Putting Linux on the classic Atari Jaguar console
Article excerpt
Released in North America in November of 1993, the Atari Jaguar promised to be the new cool kid in the block thanks to its (Highly debated) 64 bits of Motorola 68000 power. The console itself ended up being a commercial disaster, even after the release of the CD addon, the Jaguar CD; which managed to […]
Released in North America in November of 1993, the Atari Jaguar promised to be the new cool kid in the block thanks to its (Highly debated) 64 bits of Motorola 68000 power.
The console itself ended up being a commercial disaster, even after the release of the CD addon, the Jaguar CD; which managed to sell even less units in a desperate attempt to try and compete with the Sony Playstation and the Sega Saturn.
Joel Bueno (cakehonolulu) says “Doing a bringup for a new 68000-based Linux port should be easy… right? Well… you’re in for a good time.”
The Jaguar has 2 megabytes of RAM (Mapped at 0x000000), (up to) 6 megabytes of ROM (The cartridge, basically) mapped at 0x80000 and 2 custom ICs (Tom & Jerry, a “GPU” and a DSP) which are also memory-mapped.
The main hurdle we have is the memory footprint; while it’s true that it’s a good amount, it’s still not infinite (We’re talking megabytes, not gigabytes).
See the details in the post here.