169 replies to this topic

[kool kitty89]

kskunk, on Mon Jan 2, 2012 2:39 PM, said:

10p6, on Mon Jan 2, 2012 6:30 AM, said:

having a machine assembled in the USA just added a lot of cost for probably little to no benefit.

This interests me, too. I have to assume Atari had no other choice.

One important historical note: At the time, IBM was becoming very interested in getting involved in the console business. They obviously meant it - nowadays, IBM makes money on every Wii, PS3, and XBOX sold.

It would have been even more interesting if Atari had managed to partner with IBM earlier-on and actually design the console with some IBM components in mind (things that would only become attractive/practical in the context of such a partnership) like using IBM CPUs . . . the Intel based ones were limited to use on built-in motherboards and such (but that wouldn't be an issue for an embedded system anyway) and there were some pretty nice x86 CPUs for embedded systems in IBM's range (particularly the lower-end grande 386SLC and DLCs). There were the RISC chips too, but I don't think IBM had any production ready low-cost/embedded optimized RISC chips in the 1992 timeframe. (they only had workstation class CPUs at that point with the POWER and PowerPC architectures)

So, with the x86 chips already in substantial production volumes with reasonable cost to performance ratio overall, those would have made the most sense for an embedded design like a game console. (plus, it would have favored porting PC games with assembly language optimization . . . and, regardless of the technical efficiency of the x86 architecture, it still had a massive amount of industry wide support -in terms of actual experienced assembly language programmers, available compilers, etc) -And in hindsight, we also know that Cyrix would later enter a major partnership with IBM for manufacture of its CPUs, so that could have also spilled back over for use in later consoles if they continued with x86. (otherwise, the IBM partnership would obviously favor use of PowerPC chips)

Of course, if Atari had been in a stable enough position to establish such a partnership with IBM, that would imply they'd already have been much better off in other respects in general, so other things would have been different too. (getting even more off topic, a partnership with IBM on the computer side of things would also have been very interesting . . . like using the Atari brand to market low-cost/high performance PC systems using IBM motherboards with embedded SLC/DLC CPUs and aiming at a similar market segment and price-performance ratio as the ST had established -for which there was no real counterpart in the PC end of things)

Quote

The other important fact is that factory financing is a big problem for small companies. You need enough cash to cover 4-6 months of inventory, which can easily be $50M to $100M if Atari hoped to build 50K-100K/month. You don't get to start paying that down until 30 or even 60 days after a store sells a unit, and if your units are slow to sell off, you could carry that debt for a long time. Atari was really cash strapped in '93 and probably not worthy for such a large and risky credit line.

Yes, which obviously ties into Atari not being in a healthy enough position to support a new console by that time . . . they didn't have the internal resources to pull it off, and their PR was too weak to get the necessary credit for investment spending. (perhaps if a company -like IBM or perhaps Time-Warner- had negotiated to buy-out Atari Corp and build upon that, the Jaguar could have had enough support to really become successful, but that obviously didn't happen -it seems Warner did express interest in doing just that in the early 90s too, but it never went anywhere for whatever reason)

Quote

It's probable that IBM, who was cash-rich, saw Atari as their ticket to get a toehold in a new business, and gave Atari substantial credit - tens of millions or more. No factory in Asia would make that kind of deal in the 90s. (Although, it's becoming more common in the 2010s due to the change in economic power between US and China.)

I kind of doubt IBM actually provided that much credit though . . . after all, look at the actual production volumes Atari managed in the end. (only 235,000 units manufactured in all 3+ years on the market)

And in any case, the IBM deal also came too late to practically shift the hardware configuration to favor potential IBM components. (again, like a SLC or DLC) The chipset itself already supported modular CPUs, so swapping the 68k wouldn't have been difficult, but the bigger issue was the existing development kits and documentation had all been designed around the 68k, so software would have been even further delayed by such a late change in the design.

kskunk, on Mon Jan 2, 2012 5:33 PM, said:

Each console has a unique architecture, but they were all designed either by IBM working with AMD, or IBM working with NVIDIA. IBM keeps their console design teams separate, so the PS3 team was not able to find out what the Xbox 360 team was up to, even though they were all IBM employees.

