Atari Jaguar 101: A Beginner’s Guide
Presented by Fastbilly1 and Ack
The RetroGaming 101 series is aimed at gamers who are just starting out in the classic gaming scene or are curious about an older console that they don’t know much about yet. Those of you that are especially knowledgeable about the featured machine, I encourage you to add any information that you think would be beneficial into the comments section. If you are new to the featured console, and still have questions, you can also use the comments section and I will do my best to help you out.
World renown for its videogame consoles, arcade titles, and PCs, Atari released a beast in 1993 known as the Jaguar. Pitted against the likes of the Super Nintendo, Turbographix 16/PC Engine, and the Sega Genesis, the Jaguar roared on to the scene and changed video game history.
Background
- Released November 18th 1993 in the United States. It was supported by Atari until late1996 right before Atari was bought out by Hasbro.
- Created by Flare Technology, a British company of former Sinclar engineers, to make a cost effective console more powerful than the Genesis/Megadrive and Super Nintendo.
- Was designed in tandem with the Atari Panther (a system to compete with the Saturn and Playstation). Since the Jaguar was ahead of schedule, the Panther was scrapped and the Jaguar was released.
Historical Impact
- Atari’s final foray into the home console market
- A dual 32 bit console that was touted as the first 64 bit console on the market
- First enhanced ports of several PC titles – Wolfenstein 3D
- Is the basis for COJag – the Jaguar based arcade platform. Famous for Area 51 and Maximum Force.
Strengths
- Graphical Powerhouse – At its release in 1993 there was no equal graphically on the market.
- Color Palette – Barely noticeable on the included coax connector, however if you upgrade to Svideo it is a night and day difference. Rayman is the benchmark most Jaguar fans use.
- Active Homebrew Community – To this day there are still new released Jaguar titles.
- Jaguar CD – Using a modified Audio CD format, Jaguar CD games could be up to 790 megabytes in size. A huge stepup from its competition and staved off piracy for many years. It also looks damn cool.
- Region Free – During boot the Jaguar would determine which screen size and frequency to use for the games based on the consoles region and apply them accordingly. In simpler terms, a PAL copy of Atari Karts will play fine in a NTSC-U Jaguar.
Weakness
- Price – Originally retailing at $249 it cost almost double its biggest competition – the SNES and Genesis/Megadrive
- Controller – While it offered an array of options for developers and players, few games used them and they often used a print out sheet that was easily lost.
- Cartridge – Most will see this as a Strength but the cartridge was one of the downfalls of the console. In 1991 Sega had released the Sega/Mega CD and in 1993 both the 3do and the Amiga CD32 were released. CDs were going mainstream and by opting to have CD’s as an expansion through the Jaguar CD, Atari effectively shot themselves in the foot with high cartridge prices.
- Reliability – The Jaguar itself was fairly reliable, but the CD addon is renowned for its poor construction. Early Jaguars have a “hissing problem†the cause is up to debate and it is merely annoying.
- Jaguar CD – Unreliable and very hard to repair.
- Atari – Atari promised the moon and, after the crash of 1983, many were skeptical. Some retailers refused to stock the console outright.
Hardware
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Main Unit
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Jaguar CD
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Official Accessories
- Standard Controller
- Controller Overlays – Many games featured a controller overlay for the numpad. These keys were used for anything from inventory management to save game functions.
- Pro Controller – adds X,Y,Z, and shoulder buttons L and R. All are remaps of keys on the numpad. Because of this, some later games were designed for the Pro Controller over the standard one.
- Teamtap – Four (4) port Multitap
- Memory Track Cartridge – memory card for CD games
- JagLink – link two consoles together – only used for Air Cars, Battlesphere, and Doom Evil Unleashed. – RJ11 (telephone) cable and DSP adapter
- Comlynx cable – link your Jaguar and Lynx
Third-Party Accessories
- LapCAT – Arcade Stick. Available in both left and right hand versions
- PRO-Stick – Arcade Stick. Has a controller port on it so you can use the numpad on a controller.
- JAGLink 2 – a JAGlink dongle that supports daisychanning. Fully compatible with existing JAGLinks/titles.
- Rapid Fire Controller – Fanmade Rapid Fire Controller now mass produced
- J.J.J. Game Controller – Arcade Stick
- CyberMAXX 2.0 – Virtual Reality helmet
- I-Glasses – Video goggles
- Catbox – third party perpherial that featured:
- Composite,svideo, and RGB video out
- Stereo/Mono Audio out
- Two powered headphone jacks with volume control
- RJ11 (telephone) and RS232 (serial) communication ports
- DSP Through connector – for Comlynx adapter.
- SCATbox – A Catbox like device that supports up to 128 Jaguars in LAN
Game Library
Here’s a few of the stand-out titles from the Atari Jaguar library — they are the first games to check out if you obtain the console.
