We've glossed over this console in a few other
videos, as it was really released in the prime of console competition and innovation. Everything on paper about the Jaguar should
have send it hurtling to startdom, but it remains a lesser known machine of the 90s. We've covered the past of Atari in previous
videos along with the ST, so let's wade into this Jaguar laden jungle, beginning in 1985. Technology wise, a hell of a year to be alive. Atari had been known as a gaming company for
years and after buying out Atari's Consumer division, Jack Tramiel wasn't about to let
go of that heritage. With existing Atari stock on his hands, his
first job was to push out existing console stocks of the Darth Vader style 2600's and
the Atari XL Series, based on the original Atari 8 bit home micros. This kept money coming in whilst they finalised
and launched their new Atari ST machine; the system Atari Corporation's future depended
upon. But Tramiel also recognised there was room
for budget video game consoles to compete with the reignited games market thanks in
part to the Nintendo Entertainment System. In late 1985 Michael Katz was poached from
Epyx to run Atari's new Entertainment, Electronics division. In 1986 they would re-launch the Atari 2600,
as the 2600 Junior alongside the upgraded Atari 7800. Somewhat aging hardware, but they ignited
nostalgia amongst fans and both offered a vast array of easy to use home titles thanks
to backwards compatibility. In 1987 the XE Games System was launched. Based on the aging 8 bit Atari line, this
machine offered high compatibility with original software and peripherals, but was sleeker
and furnished to fit in with the recently released Atari ST. It also sported some new titles such as Barnyard
Blaster and Bug Hunt along with various repackaged existing titles. Blessed with a trusted name, the initial production
run of 100,000 systems was sold over the Christmas 1987 season. However the specifications of these machines
were basic, and although the range was selling reasonably well, they weren't really kitted
for competing with the current systems in the console market, let alone new hardware
on the horizon. Forward to 1989, Jack Tramiel had retired
from daily operations of Atari and his son Sam was now in charge, although Jack still
remained on the Atari board. Atari's ST are selling well, but there's still
plenty of room in the advancing gaming market. This year would mark the entry of two significant
machines to the Atari line designed to plug that gap. The first would be the Atari STE; an upgraded
ST model featuring a blitter chip, improved graphics and enriched sound. The second would be a device pitched to them
from Michael Katz's former company, Epyx. Designed by Dave Needle and RJ Mical, formly
members of the Amiga design team, along with their CEO - David Morse - also from Amiga. Epyx first approached Nintendo regarding their
new handheld device, called the Handy in 1987. However, Nintendo had already began work on
the Game Boy and weren't really interested. Epyx then approached Atari, with whom they
already had software licensing deals in place, to request funding and were pleased to find
Jack Tramiel was very interested. Atari had attempted to produce their own portable
machine - The Atari 2200 - but were experiencing a few issues around design and implementation. But blessed with many innovative features,
the system showcased by Epyx was at the cutting edge of design, poised to have a colour LCD
screen and incorporate 16 bit design elements. It was agreed that Atari would manufacture
and market the handheld and Epyx would supply the games. This allowed Atari to enter the handheld market
with very little work or investment. With a handheld in the bag which would soon
adopt the Lynx name, it was time to look at the console market once again. Given that Atari already had the basis of
a games machine in their ST computer, they began work on a prototype in 1988 called the
Super XE. The Super XE was conceived to be an upgrade
to their XE Games System; a cross between the ST, but with a double clocked Motorola
68000 CPU and a Transputer Blossom video card - this was based around a parallel microchip
design by Bristol company, Inmos, and was in effect a pre-cursor to multi-core processors. This technology was later incorporated into
the extremely rare Atari Transputer Workstation. However Atari would again look externally,
this time to find a company to complete and implement their chip and circuit design, and
fortunately Richard Miller from Atari's Texas R&D division had connections with a gent by
the name of John Mathieson. Over in Cambridge, England, Martin Brennan,
Ben Cleese and John Mathieson, had established a company called Flare Technology in 1986
after the demise of their previous company, Sinclair Research. Their first business was developing a technology
demonstration system for Amstrad called the Flare One. This system was intended to become a games
machine with high end audio and video capabilities and was rumored to share design aspects from
an abandoned Sinclair machine, the Loki - a ZX Spectrum derived home computer based around
a Z80 CPU but with custom sound and graphics chips designed to rival the upcoming Atari
ST and Amiga machines. The Flare One ended up being used in some
