almightytodd

I think I'm inclined to agree with you, Mimo. Awesome programming, Bob!

The screenshots on the link provided really illustrate an issue that I brought up in the 2600 Forum... the issue of portrait vs. landscape orientation. In that discussion thread, Supercat makes the very valid point that the 2600 has severe limits that affect objects sharing the same horizontal line differently than objects aligned vertically. The Spectravision game "Planet Patrol" is able to get around this somehow, and plays as a vertical scroller turned sideways: For "dot-eater" games such as Pac-Man, I noted that the NES port captured the screen orientation of the original coin-op, by putting the scoring information off to the side: This tactic obviously wouldn't work for the 2600, but I wonder about whether a 7800 port could get away with it? Any thoughts?

I was 17 years old when the Atari VCS first appeared, and it became our "family" Christmas present for 1977 (Heavy Sixer SN#17718K). By 1982, I was a struggling college student, with a wife, kid in diapers, and another one on the way. In short, I was in no financial position to be chasing after the latest home-gaming trend. But I still have intense memories of walking into some store somewhere, and seeing a Colecovision being demonstrated. I had seen the Atari 400 and 800 computers, and noted that they seemed to be a lot like the Apple II in many ways; except just a little bit better in every area of performance. I had heard rumors of the new Atari gaming console, and understood it to be basically an "Atari 800 without a keyboard". I thought to myself, "Gee, sounds expensive". In just a passing scan of the available games for the 5200, it seemed like they were the same games as were available for the 2600, except with better graphics; not very inspiring. So when I actually saw the graphics and game-play of a Colecovision, it was like, "Wow! That looks just like the picture on the screen of a machine I would have to feed quarters to in order to play." I was never a big fan of the coin-op version of Donkey Kong - it seemed unfair to me that I had to start again at the very bottom each time Mario "died", regardless of how close I was to the top. But the fidelity of the translation from arcade to home-machine was quite impressive. Also quite impressive, was the news that an add-on module would be available to make this new machine compatible with all of the existing Atari 2600 games. Very cool. So now, years later, I have inherited our family's original Heavy Sixer, and also picked up a couple 7800's along the way. I also have a few plug-n-play units and a Flashback 2. But the truth is, I'm more likely to play classic games and the new home-brews through an emulator, than fire-up one of the old systems or the FB2. I've noticed that there is some activity in the home-brew scene for Colecovision, and I understand it has the development advantage that it can be programmed in C. I see that there are a few forums devoted to Colecovision here at AtariAge. A Google-search reveals that there are other forum sites out there talking about the Colecovision, but they don't seem to have much in the way of activity (http://www.neoncherry.com/retrogamevideos/...php?forum_id=50 for example). I guess what I'm getting at here, is I'm wondering if these feelings I have about the Colecovision are common/typical? Am I faithful to the 2600 because it was the first (successful) home system? Or is it because it was the system I grew up with? I don't know that I'd have any interest in trying to get a Colecovision from an ebay seller, as I've heard it's hard to find a unit that remains in working order. And even if I were able to find one, then there's the matter of finding carts for it. Having dozens (hundreds?) of titles available as ROM downloads makes it hard for me to justify spending money on something that doesn't even qualify as nostalgia, as I'm wouldn't be reclaiming something that I once had - more like getting a late taste of something I always wanted. What is the Colecovision connection here at AtariAge? Is it a technicality, since one of the selling points of it was that it could be expanded to be Atari-compatible? Or do other "Atarians" like myself suffer from "Colecovision-Envy"? Or is it something completely different; like maybe a sense of empathy for Colecovision enthusiasts who found themselves orphaned by some of the similar kinds of corporate-thinking mistakes that led to the fall of Atari? Is the Colecovision the system that Atari should have built? Or would things have worked out differently if the talks between Atari and Nintendo for distributing the Famicom in the U.S. with an Atari name badge hadn't fallen apart? I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts. Thanks,

I can see how a comparison of the 2600 game to the coin-op game could generate severe disappointment, but strangely enough, the 2600 Journey Escape cartrige is my wife's favorite 2600 game! I think it must have something to do with there being no "shooting" involved, and the sense that she's "helping" the band. I find it interesting how when I see the band members' initials displayed, I'm able to instantly recall their names after all these years. Perhaps the limitations of the first home videogame systems were the deciding factor for the band KISS to opt to be immortalized on a classic pinball machine instead. Given the nature of their mass-merchandizing, I still find it somewhat surprising.

I have to add another vote for "Sneek n Peek". This is an example of a stupid concept. I can't imagine that at some point in the development process there wasn't a conversation something like this: "...and then the player who is going to be doing the seeking leaves the room..." "Wait a second; did you just say that one of the players leaves the room"? "Yes". "In the middle of the game? A player leaves the room"? "Yes. One player has to leave so he can't see where the other player is hiding. It's like playing "hide n seek" on a videogame". "And this is more fun than just playing "hide n seek" for real because..."? "No, you don't understand. See, this is a videogame, so that makes it more fun". "Riiiiiight"...

...the threads "Once Upon Atari" and "Stella at 20" mentioned the legendary Atari founder; which gives me cause to ask the question, "Is anyone following his uWink restaurant venture"? Here are some news stories linked from the uWink.com web site: US News Voice of America News Business Week I pass by the Riverton neighborhood where Nolan grew up, every day on my way to work, and I went through my own little "career crisis" - losing my home and going bankrupt - right about the same time his financial backers pulled the rug out from him, kicking him out of his home. So his story is very near and dear to my heart. Almighty Todd

A very good point, Alex. Obviously, the NES solution for Pac Man is not feasible for the 2600, given it's limitations. The 7800 might not fare much better, although I would still like to see what would happen if the portrait layout of the arcade maze was flopped on its side. Ironically, the resulting maze would have tunnels going from top to bottom as was the case in the original 2600 port and Nukey Shay's excellent hack (...thanks for providing that link by the way. A fascinating discussion thread and a new ROM for me to play with ). It's interesting that you brought up Xevious, as that is another game that I would like to see ported as a left-to-right scroller instead of top-to-bottom in landscape; using programming techniques similar to what was done in Planet Patrol.

