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Arkyology - New prototype discovered - Finished Game!


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I just played your game for about an hour on my Retron 77 and my 7800. Very fun game. It reminds me of a cross between Keystone Kapers and Fast Eddie. The farthest I made it was to day 2. I'm pretty awful. If I were responsible for the survival of all they animals they would all be extinct.

I am a bit disappointed that it didn't make cartridge forn, but It would give me the opportunity to make my own.

But thank you for releasing the rom.

Edited by Mountain King
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I would buy one too, especially if the graphic design was good.... would be nice to see one finally

 

I think this would have been really well received bitd, as well. It makes me wonder what the David and Goliath would have been like to play. I would think these would have been fairly low circulation as a religious games, though, despite being good, and would now be quite rare, like Red Sea Crossing.

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I vaguely recall having a discussion on the startup bank way back then... and the specs for the masked ROM that was to be used in manufacturing guaranteed the startup bank to be 0... Funny how all these years later it popped up as an issue.

Thanks for confirming that the exact startup behavior depended on the hardware used for the carts.

 

This is an issue which was pretty unclear for quite a long time. Most original bankswitched ROMs supported starting in random banks while some (especially prototypes) would break if not started in a certain bank.

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Thanks for confirming that the exact startup behavior depended on the hardware used for the carts.

 

This is an issue which was pretty unclear for quite a long time. Most original bankswitched ROMs supported starting in random banks while some (especially prototypes) would break if not started in a certain bank.

 

I guess we should deal with this in a more general way in Stella. Perhaps have a specific properties entry for it? Maybe create an issue for it??

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I guess we should deal with this in a more general way in Stella. Perhaps have a specific properties entry for it? Maybe create an issue for it??

I am pretty sure that from the original games, the same ROM was used with boards which had random startup banks and (probably later on and maybe even during development) with a defined startup bank. So properties wouldn't work.

 

Since we can be pretty sure that all released games must have worked on their boards back then and modern boards support dedicated banks, random startup banks are most likely only relevant for unreleased prototypes. Or when people want to reuse old original boards for new developments.

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Now that I know what you will be naming this ROM in your releases, I can get it added to the properties database for Stella 6.0.

 

Arkyology (1983) (Sparrow - Enter-Tech, Rick Harris, George Hefner, Paul Walters, Barbara Ultis) (Prototype) ~

 

 

Assuming that HomeComputer Software had nothing to do with this one.

 

8)

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Arkyology (1983) (Sparrow - Enter-Tech, Rick Harris, George Hefner, Paul Walters, Barbara Ultis) (Prototype) ~

 

 

Assuming that HomeComputer Software had nothing to do with this one.

 

8)

 

 

Yes, the binary I released was the final version we developed in 1983 at Enter-Tech. There have been no modifications or changes to it since then. On the developer names, I would like mine first since I was the lead on this game and preserved it all these years, as well as being the current copyright holder (or closest thing to it). I purchased the rights to all the games made by Enter-Tech at their bankruptcy auction in 1985 (well I'd have to look it up but it was either late 1985, or early 1986). I know there was one other gent who used to work there that asserts he bought the rights to the Poker games we developed while at Enter-Tech for $1 just before the shutdown. This may be so, but it really doesn't matter after all these years.

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Yes, the binary I released was the final version we developed in 1983 at Enter-Tech. There have been no modifications or changes to it since then. On the developer names, I would like mine first since I was the lead on this game and preserved it all these years, as well as being the current copyright holder (or closest thing to it). I purchased the rights to all the games made by Enter-Tech at their bankruptcy auction in 1985 (well I'd have to look it up but it was either late 1985, or early 1986). I know there was one other gent who used to work there that asserts he bought the rights to the Poker games we developed while at Enter-Tech for $1 just before the shutdown. This may be so, but it really doesn't matter after all these years.

 

It sounds like three of the Unitronics expander games your division worked on were finished: Treasure hunt, Dazzler and Buggers. Do you know if the prototype tapes or ROMS for those still exist? It sounds like those are 16K roms on tape.