arcade cabinets including some quiz machines produced by Bellfruit. It was also further developed for use in the
Konix Multisystem Slipstream prototype and had some impressive capabilities; It could
move sprites and block graphics faster than an Atari ST with up to 256 colours and could
even handle 3D models akin to the 32 bit Acorn Archimedes. But Konix sadly experienced financial difficulties
and it was not to be. Thankfully Atari's connections to Flare, along
with their gained expertise allowed Atari to hand the Super XE over to them for completion
in 1989, the same year Michael Katz would move to Sega and push the Genesis. Flare would push the design of the Super XE
incorporating a dedicated object processor called the Panther after the car owned by
Martin Brennan's wife; a Panther Kallista, alongside an Ensoniq sound processor. The setup allowing a huge 8,192 on screen
colours from a palette of 262,144 and with impressive sprite handling capabilities. The system would then adopt the Panther name
as a whole. But Flaire would also begin working on an
additional project under the Flare Two studio name, which would incorporate similar features. This system was designed to be a 64 bit powerhouse,
which with the help of their Konix Multisystem work, convinced Atari would destroy the likes
of the Sega Mega Drive whilst remaining cost effective. Development of both the Panther and the new
Jaguar continued, following in the naming style of ever increasing cat sizes, with the
handheld dubbed after the smaller Lynx, but by 1991 it was clear that the Jaguar was progressing
far quicker than expected. Despite the Panther being pretty much ready
for launch, it was cancelled so that Atari and Flare could concentrate on bringing something
even more special to market. The Atari Lynx had by now already launched,
and although initial sales were compelling with 90% of it's initial 1989 release shipment
selling within a matter of days, the Nintendo Game Boy had slowed penetration. Despite the advanced Lynx hardware, battery
life and low cost seemed order of the day in this fledgling market. However, the cutting edge console market was
going in the opposite direction, with consumers demanding more bits and more power. Atari had also updated their home computer
line in 1989 with the ST Enhanced model, providing a blitter chip, more colours and improved
sound abilities. But a lack of specific software along with
a slow uptake in the United States meant that Atari's market penetration was limited. Atari would need to go all out, and with Flare
working on the Jaguar, Atari themselves continued improving their ST line with their next home
computer, the Atari Falcon. A machine which would borrow design aspects
from the new Jaguar technology including the incorporation of a Digital Signal Processor
and the ability to utilise some Jaguar accessories, including the Joypads. With the Sega Mega Drive gaining global dominance
based on it's advanced design and reasonable cost, The Atari Jaguar felt like Atari's ticket
to get back in the game, and looking at the specifications, it's not hard to see why; The console has 5 processors in 3 chips. The first is Tom, consisting of 750,000 transistors
and clocked at 26.591MHz. The 32 bit RISC architecture is responsible
for the system's graphical processing. This chip also incorporates a 64 bit object
processor and 64 bit blitter processor for logical operations. The system could technically handle unlimited
hardware sprites. Although you're always limited by the processing
time. The second chip, Jerry, has 600,000 transistors
and is a 32-bit Digital Signal Processor clocked at 26.6MHz. It's able to produce CD Quality sound, with
full stereo capability and wavetable synthesis. The processor can also perform complex mathematical
functions. A Motorola 68000 clocked at 13.295MHz provides
general purpose ability. The consoles 64 bit bus can transport a whopping
106.4 Mega Bytes per second 16.8 million colours are available allowing
for 2D games which look staggering. Port wise, the Jag has a 32 bit cartridge
slot, an RF video output and a video edge connector supporting both NTSC and PAL. There's also a Digital Signal Processor port
for serial communication, which can be connected to the Atari Lynx ComLynx port. 2 controller ports are provided, and the controllers
are apparently the same as designed for the Panther and are hefty beasts. Sporting 12 selection buttons on the lower
half, which can be embezzled with a slot in card bespoke to each game, and a fairly standard
3+2+DPad layout at the top. Many people find these controllers cumbersome,
large and uncomfortable. But I actually really like them. I haven't got particularly big hands, but
it seems to fit perfectly and the selection buttons just speak to my always conscious
craving for keyboard style variety built in to a console. Most controllers stop working when the wire
gets too bent, but this one has actually started to come apart and still works fine. I'm not sure whether that means it's quality
for working, or crap for falling apart. Either way, "I love it". IBM would manufacture the hardware and custom
chip designs under a $500 million deal, with Atari wanting to retain the image of a homegrown