I'm wondering if either Microsoft or Sony might switch to an AM x86 CPU for the next generation given the potential to consolidate a partnership for both CPU and video chipset, and newer x86 parts in general being more and more performance competitive in general and PowerPC making less progress. (albeit, it's the cost to performance ratio that matters more than performance alone -but the cost issue would be part of the attraction to having both the video and CPU from the same manufacturer . . . especially since AMD -and ATi for that matter- has a history of more competitive pricing in general -which made the choice for the Celeron in the original Xbox a bit odd too)

For that matter, there's also the issue of AMD recently shifting interest back into embedded system hardware design, so perhaps a CPU range resulting from that will be even more attractive for consoles. (a bit ironic that AMD did have a fairly significant embedded-oriented RISC architecture, but abandoned that in favor of x86 design in the mid/late 90s -and actually moved the 29000 design team over to x86 with the K5 . . . and then, of course, dropped the 29kderived design entirely with the K6 . . . and now these many years later AMD finds that there's a hole in their business model with the lack of competitive embedded CPUs )

[skip]

10p6: Thanks for the reply. If you don't want to do this for others that's fair enough, it looks like a lot of work. Then again, I think there'd be a market for it from those who are willing to pay (think Ben Heck...).

Any chance you'd be willing to do a set of instructions, perhaps with photographic demonstration of how this thing fits together internally? This would be a very useful thing for those that are willing to attempt it (or get others to do it for them as in my case, hehe).

Oh, in addition - I now see that the videos on youtube showing 1080 HDMI Jaguar stuff are yours. Care to share how that's done? I'm very much intrigued.

Thanks again.

[sh3-rg]

So this wasn't done in 3 hours, that was part of the 'back-story', too?

[skip]

10p6, on Sun Jan 8, 2012 6:37 AM, said:

As for the HDMI I would just read the description on the videos. As of this time it would be impractical to add the HDMI support to the Jag Combo unit for numerous reasons. An alternative way for the Optical / Toslink is still possible though, as is the PSP connector, and RF hack.

I've read the descriptions, but it is a bit unclear to me. Sorry if I'm not reading it right. All I want to know is it (a) an internal mod (and if so, how was it done) or (b) going via an external SCART cable into a SCART -> HDMI converter box.

[skip]

So by 'hacked' you mean 'a SCART to HDMI box was pulled apart and soldered'...presumably via the equivalent SCART pins? I'm assuming SCART to HDMI as you haven't clarified that. And how is the power supplied now that it's internal? Every one of these boxes I've looked at have required external power. And how does it fit? The ones I've seen are approximately 2cm x 5cm x 10cm.

Sorry if I'm asking too much of you...I know I'm only 'new' around here (not really, but anyway), but when I see the word 'hacked' I'll always ask more questions, especially if the descriptions are vague. I've been around videogames for 30+ years, have occasionally pulled apart and 'improved' hardware since I was a teenager, have done uni level physics, teach high school computer science etc etc etc. All I'm getting at is that I'm more than capable of reading a more comprehensive description than 'hacked'.

Of course photos, videos or more detailed written descriptions of how it's done would probably get me to shut up... To be honest, I'm more likely to go the external box route because I honestly believe that I'd have a hard time fitting the requisite hardware in an unmodified Jaguar case.

[skip]

10p6, on Sun Jan 8, 2012 11:24 PM, said:

This is a HDMI card that only accepts pure RGB signals, so this one pulls directly from the video hardware and not video outputs.

Do you have part number / brand / website to help my research along (after the next two weeks I'll have very limited time for six months, hence I'm asking for specifics now)? Some of my current work is in a modern TV studio...stuff like this should be able to be sourced relatively easily, if not by me then by the tech dude who is the studio's 'glue' (and a great source for gadgets ).

