Lost Dragon

That really does look like an actual Atari cab/artwork!

That's neat and nicely done. I saw one like this for yars revenge not that long ago too.

nice

This is really cool Tempest 2000 arcade cabinet conversion done by Jeff Mathews at Classic Arcade Restorations, for Eric Clayberg. Eric posts:
 
 
You can see more photos here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+EricClayberg/posts/24S4MoGoCns

I spent an hour playing Joust 7800 last night! Great game!!

The 7800 version of Joust is easily one of the best out there. Is there anything that GCC couldn't do? It's a shame that this and the other launch titles didn't get to market in '84 when they would've been relevant.

I love these!

very awesome game for the 2600!

Dig dug was one of the few carts I ever bought for my 800xl.

I have been Atari ST owner for many years, i have owned Amiga too. Many people seems to have missunderstand what Atari ST was about.
 
I have seen so many clips on YouTube or threads in forums where people compare Amiga to Atari ST. Then they say, look, Amiga has better graphics, Amiga has better sound. Those people don't seems to have understand what Atari ST was about.
 
From the beginning Atari ST was built to battle MAC as a "serious computer", that's why ST used a similar GUI (GEM), so similar that Apple actually sued Atari for using it. ST also used a monochrome monitor for high resolution (no scanlines) and 70 Hz refresh rate that made Atari ST perfect for serious use. Besides that ST contained everything in ROM. Just boot the computer and everything is ready to run.
 
For gaming ST was considerably more limited then Amiga. While ST just used a simple frame buffer and software generated sprites Amiga contained Jay Miner's custom chips. The only area ST could battle Amiga in gaming was in pure vector games where ST had a bit faster processor, else Amiga was THE computer for gaming.
 
MAC was the computer for serious use while Amiga was the computer for games, graphics and demos while Atari ST was something in between. The serious computer that could be used for playing games as well. Not to say that demos and games couldn't be good on ST too off course but when Amiga capabilities was used to the full, ST didn't stand a chance.
 
So, when people just compare the computers for graphics and sound, it isn't a fair comparison because ST was the allround computer made to battle MAC from the beginning.
 
Many people who bought Atari ST was kind of surprised, including me. Atari was supposed to be about gaming, but not this time. In fact Amiga was way more similar to Atari 8bit then ST ever was thanks to one person, Jay Miner.
 
This is Atari ST when showing it's real strength. In this comparison, Amiga don't stand a chance.
 

In a weird sense, you could argue that actually the 5200 was the last true Atari system, since the 7800 was made by GCC, the lynx by EPYX and the Jag was after the Tramiels cleaned house.   

Hi my name Philip, but you can call me ptw-ace or just ace... That was my user name in previous Atari Jaguar forums. I've been thinking about selling my Jag. I've had since 2004 and have had a lot of great moments with the system and the Jag community. If I was mention everything, I'd have to write a four page topic on my experiences with the Jag and the community once existed. What I can tell is that for years people wanted to see new games released for the Atari Jaguar system and put tremendous effort in to doing so from creating the infamous "Skunkboard" where you can plug it in the cartridge and program the Jag via USB... But before then there was the "BJL or Behind Jaggy Lines" where you physically had to remove the Jags bios chip and replace with the BJL software and then program it from a PC or an Atari ST or an Atari Falcon if you had one. Songbird productions, which is still selling games for the Jag has a game called "Protector"... This game has a limited version of BJL on it when you press the zero button; the game was released I guess around 03 or 04, it could've been earlier, but it was at the time when you could program the Jag via printer "printer port to Jag controller port".
 
I myself, wasn't really a programmer and to this day, still don't know how to program like I should, but boy it's been quite the learning experience where if you stick around a thing long enough, you'll gain more understanding about a system then you had when you first started. Well... The Jaguar is infact a 64bit system because of the Blitter that was 64bit with a either 64bit bus or could produce 64bit output despite the other processors being 32bit (I always wind up going back to the tech manual for that info so don't take what I said too litterally, if you see anything wrong just correct me). Whatever the case the potential for the Jag to really be the next gen system of it's time was all there, but the Jag system design was riddled with bugs due to a poor system design. It was suppose to be a big shot 3D system, but the programmers, although could do 3D on it, would constantly run into problems and didn't really pin point the core causes of where the problem came from. The biggest problem that stuck out was the "Motorola 68000 processor" that would hog the systems BUS whenever it was in use... Latter the expert homebrew Jag programmers would conclude that the best way to take advantage of the system was to let the Motorola set the tone for the other chips to work and then cut it off, but being that the Atari community comprises of Atari ST enthusiast; a computer that also uses the 68000, would often beg to differ. Me personally thought it would be a waist of a chip to not use it for something, but I also believe that turning the chip off and using the other processors is probably right on point. For me I wanted to do a game for the Jag for sometime now, but real life demands required more of my attention then the Jag, which was the case for most people who wanted to make homebrew games for the Jaguar. My thing was the 2.5D games like "DOOM and Phase Zero"; no so much the game, but the pesudo 3D engine behind the game... The reason I believe most of Atari 3D games lagged so badly was because everyone was using the Motorola 68000 to handle game logic not truley realizing that the chip was actually slowing the system down; that's why games like Checkard Flag, Cybermorph, Missle Command 3D, and even some 2.5D games like AVP and "White Men Can't Jump" ran very slow because the main plan was understood to use the 68000 for game logic and let the other chips do all the 3D work; that's the way Atari sold it. The M68K was put in there to give people a quote "Warm and fuzzy feeling"... It did anything but that in the end, however it didn't stop the ambitious from trying after Hasbro released the system to the public in the mid 90s.
 
