Re: Clipped Claws by Boris Kretzinger book on the history of the ATARI JAGUAR - FREE -

[MaximumRD]

Posted over on Atariage recent member Boris Kretzinger kindly posted to announce and share his book (two years work and over 300 pages!) about the History of the Atari Jaguar. Since it is free to view or even download on in various formats, available publicly to anyone and he's asked outright for people to spread the word, I thought I'd post here for those that might not be aware. Check it out at this link! 

https://archive.org/details/clipped-claws

 

 

 

[TrekMD]

Some have pointed to some factual errors.  Hopefully, they reach out to Boris to those corrected.

[MaximumRD]

7 hours ago, TrekMD said:

Some have pointed to some factual errors.  Hopefully, they reach out to Boris to those corrected.

Of course😆 Oh trust me, they started rolling in as soon as it was available as you'd expect from people in the hobby or having had actual experience of history with the console. Hopefully, all are respectful about it (I know how some in the Jag communities can be) I am sure he did his best and I assume he can revise it if need be as corrections are offered. Knowing what I know about certain topics I've seen many articles , documentaries , movies and it can certainly be frustrating when certain details are either misreported or left out or even in some cases change to reflect a bias  🤮 In THIS CASE though I am sure none of that applies or at least not intentionally. 

UPDATE: Having peeked back at his original thread 😉 over on AA he has heard, noted and seems willing to receive feedback mentioning an Email people can use in the preface and update / revise accordingly. So that sounds like the best outcome. That bodes well imho. 

Edited February 26, 2023 by MaximumRD

[TrekMD]

Given it is a digital release, making changes is easier.  Hopefully, folks email him to make corrections and, as you say, they are respectful. 

[RickR]

I thank you for this post and the author for the book. 

I'm taking the PDF version on my tablet on a plane trip soon. 

 

[RickR]

I also checked out a Micheal Westmore book and "The Autobiography of James T. Kirk" for Kindle from the library.  Those should keep me busy. 

[Boris]

Cheers everyone! Just found this thread here and wanted to say thanks for spreading the word! And while I am at it: I just uploaded the second edition onto the Internet Archive. It includes corrections and additional information after a conversation with Rob Lodes, composer at Atari at that time, as well as an appendix with all press releases I found about the Jaguar. The page preview on the Internet Archive is not updated yet, but if you download the PDF, you will get the newest version.
 

https://archive.org/details/clipped-claws/

Edited August 3, 2023 by Boris

[TrekMD]

Thank you!  I just downloaded the new version! 

[Justin]

From the Preface:

Quote

Please be advised that this is not meant to be a technical manual, but focuses on the history of Atari and the Jaguar console, and the challenges that programmers, artists and publish- ers had to face. Moreover, I feel the need to emphasize that this book will not tell the whole story.

@Boris I absolutely love that you come out and say that upfront. Thank you for all the hard work you put into this gem of a book.

[Boris]

Thank you for your kind words. I will keep improving and updating it and am glad people enjoy it.

[RickR]

Great!  I just downloaded the new version.  I had the prior version on my tablet and really enjoyed it! 

[Jinroh]

Very great! I adding it to my reading list. 😄

 

[Paul Westphal]

I just tried to ask Bruce Carso if the Jaguar CD development folder he showed me when I spent 3 weeks down there survived the recent house fire and he said he didn't remember it... He is getting old. I'll have to call him and trigger his memory.

It was a huge folder containing the entire development of the Jag CD, from initial sketches, emails between the plastic molding company ( somewhere down south, I believe ) and Phillips... just EVERYTHING! I sat on his couch and thumbed through it for a few hours. There were drop tests; It failed like 7 out of 10... they had a time of it.. there were emails regarding the software development timetable and lists of current titles and stages of their development... you name it..

 

I'll give him a call and find out what happened to it..

[Paul Westphal]

I'm still reading it.. I did not know Psygnosis was working on a dev kit !

Best quote so far " If Atari had
understood that the games were the business model and
invested appropriately, then those hardware bugs could
have been found earlier, they could have had more launch
games, that‘s what they could have done differently.”

[Boris]

On 9/2/2023 at 7:05 PM, Paul Westphal said:

I just tried to ask Bruce Carso if the Jaguar CD development folder he showed me when I spent 3 weeks down there survived the recent house fire and he said he didn't remember it... He is getting old. I'll have to call him and trigger his memory.

It was a huge folder containing the entire development of the Jag CD, from initial sketches, emails between the plastic molding company ( somewhere down south, I believe ) and Phillips... just EVERYTHING! I sat on his couch and thumbed through it for a few hours. There were drop tests; It failed like 7 out of 10... they had a time of it.. there were emails regarding the software development timetable and lists of current titles and stages of their development... you name it..

 

I'll give him a call and find out what happened to it..

Cheers Paul. That sounds indeed like a heck of a folder. Thanks again for sharing your memories. If this one should surface one day, that would be awesome. Hopefully, it has survived. To this day, so little is known about the JagCD at all. I can't even seem to get to people who were in any way involved into the hardware development of that add-on. Well, maybe in the future, who knows ...

Edit: Well, to be honest, Leonard Tramiel would be an obvious choice in that regard, but I was lucky to get a few sentences from him at all regarding the Jaguar, so I'm not too confident asking about any CD stuff ... but who knows ...

Edited September 6, 2023 by Boris