time, yeah, but like all other VR stuff of that era (except high-end solutions at prices far exceeding what a gamer could afford) it wasn't good enough to be actually playable for hours, as opposed to a quick demo. We're only just getting there now with the Occulus Rift. I think you'd be surprised what we put up with for hours back then my friend. But yeah I remember it pretty vividly and was pretty blown away. If only right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerosquare Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Oh, it's not really a matter of taste; even if low framerates don't bother you when playing on a standard monitor/TV, they're problematic with VR setups since they tend to cause motion sickness. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SabertoothRetro Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 I've read that a few people have hacked classic Nintendo games for play through an Oculus. I wonder if it would be possible to do the same for MC3D? It's always been a favorite and it would be great to play the game as intended. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Hi, a few years ago we had a VR prototype from Atari for the Jaguar on the EJag Fest. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFZCgNBxkcM Regards Michael That's one of two units that came from Clint Thompson. Clint displayed them at Jagfest 2K1 and the first Midwest Gaming Classic in 2002. http://jagcube.atari.org/jagfestreport.html 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 Jaguar VR...Coming to an Atari retailer near you, like for sure, in 1995 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXG/MNX Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 Nope the improved VR was planned in 1996 Look at this article :-) http://atariage.com/forums/topic/230130-atari-jaguar-uk-uploads-from-ultimate-magazine-courtesy-of-lost-dragon/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 (edited) I was promised by my Jaguar promotional magazine, that the red, lower rez unit would be in stores by late 95'. As well as Brett Hull Hockey CD..lol. The magazine also said I should explore "in your face virtual reality games like Doom" I suppose because its quasi-3d it qualifies as VR? Edited September 26, 2014 by travistouchdown Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXG/MNX Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 To bad end 95 Atari started to merge with JTS a move I never understood. A weird ending of a long history.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerosquare Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 The JagVR is a disappointment on that point: it's not stereoscopic 3D, the picture is the same for both eyes. It's understandable, as it would have halved the already low framerate (not to mention other technical difficulties to split the pictures), but a VR display without stereoscopy is pretty "meh". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 To bad end 95 Atari started to merge with JTS a move I never understood. A weird ending of a long history.... What long history? That company was only around since '84. As for the merger, it had more to do with Jack coming back to daily operations and seeing the company wasn't solvent any more. When you only manage to sell 125,000 units of your flagship product in an almost two year period and even then that abysmal amount is accounting for amount 70% of your revenue, you have problems. JT Storage Inc. was an up and coming drive manufacturer founded two years before by two very important people from the drive industry. So rather than squander the money that came in from the recent SEGA lawsuit (and several others) he decided to merge Atari Corp. before there was nothing left. The two companies merged to form JT Storage Corp, with the plan of whittling down Atari Corp. to just being a division that handled IP licensing and the dwindling support for the Jaguar. Not much different than the current "Atari" actually. For a time it was Sam, Leonard and Gary along with Don Thomas and John Skruch in a small office area in a new build. At the end it was just John Skruch at a single desk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 I took TXG/MNX's 'Long History' to mean long as in terms of how much it'd meant to many of us, who'd been with ATARI hardware for a number of years. For example, whilst i started my home gaming life with the Sinclair ZX81, that was the 1st and only Sinclair product i ever bought.No interst in the ZX Spectrum, let alone QL and after that there were no more Sinclair home micro's.Atari on the other hand i'd had: 2600, 800XL, 520STFM, Lynx and Jaguar ( and to break it down further, 600XL as well and Lynx Mk 1 and Mk II). It just really seemed to be an end to an era when ATARI merged with JTS and a lot of us in the UK at the time struggled to get our heads around it. Atari had become the plucky underdog, we were angry for UK handling of A8, continual upgrade path to ST, lack of software for Lynx, handling of Jaguar etc, but deep down i guess we kinda hoped some how they hang on in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jagosaurus Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 While the VR is a cool concept, I think a light gun & a KB/M setup would've been much more feasible & added