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History
The Jaguar International Corporation (株式会社ジャガーインターナショナルコーポレーション) was founded on July 24, 1949 under the name Maruzen Sewing Machine Co., Ltd. As the name implies, the company was manufacturing and selling sewing machines and sewing machine parts. In 1978, the domestic sales department became independent and established under the name Jaguar Sewing Machine Co., Ltd. and would merge back with the Maruzen Sewing Machine Co in 1989 under the name Jaguar Co., Ltd. Other branches of the company that were still operating under different names would slowly join under the new banner, until 1999 where the import/export business would change its name to Jaguar International Corporation.
Note: To simplify the conversation, let’s use Jaguar as the name of the company.
Since its inception, Jaguar has been a symbol of excellence, quite literally as they won the Sears Symbol of Excellence Award for ten consecutive years. This was on top of the many other awards the company won over the years.
By the beginning of the 90s’ as a small revolution in the sewing machine industry was brewing : the arrival of computerized sewing machines. In 1994, Singer releases the world first computerized sewing machine: the Quantum XL-1000. The Quantum series was targeting at professionals and the ones who turned sewing to arts. The Quantum XL-1000 offered built-in memory cards and was designed to facilitate embroidery works.
But computers in the early 90s were expensive so the price of computerized sewing machines were often in the thousands of dollars. Jaguar started working on its own computerized sewing machine in the late 90s, but knew the price point would be an issue. While pitching ideas, Jaguar came to the realization that there was already a small computer in millions of homes around the world in the form of the Nintendo Game Boy. The Game Boy offered connectivity to external device through its link cable, was powerful enough for the need of a computerized sewing machine, had simple control, a very decent price point and even offered the possibility of having multiple software if need be.
With that in mind, Jaguar reached out to Nintendo to acquire the license to produce an official accessory : the nu・yell JN-100.
Release
Following the success of the nu・yell JN-100, Jaguar release the Nuotto JN-2000. The new model had an enclosure for a Game Boy Color, but the game console was not included in the ¥59,800 price point. The big selling point was the capability to transform the JN-2000 into a full-fledged embroidery machine with the addition of the EM-2000 attachment. But the EM-2000 cost an additional ¥39,800, pushing the total cost over ¥100,000, which was a steep price.
To promote the machine, Jaguar, in collaboration with Nintendo released Mario Family, an additional embroidery cartridges that features characters from the Super Mario series. A second cartridge called Kirbi family was set to be released on September 10, 200, but was delayed and eventually canceled due to the abysmal sales of Mario Family.
Demise
While the JN-100 was able to conquer a market segment of inexpensive computerized sewing machine, the JN-2000 either too expensive for amateur or too gimmicky for professionals. And the base unit itself being more expensive than the JN-100, there was no point of purchasing the JN-2000 as a standalone sewing machine. If the JN-100 wouldn’t have existed, maybe the JN-2000 would have had a chance, but we will never know.
Software
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| Raku x Raku 文字 Raku x Raku Letter |
Raku x Raku Mishin |
Raku x Raku カット しゅう |
ジャガーミシン刺しゅう専用ソフトマリオファミリ |
The Raku x Raku Mishin (also known as the “Sewing Machine Operation Software” on the IZEK 1500), allowed the user to choose between 302 types of programmed sewing patterns. You could also save your favorite pattern for quick access and even create your own sewing patterns. This cartridge work on both the JN-100 and the JN-2000.
The Raku x Raku Letter and Raku x Raku Cut are both embroidery cartridges that only works with the JN-2000
Mario Family is the only other embroidery cartridges exclusive to the JN-2000. It had 32 embroidery patterns of characters that belong to the Super Mario Bros franchise.