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/vr/ - Retro Games

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File: 438 KB, 2249x2241, panther-drawing1.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2499374 No.2499374 [Reply] [Original]

Let's talk about the Atari Panther.

>> No.2499383
File: 153 KB, 500x485, wariosbizarreadventure.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2499383

>>2499374
What about it? I've never heard of it before.

Yes, I could Google it. My Google-Fu is strong. I would like to know why you, personally, are interested enough in it to make a thread about it.

Add your passion for obscure or unreleased consoles to /vr/. Make it a better board.

>> No.2499386
File: 12 KB, 282x372, panther-pics1.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2499386

>>2499383
Why don't you come over here and make me make it a better board?

The unit is much smaller than a stock Jaguar, and as you can see above, it has ports for 2 joysticks/controllers, 2 slide buttons possibly for reset, power etc, and the same sculpted "air duct" like lines on its side panels, which are also seen as the rear of the Jaguar. The Cartridges would be manually inserted flat into the front of the Panther like a front-load VHS tape recorder (or for those who have used a NES, a little like that!).

>> No.2499394

>>2499386
So, was this meant to be a replacement for the bulkier Jaguar, a next hardware iteration, or was it a predecessor?

I've got to admit, I think it's a much more attractive design than the Jaguar.

>> No.2499395

I would like to have seen Atari release this and then release the Jaguar. It could have saved them if they actually developed a good competitor to the SNES and Genesis before releasing a "64-bit" console.

>> No.2499397

How powerful was it? Do any prototypes exist?

>> No.2499403
File: 77 KB, 573x751, Panther-Specs1.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2499403

>>2499397
The actual technology was beefy, the specs it could produce rivaled or even surpassed the SNES and Genesis.

>> No.2499416
File: 269 KB, 1394x512, 1417992558459.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2499416

>>2499403
We can't ever play it.
Unless someone makes one.

>> No.2499423

Was is there to talk about it? It was never released and even if it was, I doubt it could have salvaged Atari's already tarnished reputation by that point. They launched the 7800 too little too late and they struggled to make the Lynx a worthy alternative to the Game Boy.

>> No.2499656

>>2499403

AH, like I thought, internal they too preferred to use the normal cart space suffixes. Between them carts can have 6 Megabytes, for the customer they can have OMG 48 MEGA POWEEER!!1

>> No.2499661

>>2499403
Specs are irrelevant if you don't have the games to back it up.

Did the Panther have anything in the works for it?

>> No.2500083

I love Atari

>> No.2500271

I guess no one else loves Atari

>> No.2500274

>>2500271
Most of /vr/ are too young to remember the one Atari console that was actually relevant (the 2600).

>> No.2500350

>>2499403
those specs sound fantastic, assuming Atari didn't make it a mess to work with

>>2499394
kind of sort of a competing design, although Atari was designing the Jag as the system to come after the Panther
but apparently, Jaguar development ended up superseding the Panther

Jag's biggest problem was that it was a clusterfuck. Sure, guys like Jeff Minter loved the thing for the crazy shit its graphics processor could do (assuming you had the skill to work with it), but most programmers aren't Jeff Minter.

>> No.2500391
File: 55 KB, 600x829, Ninja Golf.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2500391

>>2500274
7800 had Ninja Golf though

>> No.2500402

>>2500350

Hell yeah they do for the time. They are like miles ahead of the SNES.

>> No.2500465

>>2500350
I think the Panther was going to be a snap to program for.

>> No.2500581

Are there any prototypes? We should get one molded.

>> No.2500713
File: 866 KB, 1024x698, pitfighter_a.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2500713

>>2499403
The Atari G1 board seems the most similar to this out of their released boards. The G1 is the arcade board that powered Pit Fighter and Hydra.

Same CPU. And 1.4MIPS sounds about right.
Motorola (or rather, Freescale), claims 2MIPS at 20MHz.

Graphical capability is the same, I even checked the MAME source (machine/atarigen.h, video/atarimo.h) to confirm this, with the exception of the arcade machine running at a slightly higher resolution, which can be varied. The graphics chips are some funky-ass ICs manufactured by NCR under contract by Atari.

The audio hardware *might* be a variant of Atari's JSA Audio Board series, which are a clusterfuck of off-the-shelf components, with maybe a POKEY thrown in. OKI ADPCM sound processors, Yamaha FM Synths, and a MOS 6502-compatible to drive them.

>> No.2501238

>>2500581
How would you go about getting one molded? Are those design specs even enough?

>> No.2501257
File: 175 KB, 640x480, med_gallery_3_115_83379.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2501257

>>2500713
The Panther had three chips, working in tandem, consisting of a Motorola 68000 running at 16Mhz, an object processor called the Panther, and an Ensoniq sound processor called Otis, featuring 32 sound channels. The Panther could supposedly display 8,192 colors from a palette of 262,144 colors and could display 65,535 sprites of any size simultaneously.

It appears that some of the hardare from this machine ended up in the Jaguar (for instance, both machines have a limit to the amount of sprites that can be displayed on any certain scan line without "tearing." )

As for games, rumors are Panther-pong, Cybermorph, Raiden, and Cresent Galaxy were ported to the Jag from the Panther, although chances are there were more than a few other Panther projects that ended up as Jaguar games.

>> No.2501260

>>2501257
>this says 65,000 sprites
>>2499403
this says 2000

what
>this says 2000

>> No.2501287

>>2501260
It COULD display 65,535. But the limit was 2,000.

>> No.2502686

No one really cares about the Jaguar, let alone it's failed half-retard brother.

>> No.2502734

>>2502686
>it's failed half-retard brother.
It didn't live long enough to be half-retarded. It's a stillbirth.

>> No.2502767

>>2501257
>>2499403
Those specs look like a giant clusterfuck to me. The sound and vide hardware is basically SNES +1, and with a very powerful CPU. So it could be more colourful than the SNES and run things as fast as the Megadrive.

It has one giant Achilles' heel though. 32kbyte main memory and 8kbyte sound memory? That's completely useless. Even the Megadrive (from 1988) had about 4 times as much. PCM audio would be completely useless and sound ten times worse than the SNES, and the only way it could actually move colourful graphics would be if it loaded everything directly from the carts. Which in turn would mean that data would need to be uncompressed, which means it would use up cart space too fast. And the only way that can be balanced up is by reducing graphics fidelity / color count.

It was meant to be released in 1991 and has a very small form factor so I suppose you could give it some slack, but the lack of memory would have completely hampered the machine. It most likely would have been on par with very late Megadrive games, graphically.

>> No.2502941

>>2502767
>32kB main mem
>8kB sound RAM
didn't even notice that
that has to be an error or oversight, that sounds completely unreasonable with those specs

the only obvious way to fix those numbers is to add a 0
so 320kB main mem and 80kB sound ram
which would make much, much, much more sense for the time period