Jaguar CD System (Atari Jaguar)
The Atari Jaguar CD or Jag CD is a CD-ROM peripheral for the Atari Jaguar video game console.
Code-named the Jaguar II during development, the Jaguar CD was released on September 21, 1995, and retailed for $149.95. The device sits atop the Jaguar console, fitting into the ROM cartridge slot. The drive has its own cartridge slot to allow cartridge games to be played without removing the CD drive, and to run software that used cartridge and CD in tandem.
The Jaguar CD unit featured a double-speed (2×) drive and built-in VLM (Virtual Light Machine) software. Using a spectrum analyzer, the VLM provided a sophisticated video light show when an audio CD was played in the machine. Packaged with the drive were two games (Blue Lightning and Vid Grid), a music CD (Tempest 2000 soundtrack), and a Myst demo disc. Also, the startup screen is different from that of the cartridge-based Jaguar: using the VLM banks it creates a random "light show" that is different every time the console was switched on. However, the startup was silent.
Jaguar CD games can include as much as 790MB of data, considerably more than conventional CD-ROMs. The designers chose to ignore established CD-ROM formats and instead created their own based on the audio CD format. While allowing for dramatically more storage on the disc and foiling casual piracy, the format provides only limited error correction.
Only 11 games were released for the Jaguar CD during its lifetime: Battlemorph, Baldies, Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods, Brain Dead 13, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands, Myst, Primal Rage, and the two pack-ins. However, previously unfinished titles and homebrew releases have since been produced, and games for the Jaguar CD were released as recently as 2017.