Good to know about the negatives for the cheaper upscalers though, I could probably live with it if that's the path I take.

[LinkoVitch]

10p6, on Sun Jan 8, 2012 11:24 PM, said:

HDMI box no (it cost over $700). This is a HDMI card that only accepts pure RGB signals, so this one pulls directly from the video hardware and not video outputs.

What is the difference between the RGB signal inside the unit and the RGB signal presented at the AV port on the back of the jag? I thought this was a pure RGB signal?

[kool kitty89]

10p6, on Sat Jan 7, 2012 10:26 PM, said:

I think the biggest issue for the Jag was it was released to soon, especially as the gaming market was changing which effected hardware design. I think with a separate video clock and an upgraded Tom and Jerry (Bugs fixed) and maybe keeping a 68K based processor but building it on the same chip die with a faster clock would have helped a lot and cut costs. I also believe that Atari should have created a Falcon development system with Tom, Jerry and CD built in to make easier and faster development of games (Would have been a cool Falcon too)

Some say that Atari could not wait as they had no new products, however they had a lot of back stock that they could have sold off, and still had quite a cash pile for a small company. It is easier to play catch up when you know your competition than trying to get ahead when you have no idea what the competition is doing. It also did not help that 3D0 had and were hiring along with Sony the cream of the crop programmers.

Thinking further . . . it was released too soon and too late. Too soon in terms of both technology/feature set relative to the 1990-1993 development cycle (limited foresight of 1990 -which Flare still guessed pretty well considering- and technical limits of releasing in 1993 . . . plus limited R&D resources/funding exacerbating issues like troubleshooting/bugs among other things -and cost of CD-ROM in that period too, especially early on in development).

And too late in the context of Atari's huge gap in releasing any home console for the early 90s market (and falling behind in PR/brand recognition as well as profits/revenue/management wise due to overall decline/stagnation of all their products/divisions -the lynx did grow somewhat initially, but too low/limited to make up for the other problems -and stagnated in sales from '91-93, at least from the sales/revenue figures I've seen).
Albeit from that perspective, it's not so much an issue of the Jaguar being too late, but an absence of a direct predecessor to the Jaguar (and successor to the 7800), which I've already commented on. (and the stagnation of the ST was a problem too for PR and financial stability -and management stability too . . . the worse money gets, the more likely management is likely to decline too -along with overall staff/personnel resources- -which also means that a decline in management, as seems to have occurred around 1988/89- can spur further declines throughout the company -including management- and enter a vicious downward spiral -more so if market conditions become less favorable too, which certainly happened a few times for their computers)

LinkoVitch, on Mon Jan 9, 2012 1:32 AM, said:

10p6, on Sun Jan 8, 2012 11:24 PM, said:

HDMI box no (it cost over $700). This is a HDMI card that only accepts pure RGB signals, so this one pulls directly from the video hardware and not video outputs.

What is the difference between the RGB signal inside the unit and the RGB signal presented at the AV port on the back of the jag? I thought this was a pure RGB signal?

Analog vs digital. (TOM has 24 digital RGB lines on it -I believe it uses an external DAC- so you can pull that digital signal directly -which is what you need for DVI/HDMI)

Edited by kool kitty89, Tue Jan 10, 2012 6:16 PM.

[philipj]

kool kitty89, on Tue Jan 10, 2012 6:14 PM, said:

10p6, on Sat Jan 7, 2012 10:26 PM, said:

I think the biggest issue for the Jag was it was released to soon, especially as the gaming market was changing which effected hardware design. I think with a separate video clock and an upgraded Tom and Jerry (Bugs fixed) and maybe keeping a 68K based processor but building it on the same chip die with a faster clock would have helped a lot and cut costs. I also believe that Atari should have created a Falcon development system with Tom, Jerry and CD built in to make easier and faster development of games (Would have been a cool Falcon too)

Some say that Atari could not wait as they had no new products, however they had a lot of back stock that they could have sold off, and still had quite a cash pile for a small company. It is easier to play catch up when you know your competition than trying to get ahead when you have no idea what the competition is doing. It also did not help that 3D0 had and were hiring along with Sony the cream of the crop programmers.

