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        <h1><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b><i><a href="../../index.html">loonygames</a><br>
          <font size="1">a <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com">blue's news</a> 
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<p><a href="../2.10/mouth/index.html">&lt;&lt; Back to Normal View</a></p>
<p>URL: <a href="../2.10/mouth/index.html">http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.10/mouth/</a><br>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>Vol. 
                2, Issue 10<br>
                January 31, 2000<br>
                </b>
              <b> 
                </b>
              
                <b><i>From 

                  the Mouth of Madness:</i></b></p>
                <b><i> 
                  In Search of the Holy Grail</i></b></p>
                by 
                  Jason &quot;loonyboi&quot; 
                  Bergman</p>
              
              

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               Before 
                I get into this week&#146;s column, I should apologize for the 
                scattered updates last week. Sadly, e-mail problems disrupted 
                my normal schedule, preventing a few of them from going up. All 
                is well now, however, so don&#146;t worry. We&#146;ve got lots 
                of great stuff for you this week</p>
               Regardless, 
                I&#146;m going to talk about a favorite subject of mine this week, 
                classic console systems. As I&#146;ve already stated here and 
                elsewhere, I&#146;m a collector of old game systems. In the last 
                few days, I&#146;ve acquired a NEC TurboGrafx 16, a brand new 
                Atari Jaguar CD, and a boatload of new games. Not to mention that 
                I&#146;ve got my eye on one of those 3DO systems. </p>
               Like 
                any obsessive collector, there are certain items that I would 
                give anything to get my hands on. In every hobby this is the case...from 
                comics to baseball cards, no matter what you collect, there are 
                specific things that are truly the holy grail to collectors.</p>
              </p>
              And so, 
                I thought I&#146;d use this week&#146;s column to talk about the 
                holy grail(s) of console collecting. And hey, if you know where 
                I can find one, feel free to let me know. :)</p>
              </p>
              There 
                are rare systems, all right, like the original Odyssey system 
                from Magnavox. It was actually the first home gaming system, and 
                it&#146;s difficult to find, no question about it. While the Odyssey 
                2 was released in the late seventies (and is relatively easy to 
                find if you know where to look), the original Odyssey system was 
                released in 1972. That&#146;s a full 16 years before the Atari 
                revolution. The system was pretty pathetic &#150; it had no CPU 
                (they hadn&#146;t been invented yet!) and while it took cartridges, 
                they didn&#146;t actually add anything new to the system, they 
                enabled games already programmed on the hardware to be played. 
                </p>
              </p>
              And of 
                course, it didn&#146;t really have any &#147;graphics.&#148; It 
                came with overlays that you taped to your television in order 
                to get any sort of graphical experience. And of course, it was 
                black and white. It&#146;s not too difficult to find an Odyssey, 
                they are out there. But finding a working one with all the parts 
                (it came with quite a bit) can be a bit of a challenge.</p>
              </p>
              But at 
                least that system actually exists. The real holy grails for collectors 
                are the systems that never actually shipped...in some cases, the 
                ones that were never even confirmed to exist by the developer.</p>
              </p>
              First 
                up: Atari&#146;s Panther. In the late 1980&#146;s when Atari decided 
                they were going to get back into the video game business, they 
                started a massive research project to get things underway. Those 
                of us who were hardcore into the console scene back then recall 
                rumors floating around about first a system called &#147;Panther&#148; 
                and then later one called &#147;Jaguar.&#148; What was really 
                wacky about the rumors, is that all kinds of numbers were floating 
                around. It was a 32 bit system. It was a 64 bit system. It used 
                cartridges, it used CDs. All manner of strangeness was coming 
                out from Atari&#146;s research division.</p>
              </p>
              There&#146;s 
                that saying that there&#146;s a little bit of truth in every rumor...well, 
                in this case, there was a lot of it, but the problem was that 
                all the facts got run together. In actuality, Atari wasn&#146;t 
                developing one system, they were developing two. There was the 
                Panther, and then the Jaguar. The Jaguar, a pseudo 64-bit system 
                (no need to get into technical details there) was eventually released, 
                first as a console system, and later they released a CD-ROM add-on. 
                But there was, in fact a second system, which was 32-bit. </p>
              </p>
              </p>
              </p>
              <br> 
              
