5 ms·

Some Words on Programming the Atari Jaguar (2006)

67 points by rocky1138 8y ago

lostgame 8y ago
I have a strange fetish for the study of old, and in particular, failed or flopped consoles - especially things like development and hardware structure. The Sega Saturn, in particular, has been a fantastic and interesting area of study and development for me - I've toyed with developing a simple 2D homebrew platformer and learning the unique way the hardware is laid out has been a lot of fun. Articles like this are becoming harder to find for me, and the more detail I see (like in this particular instance), the more content I am.
- CyberDildonics 8y ago
  With old consoles you get to see a full set of platform design decisions from hardware to software to licensing, and you get to see how it worked out.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    > from hardware to software to licensing and price positioning. However it's very important to know the context in which each console was launched - otherwise it is very difficult to draw any kind of conclusion as to why they failed.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  Sega was a bit the Sony of its era, lots of over engineering on the CPU side. Although no one beats the Jaguar at this game it seems.
  - rocky1138 8y ago
    Not to be "that rabid Jaguar fan which comes out of the woodwork," but the Jaguar's CPU was actually just a plain old Motorola 68000, and the GPU and DSP (audio [mostly]) mirror the sort of trifecta which we still use on the PC and many consoles today. The two biggest pain points were 1) the bus which connected them all was only 16-bit and 2) the GPU and DSP did not have direct memory access to the main RAM. DMA would have made the Jaguar a serious beast for its time. It's a terrible shame that it didn't include this in its final form.
- ledriveby 8y ago
  Got any links or a blog that consolidates your findings? I love learning about gnarly hardware, and yes, Saturn takes the cake there. Dual SH2s and VDPs, with scaled sprite quadrilaterals for polygons... what a nightmare!
  - Something1234 8y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi29TNPrdbwJLiB-VcWSSg-3iNTGJnn_L https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi29TNPrdbwJLiB-VcWSS... I absolutely love this series, the author goes into so much detail.
  - rocky1138 8y ago
    Saturn definitely takes the cake, though from what I hear the PS3 was not trailing far behind.
  - lostgame 8y ago
    Sure! I guess I’m more than a little bit of a geeky girl and had actually still had these bookmarked from these explorations nearly 3 years ago: Jo-Engine: http://jo-engine.org/ http://jo-engine.org/ A fantastic, FOSS SDK for the Saturn, allowing excellent programming in C with management for sprites, collision, etc. The Rockin-B: http://www.rockin-b.de/saturn.html http://www.rockin-b.de/saturn.html Original Sega SDKs, including SDL and more. Fantastical resources for plain C and/or Assembly-based development. These should get any aspiring beginner or experienced developer with previous console experience moving quickly in the right direction. :)
- eltoozero 8y ago
  Want to hit me up re: Nuon? We’re about to release a spinner board using NOS polyface chips.
  - jnaina 8y ago
    The Nuon was designed by the same team (Flare) as the Atari Jaguar. Have been trying to get one on EBay just for Tempest. What exactly are you working on for the Nuon?
    - eltoozero 8y ago
      Tempest 3000 supports rotary control, but a rotary controller never shipped for the Nuon. 18 years too late we got some NOS controller chips (proprietary stuff) and are making a run of “new” controller boards with spinner, specifically to enjoy Tempest 3000 as it was developed! Old details: http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=86824&hilit=Yak+twister http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=86824&hilit=Yak+tw... lee@braains.net
scottyelich 8y ago
3D0DEAD anyone?
- rocky1138 8y ago
  It's amazing that it took so long to figure out a 7-character encryption key. For those that aren't aware, 3DODEAD was the key used to encrypt Jaguar cartridges to verify that they were licensed by Atari Corporation. If you try to boot an unlicensed cart in a Jaguar or something goes wrong during the validation check during startup, the Jaguar screen turns red. The Atari logo characters only fall on screen in the startup animation if the validation check passes.
  - corby 8y ago
    Is the code a reference to the 3DO game system from Panasonic?
    - rocky1138 8y ago
      Yes :)
angus-prune 8y ago
A while ago I worked out that every Atari Jaguar ever made could render as many polygons as 2 and a bit PS4s.