American system, despite it's somewhat English roots. In many ways the Jaguar is actually pretty
similar to the unreleased Panther in both it's custom chip abilities and the use of
a Motorola 68000 control processor. In fact, even the Jaguar's pack-in game Cybermorph
is supposedly a port from the Panther hardware it was originally developed for, and may explain
it's somewhat lack-lustre draw distance. Being involved in early development titles,
Jeff Minter, of Tempest 2000 fame, has also confirmed this and cites that even with the
huge sprite allowance, putting too many on a single scanline would require too much processing
time and cause a tear across the affected row. However the technical differences were enough
for Atari to negate their Mega Drive and Super Nintendo rival for something considerably
more hardcore. The problem was, that hardcore still took
another 2 years. Atari's computer development would arrive
first, with the Atari Falcon arriving in 1992, but unfortunately also the year Windows 3.1
would arrive and begin changing the IBM Compatible landscape. It was also the same year Sega launched their
Sega CD, allowing a reasonable expansion on the Genesis hardware. By September 1993, Atari's old rival Commodore
had released their console entry in the guise of the Amiga CD 32, packing an AGA chipset,
32 bits and a CD-ROM drive, it was headed in the right direction. Only a month later the 3DO Company would launch,
The 3DO, surprisingly. Based on a 32 bit RISC CPU and offering impressive
FMV and 3D capabilities. The specifications which made the Jaguar look
impressive, were still impressive, but the market had already began watering down. The
Jaguar would be the last in this wave of super consoles to arrive, unveiled at the August
1993 Chicago Consumer Entertainment Show and with a test North American launch throughout
New York and San Francisco in November 1993. However it had a few advantages. Firstly, it was cheaper. Even launching for $50 more than Atari's quoted
price of $200 is was still some $100 less than the European focussed CD32, and almost
a third of the price of a 3DO - Atari hadn't been able to use their "Power without the
Price" slogan for the Lynx, but the Jaguar was back on familiar ground. Second, the Jaguar had seemingly leapt an
entire generation. Whilst the competition were churning out 16
and 32 bit consoles. Here, was a machine claiming to offer a whopping
64 bits of bus space. Could it be true? The initial advertising claimed so, boldly
stamping the tagline "Do the Math", and magazine screenshots looked impressive. But in the flesh the Cybermorph pack in game
didn't look quite as impressive as 64 bits should.... did it? People were playing StarFox by now on 16 bit
systems, and most people who used a somewhat simplistic and impaired notion of bits to
derive hardware ability expected a game that looked 4 times as good. Cybermorph looked pretty good, but not 4 times
as good!?... We'll come back to that in a second. Atari were hoping that the initial wow factor
would ride their system straight into the homes of gamers, but had shipped only 17,000
units in their inital test market - fewer than they were hoping for. Still, press reaction was fairly positive,
possibly with everyone still whipped into a blinding 64 bit frenzy and Atari had promised
some impressive add-ons. These included a CD-ROM based expansion, dial
up internet link for online gaming, MPEG-2 video card and even a virtual reality headset,
riding on the early 90s wave of virtual reality arcade machines. By early 1994 the system was rolled out through
North America, with Europe following in mid 1994 and even Korea and Japan witnessing their
own launch (where only a meagre 5,000 were sold), and even though some system worthy
games had started to surface, in part due to Jeff Minter having a headstart on the Panther
system, software was still lacking, and it's not even worth me repeating how essential
software is to a machine's success. We've all witnessed it countless times. Cybermorph was the standard pack in game,
and although it showed that the system could do 3D, it was lacking in playability, mostly
as the landscape was drawn literally a few metres in front of you, leading to the all
too familiar phrase.... "Where did you learn to drive".... NOT IN
DENSE FOG APPARENTLY! The reason for this was mainly due to Atari
rushing through the Jaguar's design. Although the system had launched some 2 years
after the Panther was supposedly ready, Sam Tramiel and the Atari executives still hassled
Flare like crazy to get the custom hardware finalised for 1991 so that product testing
could be carried out during 1992. This resulted in 3 factors which severely
limited the Jaguar's impact. The first was buggy and somewhat crippled
hardware. The custom chip design wasn't quite complete
and was one register short of being a much smoother experience. The system was massively powerful as a 2D
system and pretty good for 3D, but having an additional address register on the object
processor along with a slightly increased cache would have allowed the hardware to easily
rival next generation consoles such as the Playstation and Sega Saturn. Second was the poorly written development
documentation. It's commonly known that the custom dual processor
