Products of an Alternate World

The Storyteller

Banned
I've seen threads about alternate World Leaders, alternate People, alternate Countries and even alternate Films & TV shows, but never one about alternate Products, so in recognition of how important they can be in establishing an alternate universe, both in fiction and alternate history in general, here it is.

Post any products you can think of here. They can be products that almost were, products that didn't get past that planning stages, products you've featured in your own timelines, or something completely made up.
 

The Storyteller

Banned
Naturally, my own contribution is a games console...

Sega Mega-3D

CD-based Sega Mega Drive 3.png
Pre-production model Sega Mega-3D - note the lack of the 'Mega-3D' logo, included on the production model.

Originally planned as a CD-based addon to the 16-bit Mega Drive/Genesis, the 'Mega-CD', as it was originally known, was aborted and combined with 'Project Aurora', Sega's planned 32-bit successor to the Mega Drive/Genesis. The name 'Mega-CD' was initially kept, and the new console used the original Mega Drive/Genesis casing as a base. However, noticing the trend towards 3D gaming, the console's name was modified by altering one letter - thus the 'Mega-CD' became the 'Mega-3D'.
The finished version, resembling a bulkier Model 1 PAL region Mega Drive (minus Cartridge port), was released in Japan in late-1994, placing it in direct competition with the Super Famicom's CD peripheral, the 'Super-CD Drive'. The Mega-3D was released in North America and Europe the following September.
Despite its resemblance to the Mega Drive/Genesis, the Mega-3D is a 32-bit console, utilising a Hitachi SuperH-2 RISC Processor as its CPU.

Just a little thing I came up with due to the circle around the Mega Drive's Catridge Slot looking so much like a CD lid at first glance

CD-based Sega Mega Drive 3.png
 
Last edited:
Andrew T

Andrew T

1983 advertisement for the Atari 800XLP, Atari's first "professional" computer. The XLP line would become Atari's most successful line of 8-bit computers, ultimately selling more than two million units until the end of its production run in 1987.

(Stolen from my Dirty Laundry timeline, of course.)

atari_800_XLP_small_ad.jpg
 
modelcitizen

modelcitizen

Why would I be intrigued by entry-level cars for sale in department stores, let alone mail-order catalogs? I like cars? Cheap cars. Cheap fun cars...

bradlees kardashi 650.JPG
 
modelcitizen

modelcitizen

So......

GM keeps Suzuki and makes it a division

OPEC switches to the Euro, and gas in the United States kabooms to over $6 per gallon

Detroit lobbies for and gets exemptions from various gov't requirements for cars getting over 60 mpg


voila.

Suzuki Citation.JPG
 
modelcitizen

modelcitizen

Color-Copycat said:
GM: Great Marketing, evidently :)
Click to expand...


(Standing atop parade float, giving royal wave to crowds hurling confetti) Thank you, thank you!


It's the kind of car I wouldn't mind driving, and, I wouldn't be sure about wanting the kind of circumstances required to get it offered for sale in this country. I still think it would be neat to be able to order a half-pint automobile from a catalog for the price of a nice sofa.
 

phx1138

From one TL I've been kicking around:

What about the 1951 Nash Cosmopolitan?:eek::eek:

Or the 1959 Northern Firearms Inc (NFI) Wolverine & Redcoat, in .41 Mag & .41 CIL Police (a 200gr softnose at 850 fps, in a case ⅛" shorter than the .41 Mag)?:cool::cool:

Or the 1970 Dominion Zephyr?:cool::cool: (Imagine the OTL VW Type 1 with a supercharged 24v V6.)

Or something as simple as Wonder Man, created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Schuster for a Canadian publisher, debuting in Action Comics #1 (cover-dated June 1938)?:cool::cool::cool:

Or, from another I've been working on:

the 1864 Colt Autorifle, world's first automatic rifle?

the 1930 Farnsworth T100, first widescreen teloptica? (OTL, that's a TV...)

the 1820 Concord A, world's first mass-produced stirling-powered car?
 

Kalvan

Something I am developing in Alien Space Bats, but nowhere near impossible OTL:

1985 Atari ST Series
CPU: X2 MIPS R2000 6 Mhz, 4.5 Average MIPS
• iMath Coprocessor/Floating Point Unit: X2 MIPS R2010, 4.5 MegaFLOPS
• iiDSP Unit: Texas Instruments TMS32020 series Fixed Point DSP
• iiiX2 32K SRAM Level II/Level III Cache

GPU: BETTY Display Adapter/Color Generator. Fully Backward Compatible with the video portion of ANTIC/GTIA Chips. Available Resolution/Color Modes include all Atari 8/16 Bit computer graphics modes(400, 800, 1000, 1600), plus 320x224x4096, (and on dedicated monitors) 512x384x2048, 640x448x1024, 768x576x256iv, and 1080x810x16v
• Blitter Sprite Generator and Background Processor (Effectively a merger of the Amiga Blitter and COPPER Chip, Closer in functionality to the MESSIAH/BUDDAH/MCCOY chip used in the Sharp X68000).
• OPIE Object Processor. Calculates Sprite Collision, background depth, limited Alpha Blending, capable of breaking down sprites along “Cut Lines” and pasting them back together an a different way.

