Radio Shack Invaders (Model I)--Info Wanted

[BassGuitari]

I "discovered" this game a little while ago when I sat down one night to go through a bunch of .cmd files to convert to .cas to use with PlayCas on my Model I. It's a pretty nifty game--arguably one of the better Space Invaders clones for the Trash-80 that I've played (even though it doesn't seem to have sound...oh well). All indications point to it being an official release, but somehow I can't track down any information on it. Release date, region, media type, anything. I can't even detect any catalog appearances (just finished combing through radioshackcatalogs.com...no dice).

The game itself provides no clues, either, except possibly for "Tandy Radio Shack" appearing on the title screen.

(Also...does anyone happen to know if the high score of 52,910 is "factory original"? It's a weird number and the game doesn't seem to allow you to save your high scores.)

Any info would be appreciated.

[George Phillips]

There were naturally quite a few versions of space invaders for the TRS-80. If you could provide a filename or screenshot or a pointer to the actual game it would help a lot.

[BassGuitari]

Download link:

Radio Shack Invaders (19xx)(Radio Shack)[CMD]

Otherwise search "Radio Shack Invaders" in the software search at TRS-80.com; It's the only entry by that name.

Edited February 10, 2017 by BassGuitari

[George Phillips]

I don't recognize it as anything officially from Radio Shack. I do see that rsinvad2.cmd and rsinvad3.cmd have the high score set to 0 so I'm doubtful the 52910 is original. Oddly, rsinvad3.cmd has "RADIO SHACK INVADERS" changed to "TANDY INVADERS" and "TANDY RADIO SHACK" changed to "TANDY ELECTRONICS". There's also no delay when printing the strings. But the change was clearly done as a patch -- the much shorter "TANDY INVADERS" has a bunch of extra spaces to make it take the same space as "TANDY RADIO SHACK".

 

All of them have a hidden copyright message: "COPYRIGHT © 1979, 7/13 BY TRS-BM KOGAN". Or perhaps that is "KOGANE", hard to tell. I just saw that in the binary and don't know if there's some way to trigger it.

 

The Radio Shack -> Tandy change sure feels like something done by an employee. I wonder if this was some unofficial game perhaps written by an employee?

[BassGuitari]

Very interesting, thank you!

I wonder how/where it surfaced if it wasn't an official Radio Shack product?

[jhd]

Slightly related, I recall that my local RS Computer Centre had some very impressive Coco demo software used to impress potential customers. It was not an "official" product, but rather it was something either developed by a store employee or someone with a less formal connection to the store.

 

Perhaps this game was developed in a similar manner; as either an unofficial or semi-official product for local store use.

 

Did anyone check to see if the listing possibly came from (or was mentioned in) the TRS-80 Microcomputer Newsletter?

http://www.os9projects.com/MAGAZINES/MicroNews/MicroNews.html