setup of the Jaguar was difficult to code for, deterring many developers, but yet the
Sega Saturn had a similar, if not more complicated design. The main snag was that developers were for
the most part, coding blind. Game designers tried to seek help from Atari
for months, but due to drastic under-staffing, it mostly fell on deaf ears. In conjunction with this, and the third point
is the development tools. Like the documentation, they were unfinished,
buggy and pretty unhelpful. Contrast this to the Sony Playstation who
provided the best tools they could for game developers and you can see where the difference
is. Atari had promised a swathe of 200 developers
already on-board and producing titles, but these 3 problems alone, meant a lot of developers
just dropped out. The ones which remained mostly stuck with
what they knew and rather than utilising the powerful custom chips, just stuck with the
machine's Motorola 68000 processor. Rather than game upon game of brilliant graphics
and sound, we mostly witnessed a wave of games which looked almost identical to their 16
bit counterparts, and the reason is, because they were. It was far easier to just port across an Amiga
or Mega Drive title written around the 68000 chip than pour hours and hours of work into
creating something bespoke. But these weren't the only problems. Not only did Atari not have the resources
to produce many of their own internal games, but they set third party licencing costs so
high that it hardly seemed worth it. Combined with the hard reputation Jack Tramiel
had built up towards developers and dealers in the years prior, this wan't adding up to
be a pretty picture. For all the advantages the Jaguar had, Atari
were seemingly doing their best to negate them. And if it couldn't get any worse, all those
bits, started to become somewhat of a sticking point rather than a selling point. Publications and television programs, especially
over in the United States starting questioning whether the system was really 64 bits at all,
like it was be all and end all of technology. You see, the Jaguar is built around the two
custom 32 bit chips, Tom, the GPU and Jerry, the Digital Signal Processor. Both of these sit around the 16 bit Motorola
68000, which can in effect be by-passed altogether or just left in charge of controller inputs. But because the 64 bits of the Jaguar were
made up from the 32 bits of Tom and Jerry, many argued it wasn't really 64 bit, and this
wasn't helped by the developers just using the 16 bit 68000 for processing..... Despite the fact that that the Jaguar still
has a blisteringly fast 64 bit memory bus connecting these chips, including the Blitter
and Object Processor, the claim and lack of gaming evidence still helped to infuse a bad
even though potentially unjustified reputation regarding the hardware. However in October 1994, a game which had
long been promised, but suffered a few delays would emerge and help rectify that view, just
a little bit.... Alien vs. Predator had been slapped in magazines
and on TV shows for what seemed like years, and although planned as an early launch title,
it was still a treat to behold when it arrived. The game was originally conceived as a Lynx
title, but was switched as Atari began to place all their eggs in the Jaguar basket
(never puts eggs in a Jaguar shaped basket kids. They'll get eaten). Developed by Rebellion, working closely with
Atari, the latter development of the Jaguar hardware and game were very intertwined, with
some hardware tweaks made as a result of game requirements. With various concessions granted by Sam Tramiel,
including double cartridge capacity, to 4MB and a later release date, the game turned
out to be one of the essential purchases for the system and was almost universally praised in reviews
for it's tense atmosphere and foreboding game experience... apart from the odd magazine which really didn't
get it. One thing I'm gutted about was the Lynx was
originally intended to be pair-able to the Jaguar via. the Com-Lynx port, allowing it to act as a
motion scanner for the game, however dwindling budgets just didn't allow for this scope of
integration. It would have been so damn cool though. For me, personally. Seeing that game in action was like a revelation. It was my two favourite films combined into
something playable and mind blowing. It probably impressed me even more than Doom,
and that's saying something. Talking about Doom. That was also released the following month
and actually developed by id Software and John Carmack himself. Harking back to those hardware constraints
he was quoted as saying "If the Jaguar had dumped the 68000 and offered dynamic cache
on the risc processors with some buffering on the blitter, it would have put up a fight
with the Playstation". John has also mentioned that it's one of his
favourite Doom versions and if you compare it to other iterations of the time, it's clear
how advanced the Jaguar hardware really is, despite it's flaws. It's also the only console version without
music as the DSP chip was required for maths processing, and this adds a somewhat atmospheric
slant to the game, almost reminiscent of Alien vs. Predator. 1994 also witnessed the the announcement of
