BladeJunker

Yep the plight of the toaster lol, it is just a terrible mechanical design. I bought a new 72 pin myself for diagnostic purposes on a faulty unit, didn't help and I hear the quality isn't quite as good as the originals jsyk. I have the same advice about cleaning carts too. If you want to get hardcore with cleaning get a security bit to open the carts so you aren't coming at it through a narrow hole. With the board loose you can do all kinds of things with ease. If you still have the original 72-pin you could try tightening it up with a safety pin or something equally small to bend the pins back a little till it grips the carts more. Also wiggle techniques work on NES too. My only gripe with the Intellivision cart hole is how tight it is since it scrapes the cart shells, been thinking about taking a small grit file to it to make it a little wider.

Are you trying to distract me, because it's working?

I like Yar's Revenge but I also like Star Castle. Is the irony in that we'd have 10 Yar's Revenges for every 1 Star Castle most of the time? Personally with arcade titles especially hard ports you'd definitely want to just pick 1 rather than all of them, life is too short for that kind of work load.

That is definitely what interested me about dual wielding was combination effects using 2 items whether separately or combined into another use. Mostly just not sure with the 2 buttons, could just double what Adventure had with 1 button, or use 2 buttons to iron out some of the control limitations of that system.

Sounds good to me, that was always the dilemma of gameplay expansion, how to keep it feeling like Adventure but without turning into a standard RPG. BAG sounds good, as long as it doesn't carry much it could help with the backtracking woes of holding one item while still keeping that puzzle element towards what you bring.

I'll try to explain that better. When I say console maximized I mean each consoles maximum output, the best each one of them can do which varies. So when I say all ports are approximations of arcade originals is because they are, there is more often than not things cut or reduced. It varies but that is essentially true it just doesn't happen very often to the maximum potential. You know like when Tod Frye made Pac Man on 2600 he actually had a better flicker manager in mind but time and money demanded it get out the door where homebrew put that element in later for a better result. The entire genesis of Yar's Revenge was because Star Castle wasn't working within the constraints bitd which then got Star Castle through homebrew. During the time of 2600, INTV, and others it was hard to get approval for a game bigger than 4K so a ton of things possible just didn't happen very often or more so in the future with expanded carts. Same can be said about 2.5D engines on 32-bit consoles, quite a few were written to use base system resources generating approximated 3D visuals through raycasting rather than actually making a true 3D engine to use all the hardware accelerated polygons it could generate. So essentially John Carmack was running regular Doom on some very crappy PCs IE. the consoles in the 90s. I find it hard to believe you don't understand these compromises when you work with this stuff. Porting is one big exercise in cutting, reducing, compressing, that is what makes it so hard. If it were just a 1:1 transfer anybody could do it. I have no doubt limits have been pushed in the past and present, I'm sure developers 30 years ago thought a lot of these homebrews were impossible bitd, a lot of them seem surprised we all still play INTV now lol. I think with IntvBASIC you will see those fun addictive titles you speak of for years to come. But as far as arcade ports that is expert territory in coding, all assembler in most cases. People want those arcade games you seem to say don't matter, I have some favorites but I'm not the only one asking for certain ports. French had to look that one up lol, a master stroke hmm. I may be naive technically and INTV is the least like other consoles in that regard of culture but that is a thing I see nearly daily in my searches of all gaming systems. System limit pushing is a common factor of most any forum not just in peer comparison but also with titles against other titles. The closest example on INTV in an internal sense would probably be Donkey Kong versus DK2, we praise the heck out of DK2 because Coleco's version is so terrible. So in that regard minimum and maximum console capacity are measured and evaluated based on a game title. I understand why you don't want to get into that brawl so to speak for console popularity but again that is a thing. What I find frustrating is the diminishing perception of all pre NES consoles and there standing into the future. Over on Sega-16 they have their fight for the future too as Nintendo fanboys rewrite history since the Big N "won" the war against Sega so basically the stance is Nintendo invented everything first lol.