They say when one doesn't learn from history, one is doomed to repeat it so it's always a good idea to tell your story even though I might be comming off a little strong in a new forum like this. It's always good to hear another side of the spectrum and as you can probably guess from the rambling, I could go on and on about the many adventures in "Jaggy Land" as in BJL, behind JAGGY lines, get it... I've been thinking about selling my Jag collection and have already sold a few games on ebay; I even have the infamous first and second generation "Skunkboards". For what it's worth I've enjoyed the Jag for many years now and I've learned more about computers fooling with the Jaguar reading the tech manuals other tools Atari release to the programmers of the day. The Jag system (The Big Cat) can be quite a system to tame if you'r just starting out and does require prior programming knowledge. They say it's best to just start simply by learning C programming language, but you WILL have to know how to program in Assembler because the C tools Atari released to the programmers is in efficient unless you're using the 68000. The Jag GPU doesn't have access to the main RAM unless you create a work around, which does exist out there, but for C programming, you'll only have internal cache memory in the GPU and the DSP (sound chip) due to an unresolved hardware issue. I know the message I'm giving is a little generalized, but they are very much key to having some level of success programming that system; the Jaguar was really rushed out the door too soon in an effort to capture the market of it's time, but if Atari had put more time and effort in to the system and released it around 95 when the PS1 was released, it would've out performed Playstation and Saturn becuase of the 64bit blitter the Jag contained and the other processors as well. The game "Tempest 2000" is a wonderful example what the blitter was capable of using the GPU for the 3D and the Blitter for all of the special effects.
 
If the 68000 chip had it's internal memory like the other processors did, they would have given the programmers some head way to make up for any lost effeciency because the Atari Jaguar data bus is a bottleneck with all five processors sitting on top of it with the GPU having no access to main RAM without a work around. Some suggest the 68020 would've been a bit more expensive, but more appropriate because it having it's on intern memory in it.  But as you can see, I can go on and on, but it just shows the nature of the Atari Jaguar internal workings and I still didn't cover it all, but I hope this little information will be helpful in some way to someone.

I have a soft spot in my heart for the Jaguar. In fact, it's the only Atari console that I have a complete retail collection for. I bought my first Jaguar with Wolfenstein 3D and Raiden in 1994. Twenty years on, a Jaguar is always hooked up to a tv and regularly played. But what is it about the Jaguar - the last true Atari - that makes it so endearing?

As much as it was an epic commercial failure, the Jaguar also signified wide-eyed hope and optimism. It was Atari's 64-bit Hail Mary pass. You get the sense in reading the interviews with Sam Tramiel that Atari Corp. genuinely believed that they would be dancing in the end zone and send Nintendo, Sega and that upstart 3DO back to the lockers. I loved that about the Jaguar and I was on board.

As it was, the dream wouldn't materialize. Atari would become a logo for officially licensed product and Jaguar would be unduly maligned by countless adolescent you tubers hoping to be the next AVGN. But if you can get past the hate, there are number of great games on the system - many exclusive to the Jag.

Indeed, for every Checkered Flag or Double Dragon V there is an Iron Soldier, a Tempest 2000, a Rayman or an AVP. Better still, many great games continue to come out on the Jaguar twenty years later. Games like Skyhammer, Iron Soldier 2, and Zero 5 are all fantastic post Atari releases. Plus, there are a handful of active developers like Reboot, MD Games and Orion that are showing this cat has many, many more lives.

So Jaguar fans, what do you love about the last true Atari?
 
 

That's fantastic. HSW definitely did not deserve the scorn he received over the years.
 
  

Thanks for sharing Justin.
Like I said on FB, I'm an E.T. apologist. Anyone that thinks this is the worst 2600 game, let alone video game of all-time, hasn't played many 2600 games.
 
I have fond memories of getting this for Christmas & playing it. It wasn't my favorite game in my collection but it was fun and I enjoyed. I had no idea it had this reputation until many years later.

There's a new interview with Howard Scott Warshaw out this week. It's actually quite a nice interview and I wanted to share the article with you. This quote really hit home:
 

“But, you know, the funny thing about the whole ET situation is if I were to take two more days, and gone in and cleaned up the well thing, the falling in, and straightened out a few more things, it probably would have made it just an OK game and we probably wouldn’t be talking about it right now. It would have literally changed history in a way that would have been much less interesting to me.” --Howard Scott Warshaw    
You can read the full story here:
http://www.playboy.com/articles/the-guy-who-made-the-worst-game-ever-has-nothing-to-apologize-for

Hi guys, I just posted to the Blog about a great article I read on another site. It's by Jeremy Parish about the Atari Lynx, its impact in the portable wars and its legacy today. The article is very well written and touches on all things Atari after Warner Communications sold Atari to Jack Tramiel. I thought Jeremy Parish made a lot of good points and really understood what was going on at that time.
 
More on the Blog: http://www.atari.io/?p=1436
 
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