the Jaguar Voice & Data Communicator, known as the JVM. This allowed direct dial up play between console
owners, although only about 100 units were made and only one game, Ultra Vortek, supports
the modem by entering 911 on the keypad at game startup. Other games were released in the Christmas
run up. Some good. Some bad. Christmas 1994 would mark the first real Christmas
period for the Jaguar and although take up was somewhat stilted in the US of A. Over
in Europe and especially the UK, demand was strong. In fact, as with so many other systems we've
covered, demand was outstripping supply. But the tiny, 12 strong Atari team over in
this region had a tough time from the beginning. The Jaguar hit the ground running in mid 1994
and soon began outselling the much more expensive 3DO despite the European division having next
to no marketing budget. Most press coverage was done through interviews
and reviews rather than paid advertising, but this still created considerable demand,
with the Atari brand seen as much stronger over here riding on the success of the ST. However, despite being promised 250k units
for the Christmas period, only 25k were delivered in early December, with another 25k just days
before Christmas. People wanted the machines, Atari just couldn't
ship them. It was a very similar state of affairs for
the Amiga CD32 the previous year, which by now had already been discontinued in April
1994 after the demise of Commodore. Atari just didn't have the resources to support
their system successfully, and even a $140 million investment from Sega, part of which
settled previous legal disputes as well as opening up game patents for Sega's use, didn't
help much either. If there was one final chance for Atari, it had just blown it. As 1995 came around and after selling 100,000
units, the Jaguar would be dropped in price to $149 in the US and a Pro Controller was
released, offering some all sorts of additional buttons to press your way around. Some of which proving useful for the trickle
of games still emerging. Again the usual mix of lazy ports, occasional
gem, and fair share of bad. Nothing really ground breaking, although Missile
Command 3D was a pretty good action package, especially when used in conjunction with the
Virtual Reality headset.... Wait a minute. What happened to that promised VR system? I remember seeing it advertised in ST Format
and thinking, "blow me, this is going to be frickin' amazing".... But yet, it still wasn't here. Maybe it'll arrive later in 1995. Let's wait and see. You see, things were pretty dire for Atari
at this point. Remember the Atari Falcon? Yeah, that was discontinued way back in 1993
just a year after it's launch. The ST was as dead as a dodo, and the Lynx
was receiving the axe right about..... now. Atari really did put all their faith in the
Jaguar. They had to. A combination of poor past decisions, bad
timing and just better competition, everywhere, had crippled the once cutting edge company. Sam Tramiel would do an interview in mid 1995
for Next Generation magazine where he claimed that the Atari Jaguar was leaps ahead of the
Saturn and equally as powerful as the Playstation. He also claimed that the backwards compatible
Jaguar 2 was in production and that they were likely to sue Sony for attempting to subsidise
the cost of the PlayStation via Japanese sales and "dump it" in the US at a reduced cost. None of these statements would come to fruition,
although some Jaguar 2 prototypes are known to exist and do work with existing Jaguar
titles. The same magazine also have a review of the
Jaguar later in 1995 commenting that "thus far, Atari has spectacularly failed to deliver
on the software side, leaving many to question the actual quality and capability of the hardware. With only one or two exceptions - Tempest
2000 is cited most frequently - there have just been no truly great games for the Jaguar
up to now.". They also noted that the company has much
less brand recognition than Sega, Sony, Nintendo and even 3DO, giving the system 2 out of 5
stars and commenting that if the price was dropped further and more software made available,
then it could still compete. Both of which are easier said than done of
course! Still this was from the same publisher who
said that Alien vs Predator was crap. Sega would release the Saturn in the summer
of 1995, followed by Sony's Playstation in Autumn, and although the Jaguar had raw computational
power that could actually beat these machines with it's RISC processors, the Playstation
had 3D acceleration built in from the go and both the Sega and Sony machines had bigger
budgets and better development resources. We all know the story from this point out. It also marked the point where many kids realised
that bits, don't really mean too much as a stand alone measurement of POWERRRRR. During this year, Atari Corporation's sales
more than halved, from $38.7 million in 1994 to $14.6 million in 1995 and only 25,000 Jaguar's
would be sold, representing 76% of this income figure. It would be easy to blame it on Sam Tramiel
pushing the Atari Jaguar out too early, or refusing to launch the Panther. But really. What would that have achieved? The Panther would likely have failed against
the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo, and delaying the Jaguar even further would have just pushed