Thinking further . . . it was released too soon and too late. Too soon in terms of both technology/feature set relative to the 1990-1993 development cycle (limited foresight of 1990 -which Flare still guessed pretty well considering- and technical limits of releasing in 1993 . . . plus limited R&D resources/funding exacerbating issues like troubleshooting/bugs among other things -and cost of CD-ROM in that period too, especially early on in development).

And too late in the context of Atari's huge gap in releasing any home console for the early 90s market (and falling behind in PR/brand recognition as well as profits/revenue/management wise due to overall decline/stagnation of all their products/divisions -the lynx did grow somewhat initially, but too low/limited to make up for the other problems -and stagnated in sales from '91-93, at least from the sales/revenue figures I've seen).
Albeit from that perspective, it's not so much an issue of the Jaguar being too late, but an absence of a direct predecessor to the Jaguar (and successor to the 7800), which I've already commented on. (and the stagnation of the ST was a problem too for PR and financial stability -and management stability too . . . the worse money gets, the more likely management is likely to decline too -along with overall staff/personnel resources- -which also means that a decline in management, as seems to have occurred around 1988/89- can spur further declines throughout the company -including management- and enter a vicious downward spiral -more so if market conditions become less favorable too, which certainly happened a few times for their computers)

I think Atari did move to fast in a dash to capitalize on the market for the console wars of that time. If they had just stuck with the Atari Lynx just a little bit longer and even consolizing the Lynx, I think it would've brought new life into the Lynx buying Atari enough time to finish the Jag with very few hardware bugs... Also the 68020 probably would've been cheap enough to put into the Jag as CPU or even better, Atari could've used the Playstation R3000 chip as a CPU and could've contended with the Playstation being that many of the PS titles could've been ported over to the Jag... Imagine that. That would be a neat little mod project if someone put a R3000 in a Jag and make a custom game for just for kicks; who has the time for that though.

[Austin]

philipj, on Tue Jan 10, 2012 7:54 PM, said:

... Atari could've used the Playstation R3000 chip as a CPU and could've contended with the Playstation being that many of the PS titles could've been ported over to the Jag... Imagine that. That would be a neat little mod project if someone put a R3000 in a Jag and make a custom game for just for kicks; who has the time for that though.

As they say, "in a perfect world..... "

[kool kitty89]

philipj, on Tue Jan 10, 2012 7:54 PM, said:

I think Atari did move to fast in a dash to capitalize on the market for the console wars of that time. If they had just stuck with the Atari Lynx just a little bit longer and even consolizing the Lynx,

I've had some discussions with Kskunk on this before (and with some others too), and the Lynx chipset would not work well for a console, it's just too limited for that. (shared 8-bit bus, moderate use of FPM RAM bandwidth via FIFOs for the blitter, and only 4-bit color -and even at 4-bit color, it would have been much too slow to realistically manage a 256-320x200 ish screen)
Now, a lynx-like system design optimized more as a console could have been interesting, but there's still the trade-off of a framebuffer vs sprite/object/character based graphics. (like other consoles of the time, or the Panther)

I also considered the old Flare 1/slipstream chipset, but that's not particularly good either due to the requirement of SRAM/PSRAM in the "fastRAM" bank and generally primitive blitter, and the need for framebuffer space in all games. (no optimization for phrase/word wise pixel manipulation, just simple copy capabilities working 1 pixel at a time or block-copying data without masking transparent pixels, choppy scrolling using the VDC, no pixel look-up/expansion/offset support, etc)

