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Atari Panther Prototype Explored
Thanks to Atari Explorer for their updated article revealing concept pictures of the Atari Panther, the 1991-era machine which "was going to be the first new Atari console since the launch of the 7800 by Atari Inc. in 1984", before the console "was shelved at the last minute as a parallel project within Atari showed much more promise and much more power - that project gave birth to the Atari Jaguar nearly 2 years later." The new pictures reveal that "The unit is much smaller than a stock Jaguar... [and] the cartridges would be inserted flat into the front of the Panther like a front-load VHS tape recorder."
the cartridges would be inserted flat into the front of the Panther like a front-load VHS tape recorder
that's quite an odd analogy to use, since there is one in the video game industry that works better- the NES. It didn't work nearly as well as the top loading system did, mostly because you had to push the cartrige down after loading it, and after a while the little lock holding it down would wear out. It sometimes takes 10 or so tries to load NES games when i try to play them now. (Of course, it wasn't meant to last 15 years, i know)
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
Jaguar... Panther...
Am I the only one that is amused by the similarities between the product naming schemes of Atari and Apple?
Russ Magee %-)
... and never, ever play leapfrog with a unicorn.
Is it coincidence that Apple named the last two OS X releases Jaguar and Panther, or is Steve an old Atari fan?
-Ster
"The unit is much smaller than a stock Jaguar... [and] the cartridges would be inserted flat into the front of the Panther like a front-load VHS tape recorder."
:p
Don't you mean like a Nintendo Entertainment System? Come on, it's a video game system, this is a video game system.. it should be obvious!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Seems to me Atari could have easily done the same thing, especially since they were already established. I think the American habit of milking the cow til it runs dry got the best of them, just like it did our tv/electronics industry, auto industry, etc.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Anybody misread the headline ?
here's a similar site about the Panther... http://www.homecomputer.de/pages/panther.html
http://chrono.posterous.com/
The article itself has very little technical details about the Panther console. By looking at the drawings and the tech specs linked from the article it is easy to conclude what the three mystery ports were for. The mini-DIN on the back, that is the S-VHS connector. The two ports on the side, that would be the two stero headphone jacks and most likely have nothing to do with COMLynx. Both these ports are listed as standard on the tech specs. The small panel on the back, that was most likely where a connector was concealed where you could attach options such as genlock, COMLynx, and modem, none of which were probably ever developed.
Their is no such thing as an S-VHS connector... aaaagh... S-VHS != S-Video. One is a video tape format, another a connector and cabling system for video.
Disgruntled SGI Employee