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St. Nick by Funware!


BuckoBrand

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Lobster Bay was discovered as an Assembly program targeting the 32K space as its home, even though it was eventually intended to be a cartridge program. I suspect the program would have been tweaked to run from several GROMs and a ROM in cartridge space before it was to be formally released. The code that was found was then prepared with one of the cartridge preparation applications (from Tursi) to move the code into GROM space for storage while attaching a loader to it that grabbed the data in the GROMs, lobbed it into the 32K, and then executed it there when the program was selected.

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Lobster Bay was discovered as an Assembly program targeting the 32K space as its home, even though it was eventually intended to be a cartridge program. I suspect the program would have been tweaked to run from several GROMs and a ROM in cartridge space before it was to be formally released. The code that was found was then prepared with one of the cartridge preparation applications (from Tursi) to move the code into GROM space for storage while attaching a loader to it that grabbed the data in the GROMs, lobbed it into the 32K, and then executed it there when the program was selected.

 

When I talked with Michael Brouthers, this is what he said about Lobster Bay. Apparently it was to be the first in a line of bigger games:

 

 

 

? Did you see Pearl Diver [Lobster Bay] or Ant Exterminator [Ant Colony]? These were the first ones that would have used an expanded memory chip and a process we discovered to allow larger games? They never came out due to the dispute with Creative when TI announced the shutdown of production of the computer.
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Lobster Bay was discovered as an Assembly program targeting the 32K space as its home, even though it was eventually intended to be a cartridge program. I suspect the program would have been tweaked to run from several GROMs and a ROM in cartridge space before it was to be formally released. The code that was found was then prepared with one of the cartridge preparation applications (from Tursi) to move the code into GROM space for storage while attaching a loader to it that grabbed the data in the GROMs, lobbed it into the 32K, and then executed it there when the program was selected.

 

Actually Lobster Bay appears to have been done by hand, before I wrote my packaging tool. I used the code I wrote for Lobster Bay to make the tool, but I still have all the notes from manually laying it out. ;)

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True, it does plug into the sideport. I also have Espial.

 

Also, there is a way to solve the problem of where Miner 2049er plugs in: 2048K Games 1. It has Miner 2049er, many other games, and even the Thorn EMI games!

 

It's kinda weird. 2049er, 2048k. It's like the 9er in 2049er was changed into 8k. Weird, right?

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It's kinda weird. 2049er, 2048k. It's like the 9er in 2049er was changed into 8k. Weird, right?

 

Very weird, but interesting at the same time. BuckoBrand has just presented an opportunity. Maybe someone could make a sequel to Miner2049er called Miner2048Ker. Bigger, Bolder, Better.

Edited by Toucan
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I gave Turtles a TE-II cartridge to play with today, so he'll be able to run his test now, Bucko!

 

On another note, I was given a defective St. Nick cartridge to look at while I was at the Chicago Faire. I had the opportunity to do some experimentation on it tonight, and found out something interesting. This board is not the normal Funware cartridge board--it is a very small square board with two epoxy blobs on it instead of a standard EPROM. One of the blobs covers an 8K EPROM--the other covers what appears to be a GROM. This explains a lot, as one of the interesting stories that came out of the 1983 Summer CES was that the owner of Funware walked up to the TI booth, put one of his cartridges (title not identified) into one of the V 2.2 consoles on display, and fired up the game. Funware did have a GROM license (the only third-party vendor to successfully obtain one), so it is no surprise that they actually used GROMs in some of their cartridges. This is just the first one I have that physically proves it. I will take some pictures of the board later, but a definite shout out of thanks to Vic Steerup for providing me the cartridge to play with.

 

All that said, I suspect that there may even be two physical variants of the St. Nick cartridge--one with and one without the integrated GROM.

Thanks, Ksarul. :D

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Official releases:

 

Ambulance

Driving Demon

Henhouse

Rabbit Trail

St. Nick

Video Vegas

 

 

Protos--Non.circulated:

 

Cave Creatures

Lobster Bay

Schnoz-Ola

Shanghai

 

I may have forgotten a couple

You forgot Ant Colony. Ant Colony is actually a good game. Like Shanghai and Schnoz-Ola, Competition Computers also made a few Ant Colony cartridges.

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