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Tempest 2000 Created by the Jeff Minter, Tempest 2000 utilized the powers of the Jaguar to recreate the arcade experience from the ground up. 100 stages, 6 different powerups, and a multitude of different enemies, all on a psychedelic rollercoaster ride with techno music pounding in your ears. Almost universally applauded as the best game on the console. And to show how much of an arcade fan Jeff Minter is, there is a hidden option for a rotary/dial controller, which an official one was never released. To rectify this, fans have made their own (link to instructions at the bottom of the page). Don’t be mistaken, all ports of Tempest 2000 have issues. The Jaguar version is still the best version, and because of that, still commands quite a price on the secondhand market. Shop for Tempest 2000 on eBay Shop for Tempest 2000 on Amazon.com |
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Aliens vs Predator As the fourth released Aliens Vs Predator game, the Jaguar entry set the style for all following titles in the series. Gone are the beatemup stylings of the SNES, Gameboy, and Arcade titles before it. What was given to the player was a choice between playing one of the three races and a very well polished first person shooter experience. Given that it uses 2d sprites in a 3d plane (aka the Wolfenstein 3d Effect), it aged poorly, however this is the definitive Jaguar FPS and one of the best FPS games pre 1995. Shop for Aliens Vs Predator on eBay |
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Rayman Best looking game on the console. Ubisofts 2D platformer really pushed the 2D powers of the console and it can only be described as pretty.  The game was also release on the Playstation and Sega Saturn, so it isn’t an an exclusive, but it’s still one of the Jaguar’s showpieces. Shop for Rayman on eBay |
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Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods Based off the Cartoon of the mid 90s, this Jaguar CD title features full voice acting (with the entire tv show cast), fmv clips from the show, and a fairly decent challenge. It is not the most well known title for the console, but it is quite solid – Sadly, since it is based off the tv show, no Sean Connery…that and it has tank (aka Resident Evil) controls. Shop for Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods on eBay |
Emulation
- Virtual Jaguar – The best compatibility (though still low)
- Project Tempest
- Jagulator
- Mess
Affordability
- As of the time of this writing you can obtain a Jaguar on eBay for about $80.
- A working Jaguar CD will easily run you about $250+ on eBay.
- Games vary from $1 to $70, with most in the $10-20 range.
AV Connections
- Coax – default
- Composite
- Svideo – a must buy
Hardware Hacks
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Just to chime in, as I just saw this beginner’s guide while looking up where to get a rotary controller, and noticed that some things are missing from this guide, as well as some things are kinda wrong.
First, Panther was NOT to compete with PSone or Saturn. Those systems weren’t even announced at the time Panther was in development. Panther was supposed to directly compete with TG-16, Genesis, and SNES (heck, it was supposed to be released the same year as SNES). Progression of the Jaguar project was ahead of schedule, so Atari decided to go full on with that (even though Panther was pretty much complete). They wanted to totally surpass the current gen consoles and usher in a new gen, which later would include PSone and Saturn. Note that though Jag was far along, it really wasn’t “finished”. Bugs, bad dev docs, etc. The system was rushed out, and that hurt it.
As far as the processors, you can read the info on wikipedia. You’re missing the fact that the TOM chip doesn’t just house a 32-bit graphics processing unit, but also houses a 64-bit object processor and a 64-bit blitter, both of which handle logic operations (iirc). Then there’s the JERRY chip, which houses a 32-bit DSP mainly used for, but not limited to, sound processing. And, of course, the 68k “CPU”, which apparently really isn’t. The designers stated it’s just there to read controller inputs, etc. Most developers ended up using it as the actual system CPU though, because dev docs weren’t complete. Apparently devs could’ve ignored the 68k and pretty much just used the DSP in JERRY or the “GPU” in TOM for those tasks. Indie devs have actually gotten this to work, and there’s a beta of Alien vs. Predator that runs much faster than the released version that doesn’t use the 68k. Also, fun fact: open up a Jaguar system, and the TOM chip is actually labeled/silkscreened “CPU”.
Is it a 64-bit “system”? Yeah, you could say that. Two of the processors on TOM are 64-bit, and it has a 64-bit system bus. The “CPU” in actuality could range from the 32-bit “GPU” or 32-bit DSP, or the 16/32 Motorolla 68k (which, again, was used by most devs). It was a nightmare to develop games for, apparently. But it pushes sprites VERY well. Just look at the game Super Burnout to see it in action.
‘Graphical Powerhouse – At its release in 1993 there was no equal graphically on the market’ – Sorry but this statement is clearly false, the 3DO was released prior to the Jaguar and is a far superior machine graphically. There’s nothing on the Jaguar that comes close to Need For Speed, Space Hulk, Star Fighter, Etc.
you’re missing a fact in there. Atari Corp went into a reverse merger with JTS corp when they exited video games. JTS was accused of not supporting Atari’s business, and that’s when everything went to Hasbro corp.
Hmm the 3DO should be compared on raw power the Jaguar didn’t have the games that the 3DO had probably due to cartridge game limitations but it did have the better port of Doom.
With that said I don’t really know if the Jaguar could have been better if programmed for properly
Interesting note about the whole Panther situation. Others are correct in mentioning that the Panther was supposed to come first, and be Atari’s entry in the 16-but generation, but the Jaguar, which was more a pie-in-the-sky idea for an eventual successor, came together faster than expected, so the decision was made to skip the Panther and go straight to the Jaguar.
However, there’s two points to note about that. First is that the Jag really wasn’t ready and needed another pass of design for quality-of-life improvements for developers, including better development tools. The mediocre and outright buggy games prove that it needed more time in the oven and shouldn’t have been rushed.
But that’s the other interesting point. Apparently, according to Facebook comments by Leonard Tramiel, son of then-Atari boss (and ex-Commodore founder) Jack Tramiel, who was involved in the hardware development, the real reason the Panther was skipped is because it outright didn’t work at all. After designing the system the old fashioned way, where custom chips were laid out on breadboards, they sent the miniaturized design for the Panther’s namesake custom graphics processor out to a chip foundry to get prototypes made, but when they came back and plugged them into the prototype/development system, they returned nothing but static. A design flaw in the miniaturized version rendered it useless, and would have taken months to fix, leading to the decision to cancel the Panther and rush the Jaguar, despite the fact that it needed a lot more work.
15 years later, and now we can now play all games on BigPEmu. Also significant advancements have bee on the Mister core. And off course real hardware is now way more expensive.