Three of my game tapes

[JohnW]

Here is three of my game tapes I wrote back in the day. I came across them while cleaning.

 

Edited March 13, 2018 by JohnW

[walter_J64bit]

I don't think I've tried these games, are you going to share them?

[Rybags]

Atarimania has the first 2 listed but no dump, Green Goblins it appears is safely archived.

 

I'd recommend trying a transfer of the first 2 to .WAV file on the PC. If the tapes haven't been used in a while probably a good idea to FF/Rewind before playing it. Give them a visual inspection to make sure they're not losing the oxide coating.

 

Once you have a .WAV copy then there's tools to get converted to a CAS image.

[JohnW]

Actually Android Attack is available on the internet

 

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-android-attack_266.html

 

I am working on getting the ATR files for my other games and will share them when I do.

 

Here is another one of my games that was published in the Antec magazine.

 

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-starsector-defense_5037.html

 

 

I just recently setup my Atari 800 and dual 810's. Someone offered to convert my disks to ATR and then I will make the games available.

 

[www.atarimania.com]

Hi John,

 

Thanks so much for dropping by!

 

Actually, we'd need .wav files of all three if possible. We only have cracked disk copies of Android Attack and Green Goblins, not tapes (BTW, is Green Goblins supposed to have speech?).

 

Could you tell us more about Unicorn Software? There's another company with the same name that produced educational games (from Las Vegas), "yours" which appears to be different and a potential third one (?) based in Utah which made an undumped game called Enchanted Palace.

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[Mclaneinc]

Thanks JohnW for archiving stuff....Its a great thing to do..

 

Edit: You did seem to like Berzerk

 

Thank you..

 

Paul..

Edited March 13, 2018 by Mclaneinc

[JohnW]

A couple games of mine were Berzerk like but there are others coming

[Mclaneinc]

That's excellent news, thank you

 

Paul..

[JohnW]

Here is a screen shot of Spider Valley (non Berzerkish game ) I hope to have available in the next couple weeks.

 

[FifthPlayer]

Tell us more about Starbase Assault....the title sounds interesting.

[JohnW]

Actually it is similar to the arcade game Space Zap. It was very common back then to clone an arcade game so it could be played at home and save some quarters.

 

It looks a lot like this and will be available soon as I now have my work on ATR files thanks to Bob1200xp

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2018 by JohnW

[CrazyChris]

Can you put them all on one disk?

[SINGLE TOOTH]

Michigan is the Land of Pretzels?

[JohnW]

Working on the transferred ATR disks and I decoded to load a couple onto my Asus Zenpad 3S 10 and test them with Colleen and they ran fine.


Starbase Assault



Spider Valley

[JohnW]

For those that want them now here is a zip file of all my games in single ATR files as well as two combo disk ATR's

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fl9np9e62p4gjiq/wilson-games.zip?dl=0

 

Either hitting START or the Joystick button usually starts them.

[www.atarimania.com]

Thank you very much for saving these games and making them available!

 

Just a few questions if you can remember...

 

1. Apart from Android Attack, Starbase Assault (Pretzelland Software) and Green Goblins (Unicorn Software), was any of your other games sold?

 

2. Does Kamikaze Saucers have anything to do with the prototype by Syncro on the 2600?

 

3. Could you tell us more about Unicorn Software? There's another company with the same name that produced educational games (from Las Vegas), "yours" which appears to be different and a potential third one (?) based in Utah which made an undumped game called Enchanted Palace.

 

It would be great if you could make .wav files from your three tapes so they can be properly archived as well.

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[JohnW]

Starsector Defense was published in an Antec magazine.

 

The others never were.

 

Unicorn was a hobby venture for me and a friend after Pretzelland Software. It was based out of my basement and didn't ger very far as it was towards the end of my time with the Atari. We also were in the process of putting together a disk based magazine which we called Prism. Alas the temptation of the Amiga 1000 was just too strong and I soon switched over.

 

Me and my friends played Lazer Fry (Space Zap in the arcade) and had competitions for high score. With all the play testing I had done I did quite well.

 

Kamikaze Saucers was just something I dreamed up playing around with some assembly subroutines. I probably would have made it onto Prism if we got a second issue ready. I never owned a 2600 and really never played console games. My first computer was an OSI C4P which I learned on and sold a couple games. I then moved onto the Atari then onto the Amiga. I wrote a few public domain games for the Amiga two of which were modem based two player games (Tel-thello and Battlship). The one that is on the internet is called The Krillian Incident and used the AMOS 3D library and was like the old Star Trek mainframe game but with graphics. A tribute to my first the Atari game I played of coarse Star Raiders.

 

To be honest I don'y even own a tape player. I moved to CD back in the 80's and never looked back. I guess sitting around waiting for tape to rewind got old... LOL and lets not mention the hours I sat around waiting for the games to load (OSI was 300 baud).

Edited March 15, 2018 by JohnW

[www.atarimania.com]

Thanks!

 

Do you remember how you sold Green Goblins? Computer stores in your area? Through a user group? I'm curious as I never saw an ad anywhere. The tape looks professionally made.

 

Was the game cassette only or also disk? Somehow, it seems it "got out" as we recently found a cracked version several years ago (it appears it was copied from tape to disk). Is the Voice Box II version supposed to be any different? Does it talk?

 

Apologies for all the questions, we'd like to preserve this bit of history the best we can.

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

Edited March 15, 2018 by www.atarimania.com

[JohnW]

Green Goblins was sold locally in the Detroit area. I modified it when the THE ALIEN GROUP advertised they were looking for examples to add to their demo disk for the Voicebox. I submitted Green Goblins with some voice overs and they paid me a small amount to add it. Wow it has been a long time. I think we had a disk version available. I know that Pretzelland Software had both so I imagine we did the same.

 

I have had people ask if they is the Green Goblin from Spiderman but to be honest I wasn't into comics then so I had no idea. I just liked the name.

 

Bob Ritel and I met at the Aardvark Software place for the OSI computer (local to us both) and became friends. When Roger Olsen (who ran Aardvark) decided not to venture into Atari 8 bit but rather go into the TRS-80 Color Computer, Bob decided to start his own software house. So I wrote some games for him. None of us got rich off these ventures. It was more like a Hobby that helped pay for itself. To this day I only wish I saved all those OSI game tapes (I could take what I wanted since I had a game sold through him). Those tapes are worth a lot of money to vintage computer collectors. Alas who thought that far ahead being a young 23 year old. One funny note is that Bob and I came up with a simple copy protection system for the disk copies. Nothing that a Happydrive wouldn't handle but quite ingenious none the less.

 

Pioneering days for sure.....

[JohnW]

Well thanks to Nir Dary on Facebook we now have the second disk for Voicebox. It has three demo games of mine that can be played without the Voicebox.

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kdzlb36idzvksez/Voice-Box-Games.atr?dl=0

 

 

 

[JohnW]

Well with some sadness I packed away all of my Atari stuff again. I did keep one 810 out along with the Atarimax SCO2PC interface just in case I come across some other disks to convert.