tools for devs to work with. Even if the VR was release, a 15% adoption rate among Jag owners is optimistic IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulBlazer Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 What long history? That company was only around since '84. As for the merger, it had more to do with Jack coming back to daily operations and seeing the company wasn't solvent any more. When you only manage to sell 125,000 units of your flagship product in an almost two year period and even then that abysmal amount is accounting for amount 70% of your revenue, you have problems. JT Storage Inc. was an up and coming drive manufacturer founded two years before by two very important people from the drive industry. So rather than squander the money that came in from the recent SEGA lawsuit (and several others) he decided to merge Atari Corp. before there was nothing left. The two companies merged to form JT Storage Corp, with the plan of whittling down Atari Corp. to just being a division that handled IP licensing and the dwindling support for the Jaguar. Not much different than the current "Atari" actually. For a time it was Sam, Leonard and Gary along with Don Thomas and John Skruch in a small office area in a new build. At the end it was just John Skruch at a single desk. Wasn't there some talk about Sega merging a while back when the Dreamcast came to a end to keep that company alive? I think it was American Sammy, if my memory is serving me correctly, but the shareholders blocked it or something. Well, Sega seems to have refocused and they are doing alright, although on a much smaller scale. I think the day is coming that Nintendo will pull out of the hardware market also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Going purely off memory (which is'nt that hot).There was talk of a Sega-Bandai merger before that, i think, with Bandai 'pulling out' at 11th hour? after looking into deal and not really seeing what Sega could 'bring to the table' to benifit them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmx Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 i don't know if i could find the time to go to Germany in that period...i will be very busy with the job...anyway if i could find the way i will let you know... Would be great to have you at the show. If not this year, maybe the next year? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmx Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 Zone Hunter looks nice. I like the non-textured poly look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
82-T/A Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 What long history? That company was only around since '84. I'm missing something here, because my Atari 2600 has a copyright date of 1979 on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted October 27, 2014 Share Posted October 27, 2014 (edited) I'm missing something here, because my Atari 2600 has a copyright date of 1979 on it. Different company. The company that did the 2600 you're looking at was Atari Inc. The company that did the VR display and merged with JTS was Atari Corp., a completely different company. Atari Corp. was originally called Tramel Technology Ltd. (TTL), formed by Jack during the spring of '84 to create a new computer to compete against what he felt was a coming onslaught of the Japanese in the US market (which wound up never happening). In July '84 he bought Atari Inc.'s Consumer Division assets, folded them into TTL and renamed TTL to Atari Corp. Assets purchases are not sales of a full company or even the spinoff of part of a company, and do not include employees. They're the purchase of IP, facilities, contracts, stock, etc. Normally in an assets purchase, people from the one company are hired over to the other to maintain the assets. That's exactly what happened over July, where Atari Inc. employees were interviewed and then hired over to Atari Corp. Those that were not either stayed on at Atari Inc. or (as what happened with a lot of the people from the Consumer Division) were let go, receiving their final severance or paycheck from Warner Communications. Atari Inc. itself was immediately renamed to Atari Games Inc., and over the next six months was paired down to just the Coin Division, which had majority (controlling) interest sold to NAMCO in '85 and was renamed to Atari Games Corp. Both Atari Corp. and Atari Games Corp. shared the Atari brand name for a time. Unfortunately, some of the press coverage of the time (just like the ones recently about Atari SA), were throwing out incorrect information right and left, stating Jack had "bought Atari" and that Jack was firing all those people. They knew full well that anyone that they didn't hire over would most likely be let go by Warner, and felt horrible about it. But it being an assets purchase he wasn't their boss, Warner was, and they were the ones letting these people go. Wasn't there some talk about Sega merging a while back when the Dreamcast came to a end to keep that company alive? I think it was American Sammy, if my memory is serving me correctly, but the shareholders blocked it or something. Well, Sega seems to have refocused and they are doing alright, although on a much smaller scale. I think the day is coming that Nintendo will pull out of the hardware market also. They did merge. SEGA became a division of SEGA Sammy Holdings in 2004. Sammy chairman Hajime Satomi was installed as SEGA's CEO. Edited October 27, 2014 by Retro Rogue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted October 27, 2014 Share Posted October 27, 2014 The JagVR was a cool gimmick for trade shows, nothing more. The manufacturing costs would have been far too high to release it at a decent price, and the Jaguar's low framerate for 3D stuff would have give players motion sickness after a short time. The Jag's 3D can easily make you pretty ill sans the silly helmet... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 (edited) The chain runs on and on with the Jaguar VR. Atari contractred Virtuality who contracted NMI Co. Ltd. As far as the Jaguar not being capable of pushing the screen around fast enough for the VR headset... bullshit. Missile Command played with the VR headset is probably one of the best examples of how well the Jaguar actually hauled ass.... and to think, that game even had textures! Playing that game in standard mode seems slow and sluggish but at no fault of the Jaguar's hardware at all - someone can probably jack an analog rollerball into port #2 into the beta version of MC3D and it very well may do the game serious justice without use of the headset -since my theory is the DSP did nothing more than convert the IR calculations in real-time into an analog signal the Jaguar could understand in a rollerball kind of way. Martin Brownlow is easily overlooked when it comes to a God of a programmer for the Jaguar so to speak. He had a Doom-like engine (written from scratch and not ported) that blew Doom out of the water. I'm sure had the release of Zone Hunter materialized, without question it would have blew away the antiqued versions of the arcade counterparts running on heavily modified Amiga machines that still couldn't compete with the Jaguar in terms of raw performance. The idea of being able to play Zone Hunter VR on a Jaguar against friends via the Jaguar Voice Modem in 1995 was amazing. The fact that it didn't happen, not so much... lol Edited October 30, 2014 by Clint Thompson 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 The chain runs on and on with the Jaguar VR. Atari contractred Virtuality who contracted NMI Co. Ltd. As far as the Jaguar not being capable of pushing the screen around fast enough for the VR headset... bullshit. Missile Command played with the VR headset is probably one of the best examples of how well the Jaguar actually hauled ass.... and to think, that game even had textures! Playing that game in standard mode seems slow and sluggish but at no fault of the Jaguar's hardware at all - someone can probably jack an analog rollerball into port #2 into the beta version of MC3D and it very well may do the game serious justice without use of the headset -since my theory is the DSP did nothing more than convert the IR calculations in real-time into an analog signal the Jaguar could understand in a rollerball kind of way. Martin Brownlow is easily overlooked when it comes to a God of a programmer for the Jaguar so to speak. He had a Doom-like engine (written from scratch and not ported) that blew Doom out of the water. I'm sure had the release of Zone Hunter materialized, without question it would have blew away the antiqued versions of the arcade counterparts running on heavily modified Amiga machines that still couldn't compete with the Jaguar in terms of raw performance. The idea of being able to play Zone Hunter VR on a Jaguar against friends via the Jaguar Voice Modem in 1995 was amazing. The fact that it didn't happen, not so much... lol Again, lots of speculation and assumptions but no real evidence that any of that would have been true. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Again, lots of speculation and assumptions but no real evidence that any of that would have been true. Wait, which part? If you're referring to Zone Hunter then yeah, I suppose that's nothing but speculation/assuming but given how well his one and only game for the Jaguar performed, that guy definitely knew what he was doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Wait, which part? If you're referring to Zone Hunter then yeah, I suppose that's nothing but speculation/assuming but given how well his one and only game for the Jaguar performed, that guy definitely knew what he was doing. Yes, that part. I wouldn't exactly call Missile Command 3D a system showcase/example of superior coding skills either, but perhaps I'm missing something. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Yes, that part. I wouldn't exactly call Missile Command 3D a system showcase/example of superior coding skills either, but perhaps I'm missing something. Take it back!! Sniffle... Missile Command is gem on the Jaguar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Yes, that part. I wouldn't exactly call Missile Command 3D a system showcase/example of superior coding skills either, but perhaps I'm missing something. I'm with you on that. It's a nice game, but it's hardly fluid 3D for what it's drawing. Again, check out No Second Prize on a much slower system for far faster rendering. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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