racketboy.com

This has been discussed quite a bit over at Atari Age, but wanted to share. Pretty exciting news. SaintT, who made the Lynx SD cart, is working on this.

The existing SKUNK board (can flash one ROM at a time via PC IIRC) is intended for running homebrew & development. While it will run many commercial releases, there is no official support for this by the creator(s) & no EEPROM save support. Not to mention, they're rare & pricey.

The Jag SD cart will be huge for a console with such an active homebrew community, and with many of the premier titles being prices (looking at you Rayman).

We could see a 2017 relese...

SainT, on 08 Dec 2016 - 1:15 PM, said:

I'm hoping it will only be like another 6 months or something.... I'm actively working on it all.

Upcoming Jaguar SD Cartridge - Atari Jaguar - AtariAge Forums
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/254003 ... cartridge/

EDIT/ADD: August 2019 - He is now taking orders.


Image from Do The Math blog

...
mm hmm
...
yes
...
interested
...

Although, I do have a fairly satisfying Jaguar collection (at just under 20 carts I think).
What is left is the homebrew and the incredibly obscure that I want to explore. And my gosh, I think I still own 2 Jags; one could be dedicated to that purpose.

Now if it could somehow emulate the CD add on, that would really get my attention.

I'd get one if the price is within reason. I have most of the Jaguar games I'm interested in, but there are one or two I'll never get in cart form. And maybe there are some good homebrews.

I'm more excited about his statement that he's considering working on a 7800 flash cart next. That system really needs one. I'd like to check out a number of interesting homebrews that have come out over the last few years.

nightrnr wrote:...
mm hmm
...
yes
...
interested
...

Although, I do have a fairly satisfying Jaguar collection (at just under 20 carts I think).
What is left is the homebrew and the incredibly obscure that I want to explore. And my gosh, I think I still own 2 Jags; one could be dedicated to that purpose.

Now if it could somehow emulate the CD add on, that would really get my attention.

Believe it or not, Carl from Songbird (homebrew reseller and developer that has been responsible for releasing multiple once "dead" games) is working on software that will allow CD emulation to work on devices such as this, although he keeps his projects a bit mysterious until they're done. I'll hunt that link to the thread. There is no official announcement that it will work on this cart specifically to my knowledge.

Golgo 14 wrote:I'd get one if the price is within reason. I have most of the Jaguar games I'm interested in, but there are one or two I'll never get in cart form. And maybe there are some good homebrews.

I'm more excited about his statement that he's considering working on a 7800 flash cart next. That system really needs one. I'd like to check out a number of interesting homebrews that have come out over the last few years.

Yeah that's awesome. I'm a fan of the 7800 library. Big difference here is that 7800 emulation is spot on. My oXbox runs ROMs in a78x flawlesslyz including homebrew.

Emulators for the Jaguar are still pretty rough due to the unique architecture (similar scenario to the Saturn), even if Virtual Jaguar has come a long way. This SD cart could open the library & development up to a new auidence.

Happy to hear about both though as Krizz doesn't seem interested in Atari.

Okay, here is the link to Carl's project to emulate the J-CD drive, acting similar to a ODE for the Jaguar CD:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/254058 ... n-project/

Posted Wed Jun 22, 2016 6:16 AM

I recently decided to pick up a project I've always wanted to work on: emulating Jaguar CD games by replacing the Atari-installed CD BIOS with a custom BIOS that doesn't require the CD unit, but instead can load games via a large external memory such as SD card. And I thought it would be especially appropriate to announce this in light of the upcoming Jaguar SD cart project. Welcome to Jaguar CD Unleashed (JagCDU).

This is the big piece related to OP. No official support announced as the SaintT flash cart doesn't exist yet, but...

What new hardware is required to support JagCDU?

JagCDU is a software emulation project, so it requires something like SainT's proposed Jaguar SD cart to actually work for end users. JagCDU is not a stand-alone product.