Main Sound Processor: Motorola 6809A “JOY” Sound CPU, enhanced with the audio functionality of GTIA. Functions as an input scheduler, all-in-one DAC/MIDI Converter, and provides backward compatibility with 2600 sound without emulation through the GTIA logic.
• HARVEY Speech Synthesis Chip. First Used in Atari 1000 (And OTL in the 1400/1450XL that failed to materialize)
• POKEY II Stereo noise sound chip. (effectively a dual POKEY minus the keyboard interface)
• AMY II Eight Channel PCM/Additive Synthesis Music Chip.

Peripheral I/O Controller: Western Design 65C816 (To permit full backward compatibility with Atari 8/16 bit computers). Main Ports include:
• viX4 Joystick/Mouse ports (Using the DS9 Controller Port used in the Atari 2600 and TTL Atari 5200)
• X2vii Keyboard Ports
• X1 MIDI in
• X2 Internal Floppy Disc (Usual Arrangement is 5 ¼” Double Sided Single Density/Single Sided Double Density and 3 ½“ Double Sided Double Density)
• Up to X2 Internal Hard Driveviii
• X1 CD-ROM Driveix
• X1 CMOX Card Drive
• Up to X3 Monitor/NTSC/PAL Video outx
• X1 Printer Port
• X1 Stereo Speaker out
• X1 MIDI out.

Expansion I/O Controller: Western Design 65C816. Expansion Ports include:
• X2 SASI port (SCSI won’t be developed until 1987. IEEE 1394 “FireWire” won’t be developed until 1988)
• X1 Atari SuperBus (Used in the 8 Bit computers starting with the 400, basically the Serial I/O bus over fiber-optic cable)
• Up to X4 STPort Small Slots (Roughly analogous to the Amiga Zorro, or the later PCI)
• Up to X4 STPort Large Slots

Clock Chip: Western Design 65C19

Memory:
CMOX System Flash: 256K (BIOS, TOS, GUI)
System RAM:
• 512 ST: 512 K Fast DRAM (Roughly VRAM Speed) Expandable up to 2MB (by populating all four DIMM Slots with 512K DIMMs)
• 1536 ST: 1.5MB Fast DRAM Expandable up to 3 MB
• 4096 ST: 4 MB Fast DRAM Expandable up to 8 MB
Audio/Video RAM:
• 512 ST: X2 96K SRAM (198K Total)
• 1536 ST: X2 192K SRAM (384K Total)
• 4096 ST: X2 384K SRAM (768K Total)

Intended Market Niche and Competition:
512 ST: High-End Home Computer/Small Business Computer, slotted above the 8/16 bit computers like the Atari 1600 (High End MSX2 and Low End MSXPro2 Systems, Sharp X1000, Fijitsu FM 7-9 series, Sinclair QL and ZX128, Commodore 128, Apple IV {IIgs OTL}, BBC Micro III

1536 ST: Mainstream Business Computer (IBM PC/AT, PC/XT, and PS/2, NEC PC 88/98*, MSXPro2 Systems, Phillips Diamond*, Apple Nickerjack {Macintosh OTL}, Tandy 1000*, Sharp Amiga x68000#, BBC Micro Master, Acorn Archimedes)

4096 ST: High End Professional Workstation (Custom IBM machine running AIX or Microsoft Xenix, Apple Nickerjack XR (Macintosh XL), Sun SPARCStation, SGI Mark 3, Digital Equipment DECStation

*The NEC PC 83/88/98 and Phillips Diamond are licensed IBM PC clones sold in Japan and Europe (respectively) running x86 MS-DOS on custom non-Intel hardware (The NEC V series CPUs and various Cyrix and BASF chips, respectively). Because that license did not extend to the PS/2 bus, they can’t run the highest end North American IBM PC software at maximum settings without major artifacts, glitches, and/or crashing. On the other hand, the same is true of IBM computers trying to run their software too. The Tandy 1000 in this timeline isn’t an IBM PC jr clone. The Sharp Amiga X68000 is an amalgamation of the OTL X68000 and Commodore Amiga 1000, using the better chip of the two chipsets whenever possible, and running Workbench as a GUI on top of a highly modified Kickstart based on Digial VMS.

Notes

1536/4096 ST Only

[ii] 1536/4096 ST Only

[iii] 2X16K in 512 ST

[iv] 1536/4096 ST Only

[v] 4096 ST Only

[vi] X2 in Atari 512 ST

[vii] X1 in Atari 512 ST

[viii] 4096 ST gets 2 40MB hard drives in customer’s choice of RAID 0 or RAID 1 Configuration. 1536 ST gets single 20MB Hard Drive

[ix] 4096 ST Only

[x] 4096 ST Only. 1536 ST gets X2, 512 ST gets X1
 
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