Am I the only one with questions about why so many ports of arcade games fail to consider the screen orientation of the original game they are porting? Particularly with the 2600's graphics limitations, it would seem to me, that the most important aspect to capture, in getting the "essence" of an arcade hit, would be the game-play. An example of a game that does this fairly well is "Joust". The level of graphic detail is not nearly as important as the response of the controls, and the movement of the objects on the screen. There are quite a few games that were ported to the 2600 (and other home systems) that began their lives in arcade form using a "portrait" oriented screen, with the screen being much taller than it is wide. Titles that immediately come to mind include "Space Invaders", "Galaxian/Galaga", and "Pac Man". The gripes of the lack of faithfulness of the original 2600 Pac Man port are numerous, so I won't bother to elaborate. But I've observed that even when Ms Pac Man "corrected" many of the shortfalls of the original Pac Man port, the layout of the maze is a "squashed" version of the arcade version, rather than turning the maze on it's side. I've noticed that the NES port improved on this situation by putting all of the scoring information off to one side and then orienting the layout of the maze in portrait form like the arcade version. A similar tactic has been used in the "Namco Museum" port of the original arcade games for the Nintendo Game Cube and some portable systems. In the shooters that all derived originally from Space Invaders, the screen orientation is critical to the game play, because it is so much more difficult to time the firing of shots at the targets that are so far away, such as the top row of invaders or the mother ships. This is also true of derivations such as Galaxian and Galaga. When using a joystick contoller, which limits the speed of movement of your base ship or blaster cannon, having more ground to cover from side to side is a definite obstacle. To a certain degree, the 2600 Space Invaders port compensated by having fewer columns of invaders than the coin-op version. This kept the game play closer to the arcade original, but I maintain that hitting the Mother ship is still easier on the 2600 than it ever was at the arcade. I've only seen a few games that attempted to capture the game-play characteristics of a multiple approaching targets shooter, by laying a portrait view orientation on it's side. Planet Patrol does this, but still gets a very negative review in the attempt. This observation carries over to the 7800 arcade ports, but since there are so few 7800 games in general, and this forum seems to be more active, I thought it would be more appropriate to bring it up here. Obviously, asking gamers to lay their TV sets on their sides isn't a very viable option (...although I seem to recall reading about one such game that did that very thing), but for some games (such as Pac-Man style games) it seems to me that the final resulting game play would actually be more true to the original by maintaining the ratios of the original arcade maze layouts, turned side-ways, and then re-orientate the Pac Man and the Ghosts, with Pac Man starting off to the right, and the Ghosts in a box at the left. As I think about it, it is somewhat ironic that the Vectrex system was designed assuming a portrait orientation while some of the most popular vector graphics arcade games (Asteroids and Battlezone) were landscape oriented. If this has bothered you too, please add your thoughts. And if you think I'm just full of crap, feel free to tell me that too. Thanks, Almighty Todd

I am the True Todd, Todd the Father. I am a jealous Todd and I will have no other Todds before me. Why, out of all the world's Todds do I bestow upon myself the moniker of "Almighty Todd"? ...because I thought of it first.

Greetings all, I'm a professional applications programmer with over 13 years experience. I am currently developing in Delphi, and have previously done work in C++ and Java. I'm fascinated by Atari 2600 games, which take me back to my teenage years when our family Christmas present in 1977 was a Heavy Sixer. I have ideas for some new games, but rather than dive right into 6502 Assembly Language programming, I think I'd rather explore creating prototype-mockup versions of these games using C#, and then see if there's any interest in them before proceeding further. The games I have in mind are: Atari Recess Games based on elementary school recess playground games - Four Square - Tether ball - Monkey bars - Tag WeiChi 9x9 adaptation of Chinese "WeiChi", or Japanese "Go" - the game that inspired the Atari name Computer Space Deluxe Variations on a theme with an Atari 2600 port of the original Nolan Bushnell "Computer Space" as game #1. Combat AI Remake of the original pack-in game cart "Combat", but with a computer AI opponent Microsoft offers some support for learning C# this way at this web site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/gamin...rticleid=916355 My question for the forum is: Would you be interested in trying out any of these mockup games and providing feedback? Do you see any value in creating the same game twice, first as a C# Windows application and then as a 2600 ROM? (The value to me, is a chance to learn C# programming, which has greater career growth potential than 6502 Assembly...) Thank you in advance for your response.

Greetings all, This is my first post. I am 47 years old and I am the original owner of Heavy Sixer #17718K, Sunnyvale - No Channel Switch but has the hole. It was our family Christmas present in 1977. I have three brothers, and for Christmas that year, we all agreed we would rather share an Atari VCS than have each of us get a separate present. So my parents ordered it out of a catalog. When it arrived my Mom wrapped it up and put it under the tree. I found myself alone with one of my brothers a few days before Christmas, and we decided that it would be best if we were to "test" it to be sure we wouldn't be disappointed on Christmas with a defective unit. We carefully peeled the tape from the wrapping, opened up the box, unpacked it, and connected it to the TV. We enjoyed several rounds of "Combat" and then carefully repackaged it, re-wrapped it, and stashed it back underneath the tree with no one ever being the wiser. The only time we'd ever seen an Atari VCS before that, was when we played "Target Fun" (Sears' version of "Air-Sea Battle") on a demo unit in a Sears store. I look forward to enjoying your company as a member of AtariAge.