Ben Heckendorn's fully portable Atari Jaguar

Benjamin Heckerdorn -- that oh-so-crafy modding guru we love to love -- is at it again with his console-morphing antics, and this time the victim is the ill-fated "64-bit" Atari Jaguar. The mission? To create a portable, all-in-one, battery-powered version of Atari's flailing attempt to make it in the ever-competitive console market. Putting his blue-ribbon mod skills to the test, Ben rearranged the console innards into a 1-inch thick game board, connecting circuitry at will via his trusty soldering iron. He noticed a few oddities while dissecting the machine (aside from the controller's keypad overlay circa 1985), including a 32-bit main bus and a striking similarity between the cartridge input and your average PCI slot. Nevertheless, he was able to cram the entire system, a svelte LCD panel, and a set of stereo speakers into a homegrown enclosure that pays its dutiful respects to the Jaguar motif. Keep reading to peep another angle, and those itching for a bit of post-modern gaming nirvana should hit the read link for the full skinny...

[ddub @ May 2nd 2008 1:06PM]

I just remember the games being like $200 each I think. A little much for a 10 year old.

[IanH @ May 5th 2008 8:22PM]

Psh. Battlesphere owns all Jaguar games.

[pest @ May 19th 2008 6:47PM]

WOW! I can't believe the misinformation here. This is in no reflection against you guys, but I have to set things straight.

You don't have to be born in the 1950's to have heard of a game console released in the 1990's. A lot of people get into video games before they hit 40 years old.

Competitors. There were none around the time of the Jaguar's release except the 3DO. The SNES and Genesis were on their way out, dirt cheap, big older game selection. Comparing them to the Jaguar is like comparing the NES to a SNES when the SNES came out. It was more expensive, less games, but newer technology.

Failed? No, if the only competition was the 3DO, then no. My friends and I collected ALL systems because we were into games and programming. Our 3DO would reset in the middle of a newer game, took forever to load (ran out of memory I think), choppy motion and took forever to load (not much of a CD buffering system unlike the Saturn etc). I had about 50+ games on the 3DO and only around 30+ on my Jaguars, guess which were actually playable? Which were also the ones played on a regular basis.

$200.00 games. Games on the Jaguar were about the same price as a lot of consoles since the early 1980's. I paid between $50 for AvP when it was a new release.

My Jaguar consoles brand new were $250.00 around its release. My 3DO was $700.00. The games on both systems were comparable in price.

The Atari 2600 and Colecovision competed, next the NES, Turbo Graphics, Sega Master System etc, then the SNES and Genesis were in reign, the short lived Jaguar vs 3DO, then Sega Saturn vs Playstation.

Failed 2. I've known too many Jaguar developers/programmers who made a name for themselves from developing on that system. Jaguar dev kits are STILL being sold, upgraded, over clocked, etc. Games and Graphics Demos are still being released! If it failed, somebody needs to let everyone know :-P

Finally, this does look like a bathroom scale, and the Jag+CD looks like a toilet :-(

[John Shillabeer @ Oct 27th 2006 9:54AM]

Err...What's an Atari? I don't think I was born in the 1950's. :)

[Diacronic @ Oct 27th 2006 9:57AM]

Better watch out it might burst into flames, using the SONY battery and all.

[kibets @ Oct 27th 2006 10:08AM]

I spend so many hours with Aliens vs Predators back in 93 - best Jaguar game by far! I'd like one of these is only for that game.

[Jamie @ Oct 27th 2006 10:19AM]

Diacronic - old joke now. No longer funny, especially since that's a camcorder battery, not a laptop one.

[Vimal @ Oct 27th 2006 10:37AM]

Looks like my bathroom scale

[Billy @ Oct 27th 2006 10:43AM]

Why, God, WHY? Jaguar.... *shudder* worst system ever!

