I have always been fond of Atari's Jaguar and even -for a while- believed a Jaguar CD would make an excellent addition to my collection. I never knew of the Atari Jaguar II (or is it III?) though; not until I run into this pretty amazing Atari Jaguar 2 Prototype Board auction. This, as you understand, is an incredibly rare thing and the seller happily ships worldwide.
As for the Jaguar 2 itself, the prototype named Midsummer, well, as you must have noticed, it never reached a finished state and obviously never even came close to being released. It would apparently have been a powerful beast indeed, possibly coming close to the Dreamcast in terms of raw processing power. You can find out more about it here and here.
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So fascinating... I wonder what could have happened if Atari would finish this? Guess we'll never know.
ReplyDeleteWell, we can actually estimate. No, really. This would have been an incredibly powerful machine that would probably only get a few shoddy games and a couple or so gems. Guess most developers would program for its co-processor...
ReplyDeleteI quite liked the original Atari Jaguar. It did have one or two great games, like the original 'Alien Vs Predator', which was fun and it had one of the pest ports of 'Doom' - but they were the exception rather than the rule. Between some pretty rubbish games, a truly crap controller and most people waiting for the Playstation, Saturn and N64, the Jaguar didn't really have a leg to stand on.
ReplyDeleteYou are unfortunately right dear Bob. The few excellent Jaguar games and the powerful yet buggy hardware weren't enough to save either the console or Atari. Well, at least there's a vibrant homebrew scene still going strong.
ReplyDeleteWow! Like you I never even knew this existed! Fascinating stuff :)
ReplyDeleteAnd the specs sound impressive too. I'd like to see a demo of the thing running, mind.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post, i enjoyed reading it. Its always fun to travel back in time, before windows, psp and xbox :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Dennis. Oh, and cheers for the comment!
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