Atari's 64-bit Jaguar.

copied from Gamepro.
	

	What for the last three years has been Silcon Valley's best kept 
secrect has suddenly become an all-too-cool reality. Atrai Corpration is 
finally unleasing its Jaguar - a 64 bit super system that will be staring 
down the Genesis, SNES, and 3DO late this fall. The impressive-looking unit 
features a 17 button contoller, mega processing muscle, and every expansion 
device you can think of.

64-BIT BANG FOR $200

	Atari, the company that rode the video game craze to its apex only to come 
crashing down in the early '80s, appears to be rising from the ashes. Atari 
has announced plans to leapfrog over its 16 and 32-bit competitors with the 
worlds first 64-bit home video game machine that's to be prieced in the $200 
range. In layman's terms, "64-bit" refers to the amount of data the Jaguar 
can process at one time. Atari claims that the Jaguar is more powerful than 
any other system, since it can process four times as much data as the SNES 
or Genesis and twice as much as the 3DO
	The system is loaded with five processers on three computer chips. 
The two chips that handle most of the work (code-named "Tom" and "Jerry") 
were designed specificaly for the Jaguar. Tom, a 64-bit graphics chip, 
incorporates multiple RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) processers. 
Jerry is a 32-bit RISC chip with a Digital Signal Processer.  The Jagaur also has a 16-Megahertz 68000 Motorola chip.  In addition to all 
that power, the Jag comes with 16 megabits of RAM, which means it can store 
an entire 16 meg game in onboard memery!
	The system's chips aren't just big numbers. The unit can do scaling, 
rotation, and object skewing (distorting the image) with its built-in 
hardware. Even texture-mapping (Covering polygons with images to give 
them texture) isn't a problem. Like the 3DO, the Jaguars 24-bit True 
Color grafics display can show more than 16 million colors during full-speed 
game play, as compared to the Genesis that can only display 64, and the SNES 
that can display 256. With its processing horsepower, the Jaguar can move 
more than 850 million pixels per second. 3DO on the other hand can move 15 
million pixels per second, and the SNES and Genesis move only 1 million. The 
Jags sound chip purported to produce "better-than-CD-quality" audio, as it 
operates at a 200 kilohertz standard, while CD is benchmarked at at a 
41 kilohertz standard. 

MEAN MACHINE

	The Jaguar's looks are as sharp as its specs. The sleek black system 
has two contoller ports in front and output and expansion ports in the back.  The unit can 
output a regular NTSC RF image, compostie video, Super VHS, and even RGB, 
which is the clean signel you see in the arcades. If you have a high-end 
monitor, you can hook up in RGB and experience virtually no signal 
degradation!  The controlers are something new. The thumbpad and A, B, and C 
buttons will be familiar territory for Genesis players, and the pause and 
option buttons are like Start and Select on the SNES. However, the extened 
contoller style adds a numerical 12-button keypad thats a throwback to the 
old Intellivsion controlers from the early '80s. Many of the games will even 
come with plasitac overlays depicting icons that correspond with these 12 
buttons.  

CARTS AND CDs, TOO

	The Jaguar will initally be a cartridge based system, but plans call 
for the Jaguar CD (working title) to launch by spring of next year. The CD 
ROM drive slides into the Jags cart slot, and a cartridge port on top of the 
Jaguar drive itself allows you to play carts or CDs. The double-speed CD 
player runs games, audio CDs, CD+Gs, and Kodak Photo-CDs. Most cartridge 
games will also be release in enchanced form on CD (more graphics, audio, and voices), plus there will 
be interactive movies on CD with sub-VHS quality full motion video (but not 
as grainy as Sega CD video).

VIRTUAL JAGUAR

	It's no secrect that multimedia and networking is the wave of the 
future, and Atair's got a bunch of secrect weapons to add more byte to the 
Jag. The Jaguar's internal DSP chip is powerful enough to function as a 
modem, which means that if you buy the telephone interface planned for '94, 
you can play against friends over the phone lines or connect with national 
networks. The adapter port is capable of plugging into cable lines, and since 
Time Warner (a co-developer of the Sega Channel) owns 24% of Atari, a Jaguar 
channel similar to the Sega Channel is a distinct possiblity.  A Virual 
Reality helmet will also debut next year, which promises to allow greater 
freedom of vision and movement is a more realistic, texturemapped world than 
offered by Sega's VR helemt.  In addition, Atari plans to release an MPEG-2 
video compression cartridge that would enable you to play full-length, full 
motion, laser disk quality movies on CD. .  Finnaly, the Jaguar's designed to be powerful enough to take 
advantage of the increased pixel resolution of High-Definiton Televisions 
(HDTVs) when they debut sometime this decade.

HAVE YOU PLAYED ATARI TODAY?

	Atari will be marketing the Jaguar in New York, San Francisco, Paris, 
and London in late October and early November, with a complete rollout in 
the U.S. and Europe by Spring of next year.  The $200 system will be packaged 
with one controller and one game. The key question of third party software 
support will be answered over the next several months, but right now Atari 
has at least two very powerful allies: Time Warner, the entertainment giant 
who will make its media library avilible to Jaguar delevopers; and IBM, who 
will manufacture the Jaguar system.  If enough partners join Atari in the 
hunt, it may well become the king of the junjle once again.