Black ICE/White Noise: The Great Atari Jaguar CD Title That Never Was…

[DegasElite]

Hey,

I have been studying up on "Black ICE/White Noise," the cyberpunk RPG thriller for the Atari Jaguar CD, that was never completed before Atari's demise in 1996. It has been intriguing looking up information on it. It really interests me about how much effort was put into making this game. Well, I really don't know how much of the game is out there, if anything significant at all. I know that there are interactive video scenes compressed into Cinepak code when the player interacts with NPCs to get information and other things in the game. I have watched videos on YouTube about scenes from this still embryonic-stage game (or, maybe fetal-stage, if you might want to get technical about it). There is a documentary about the game that is coming soon, but I have only seen the trailer on YouTube. I am sure that some people are most curious about this obscure, incomplete game. I obviously am. Does anyone else know anything more about this topic? I assume it might be very little. Atari kept it really under wraps. Thanks for listening. 

[DegasElite]

Thanks, Lost Dragon. I will look into this.

[DegasElite]

Well, it is definitely impressive. Thanks for showing me this link. Appreciated, as always.

Edited April 7, 2017 by DegasElite

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

Yeah, there is quite a bit of code around for it, I guess. 9560, I believe.

[DegasElite]

You mean that there are 9,560 lines of code? Interesting. Welcome to the site, by the way. :O)

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

No.

There are many ISO 9560 Files for this that exist, I guess. I am told, that it is raw code and it amounts to some 20GB in the uncompressed state it is in now and being unencrypted.

Years ago, Curt Vendel ended up with everything that still survived of this rather ambitious Atari project -- Atari had spent between $3 and 5 million dollars getting it to the 30% completion state in ended up at (was it is a higher percentage? ). The last day of production on this was, Sept 7th 1995, I believe. The Black Ice Team was disbanded and the project was abandoned that day. All materials were trashed or auctioned off by Jack/Sam Tramiel/the famous ( infamous? ) Don Thomas Actions of 1996, I understand. The HDDs and everything just disappeared to it and were lost, it seems. The HDDs have never been found and Curt did not seem to have them. None of the Team was allowed to keep anything from the project by Leonard or Atari Security when they each left and everything halted. Little of the project still survives nowadays, you know. The sands of time have claimed everything else that existed and it has been lost, it seems...  Really sad. 😞😞😞😞

 

 

 

[DegasElite]

Yeah. It is. 20 gigabytes of data that is uncompressed. That's a lot of code. Interesting. It's too bad that they at Atari just gave up on it. It was innovative for its time in 1995-96. Too bad. :O(

Edited November 19, 2020 by DegasElite

[DegasElite]

I had heard, though, it was closer to 60-80% complete. That was what I had heard on the Internet on certain sites devoted to video gaming. Interesting.

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

Yeah, it amounts to 25 or 26 (27?) Recordable CDs that still exist, it seems. I understand, Atari paid $7.50ea for the CDs back then. 🙂🙂

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

3 minutes ago, DegasElite said:

I had heard, though, it was closer to 60-80% complete. That was what I had heard on the Internet on certain sites devoted to video gaming. Interesting.

I haven't heard it was that high. Lots of conjecture and rumors though on it.

Many people would love to get it or find the code that is left to see. 🙂🙂

[DegasElite]

Sure would be interesting to see it completed. Wishful thinking.

[DegasElite]

3 hours ago, PSVITAGAMER2012 said:

Atari paid $7.50ea for the CDs back then.

That much for blanks? They must have been VERY high quality discs, then, to justify that price. Again, fascinating.

[Sabertooth]

The lead for this project, BJ West, still has various builds for sale. http://www.bjwest.com/BIWN/

In an interview with Arcade Attack, West indicates that the game was 50-70% complete. 

https://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/bj-west/

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

28 minutes ago, Sabertooth said:

The lead for this project, BJ West, still has various builds for sale. http://www.bjwest.com/BIWN/

In an interview with Arcade Attack, West indicates that the game was 50-70% complete. 

https://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/bj-west/

B.J. West was a Graphic Artist on it and not the Lead Programmer or anything. Ken Rose was that along with Pradip. B.J. West did come up with the ideas for The Chaos Agenda/Black Ice\White Noise though. And much of the Art in the game. B.J. only has a small portion of the game, you know. There are 25 different Revision Discs to the whole game, each one a different "build", you know. Plus, some Source Code and a Soundtrack Disc, too. 🙂🙂  I have seen all of it in person myself. Quite a lot of it to look at and be in awe of and to even still exist after being thrown in a Dumpster as complete junk! Truly, truly sad crap. 😞😞😞😞

Edited November 19, 2020 by PSVITAGAMER2012
Some word edits

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

47 minutes ago, DegasElite said:

That much for blanks? They must have been VERY high quality discs, then, to justify that price. Again, fascinating.

