Mindfield

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind VB. I just haven't really had the time or the inclination to really sit down with it and work it out. I can't seem to get motivated enough to really work with it. Back in the day, working with GFA was great. I could program at my own level, directly access hardware, and really squeeze the last ounce of power out of the language by using low-level functions and routines. I can do similar things with VB, of course, by using prepackaged DLLs and the like, but it's not the same. One of these days I'll sit down and probably write some of the games I had planned for the ST but never completed.

Ah, for the days of programming. I used to love to program on my old Atari machines, particularily the ST. Unfortunately since I switched to the PC I really haven't had the inclination to pick up any of the current languages. Somehow they haven't got the power or 'sparkle' of, say, GFA Basic 3.5E on the ST. It's all so very sterile, it seems. Even VB, while relatively powerful, still seems... I dunno. Different in the sort of way that makes programming more of a chore than then joy that it once was.

...how about ... render a strange, ethereal room in the middle of an ocean with little more in it than an Atari symbol! I would have added a television and a VCS connected to it, but I can't for the life of me find a 3D model of a VCS. :-(

The game you're thinking about is Off The Wall's hillarious yet buggy effort known as Prime Time. I rather liked it, though their followup title, Big Business, was much better IMHO.

So basically, $5 would have been a steal. I sort of figured as much. *sigh* I think I'll make a point of attending the next auction, just on the off chance that something interesting might spring up...

Damn. My wife just informed me that at a recent auction she attended with her mother, they were auctioning off an immaculate condition boxed heavy-sixer with some 20 or more games, many of which were NIB. Mostly commons, I think, but still... It ended up selling for $5 CAD. $5!! She apparently told her mother to make a bid (since she went empty-pocketed) but she wouldn't 'cos, frankly, her mother is completely without any idea what good it would have been. *sigh* Just outta curiosity, what _would_ such a set been worth, assuming the games were mostly commons?

Exactly what are the dimensions for the standard Atari boxes? I'd like to edit the preliminary box art I did for the Airworld project so that it is at the very least accurate. :-)

I keep getting a connection refused when trying... but I'd love to get a look at that site. I'll probably be adding an ads section on EmulationNET when we finally get it going. My collection's far too large to host on our website so it'll probably come straight from my FTP server... hopefully that'll work out okay.

Xonox did release a few "single-ender" carts, which were basically the same as the double-enders, but only one "end" was present; in other words, it was one cartridge with one game. Is this what you're referring to?

Okay, here's the rough draft of the "Silver2" style box for Airworld. I've shrunk it down to screen res for display purposes (the original artwork is humungous and because the Pegasus-and-Rider pic looks utterly revolting blown up as large as it is (which is considerably larger than the original "Silver" style box). At any rate, as I said, it's a rough draft, but I think I did well enough with what I had to work with. And I can't find that "Avant Garde Medium" font on my system, so I had to make do with Arial. :-/ Swordquest: Airworld Box Art (Silver2) - Front By the way, anyone know what the exact dimensions of those boxes are? I guessed here, but I know it's too tall...

Woohoo! More to add to the collection. These are deffinitely rather cool. Now, if only he could offer special large high-quality MPEGs for download... :-) I already have the Centipede commercial in MPEG, but the rest would be cool to find so... [ 07-20-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

Well, admittedly I do like the style, but in fact I was using the Fireworld art as my reference point, as, at the time, I didn't have the Waterworld box to work with. (That only just recently saw the light of day on AtariAge) Alteration probably won't require much; the "Atari" and "2600" are TrueType fonts and so are easily scalable; the Swordquest logo, too, is large enough to be easily scaled down or, if necessary, up, if I get rid of the print screening with a filter. (Not much more though, as that'd soften the edges... I think it's large enough as it is tho) As for making them smaller -- if you save the files, then double-click 'em to load them into your default pic viewer you should be able to zoom out to 25% or so and see the whole box easily enough. Obviously these were never meant for web viewing. :-) I'll see what I can do to alter it to the Waterworld spec. Christopher: I have Avant Garde Medium, I beleve; I'll try the "26OO" trick and see how that pans out. Thanks. :-) [ 07-20-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

