solidcorp

Thanks!

I saw your demo after showing Star Castle last year, someone on the forum brought it up. It's very nice and not easy to do what you've done, great job.

Hmmmmm....questions earlier about purchasing carts with LED's and boards from WIZ, now a referance to a "launch" announcement....not sure what all this means but I am getting interested again... Bad choice of words, sorry for the confusion. No launch, unless you consider a single cartridge a launch.

Offer accepted, my attorney will be contacting you shortly.

Thanks a lot.

Cool, thanks. I became aware of other 64k cartridges later. I had only looked at the sizes of released cartridges in a list online somewhere. A chose 64K not to set any records but because I have a huge stack of the EEPROMS from my SNES/Genesis dev days I think.

ROFL

I used DASM, Xasm, Z26, Stella, and Harmony in development. Last year I showed the game on a Harmony cartridge, this year on my own cart (64K with 2 software controllable LEDs) that has my own bankswitching. Star Castle on this cart still takes only two banks. I have two versions in source control, one F8 and the other for my cart. From Howards DP Press interview: So he had emulator hardware, and could download and debug, which was great in the 70's/80's. I'm sure he could have done a lot more, or did what he did faster with all the features available in Stella debugging - source level, stepping through the rasterizer... It is a really wonderful tool and emulator.

Some of you guys are just ruthless. I don't know what you are talking about?!? I have all of my teeth!! Noice, I made a black label with the same image from the promotional flyer and manual, but it's lacking that watercolor feel of the early Atari artwork.

Star Castles does use a proprietary bank switching scheme and recent development has all been EEPROM burning. (which is a total friggin' pain, and if I could ever get my LoadBoy working again I wouldn't have to do it ) I have read the entire EULA for both products, they say a lot of stuff.

Some of you guys are just ruthless. I believe that it is physically impossible for RT to ignore a "straight line". He would probably explode like the fat guy in "Meaning of Life". Solidcorp, I do have to say that you have dealt with the whole thing (the difference of opinion, the reponse, and the guys who just want to get a laugh) pretty calmy and respectfully. Thanks man, I really appreciate your saying so. This particular forum [programming] is really not the venue for any launch announcement, let alone one like this. I come here out of habit, it's a good group, and the best Atari site in the world.

BTW, You make carts right? Did you ever make the carts with the LEDs? ...I remember you being interested. What's your maximum capacity? I've made many carts with LED's, why? Are you talking about any of my many different PCB's, when you ask about capacity? I was just curious, I haven't seen any with LED's, but I haven't exactly been looking, and didn't know what capacities you had made either. Your PCBs are available, no? Yea, perhaps a better question is do you have a link to your online store, or many different PCB's?

No need. It's your game and your decision... no matter what anyone tries to tell you, you don't have an obligation to distribute it online. I think you've got the right idea about selling the cartridge on eBay and uploading the ROM at a later date... that way everybody wins, eventually. Don't let the chiselers convince you that your work is worth nothing, and that you MUST give it to them NOW. At risk of diverting the topic, I was really impressed with how arcade-faithful Roadblasters was. Did you use code from the original game or just obsessively play it during development? I've played a lot of arcade ports in my time and this is one of the most accurate I've seen, released at a time when arcade perfection wasn't exactly job one for developers (see every NES game ever made). There's an Easter Egg in the arcade game that you can find by hitting turbo just as you reach the finish line... the car shoots past it to the horizon while a female voice remarks, "Now THAT'S cruisin'!" IT'S ACTUALLY IN THE LYNX VERSION! Now THAT'S attention to detail! Thanks, I don't consider the people here in the Atari 2600 programming forum chiselers, and I really regret using the word kitsch today (I did say that I had an irrational aversion to reuse of Atari games, but enough about that). Anyway, I got the source code very late in the project, most was having the coin op right next to my desk. There's another Easter egg where you run into a cannon at the end of each level you can get like 10000 points, that we got in. I worked with Steve Ryno, who was a professional game player before producer at Atari and he let me in on a lot of the details. The game is interesting too, fuel consumption gets worse the longer you play - I don't think you can finish the game without feeding quarters, but you don't have to die to reset the counter, just put money in. If I remember correctly there is a comment on the code (that I still have printed out somewhere) that says something to the effect of "this is where we embezzle money from the player". I laughed my butt off when I read that. There are a few more Easter eggs where you can see my face or Matt Scott, the audio engineer's face and warp to almost any level - you can find those on the web. The end music was really cool too.