it more and more into Playstation and Sega Saturn territory. If you ask me Atari were facing a losing battle,
which they tried hard to fight, but placing all their bets on the Jaguar just didn't work
out. Despite the optimism, all of this weighed
on Sam Tramiel and he would suffer a heart attack before the year was out, thankfully
he didn't die, but it led to Jack returning to oversee operations. Still, 1995 did have a few promising notes. One of the promised accessories, the Atari
Jaguar CD was actually released on 21st September 1995. The unit offered a double speed drive and
allowed Jaguar games with potentially huge scope to come to fruition. The unit has a cartridge slot at the rear
allowing cartridge games to be passed through and for the CD unit to remain in place. This also allowed cartridge games to run in
tandem with accompanying CD-ROMs, although no such software was made. What was made, was the Memory Track cartridge
for saving game data and high scores. The hardware also had a built in "Virtual
Light Machine" written by Jeff Minter that allowed changing on screen graphics through
a spectrum analyser, much like Windows Media Player would grace us with some 8 years later. It's also worth noting that Jag CDs can hold
790MB of Data. Much more than standard CD-ROMs, but also
allowing for much less error correction, leading to problems with units, especially ones which
have survived into modern times. Another surprise, at the Winter Consumer Electronics
Show, 2 products were unveiled. The first was.. YES! The Virtual Reality headset! The device was planned for pre-Christmas release,
buuuttt, never made it. There are however, two prototypes in existence,
which are showcased at retro gaming events, and apparently they work pretty well with
Missile Command 3D. Atari would also unveil the Jaguar Duo. This wasn't a Jaguar 2, just a bathroom scale
resembling piece of kit which combined the Jaguar and CD Unit into one device. Much like the Sega Multi Mega or CDX, and
we know just how successful that was. The Duo would also never make it to market. In fact when Jack took the reigns, the Jaguar's
planned accessories and spin offs were quickly killed off, followed by a swathe of staff
redundancies. Atari Interactive, which had been setup to
port games to MS-DOS was also closed and by January 1996, he was looking to sell the company
off, having decided it really was to get out of the industry this time. The rather strange demise for Atari would
come in a reverse merger with hard drive manufacturer, JTS Storage. The new company, JTS Corporation would take
Jack and some Atari executives on as board members with the promise to shareholders that
Atari would continue operations after the deal was complete. However by 1997 Atari was just a single person,
and a desk, John Skruch. John handled the final Jaguar support and
licencing before the remainder of the company was sold to Hasbro on 28th Februrary 1998
and finally on to Infogrames where it now operates under the name of Atari SA. As for the Jaguar.... well, official games continued to be produced
up to 2000, and in fact into 2000 and beyond, and this is in fact thanks to Hasbro. Rather than stuffing away the rights of old
inventions in a dark cupboard and leaving them to fester, Hasbro actually released all
the consoles rights, opening up the platform for anyone to publish on. To add an extra layer of icing, Curt Vendel
of Atari Museum then happened to locate the encryption keys for both cartridge and CD
formats, allowing anyone to develop games on unmodified machines. Of course, developing on cartridges is harder,
so the CD add ons are in high demand, but software on both formats has been made available
in recent years, and some of it is truly sensational. In the UK, Telegames also sells remakes of
Atari Jaguar Games and for a while consoles were apparently available through Game stores. They're not in Game anymore, but apparently
still available online for £150. It seems that some 20 years after the Jaguar
looked to storm the world with the same number 64 that helped Jack Tramiel dominate with
the Commodore 64, developers and committed community members are finally unlocking the
potential of those custom components and producing some mind blowing games. Maybe that comment Sam made about the Jaguar
being as powerful as the Playstation wasn't as throw away as it sounded. His words seem to feel increasingly true as
more and more secrets of this frankly impressive machine are unlocked. Oh, one last thing. The Mould for the Jaguar case were bought
by Imagin Systems, a dental imaging equipment manufacturer early in the 00's and were used
to hold their "HotRod" camera, with cartridge moulds used to create optional memory expansions. So if you ever see one on your dentist's wall,
don't presume they're getting a bit of Jaguar action in between appointments. These moulds were then purchased by Mike Kennedy
to house the Retro Video Game System, otherwise known as the Coleco Chameleon. The console that ended up just being a Super
Nintendo Mini in a case. Which isn't really a fitting end for this
shell. So let's hope it goes on to become something
more substantial, and worthy of it's original incarnation. Because frankly, I love it.