67 points by rocky1138 8y ago

I have a strange fetish for the study of old, and in particular, failed or flopped consoles - especially things like development and hardware structure. The Sega Saturn, in particular, has been a fantastic and interesting area of study and development for me - I've toyed with developing a simple 2D homebrew platformer and learning the unique way the hardware is laid out has been a lot of fun. Articles like this are becoming harder to find for me, and the more detail I see (like in this particular instance), the more content I am.

CyberDildonics 8y ago
With old consoles you get to see a full set of platform design decisions from hardware to software to licensing, and you get to see how it worked out.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  > from hardware to software to licensing and price positioning. However it's very important to know the context in which each console was launched - otherwise it is very difficult to draw any kind of conclusion as to why they failed.
agumonkey 8y ago
Sega was a bit the Sony of its era, lots of over engineering on the CPU side. Although no one beats the Jaguar at this game it seems.
- rocky1138 8y ago
  Not to be "that rabid Jaguar fan which comes out of the woodwork," but the Jaguar's CPU was actually just a plain old Motorola 68000, and the GPU and DSP (audio [mostly]) mirror the sort of trifecta which we still use on the PC and many consoles today. The two biggest pain points were 1) the bus which connected them all was only 16-bit and 2) the GPU and DSP did not have direct memory access to the main RAM. DMA would have made the Jaguar a serious beast for its time. It's a terrible shame that it didn't include this in its final form.
ledriveby 8y ago
Got any links or a blog that consolidates your findings? I love learning about gnarly hardware, and yes, Saturn takes the cake there. Dual SH2s and VDPs, with scaled sprite quadrilaterals for polygons... what a nightmare!
- Something1234 8y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi29TNPrdbwJLiB-VcWSSg-3iNTGJnn_L https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi29TNPrdbwJLiB-VcWSS... I absolutely love this series, the author goes into so much detail.
- rocky1138 8y ago
  Saturn definitely takes the cake, though from what I hear the PS3 was not trailing far behind.
- lostgame 8y ago
  Sure! I guess I’m more than a little bit of a geeky girl and had actually still had these bookmarked from these explorations nearly 3 years ago: Jo-Engine: http://jo-engine.org/ http://jo-engine.org/ A fantastic, FOSS SDK for the Saturn, allowing excellent programming in C with management for sprites, collision, etc. The Rockin-B: http://www.rockin-b.de/saturn.html http://www.rockin-b.de/saturn.html Original Sega SDKs, including SDL and more. Fantastical resources for plain C and/or Assembly-based development. These should get any aspiring beginner or experienced developer with previous console experience moving quickly in the right direction. :)
eltoozero 8y ago
Want to hit me up re: Nuon? We’re about to release a spinner board using NOS polyface chips.
- jnaina 8y ago
  The Nuon was designed by the same team (Flare) as the Atari Jaguar. Have been trying to get one on EBay just for Tempest. What exactly are you working on for the Nuon?
  - eltoozero 8y ago
    Tempest 3000 supports rotary control, but a rotary controller never shipped for the Nuon. 18 years too late we got some NOS controller chips (proprietary stuff) and are making a run of “new” controller boards with spinner, specifically to enjoy Tempest 3000 as it was developed! Old details: http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=86824&hilit=Yak+twister http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=86824&hilit=Yak+tw... lee@braains.net

scottyelich 8y ago

3D0DEAD anyone?

rocky1138 8y ago
It's amazing that it took so long to figure out a 7-character encryption key. For those that aren't aware, 3DODEAD was the key used to encrypt Jaguar cartridges to verify that they were licensed by Atari Corporation. If you try to boot an unlicensed cart in a Jaguar or something goes wrong during the validation check during startup, the Jaguar screen turns red. The Atari logo characters only fall on screen in the startup animation if the validation check passes.
- corby 8y ago
  Is the code a reference to the 3DO game system from Panasonic?
  - rocky1138 8y ago
    Yes :)

angus-prune 8y ago

A while ago I worked out that every Atari Jaguar ever made could render as many polygons as 2 and a bit PS4s.