               It would 
                appear that Atari&#146;s original plan was to release the Panther 
                first, and then follow it up with the Jaguar a few years later. 
                What ended up happening is that the Panther turned out to be a 
                mishmash of technologies from internal Atari development, and 
                Flair, which Atari had purchased to kickstart their next-generation 
                console development. The system was such a mess, that they decided 
                to move ahead with the Jaguar instead (rather than have two half-assed 
                system, they preferred to throw their whole ass into one). </p>
              </p>
              The existence 
                of the Panther has long been confirmed by former Atari employees, 
                but it really entered into the realms of legend when Atari closed 
                their doors. Smart collectors willing to shed some of their dignity 
                went rummaging through their dumpsters late at night, and discovered 
                all manner of things, but there are supposedly three Panther development 
                systems out there. Thankfully one surfaced at the Home 
                Computer Museum, so you can look at pictures of the box online. 
                The other two...well, they&#146;re still out there, possibly in 
                the possession of someone who has no idea what they&#146;re carrying. 
                </p>
              </p>
              Another 
                Atari bit of gold, also from the Jaguar era, comes in the form 
                of the Jaguar 2, or &#147;Jag Duo&#148; as it is sometimes referred 
                to. The system was shown once, at the 1995 summer CES show in 
                Chicago, and more than likely was just a non-working mockup. Still, 
                if it was shown publicly, it must have existed in some form. The 
                Jaguar 2 was a complete redesign of the console, that combined 
                the cartridge base and CD add-on into a single unit. It&#146;s 
                a similar concept to the TurboDuo that NEC released, and like 
                that system it is likely that it contained more RAM or a faster 
                CD-ROM than the individual units. As you can see from the picture 
                here (more are available at AtariHQ) 
                the system sure was pretty, and improved greatly on the original 
                Jaguar&#146;s clunky appearance.</p>
              </p>
              Then there&#146;s 
                the M2, which not only definitely existed, but still is out there 
                somewhere. The M2 was the next-generation version of 3DO&#146;s 
                console, that they sold to Matsushita when the company switched 
                exclusively to software development. Matsushita continued to develop 
                the hardware, and there were even developers working on games 
                (D2, which was just now released for the Dreamcast in Japan, started 
                as an M2 title). The system is supposed to have rivaled the N64 
                in power, and was eventually scrapped. But again, the system was 
                shown in public, and was in development for several years. A dumpster 
                diver somewhere likely has one, and there are collectors across 
                the globe hunting for these things.</p>
              </p>
              Lastly, 
                there is the real holy grail, Sony&#146;s SNES project. Everyone 
                knows the story &#150; Sony works with Nintendo to make a CD-ROM 
                add-on for the Super Nintendo system. Then, Nintendo decides to 
                go with Philips. Sony&#146;s mad, they have a working prototype, 
                which they turn into a full CD-based system, and sell as the Playstation. 
                The rest is history. But, what most people don&#146;t know is 
                that Sony created a dual SNES cartridge/CD-ROM based system called 
                the &#147;Play Station.&#148; This was a different system from 
                the PSX (&#147;eXtension&#148; as in the CD-ROM add-on for the 
                SNES) and was formally announced. It was never shown, but rumors 
                have surfaced that it did exist. If ever there was a holy grail, 
                this is it. </p>
              </p>
              Do I ever 
                expect to own one of these? Well, maybe the Odyssey. As for the 
                rest...well...I can&#146;t say I really expect to. But jeez...would 
                that ever be nice. :)</p>
              </p>
              </p>
              Until 
                next week, stay loony!</p>
              
              
              <i>- 
                Jason &quot;loonyboi&quot; Bergman is the editor in chief here 
                at loonygames. </i></p> <br><p>&nbsp;</p> 
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<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Print CGI is 
  &copy; 2000 <a href="http://www.square8.com">Square Eight</a>. Used with permission. 
  Article is &copy; 2000 its original author. All other content is &copy; 2000 
  loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. You got that??</font></i></p>
 