Here's a link to Songbird for any one not familiar with Carl's awesome work on the Lynx & Jag:

Songbird Productions
http://www.songbird-productions.com/

That is Wicked! I had no idea someone was working on it.
I imagine a final product available for order is light years away (if it gets that far), but I am officially intrigued, and so is my wallet. I'd want to secure that flash cart 1st of course.

At least I have my other ODE's to keep me busy on other systems. 3DO was from the same era and shares some of the games.

So this and a PC Engine Super CD setup is what I'll be gunning for next in the future.
Shoot, there's probably a Sega CD ODE project that I don't know about yet.

nightrnr wrote:That is Wicked! I had no idea someone was working on it.
I imagine a final product available for order is light years away (if it gets that far), but I am officially intrigued, and so is my wallet. I'd want to secure that flash cart 1st of course.

At least I have my other ODE's to keep me busy on other systems. 3DO was from the same era and shares some of the games.

So this and a PC Engine Super CD setup is what I'll be gunning for next in the future.
Shoot, there's probably a Sega CD ODE project that I don't know about yet.

I know man. I'm jacked! Check out these quotes and video below.

SainT estimated 6 months for the SD cart project. It also looks like he is actively working with Carl for the Jag CD Unleashed software to emulate the J-CD on his SD cart.

Per SainT, It seems like it will be software that should run fine if the hardware is mapped to support it. Carl currently has his software running on the SKUNK board (which was developed years ago) but runs into some hardware based restrictions (see Primal Rage comment). This is why he has a smaller homebrew game such as Frog Feast running.

I image what will happen is Carl will let SainT know what he needs on his cart. SainT then ships Carl a cart to finish up his software. Then it gets interesting IMO. Does Carl sell a DL file that is then dropped onto the cart, similar BIOS needed in CD emus?

Will be fun to see shape up. I'd guess the SD cart comes out in 2017 and the Unleashed project roughly 4-6 months after with continual updates to fix bugs. We're dealing with two guys with previous history of released products (between the Lynx SD cart and finishing/releasing mutliple "dead" games) so I have faith! I'm following the thread on AA all will pre-order the second it opens.

Video of Jag CD Unleashed running on SKUNK for Proof of Concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmdmlDvvZbo#action=share

Via Carl regarding working on SKUNK:

Considering I am doing all of my JagCDU development on the Skunk, I think it's fair to say it works on the Skunk right now. Whether or not it works on the Skunk in its final form depends on what kind of support is available (or needs to be developed) to access external USB memory.

Again, I am not developing JagCDU with a specific target platform in mind. I just wanted to get the announcement out there to ensure widest compatibility with these sorts of cartridges. I will happily work with other hobby developers to get this running on multiple platforms.

Via SainT regarding already working together:

Yep, just to say I've been chatting with Songbird about the requirements to get CD emulation working on the JagSD. It doesn't look like it will require much more than bringing the I2S lines to the controller chip and having the option to stream SD card data back via I2S as opposed to parallel. I currently don't have these mapped, so it's great to start talking about these things now before I've done any board layout.

Via Carl on current SKUNK restrictions:

I also tried to get Primal Rage running because it only has four data tracks (and a whole bunch of audio tracks in the first session, which I can ignore for now), but it turns out one of the data tracks is about 50MB in size so it won't work on Skunk without either USB or PC file reads implemented... guess I found my next project.

Progress! For anyone not closely following the AA thread (already at 10 pages), check out the video link & quote below. He's working on a SD cart for the Neo Geo Pocket & Jaguar side by side.

Via SainT:

Here's a little update on the JagSD and also the upcoming NeoGeo Pocket SD as well...
 
https://youtu.be/z0C2y6qpLU0
 
I've been working on the NGPC flash as a stepping stone to the JagSD, as all the hardware (in some form) from the NGPC cart and programmer will be used in JagSD.
 
Apologies that anything I hold constantly wiggles about, genetics can be a twat. But amazingly I can manage to solder fine pitch SMT devices with that hand tremor, though...  

I am super stoked. I would love to get a good Jaguar flashcart.

I have played most of the big Jaguar games, but only own Flipout currently. When this drops I will have to buy svideo cables and a spinner.

i would love to have a jag again with a flash cart!