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Quick Facts
Here are a few crib notes to get you up to speed, good ammunition for a conversation at a retro gaming convention maybe...
1) First there was the Loki project - then Flare one, then Konix Multisystem, then Atari jaguar.
2) Although the Multisystem was never released, the electronics found their way into a range of Bellfruit pub quiz machines and even an internet set top box
3) An Emulator exists that could run the Konix software (with a few minor modifications) if the origional Konix developers ever found any of their source code or binaries lying around
4) A Multisystem 2 was designed, but also was never launched
5) The Atari Jaguar was designed by most of the team that designed the multisystem and was an exercse in trying to design a better console than their plans for the multisystem - however isn't and shouldn't be considered a Multisystem 2
6) The Super FX chip was developed by one of the designers of the Flare One / Multisystem to enable the SNES to run what was going to be 'Revenge of Starglider' and which actually became Starwing / StarFox.
7) The developers kits still exist somewhere, but the actual Konix prototypes are hidden away in an unknown location (possibly a large Japanese console manufacturer's vaults - if you believe the conspiracy theories).
8) The Atari jaguar got its name from the Atari Panther project - named after a make of car (the Panther Kallista), the Jaguar was a natural progression of English car names. No one's sure when the naming moved from cars to cats for the Lynx...
9) The Multisystem was almost sold to George Lucas and we may have seen a Star Wars themed game machine but the deal fell through…. It's said that Sony were to manufacture it. This would have probably superceeded their deal with nintendo to produce a CD-ROM add on for the SNES. We all know what happened after that!
10) The Flare one was designed to be better than the Amiga
11) There were over 20 games in development for the Multisystem, actually quite a strong launch line up even by today's standards…. It was a very carefully considered launch line up that attempted to please every type of gamer.