What would you want to add to the jaguar?

[rockman_x_2002]

Hmm, a Lightgun would be funny

Funny is the word yeah, they're not exactly what you'd call stable hehe, well, they can be made stable, at the cost of a little response time... still, sorting out the code for guns is one of the long list of things I have in my mind that I will do, one day.... perhaps... .

 

One lightgun + proper management of CD-ROM space = "Area 51" and "Maximum Force" on the system they most rightfully belong on with the proper peripheral with which to play them.

 

Back to topic: Seriously, more memory's the call of the day.

[Tyrant]

Ah, but the Jaguar chipset only supports one gun. I believe the CoJag only supported one gun directly too and the second was interfaced in differently, or they might both have been interfaced differently, but the Tom chip is the same in both a Jag and CoJag, and it only has one gun input . I think you'll find however that the CoJag games are quite a way beyond the Jag's capabilities, but I'd love to see someone prove me wrong on that

[Stone]

Ah, but the Jaguar chipset only supports one gun. I believe the CoJag only supported one gun directly too and the second was interfaced in differently, or they might both have been interfaced differently, but the Tom chip is the same in both a Jag and CoJag, and it only has one gun input . I think you'll find however that the CoJag games are quite a way beyond the Jag's capabilities, but I'd love to see someone prove me wrong on that

 

The CoJag (more correctly COJag, but hey ) did have a faster processor (M68020?) instead of the 68K, but let's not forget the 1-2 GIGABYTES of storage space! My bet is they did the vast majority of stuff beforehand and then just streamed everything off the disk.

 

Curiously the Tom chip has an 'unused' pin next to the existing gun input and a blank in its registerspace the same size as the gun registers next to them...while Tyrant is correct in saying that the Jag (console) only has one gun input, the chipset may well support two guns. Not that we're ever likely to find out

 

Stone

[downix]

Talking about the COJag makes me wonder, do any schematics exist for this for comparison? Might answer some questions I have about the Jaguar's chipst.

[Stone]

Talking about the COJag makes me wonder, do any schematics exist for this for comparison?  Might answer some questions I have about the Jaguar's chipst.

 

I'd say the people to ask were Atari's arcade division - if memory serves they were bought out by Midway - you may find some of their people were moved into Midway just before they shut down the arcade branch.

 

I'm pretty confident they'd tell you to sit and spin, but you can only try

 

Stone

[Tyrant]

The CoJag (more correctly COJag, but hey ) did have a faster processor (M68020?) instead of the 68K, but let's not forget the 1-2 GIGABYTES of storage space! My bet is they did the vast majority of stuff beforehand and then just streamed everything off the disk.

Well duh! I didnt expect all that video to be rendered in realtime lol, I was refering to the other bits, I doubt (but hope) the Jag can stream fullscreen video, track two guns, and move a LOT of well animated large sprites arround at once... plus audio... I hope it can, but... actually... well I dont know to be honest, its a project to think about anyway.

 

Curiously the Tom chip has an 'unused' pin next to the existing gun input and a blank in its registerspace the same size as the gun registers next to them...while Tyrant is correct in saying that the Jag (console) only has one gun input, the chipset may well support two guns. Not that we're ever likely to find out

Ooooh yeah, we were goina have a look at that wernt we... damnit we really must start writing down ideas lol, tho I doubt I'll forget last nights in a hurry *giggles*

[Stone]

Well duh! I didnt expect all that video to be rendered in realtime lol, I was refering to the other bits, I doubt (but hope) the Jag can stream fullscreen video, track two guns, and move a LOT of well animated large sprites arround at once... plus audio... I hope it can, but... actually... well I dont know to be honest, its a project to think about anyway.

 

The gun(s?) are tracked in hardware - the chip does it automatically as a background process so I very much doubt you're losing performance there. The coders were being very coy about how they did the sprite/video overlays in the only interviews I've seen, but I guess it was just a case of having a background object pointing at one memory location and having the hard disk stream to it. You never know, they might have designed a subsystem just for doing this - you have a LOT of space in an arcade machine

 

Been considering buying an Area 51 for a while to look at the PCB, but the ones on eBay tend to be from the States and I would want to be really careful about making sure the disk didn't get jolted about. Not something I'm willing to trust the USPS on, to be honest.

 

Ooooh yeah, we were goina have a look at that wernt we... damnit we really must start writing down ideas lol, tho I doubt I'll forget last nights in a hurry *giggles*

 

Shushhh

 

Stone