[Andy C @ Oct 28th 2006 7:51PM]

The old Jag may have been a total flop but I don't know anywhere else that you can play TEMPEST 2000 (ala Jeff Minter the undisputed king of game design imho). It ROCKS.

[delldude420 @ Oct 27th 2006 11:20AM]

Andy C @ Oct 27th 2006 10:59AM

The old Jag may have been a total flop but I don't know anywhere else that you can play TEMPEST 2000 (ala Jeff Minter the undisputed king of game design imho). It ROCKS.


**************************************************

tempest 2000 was ported to the sega saturn :) i have it. saturns easy to um pirate games to since no piracy protection.

[sdsdv10 @ Oct 27th 2006 2:15PM]

@ Billy
"Why, God, WHY? Jaguar.... *shudder* worst system ever!"

Did you even try to click the read link?

And I quote Mr. Heckendorn:
"Your first thought about this project is probably "Why?" Mine too. But a very good customer of mine requested this so I couldn't say no. (Heck, throw enough money at me and I'll build anything)"

So there you have it, for the money. Wouldn't you do the same, I know I would.

[DeShaun @ Oct 27th 2006 12:24PM]

"Ahur, what's an Atari?"

Good job, dick.

I agree with the bathroom scale comment, but that aside, it's pretty cool. I remember wanting a Jag when I first saw AvP.

Kasumi Ninja made me stop.

This thing is just a tiny bit bigger than the first gen Lynx. Just a bit.

Didn't Jag get Zoop, also? That was a pretty fun game.

[grahamgibson @ Oct 27th 2006 1:10PM]

Nice to see the Jag getting some recognition! The library was small, and the hits were even smaller, but there were still some great games.

Remember Rayman? The original was first designed for Jaguar. AvP rocked, of course (once it finally came out), and Zoop was a blast (although insanely difficult). But the crown goes to Tempest 2000, and no other port has quite lived up to the original due to the revised "CD" soundtrack in the Saturn and PS versions.

[Steve @ Oct 27th 2006 1:20PM]

Was Jaguar the system that at one time had the commercial with the kid playing it so hard that he threw up all over the camera? Either way... it's all about Turbo Grafix 16. :)

[RyanTV @ Oct 27th 2006 1:38PM]

this guy is brilliant... definitely not my choice of system, but its still a cool build.

I wonder how much a 360 laptop would cost.... hrm

[ChillyWilly @ Oct 28th 2006 10:43AM]

@Steve... yep... Jaguar commercial.

Some may trash the Jaguar, but it rocked! AvP, Tempest, Attack of the Mutant Penguins, Cannon Fodder... so many cool games.

This is pretty cool. I doubt I would ever get another Jaguar (for now, I'm console-free - only PSP and DS Lite), but kudos to this guy for making it portable.

[Jeff Minter @ Oct 27th 2006 2:49PM]

But Ben, why?

[Mischa Lockton @ Oct 27th 2006 3:04PM]

Id that a gum-pad in the middle? mmmmm.. gummmpaaaaaddd....

[dave halverson @ Oct 27th 2006 9:26PM]

I want one--how much?

[oneshallstand @ Oct 17th 2007 9:10AM]

It's strange that so many people are able to trash the Jaguar, considering so few had one.

There were a lot of problems, it was terribly marketed, it had a small library and was expensive next to it's peers. It's was optimised for sprite manipulation just as 3D games came big, but....

It was actually a decent machine. The controllers looked cumbersome but were remarkably comfortable for long periods of gaming. AvP was very, very cool and the Jag version of Doom was pretty much the fastest and smoothest I had played at the time.

Yes it failed, and yes it failed against what turned out to be truly superior competition, but that doesn't mean it was intrinsically a bad system.

I bought mine, I think, in '94 - it sat in the living room of my student house for two years where AvP, Raiden and Brutal Sports Football all got regular play from the various housemates. It was, sadly, stolen by morons in 1998 who very kindly unplugged and left behind the second controller whilst mainly taking the two player games.