The Panther itself wasn't right either, but the architectural concept is interesting in any case. (the use of SRAM limited cost effectiveness and the limit of 32k would have kept the system cost down but complicated programming and reduced cost effectiveness of games -not enough space to decompress into- and a pretty nice Ensoniq sound processor limited to 8k of sample RAM where basic/simple DMA sound embedded on the main system bus would have been adequate and much more cost effective -and actually more flexible since you wouldn't be limited to copying samples into the 8k block on the sound bus, but directly pulling samples from ROM/RAM and software mixing -the ensoniq chip had added additive/FM/AM synth capabilities too, but those are far less foolproof than plain samples, especially for western developers -given how a lot of DOS and MD/Genesis and YM2151 arcade games turned out compared to sample-based stuff . . . especially in the US -European developers tended to push synth capabilities more)

And there's the issue with the Panther's CRAM being limited to 32 entries (due to chip space) when there's support for 256 (1/2/4-bit pixels are expanded via a 8-bit offset, 8-bit pixels are used directly) . . . since it used 18-bit RGB, use of an off the shelf VGA RAMDAC would fit well too. (meaning no on-chip DACs or CRAM on early models, and more room to extend the line buffers to the full 8-bits)

A panther-derivative using DRAM instead of SRAM (and cheap/foolproof DMA sound) would have been interesting . . . or if it did stick with SRAM, they would have needed to make the investment in more RAM at least and preferably an interleaved bus mode allowing the 68k full bandwidth at the expense of 1/2 the OPL bandwidth (useful for 3D games or CPU/sound intensive games in general), something SRAM would favor in general (no page-mode/burst accesses to optimize for). They were at least using low-end (100/120 ns) SRAM, and compared to the multi-bus SRAM/PSRAM/VRAM based competition on the market, even 128k SRAM (4 32kx8-bit chips) with the Panther still may have been significantly cheaper than the likes of the MD or especially SNES. (at least if they had it in similar volumes)
Or perhaps even clocking the system back to 12.5 MHz (cheaper CPU and ASICs too) and working around 80 ns DRAM (which should allow 160 ns non-page-mode accesses and was fairly cheap/common by 1989/90) and use that in place of the SRAM (potentially with an interleaved mode too) without the added support for page-mode. (and thus a simpler DRAM controller too -much like the interface used in the ST, but a bit faster)
Hell, even plain 120 ns DRAM with the 16 MHz system (250 ns random reads/writes) would have meant decent bandwidth at least (especially with the OPL saturating the bus -16 MB/s), and that would have certainly stuck to very cheap/low-end RAM. (and the same RAM being used in the bottom-end ST models)

But this is, again way off the original topic. (anyone interesting in a new discussion topic on a Jaguar predecessor/7800 successor? -not sure what forum it should go in)

Quote

I think it would've brought new life into the Lynx buying Atari enough time to finish the Jag with very few hardware bugs... Also the 68020 probably would've been cheap enough to put into the Jag as CPU or even better, Atari could've used the Playstation R3000 chip as a CPU and could've contended with the Playstation being that many of the PS titles could've been ported over to the Jag... Imagine that. That would be a neat little mod project if someone put a R3000 in a Jag and make a custom game for just for kicks; who has the time for that though.

A healthier Atari would have obviously meant a healthier Jaguar (technically and -more importantly- management/marketing/PR wise) . . . and possibly a later start and later release of the hardware (meaning a better perspective of the market to design the system around and less foresight/guesswork to get right -like understanding the importance of C/library-level support/performance and texture mapping support and general blitter performance -for 2D and 3D games).

And, as it was, the 2 areas the Jaguar Chipset was flexible/modular with were RAM configuration (2 banks FPM DRAM, up to 4 MB each) and the CPU (support for any x86 or 68k based chip, and thus compatibility with most other processors as well -since they tended to comply with 1 or parts of each of those architectures).

But, as far as homebrew projects are concerned, it would probably be easier to find an old CoJag board with an '020 or R3k and the added VRAM in the 2nd bank for that matter.

Edited by kool kitty89, Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:15 PM.

