¢THE ATARI JAGUAR¢¢¢ While flicking through some of the pages of channel 4's TELETEXT, I came across an interesting article about Atari's JAGUAR. For those of you who don't know, the JAGUAR is a games machine which is said to have better specifications than ANY of the currently heard about consoles. What follows is the basic information from the article. I hope it is of interest to some of you.¢¢¢¢SPECIFICATION¢¢ The Atari JAGUAR contains five processors, mounted on three chips. The two most important chips have been named TOM and JERRY. TOM, a 64 bit multi risc chip takes care of the graphics, being capable of displaying 16 million colours and moving 850 million pixels per second. JERRY is a 32 bit risc digital signal processor. The actual JAGUAR has 16 megabits of RAM, and is supposed to have sound quality that will better a CD.¢¢¢JOYPAD¢¢ The joypad is a 17 button monster. This partly contains a 12 button keypad with 3 fire buttons.¢¢¢GAMES AND ADD-ON's¢¢ There are currently 10 games in development. Those currently known about are: TINYTOONS, RAIDEN, CYBERMORPH, ALIEN vs PREDATOR, and an F1 polygon racing game. Atari are also planning virtual reality helmets, and a CD ROM unit. The JAGUAR is also capable of acting as a modem, so a phone interface is under development.¢¢¢RELEASE DATE AND PRICE¢¢ The JAGUAR is supposed to be test marketed at the end of this month (October) in New York, London, and Paris, with the release planned for Easter '94. The target price is set at 135 pounds, but the Times newspaper has suggested that it might be nearer the 200 pound mark.¢¢¢WORRIES?¢¢ After highlighting the JAGUARS features, the article also went on to highlight what is considered by some as the biggest problem of all... Atari themselves. (Ed: I couldn't agree more!) The article pointed out that Atari have a past record of releasing technically brilliant machines, and then leaving others to support it. Should Atari provide some decent back-up though, the JAGUAR has only the other established companies in it's way.¢¢¢WANT TO FIND OUT MORE?¢¢ If you are in any way interested in the Atari Jaguar, I would highly recommend that you watch BAD INFLUENCE (BBC1, 4.45pm on Thursdays) every now and again, as it has already looked at the Jaguar and shown some of the games under development.¢¢¢Article by KEVIN COOKE¢
