9 replies to this topic

[Ed Fries]

Found a nice addition to my Romox collection on ebay the other day. Now if I can just find that CIB Spark Bugs I'd be a happy man...

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[tschak909]

Can anyone explain the technical details of those ECPC cartridges? Did any of those actually get out in the wild? I had a huge stockpile of the blue ROMOX cartridge cases, but no boards in them...

-Thom

[Ed Fries]

This seems to be a legitimate one. It has the listed game on it and it works.

[Ed Fries]

More info here: http://www.timmcguin...games_intro.htm

[CharlieChaplin]

Hmm,

searching for Ed Fries at atarimania as author gave the following results:
http://www.atarimani...eam=436&step=25

Are there any more games you programmed and err, what is their status - are some of them still commercial  after all this time (excluding Froggie and Space Combat) or did you get the rights back for some of them ?!?

-Andreas Koch.

Edited by CharlieChaplin, Fri Jun 22, 2012 1:35 PM.

[tschak909]

Yes, I've read all that, before... It has the air of Michael Tomczyk, Nolan Bushnell, etc... guys who take far too much credit for what they actually did... I was interested in actual technical information (not really for anything tangible now, just to satisfy my own curiosity.)

-Thom

[Ed Fries]

CharlieChaplin, on Fri Jun 22, 2012 1:33 PM, said:

Are there any more games you programmed and err, what is their status - are some of them still commercial  after all this time (excluding Froggie and Space Combat) or did you get the rights back for some of them ?!?

The short answer is no. I didn't write any other games until a few years ago when I did Halo 2600.

The longer answer...
I was in High School and working in a pizza place when I was contacted by Romox. They had seen a game I had written for fun called "Froggie" and wanted to publish it. The fact that they even found me was kind of amazing because the program just said "By Eddy Fries" so how they found me up in Seattle I have no idea. They were worried we would be sued if we released it as is so they asked me to change the cars into jousting knights and make a few other changes and that's what became "Princess and Frog". I continued to work for them over the next few years as I entered college. During that time I made "Anteater" and "Sea Chase" and started a game called "Nitro" before Romox fell apart and I had to get a real job to pay for college.

[Ed Fries]

tschak909, on Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:26 PM, said:

Yes, I've read all that, before... It has the air of Michael Tomczyk, Nolan Bushnell, etc... guys who take far too much credit for what they actually did... I was interested in actual technical information (not really for anything tangible now, just to satisfy my own curiosity.)

-Thom

Sorry, I don't know anything more about this. I never saw one of the programming stations when I worked for Romox. I was in college in New Mexico and only spoke with them over the phone.

[chrislynn5]

Ed Fries, on Thu Jun 21, 2012 6:09 PM, said:

Found a nice addition to my Romox collection on ebay the other day. Now if I can just find that CIB Spark Bugs I'd be a happy man...

You worked for Romox, creating a few of their carts, and are collecting them? Sounds cool, but I would have thought you kept some of all that old stuff. Interesting.
I'm in need of Spark Bugs, Princess and the Frog, Typo, and Starion to complete my Romox 8-bit Atari carts. And that would put me at about 5-6 carts short to completing the games category. Loose carts would be fine with me

Edited by chrislynn5, Mon Jul 9, 2012 9:56 AM.

[chrislynn5]

Now I just need of Spark Bugs and Starion. Trades anyone?