Okay, I've done box front mockups for the 2600 and 5200 versions of Airworld. Before I post the links, a few things: 1) Yes, I know, the picture below the Swordquest logo looks like utter crap. It's been enlarged 4x and more from its original, so, um ... yeah. It's about the best I can do. :-P 2) The boxes are identical except of course for the colour; red for 2600, blue for 5200. 3) The "2600" and "5200" aren't exact 'cos although I have an actual Atari font, I can't seem to find one to match the numbers used in the originals. :-P 4) Thees are large (just about 400k apiece) so it may be slow to display. The links open up in new windows. Other than that everything's more or less okay. Let me know what you think. Swordquest: Airworld (2600) Box - Front Swordquest: Airworld (5200) Box - Front [ 07-19-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

The methods of reaching it are probably unintentional -- in all likelihood, he didn't test it out enough to find them (which obviously isn't something one would even have thought about given how long it took to even find it in the first place :-) The areas that increase time and score are also probably incidental -- random appearances of things the game interprets as legitemate bonuses found elsewhere in the actual level data.

I don't really think it will come to that. Infogrames just want the AtariLabs.com domain because it coincides with their newly formed division. I don't think they care all that much if other domains they have no interest in exist because they are not yet a direct threat. Infogrames aren't, I think, interested in militantly protecting the Atari name from the slightest threat of dilution or derision. (That job belongs to Nintendo. :-) Infogrames just seems to resolutely go after what they want. And unfortunately they want the domain owned by a small-time fan site run by someone who has always had a deep and abiding love for the Fuji. :-/

What I'd love is a better (bigger) scan of the one on Dutchman's page. I've thus far redesigned the box art from scratch, but that scan on Dutchman's page is ... um ... tiny. It has to be enlarged to about 4x its size to even fit on the box art... Crossbow's scan has been invaluable, and the rest is easy, it's just that one pic. :-) Oh, and box top/bottom/side scans would be cool, too.

Well, if ever a commercials area pops up here, I've got many, many ads and promo spots to contribute. :-)

Well, I haven't exactly done it from scratch, but I _have_ done a sort of mockup using the other box scans and retouching them here and there, plus adding the artwork on your page for AirWorld, replacing the text with a real Atari font for smoothness, and altering the name 'n stuff. I've already done the fronts for both the 2600 and 5200 versions if you wanna take a look at 'em... they're probably not good enough for a print run, but what the hell. :-) [ 07-17-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

The original ST debuted at a cost of around $799 US -- pretty rich for most people's blood, though comparable systems at the time generally costed much more. Nevertheless couple that cost with a colour monitor (around $499) and you had a system that approached the price of, say, the Mac Plus or PC Jr. at the time. So Atari added RF ports for the less-than-well-to-do to hook it up to a TV. It made medium res blurry and difficult to read on even modern televisions that didn't have a horizontal resolution of 640 pixels, but it worked after a fashion. I used a television for the first while when I got my first ST in 1990.

Wrong Fansi... heh. I wrote the Atari ST ANSI art program by the same name (Well, similar gramatically - FANSI!, all caps with the exclamation point. :-) To the best of my knowledge it's still the only full colour, 80-column ANSI editor for the ST. Not that this has any relevance anymore. :-)