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It sounds like three of the Unitronics expander games your division worked on were finished: Treasure hunt, Dazzler and Buggers. Do you know if the prototype tapes or ROMS for those still exist? It sounds like those are 16K roms on tape.

 

Yes they were all finished. The Unitronics people switched gears for the Nth time and wanted to make their own computer system -- which would have been similar to the Commodore -- so the games were never released.

 

I had the source code for *all* of the Enter-Tech games, hardware, and development systems up unto the spring of 2002. A major life change and I threw out everything from that era. The only game that survived is the Arkyology binary.

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Yes they were all finished. The Unitronics people switched gears for the Nth time and wanted to make their own computer system -- which would have been similar to the Commodore -- so the games were never released.

 

I had the source code for *all* of the Enter-Tech games, hardware, and development systems up unto the spring of 2002. A major life change and I threw out everything from that era. The only game that survived is the Arkyology binary.

 

Okay. Interesting. Did that include the physical tapes, or did those go to Unitronics?

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Yes they were all finished. The Unitronics people switched gears for the Nth time and wanted to make their own computer system -- which would have been similar to the Commodore -- so the games were never released.

 

I had the source code for *all* of the Enter-Tech games, hardware, and development systems up unto the spring of 2002. A major life change and I threw out everything from that era. The only game that survived is the Arkyology binary.

 

I found Dazzler was apparently a port of a coin-op game, but there is no real information on the other two. Hearing about these unreleased games is fascinating. When you have time, maybe you could tell us a little something about the Treasure Hunt and Buggers games.

 

Dazzler looks a bit like a pac man type game:

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I found Dazzler was apparently a port of a coin-op game, but there is no real information on the other two. Hearing about these unreleased games is fascinating. When you have time, maybe you could tell us a little something about the Treasure Hunt and Buggers games.

 

Dazzler looks a bit like a pac man type game:

 

Yeah, we had an association with a British company (I'll have to look up the name) that made coin-op boards/games that were interchangeable. Rick Harris was lead on working with them and supporting their coin-op games here in the USA. I never worked on that part much. I thought Dazzler was the best, the others were pretty much knock-offs of other popular games. The IP for these coin-op games was not owned by EnterTech. (I believe this was talked about early in this thread).

 

The three of us, George, Rick, Barb and I all worked on the Unitronics version of these games. Andy was a part-time contributor to the software side. He was a EE and worked on the Hardware side mostly.

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Yeah, we had an association with a British company (I'll have to look up the name) that made coin-op boards/games that were interchangeable. Rick Harris was lead on working with them and supporting their coin-op games here in the USA. I never worked on that part much. I thought Dazzler was the best, the others were pretty much knock-offs of other popular games. The IP for these coin-op games was not owned by EnterTech. (I believe this was talked about early in this thread).

 

The three of us, George, Rick, Barb and I all worked on the Unitronics version of these games. Andy was a part-time contributor to the software side. He was a EE and worked on the Hardware side mostly.

 

So, I think this is probably right about the other two games' arcade source.

 

Treasure Hunt aka Jack the GiantKiller

 

 

 

I can only find a Windows version of Buggers, look like a Space Invaders clone. That lines up with what I read about the Expander.

post-54985-0-95758200-1535840198.png

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It's been a while since this thread was opened. I originally wanted Arkyology released as a cartridge after all this time. After several years trying, I've decided to just release Arkyology here as a ROM file, and let it out into the world.

 

It's been many years since I, George Hefner, Rick Harris, and Barb Ultis designed and created this game. Those were fun times. I didn't realize at the time what a special era we were in, and how enduring the legacy would be.

 

So without further reminiscing, please find attached to this post, the Arkyology game image. This game is 8k in size and requires the F8 cartridge in order to run.

 

Enjoy!

 

Paul Walters

 

 

--edited for clarity

 

What's an F8 cartridge?

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