[Crazyace]

I notice all the CoJags have 52MHz crystals - I assume they are divided down to get 26MHz for Tom/Jerry. Freeze looks like it would have been a fun Jag game - but I dont see it needing a MIPs CPU

[kool kitty89]

Crazyace, on Sat Jan 14, 2012 7:34 AM, said:

I notice all the CoJags have 52MHz crystals - I assume they are divided down to get 26MHz for Tom/Jerry. Freeze looks like it would have been a fun Jag game - but I dont see it needing a MIPs CPU

It seems like most/all of the Cojag games don't really do things that merit the faster CPUs. (most are just 2D and streaming video stuff -and the added VRAM makes more sense for added animation/texture detail)

Maybe it just made programming easier. (after all, for an arcade machine, that sort of modification would be pretty minor -and the Jag chipset was already very low cost, so even with the enhancements it was probably very cheap for an arcade board of the time)

[skip]

Yo, 10p6:

skip, on Mon Jan 9, 2012 12:12 AM, said:

10p6, on Sun Jan 8, 2012 11:24 PM, said:

This is a HDMI card that only accepts pure RGB signals, so this one pulls directly from the video hardware and not video outputs.

Do you have part number / brand / website to help my research along (after the next two weeks I'll have very limited time for six months, hence I'm asking for specifics now)?

[skip]

10p6, on Thu Jan 19, 2012 1:24 PM, said:

I don't have a part number as it was a card taken out of a commercial video processing unit which are normally sold to TV companies and cost a fortune.

Okay then, what's the VPU? Manufacturer, model, anything? Do you have any examples of such commercial VPUs that cost a fortune? As I said, I work with / in / adjacent to a $2million TV studio that's part of my work and, in addition to the studio and control room, we have several storage areas. I have access to a lot of stuff.

I'm not trying to 'hassle' you, but the info given seems a bit vague (deliberately perhaps?)...if you give even some specifics I'll seek out the relevant info and work out if it's for me or not.

I was going to ask about your controller and how you managed to do all of those cool things, but I figured I'll politely ask in one place for one thing first.

Edit: Sorry if the post above seems a bit terse. On one hand you show some really, really cool hardware mods, but other other hand very little info is forthcoming. I appreciate the info you've given so far, but it's a little frustrating for a moderately capable tech head like me (and moderate is probably as far as I'd go, hehe) to be given only small snippets of info. I'm just wondering why you share stuff with very little info? If you're, for example, going to make a book of 'look at what cool things you can do with the Jaguar' and sell it - fantastic! I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But if you're going to show stuff with little technical background so the rest of the enthusiasts can't do similar stuff, I wonder what the point is that's all. And, as I said, the next six months are a killer for me - I only have less than a week of holidays left to pursue this before the bulk of my time gets eaten up by my career again.

Quite simply, my Jaguar looks a bit rubbish on my 60" TV. I want it to look better

Edited by skip, Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:47 PM.

[twoquickcapri]

skip, on Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:26 PM, said:

Quite simply, my Jaguar looks a bit rubbish on my 60" TV. I want it to look better

Have you tried getting a SCART RGB cable and hooking it up to a SCART RGB to Component Converter? My cable should show up soon and I was going to post about it in the "Scart vs. S-video" topic.

Scart RGB cable
eBay Auction -- Item Number: 320820993025

SCART to Component Video Converter
http://www.amazon.co...ASIN=B004XSSDPO

EDIT: I just look at the topic ("Scart vs. S-video") and you aready talked about it.

[skip]

I'm going to use a SCART to HDMI or component (probs HDMI).

Will you be giving out info on how you did your controller?

[Crazyace]

Maybe an alternative would be to use something like this:
http://www.analog.co...ts/product.html
wire directly to the Tom digital RGB and Audio lines, and use a microcontroller to set it up.

[CyranoJ]

Hey Skip, if you get HDMI output working for a reasonable cost, please let me know

[skip]

CyranoJ, on Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:05 PM, said:

Hey Skip, if you get HDMI output working for a reasonable cost, please let me know

Will do. It's going to cost about $100 and it's not exactly rocket science...probably just get a powered SCART -> HDMI box from ebay. But it'll be useful for my other pre-hd consoles too as I think I have SCART cables for most (except the XBOX). Part list and photos when I scrape together some coin and some time