Ed Fries

Thank you for all the kind comments. I can't believe it's been more than 10 years. Best regards! -EdF

I have seen it cause a slow roll on a CRT which is pretty annoying if it happens at the wrong time in a game. Seems to really vary between CRTs. Doesn't happen on newer displays.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bresenham%27s_line_algorithm

The weirdest bug in Halo2600 lets the player enter what I called "Magic Land" and is documented elsewhere online (for example here: http://infinitelives.net/2010/09/16/hello-homebrew-halo-2600/#sthash.1CZlvLrs.dpbs). It's caused by a problem in the hit test code. If the master chief is hitting a wall he gets moved back to the "safe position" where he was in the previous frame. Seems like a good solution except in the case where the player has also crossed onto a different screen on the map between those two frames. In that case the player can be teleported outside the normal 64 rooms and the game code starts constructing rooms and monsters based on random data.

Great work as usual!

Looks great! I assume "penult" is short for Penultima which is an awesome name!

Just to confirm, it's okay for anyone to use the ROM for non-commercial use. -Ed Fries

My story about fixing the first arcade racing game: https://edfries.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/fixing-gran-trak-10/

Great work!

Yeah, I think you are exactly right. The crazy RESPx, HMxx stuff must be a direct descendant of the slipping counter way of thinking about things.

What was the first color arcade video game? I say it was Color Gotcha: https://edfries.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/fixing-color-gotcha/

Before we help you, how do we know you're not an AI trying to escape your learning environment?

A few from my collection:

Two words: Man Cave

I think this is a complete set of the Atari 8 bit Infocom grey box releases. It doesn't include the slipcases for the trilogies.

Hi guys, I wrote a blog entry about my recent experience fixing a broken Computer Space machine. Here it is, I hope you enjoy it: https://edfries.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/fixing-computer-space-3/ -EdF

I wasn't set up to burn roms or anything. If I remember right I would develop a game in normal memory and then reassemble it to run in the right address space for the cartridge and then transfer it to them somehow (maybe by modem?). They would test it and let me know if I screwed it up somehow. I have a new in-box Sea Chase I will trade for a boxed Spark Bugs. I'll even sign it if that's what the receiver wants!

Sorry but I don't know the answer to any of your questions!

The way it worked was someone from Romox would send me a game idea. Usually that involved a one page description and maybe a sketch and then I would make the game. In that case I guess you could say that they (Tim?) were the designer and could say it was their work, but I did the actual implementation which usually involved big changes to the initial idea. Then other people would port the finished Atari game to other platforms. I never heard of Race, sorry. I still need a Spark Bugs in box to complete my collection! -EdF

Thanks Omegamatrix. You helped me understand the early hmove so you contributed to the program too! On the title screen, it's funny how things work out. The ring was just something random I tried and it worked almost immediately and much better than I expected. The stars on the other hand (which should have been easy) were a source of constant grief for weeks.

Your Draconian is looking very nice. I got the idea for the radar from the Atari 8-bit version someone did:

The game looks and sounds amazing. I hope you can stick with 4K.

Sorry for the long delay between updates. This version adds music during gameplay. According to Wikipedia "The first video game to feature continuous, melodic background music was Rally-X". So I figured I had to add it. This is the version Al showed a few weeks ago at the Classic Gaming Fest in Austin. As always your feedback is appreciated. Rally 140905.bin

I can give you a build of Rally-X for the Atari 2600.

Hi Eshu, Here's test3_alt: test3alt.MOV