The Konix Multi-System

[Rogue Trooper]

I sent Laird a photo copy of the interview with ATD in early issue of Edge, but looking at it it states:

ATD started creating games....just after it's 4 founders, Martin Green, Chris Gibbs, Fred Gill and Jim Torgussen graduated from Birmingham university.In their final year the quartet did the superlative Atari ST version of the Super Sprint Arcade machine for Electric Dreams.With a little help from contacts they made during that time, they set up ATD. 'Attention To Detail' was more than just a name, it was a statement of intent.

Opening question in interview:

Edge:How on Earth did you bounce back from the Konix debacle?

Chris Gibbs:That was actually a really good time for us.We were new to the industry, but because we got involved writing the system tools, the 1st game for it and some software tools, we met a lot of developers and made a great number of contacts in a short time.

Martin Green:In particular we met the people at Flare, and they involved us in a lot of things that they were doing.They introduced us to Bell Fruit, for example.

[Rogue Trooper]

The afterburner stage of the 3 modes demo was supposed to show that the machine could do an afterburner clone easily.

It's one of the very first demos done and it was written by Attention to Detail (almost completly by fred gill ( who also wrote cybermorph for the panther then the jaguar).

It was written for the z80 version of the system, so it's basically a Flare one demo.

The reason it looked so lame is that it was programmers doing the graphics and not graphic artists. However the afterburner mode does shift the graphics really quickly, so it gives a bit of glimpse into what was to come.

We have that demo code and Lee was working on it before he took a break because of work and life. hopefully he'll get a chance to get back on it and you can all see it emulated.

I have no doubt the konix could have done something like powerdrift effortlessly throwing lots of big sprites around very quickly. but we'll have to wait till the emulator is more advanced and people start getting tempted to write some homebrew for it...

!st time i saw Konix promo.demo was the video footage Telegames had on thier 'What Videogames System?' VHS tape and i was shocked by how poor the demo looked, after all the hype of ST/Amiga beater, stunning specs etc, what i saw was fast yes, but looked primitive and sound, whilst better than the ST chip, was nothing special.It honestly did the system no favours at all.

[Rogue Trooper]

Back to ATD:

Edge asked how Cybermorph came about, Fred replied that Flare rang them up saying they'd developed this new chip and needed someone to test it, they'd 'done the silicon'  and now they needed someone to test the functionality-Then it became apparent it was the Atari Jaguar.

Chris said at that stage, no-one knew of the Jaguar, it was'nt even a rumour.

Fred:So we gave them some help, debugging the chipset and some suggestions for instructions that could go into it.Then since we had the experience, it seemed silly not to be doing a product.



So, as i understand it, reason Jaguar struggled so much was due to crippling chipset bugs, if these had been resolved system been a lot better off, so did ATD not find said bugs? or were the findings ignored?.

[mqarkcambie]

I'm doing an interview with Chris soon, he's already warned me that it will be light on exact details and dates etc. due to how long ago it all was, however he promises some nice anecdotes.

[Rogue Trooper]

Sweet! Looking forward to that.

[DreamcastRIP]

Back to ATD:

Edge asked how Cybermorph came about, Fred replied that Flare rang them up saying they'd developed this new chip and needed someone to test it, they'd 'done the silicon'  and now they needed someone to test the functionality-Then it became apparent it was the Atari Jaguar.

Chris said at that stage, no-one knew of the Jaguar, it was'nt even a rumour.

Fred:So we gave them some help, debugging the chipset and some suggestions for instructions that could go into it.Then since we had the experience, it seemed silly not to be doing a product.



So, as i understand it, reason Jaguar struggled so much was due to crippling chipset bugs, if these had been resolved system been a lot better off, so did ATD not find said bugs? or were the findings ignored?.

My guess would be that Leonard Tramiel ignored their suggestions.

[Rogue Trooper]

i'd love to hear from ATD in their own words just what happened to the debugging of Jaguar chipset and how it reached the market in state it did.Reading magazine interviews are ok, but i'll always recal D.I.D writing to ACE after an interview with them was published and what D.I.D had said as a joke, in response to interviewers question:who has the best 3D routines? they gave a light hearted reply that only way to tell was lock all the 3D coders from the time in a small, dark room, each putting down a large sum of money and getting them to code-winner takes all etc type reply, but it was printed as them saying IF anyone can beat our 3D routines we'll come up with prize money of.....


