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Is a Modem for online gaming possible on the ATARI Jaguar


Chubbz

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So many missed opportunities with the Jag. It literally had a keypad on the controller, they could've shipped the Jag with an online service (think SegaNet) that provided early online access to email, chat, and the web for a low monthly subscription cost. Atari had spent the second half of the '80s literally trying to be a computer company, they had the resources to do something like this, why not go for it?

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Just now, RickR said:

Did they, though?  I imagine everyone with the knowledge and vision had left by then. 

I know they had the lines and they had the computing power to get started with something.

What Atari really needed was somebody in the building with the willpower and authority to empower a small group of young, ambitious, creative minds with that scrappy '90s gen-x attitude - just a handful of them working in a small group, having fun, taking on the world, throwing two sheets to the wind knowing they were small and they were the underdog and they were going up against Nintendo and Sega and Amiga and Sony and Apple and Sun and NeXT and everything else, and just pick something and go full bore with it and make it cool.

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Yeah, that would have been awesome! 

It boggles the mind to think of all the talent they had and allowed to blow away like dust in the wind.  The brain power at the Grass Valley research office alone could have taken them to such highs.  But sadly, Warner management just had no idea how to treat these creative people and their revolutionary ideas. 

 

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26 minutes ago, RickR said:

Grass Valley

BINGO. Say it a million times. I just sent a video message to @MaximumRD like an hour ago, regarding Amiga saying this very thing. That is so right on Rick.

 

26 minutes ago, RickR said:

It boggles the mind to think of all the talent they had and allowed to blow away like dust in the wind.  The brain power at the Grass Valley research office alone could have taken them to such highs.  But sadly, Warner management just had no idea how to treat these creative people and their revolutionary ideas. 

Speaking of Cameron and Joe, in all seriousness, it would have been nice for Atari during the  Warner / Atari XL / Hawkeye era to have set up a subscription service not unlike a PlayNet (or the fictional Mutiny). Or at the very least, court other small companies to want to develop services like that to run on the Atari 8-Bit computers. Warner could've offered all sorts of incentives, and imagine buying tickets to Warner movies, online, in 1984, or playing the latest adventure game online for the Atari 8-Bit. That would've been the gateway into an internet age for the ST, or better yet the Amiga had Atari not lost the Grass Valley gurus. Whatever Jaguar would've become, would've been lightyears ahead of what it was.

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I was always a bit disappointed that the Atari 8-bit computers had modems, but there was no Atari-hosted service to go with them.  It's true that that was the case for the other computer companies too, but it sure felt like Atari had a lot to offer with games.  They built the infrastructure, but then left the market to Prodigy, Compuserve, etc.  ATARILINK with high scores and game competitions would have been spectacular! 

 

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