BTW, You make carts right? Did you ever make the carts with the LEDs? ...I remember you being interested. What's your maximum capacity?

If somebody can't afford the whole shebang, can he pick which bytes are bought? I agree completely. I tried to be historically accurate & I stuck to known programming techniques. I pulled out my 6502 book, documentation, and perforated printouts from when I worked at Atari. I did use Stella and Harmony, wonderful tools that no doubt made a difference. Someone else also pointed out how much time I spent on the project which is a good point too.

Some of you guys are just ruthless.

I'm sad about this entire conversation. Thank you for your compliment. A lot of whats been said has been absurd.

DOH! I had no idea I was speaking directly to you. I'm not going to take back my honest feelings about repurchasing Atari consoles and carts that way, but I will say that I am sorry for referring to it as kitsch, and my last post about the glue etc... You have a right to do what you want with them.

So, like a lamp or bookend or something? All stuck together with hot glue and maybe epoxy? I was referring to using cartridges as a craft material, NOT for homebrew carts. There was someone who was offering new injection molded cartridges a while back but they disappeared.

It was probably an E.T. cart. But don't worry, although they were all sent back and buried, there are still millions of them out there somehow. I think it was a 1982 Christmas miracle. Wow, In an interview Howard said he kind of liked having the distinction of having made the best game, Yars Revenge and the worst game, E.T. (his words, not mine, and in his defense he made E.T. in a ridiculously short amount of time, something like 4 weeks I think) It would be really cool if by a twist of fate, I used one of his E.T. carts in the development of Star Castles 2600.

Speaking of that, for people who are reading this and weren't alive or paying attention back then, although the date on it is 1981, it wasn't released until May of 1982: www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-history-1982.html#may Cool

I've been making games professionally for 24 years, I know and agree which is why I wasn't going to release it at all. That is why I made my own cartridge. I wanted it to be unique and I also have an almost irrational aversion for repurposing old Atari carts. I cringe every time I see someone make a lamp or some other kitsch out of a stack of carts. I know that millions were made and they are still plentiful, but I can't help wondering what my Harmony cartridge started its life out being

Just one, single player Star Castle. I made the graphics for two player and had to cut it when I ran out of room. Two player is just taking turns with the single player game anyway and I decided to focus on the most faithful port of its appearance and game play. I've had to go back and "make room" three times now, I'm sure all the low hanging fruit is gone. At this point I don't even have the bytes to add code to read the select switch properly or display the mode without throwing out the title screen graphics. I did add an invincibility cheat for VGS so people could get a good look at the game without getting killed. Scott

I did it for the challenge and love coding on the 2600. Tacky or not, I put a price on it in response to last years 14 page conversation (here) and I've offered to release all the source and binaries along with it. Your attacks on my programming prowess are unfounded. My work on Star Castle is not insignificant compared to other home brewers. How many have designed their own cartridge, implemented their own bank switching or even programmed an EEPROM? There are some but not many. There are certainly comparable programmers out there, and probably a very few who are clearly better. The only fact here that speaks to my programming ability is that I took the initiative to write a good game that a very brilliant, famous, and influential man said would suck, something others had only talked about for 29 years. There are other great programmers and a long list of fantastic homebrew titles, none of which take away from my efforts, accomplishments, or abilities. I encourage anyone who is interested in writing Star Castle or any other title to do so. As for Star Castle, I've proven it can be done and practically laid out a road map for anyone who would care to try. I've done my best to thank those who have offered kind words.

Good point, but it's not an injustice until someone actually writes a check. And that goes for all the coin op ports and inspired games in the homebrew community, not just Star Castle. You've singled me out because you think my price is absurd and I've wagged a finger at piracy. Even the box and cartridge scans here on the site may be infringement, unless you have permission from Atari (ugh Infogrames). I LOVE Atari Age, and for all I know the reproductions are legal, but look at the bottom of the Yars Revenge label: it says clearly "Label, Program, & Audiovusual © 1981 ATARI, INC."