quote: Originally posted by Rhindle The Red: The main problem that I see for Mr. Wright would be the weaknesses in his arguements. Although he took the time to divide his letter into an impassioned plea and a legal defense, his defense seems mostly to be of the "go on, let him off, it's a lovely day..." kind of thing. Well, while his argument are a little weak, they are nevertheless still defensible. It's also not like Infogrames' own argument is any stronger if you strictly compare the points pressed. The major consideration I can see a judge giving were this to come to trial is that Infogrames, now Atari, derives its existence, in part, from the use and the reputation of the Atari name, whereas Lawrence's usage of it is simply a hobbyist thing. If Infogrames in any way feels that Lawrence's use of the name and logo in any way dilutes, defames, or otherwise casts a negative or confusing light on the Atari name, then they have a right to exercise their perogative to recourse against damaging their brand. However, I don't think Lawrence's site does any of that; it is simply a small-time, infrequently updated site from a dedicated gamer and long-time fan of things Atari who wants nothing more than to bring some kind of glory back to the Atari name. More in this below... quote: He hurts himself also with his explainations of why he chose the Atari Labs name. He says that there was no effort by Hasbro or Infogrames to revive the Atari name, and this is blatantly untrue. It can be argued whether or not they did a good job, but Hasbro definitely revived the name. It graced all Atari related products for PC, PlayStation and Dreamcast. They also promoted the Atari name on their web site with web based games. Likewise, Infogrames have, in the short time theyv'e owned Habro Interactive and Atari, shown a clear intention to use the name to its fullest advantage. Noone can claim that their intent to promote the name is not clear. Although this would hardly be a good legal argument, one could contest that revival of a name does nothing in itself to bring it any glory. Hasbro's revival of the Atari name amounted to little more than pimping the Atari brand to peddle inferior remakes of classic games to which they owned franchise rights. As far as I'm concerned, though the Atari name and familiar logo still made its rounds to keep the brand in the minds and hearts of consumers everywhere, it was in a way which was unlike the Atari we all knew and loved, and did little to build a good reputation for the Atari name. It was, in that sense, a revival of the same sort you'd give a dying man on life support in order to give him his shot of demorol. Whether or not this is the truth is irrelevant; his perception of Hasbro's handling of Atari is enough to give him cause to try and give the Atari name a more positive spin, and is therefore a valid reason for him to have leased the domain name. quote: He also states that there never was an 'Atari Labs' only an 'Atari Consumer Labs.' While this may be true in the sense that 'Atari Labs' was not an official name, nonetheless a search of Google not only doesn't yield the results he mentions, it yields specific references to 'Atari Labs', some of which are industry observations or anecdotes. So while it may not have been a formal name, it nonetheless was a phrase that pre-existed Atarilabs.com. This is sort of irrelevant though. The usage of "Atari Labs" as a phrase was in brief reference to "Atari Consumer Labs," or as a general reference to Atari's R&D department, and not to any pre-existing division that was actually named "Atari Labs." It's a slight difference, but important in legal terms, because Atari as a company, regardless of who owned it at the time, had not actually registered "Atari Labs" as an official division of Atari, so the name, if used under the fair use clauses of the Lantham Act, was up for grabs, and I think Lawrence's site could be classified as using the name in good faith. quote: Mr. Wright also states that he did not want the Atari name to languish. This seems an odd thing to claim given the existance of AtariHQ, Atari.net, AtariAge, etc. The Atari name was in no danger of languishing and certainly didn't need him to save it. Once again, how the Atari brand was languishing is largely in the eyes of the beholder. Hasbro's mishandling of the Atari brand is in many people's eyes a grevious slight on the Atari name as a whole. That they had some success with the titles they released under the moniker is irrelevant in this case; it isn't a popularity contest, but how one person percieved Hasbro's usage of the Atari name and the titles it released under it as poorly representing the Atari name. That's fair reason to want to try and bring something positive to it yourself. quote: Now, understand that I'd kind of like Infogrames to give in. I'm in agreement that this kind of thing can hurt their image with the very base they are trying to capture (as it clearly has). That being said, I do not think Mr. Wright is on quite as solid ground as you seem to think he is. Remember the case of Madonna.com. It was held by a man who used it for a sex site, but decided (when pressured by Madonna) to turn it over to the people who run www.Madonna.org, the Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital. He lost in court and the name was given (without recompense) to Madonna. I don't think Madonna has a greater claim to the word 'madonna' than Atari does to 'atari.' [ 07-16-2001: Message edited by: Rhindle The Red ] Precisely. Which comes down to Lawrence's argument that, if it came down to it, he is prepared to use the word "Atari" it its original Japanese definition, and not as a brand name. It's so scant a difference as seems almost laughable, but it is a legitemate legal defense, even if it's more of a loophole than a good argument. [ 07-17-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