Yes, they were Recordable CDs, you know. That wasn't in the mainstream of tech on the consumer level yet even for PCs or Notebooks really. "That's Video 700MB CDs", have seen them all myself. Made In Japan. 🙂🙂  I was told, that Atari paid $7.50ea for those back in 1994/1995. 🙂

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

9 hours ago, DegasElite said:

You mean that there are 9,560 lines of code? Interesting. Welcome to the site, by the way. :O)

Oh wow, I would guess that is a "very light" figure, in all real and true honesty, DegasElite. 😄😄. Not sure how to calculate that with 20GB of raw JagCD code! 😄  It isn't "actually" JagCD code, as such, you know, though. 🙂🙂. It is in a different format than that now, from what I understand about it. 🙂

Thank you for the welcome to the Site, DegasElite.

[DegasElite]

You're welcome. I guess with over 20 gigabytes of data it would be more lines of code than that. I didn't factor the 25 discs into the equation. :O)

[DegasElite]

I thought that you meant the main code for one disc. But, I guess with a 700 MB CD-R, it still would be well more than 9,560 lines of code. It's actually a lot of space, for a compact disc, for most things. Also, the Jaguar CD can handle disc capacities of up to 790 MB. but, the CDs never went that high for the Jag. However, I think that there were 800MB CDs. Well, there were the GD-ROMs for the Dreamcast, which could go up to a gigabyte in size. But, I am sure that those discs were specially made for that purpose.

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

50 minutes ago, DegasElite said:

You're welcome. I guess with over 20 gigabytes of data it would be more lines of code than that. I didn't factor the 25 discs into the equation. :O)

Well, the 25 Discs (26 if you include the Soundtrack Disc) and the Source Code, several MBs of that I have too, it amounts to a bit of weight, and a bit of a pile to look over and widen your eyes with. 😄😄  Most wouldn't believe that they were looking at $3-5 million dollars wasted and a lot of blood, sweat, tears and sleepless nights just thrown away by four upper level people in a company... Really and truly a really sorry sad state of affairs there, you know. It kind of pisses off an old Jaguar fan too!! Just what all did they really throw away in the trash? Did they care? Did they even know? The Black Ice Team really did know and care!!! 😄😄😞😞

Edited November 20, 2020 by PSVITAGAMER2012
Edit and word additions

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

18 minutes ago, DegasElite said:

I thought that you meant the main code for one disc. But, I guess with a 700 MB CD-R, it still would be well more than 9,560 lines of code. It's actually a lot of space, for a compact disc, for most things. Also, the Jaguar CD can handle disc capacities of up to 790 MB. but, the CDs never went that high for the Jag. However, I think that there were 800MB CDs. Well, there were the GD-ROMs for the Dreamcast, which could go up to a gigabyte in size. But, I am sure that those discs were specially made for that purpose.

Yeah, GD-ROM sort of dealt with Windows CE and stuff, from what I remember now. The Dreamcast was neat, I got one at Launch on 9/9/99. 🥰🥰

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

8 hours ago, DegasElite said:

Sure would be interesting to see it completed. Wishful thinking.

Been working on that very subject since 2010/2012, you know. Making some progress... 🙂🙂. Some progress is better than none at all, man! 😄

Do you have your allotted amount of code finished to turn in yet? Are you ready for even more code to review and edit now? 😄

Keep wishing, man. Wishes DO come true, DegasElite. Just concentrate...

[DegasElite]

Interesting. I don't have any code for it, if that is what you mean. I was just curious to see if it could come to fruition someday.

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

40 minutes ago, DegasElite said:

Interesting. I don't have any code for it, if that is what you mean. I was just curious to see if it could come to fruition someday.

It may here, in some neat form in the future, you know.

P.S.

I was just giving you a hard time, man.

P.S.S.

Would you like some code? 😄😄

[PSVITAGAMER2012]

Off and on, I'm always gathering a little info or something and moving forward a little bit -- Covid-19 now is making things hard on everyone nowadays, it seems. 😞😞

We are shutdown and sheltered in place until further notice here... Our Covid-19 cases are soaring every day, getting worse all the time! 😞😞

[DegasElite]

Oh. OK. That's cool. Sorry, didn't realize it was a joke. It's all good. :O)