D.I.D wrote  in saying the piece had protrayed them as arrogant and pretentious developers, so i often wonder whats done on 'cutting room floor' at times, least of all selective answers interviewed coders give when looking back at stuff (ATD later went on to slag Jaguar chipset off as bug ridden in a later Edge interview, which to me was a mockery, as they did the de-bugging, so i've a feeling there's a lot more to the tale as it were).

[DreamcastRIP]

!st time i saw Konix promo.demo was the video footage Telegames had on thier 'What Videogames System?' VHS tape and i was shocked by how poor the demo looked, after all the hype of ST/Amiga beater, stunning specs etc, what i saw was fast yes, but looked primitive and sound, whilst better than the ST chip, was nothing special.It honestly did the system no favours at all.

It's an interesting one to ponder, imho.

I remember seeing all the great photos of the console and its chair in the magazines at the time and, as a young boy in his mid-teens, having a sense of wonderment in imagining just how amazing the games could be. The console/controller together with the chair conjured up, what were in hindsight, such impossibly high expectations of the console's games in my mind. I was most likely imagining being able to play games of arcade coin-op standard in the home, e.g games just like OutRun and After Burner.

Naive, yes, but the sky seemed the limit back then in the mind of a young lad who'd seen games go from Space Invaders to Dragon's Lair to OutRun to STUN Runner. Nothing seemed impossible. Amusing now to look back but there it is.

[Rogue Trooper]

I was going to say, i'd loved to have seen how something like Stun Runner fared on the Konix, could have been chance to show just what platform was capable of, but yep, looking at what we did see in relation to what we expected to see from it, it does now amuse.

[DreamcastRIP]

... yep, looking at what we did see in relation to what we expected to see from it, it does now amuse.

I'm now remembering those Virtual Reality pods with the VR headset plus hand controller. Placing the headset on that first time expecting to enter a new dimension like in the movie The Lawnmower Man... but then having one's senses assaulted by what looked like LegoLand in flat shaded polygon 'glory' lol!

Oh how our imaginations hoped for far more than was feasibly possible!

[Rogue Trooper]

You say that, but how do you think i felt, getting a day 1 PS2 after ALL the hype of how it utterly destroyed the Dreamcast (which i still owned and loved) in terms of Polygons per second etc, only to find what could best be described as PS 1.5 games, much as i enjoyed Extermination, etc the jaggies alone took me by surprise, let alone the limited textures.These were not the Toy story quality visuals i'd been promised.Sure the system improved in time, but a yawning chasm between promised visuals and those actually delivered.

:-)

[DreamcastRIP]

You say that, but how do you think i felt, getting a day 1 PS2 after ALL the hype of how it utterly destroyed the Dreamcast (which i still owned and loved) in terms of Polygons per second etc, only to find what could best be described as PS 1.5 games, much as i enjoyed Extermination, etc the jaggies alone took me by surprise, let alone the limited textures.These were not the Toy story quality visuals i'd been promised.Sure the system improved in time, but a yawning chasm between promised visuals and those actually delivered.

:-)

Oh how I LOL'd at Sony and their PS2 when it launched here. I never bought in to Sony's pre-launch hype as I strongly suspected it to have been a load of BS even then so it came as a cause of great amusement to witness and read of just how diabolically awful its lauch lineup was. The only plus points being that bizzaro fireworks simulator and that it played DVD movies albeit not very well.

Quite why I subsequently bought a PS3 on launch day several years later I've never quite figured out, lol.

[Rogue Trooper]

:-) gonna have to 'correct' you there slightly DC..it played DVD's reasonably well only IF.....

The DVD drive motor did'nt burn out the moment you opened tray to put a DVD in (cue ANGRY mum on BBC's Watchdog consumer show) and you were'nt trying to play that minor hit...Toy Story in it.......other than that? yeah it was great, ohh and careful trying to view the film that was being used as a showcase for DVD by the studios at that time, minor little flick, perhaps you've heard of it...'The Matrix'? poor old PS2 playback did'nt like all that dark setting, dark clothing etc had more 'ghosting' than entire series of Most Haunted.


Dunno why i'm taking the p*ss, i'm on my 2nd PS2..ohh yes i do..personal exp.with the damn things.

[zapiy]

I'm doing an interview with Chris soon, he's already warned me that it will be light on exact details and dates etc. due to how long ago it all was, however he promises some nice anecdotes.

Looking forward to reading that fella..

[mqarkcambie]

I'm hoping he's got some good stories. But for a couple of people, Chris like everyone else has been nothing but nice and willing to give me their time.

Fingers crossed 

I'm currently trying different sources for information and going after possible sources of Konix software. It appears that there are always some people who have just what you want, you just have to find them or find a way of letting them know what they have is of interest.