Um ... that would be Atari's 16-bit line of computers. Every basic ST system had the following specs: - 8MHz Motorola 68000 CPU - One expansion bus (cartrige port) - Two standard 9-pin DIN ports for mouse and joystick - Centronics (printer) port - Serial port - MIDI in/out ports - ACSI port for connecting hard drives and laser printers. (ACSI stands for "Atari Computers System Interface" and was basically Atari's proprietary SCSI-type connection. Devices on the ACSI bus were chainable) - 3 channel sound chip (Yamaha YM2149) - 10 function keys (F1-F10) - Two button mouse - Graphical operating system (GEM (Graphical Environment Manager), designed by Digital Research, Inc. who also did a little-known PC version back in the day) - Three resolutions (Low: 320x200, 16 colours; Medium: 640x200, 4 colours; High: Monochrome 2 colours, required monochrome SM124 monitor. Colour pallette was 256 colours) - 512k or more, expandable to 4 megs. The models, roughly in order of appearance, were: 130ST - Released in a short run in Europe; failed miserably due to the memory, all 128k of it, being barely enough to just load the OS from disk and nothing else 260ST - Same as the 130ST with 256k RAM; also failed for the same reasons 520ST - The first successful ST. 512k of RAM, disk-based operating system in early models. Required an external 3.5" floppy drive (SF314 360k single-sided or SF354 720k double-sided) 1040ST - Same as the 520ST, with 1 meg of RAM 520STF - Same as the 520ST, with an internal 720k 3.5" floppy drive. 520STM - Semi-rare, IIRC; same as a 520ST, but with an internal RF modulator to connect it to a TV. (Non-M models required a colour (SC1224) or mono (SM124) monitor) 520STFM - A 520ST with internal floppy and RF modulator. Later models had 1 meg of RAM. 1040STF - 520STF with 1 meg of RAM 1040STFM - A 520STFM with 1 meg of RAM. Mega ST - A 1040ST in a detatchable keyboard flavour. Also featured a blitter chip for fast graphic blitting, and an internal clock powered by 2 AA batteries. Came in 1, 2 or 4 meg flavours. 1040STE - The "E" is for "Enhanced." Same as a 1040STFM, but with hardware scrolling, hardware sprites, stereo sound, and other enhancements. Mega STE - A 1040STE with a 16MHz 68000 and a detatchable keyboard in the same vein as the Mega ST, but with a retooled case that had a bay for an internal hard disk. For compatibility purposes, the machine was switchable between 8 and 16MHz on the fly. TT030 - Atari's powerhouse. A 32MHz 68030 CPU, higher graphic modes, VME expansion slot (similar to VESA on the PC), same case as the Mega STE, etc. Falcon030 - Atari's last computer, and in many ways outshone the TT030. Featured a 16 MHz 68030 as its main processor, and had a Motorola 56001 DSP as a secondary processor (used primarily for sound). Featured true-colour graphics with unlimited graphic modes (modes were fully programmable and were limited only by available RAM), unlimited CD-quality sound channels (the 56001 DSP is fully programmable as well), multitasking operating system (MultiTOS), internal IDE hard disk (1" form factor) -- you name it. The system was expandable to 14 megs of RAM. Independent companies have since taken to producing Falcon clones, such as the Medusa. These clones are more PC-like in that they have PCI expansion slots, are able to use PCI video cards, have faster chips (68040 or 68060), etc. I've probably forgotten some here, but you get the idea. [ 07-17-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

For emulation, I reccommend STEem Engine. It's fairly frequently updated, has an extremely high compatibility rate, has excellent sound (both chip and PCM) and supports most of the things the ST/e machines were capable of. (Some demos don't work tho) Altogether STEem Engine is pretty well surpassing the other emus out there. You can grab it from http://steem.atari.org I also have a bunch of disk images available on my FTP site at ftp://atari16:[email protected]:2026 including some disks I ripped myself. (Yes, including my own really bad early attempt at writing a demo in GFA Basic, as well as my much lauded but rarely registered shareware ANSI editor called FANSI! ... :-) Lots of multi-disks online as well. Someday I'll have enough space to put it all online. :-) [ 07-16-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

From the looks of it it does look like a glitch. Essentially what seems to be happening is that you're entering areas for which there are no legal coordinates the game can reference or understand. Games screens like this have finite coordinates; top left is 0,0, bottom right is, say, 255,255. That defines the legal boundaries of the entire game level. This "glitch" seems to be an unintentional area you were never supposed to access. When you get there, you're technically in an area that has no legal coordinate. Because of the way the VCS accesses bits of the game, what ends up happening is that when you travel outside the bounds of the game screen stored in the cartrige's ROM, you're essentially travelling beyond the area of memory in the ROM where the level data is stored. The game code doesn't know any different though, so what it ends up doing is wandering around the ROM reading bytes of actual program code or other data and interpreting it as objects on the screen (floors, ladders, etc.) That's why the "secret" area has a large degree of randomness to the layout; because it's not proper level data, it's game code. And because it's static game code, the "secret" area always looks and behaves the same way. If you could, for example, disassemble a game and change the pointer(s) to the level data to some random address, you'd probably achieve the same results.

To be honest I don't really think Infogrames would bother. These games are hobbyist material, not serious commercial ventures, and I doubt the revenue generated would be near to significant enough to even catch the notice of Infogrames execs. If they took exception to anything, it might be the misrepresentation of the Atari brand by making these homebrew titles look like they were officially sanctioned or licensed by Atari. I think that falls under both the misrepresentation and the brand dilution clauses of the Lantham Act. Still, I think it's small-time stuff and will probably fly under Infogrames' legal radar.