I'll try to explain that better. When I say console maximized I mean each consoles maximum output, the best each one of them can do which varies. So when I say all ports are approximations of arcade originals is because they are, there is more often than not things cut or reduced. It varies but that is essentially true it just doesn't happen very often to the maximum potential. You know like when Tod Frye made Pac Man on 2600 he actually had a better flicker manager in mind but time and money demanded it get out the door where homebrew put that element in later for a better result. The entire genesis of Yar's Revenge was because Star Castle wasn't working within the constraints bitd which then got Star Castle through homebrew. During the time of 2600, INTV, and others it was hard to get approval for a game bigger than 4K so a ton of things possible just didn't happen very often or more so in the future with expanded carts. Same can be said about 2.5D engines on 32-bit consoles, quite a few were written to use base system resources generating approximated 3D visuals through raycasting rather than actually making a true 3D engine to use all the hardware accelerated polygons it could generate. So essentially John Carmack was running regular Doom on some very crappy PCs IE. the consoles in the 90s. I find it hard to believe you don't understand these compromises when you work with this stuff. Porting is one big exercise in cutting, reducing, compressing, that is what makes it so hard. If it were just a 1:1 transfer anybody could do it. I have no doubt limits have been pushed in the past and present, I'm sure developers 30 years ago thought a lot of these homebrews were impossible bitd, a lot of them seem surprised we all still play INTV now lol. I think with IntvBASIC you will see those fun addictive titles you speak of for years to come. But as far as arcade ports that is expert territory in coding, all assembler in most cases. People want those arcade games you seem to say don't matter, I have some favorites but I'm not the only one asking. I have no doubt limits have been pushed in the past and present, I'm sure developers 30 years ago thought a lot of these homebrews were impossible bitd, a lot of them seem surprised we all still play INTV now lol. I think with IntvBASIC you will see those fun addictive titles you speak of for years to come. But as far as arcade ports that is expert territory in coding, all assembler in most cases. People want those arcade games you seem to say don't matter, I have some favorites but I'm not the only one asking for certain ports. French had to look that one up lol, a master stroke hmm. I may be naive technically and INTV is the least like other consoles in that regard of culture but that is a thing I see nearly daily in my searches of all gaming systems. System limit pushing is a common factor of most any forum not just in peer comparison but also with titles against other titles. The closest example on INTV in an internal sense would probably be Donkey Kong versus DK2, we praise the heck out of DK2 because Coleco's version is so terrible. So in that regard minimum and maximum console capacity are measured and evaluated based on a game title. I understand why you don't want to get into that brawl so to speak for console popularity but again that is a thing. What I find frustrating is the diminishing perception of all pre NES consoles and there standing into the future. Over on Sega-16 they have their fight for the future too as Nintendo fanboys rewrite history since the Big N "won" the war against Sega so basically the stance is Nintendo invented everything first lol.

But I already know that so how could that be a rub. I deal with being a fool every minute of every day, that's just the nature of having no self esteem so I don't know what the heck he's getting at in the big picture sense. This isn't personal. Mostly when it comes down to the people who have the ability saying "No, never." it kills all future attempts. I had to laugh because I was like "Man why are programmers so literal?" and the answer was apparent in your work dealing with finite defined elements. Schedules aside I'm always surprised when gifted people don't try more things more often, too many restraining elements I guess.

But isn't that sort of the nature of a port, an approximate but still console maximized version of a game. Your work is so good, how come you don't want more people to see it? Keith seems interested in keeping the Intellivision brand vital in the mind-share of rertrogaming, keeping it visible always helps in all forms. I can sympathize with the downsides of remakes but people use that to show the mettle of their consoles IE. my console can do that game too. Personally I groan at all the Flappy Bird clones being made but I recognize how it helps tie the past to the future drawing younger crowds to perpetuate the interest in these retro consoles beyond the original fans. Yeah but people collect all those ports regardless of MAME, they want "their" version, some people don't really play with anything but that one favorite console most of the time. DK2 has some unique elements but largely it is just Donkey Kong a game you can play on several platforms or in the aforementioned MAME so why make it at all, what logic does it serve? You may not have any emotional attachment to limited quantities in theory but if you didn't care somewhat you wouldn't have said that at all. I know what exclusivity can do to any following, it sits with that small group and then dies with it. While some homebrews will get into Flashbacks sometimes a lot of them are just going to be YT videos to the vast majority of the world without more output paths like more cart sales, flash cart+ROM sales, or emulator ROM sales+(store bought)USB INTV controllers. I know things are in there infancy and I've slammed the brakes on my expectations to a more reasonable pace, this is still the training phase so to speak. Things will have to stay within default parameters before limits get pushed later. I think I mistook your conservative stance on the hardware as limiting but you're really just trying to foster new growth.

That's all well a good but you still think there is a possibility of a slew of INTV shovelware, there are no half assed ports to reject in reality so I ask you to stop worrying about that, I've seen enough of that on the Atari side of things, people worrying about a glut of poor quality homebrew. Typically anyone who steps up to the plate wants to hit a homerun. How on earth would my statements divert resources from real potential homebrews, you give me too much credit. I think anyone with true knowledge on the hardware could happily feel confident in what a giant ass I am rather than pursuing anything they deem a fool's errand.

Et tu, Brute? JK All your questions are valid on the essence of a game but it isn't like that didn't happen for every single port ever made dude, it is a daunting task always to take a bigger thing and put into a smaller thing. Do you think any of those guys thought "This will be easy, I will get everything from the arcade into this version."? What is decided is entirely up to who ever wants to make it. Full stop. Why, well in the old days it was a full payed job so simple answer. To do it now it is to relish the opportunity, thrive on the harsh difficulty of the task, enjoy the challenge. Many of the games still talked about often push things to the limit including most of the better INTV titles. I'm being premature but I think all of you will get to that point eventually DZ.

Well it sounded rather negative when nothing constructive was included, it's very easy to say what is hard about something EG. cancer is hard to cure, war is hard to prevent. Sorry just flabbergasted nothing or so little existed on the matter, here's to hope for the future. I just think that sounds like a paranoid fantasy like widespread altruism, if you're lazy you don't make a retro game, you go straight to the latest greatest language on the newest hardware. If anybody anywhere wants to make INTV homebrew you welcome them with open arms sir. But we're screaming into the wind here by and large so saying something shouldn't exist on a topic of what should seems odd. This is no democracy, we aren't voting on what gets made, if anybody tries any of these games on INTV we're lucky so no sense crapping on any suggestion. If you want to start a Shouldn't topic I'll gladly contribute, Doom4 isn't likely to work on INTV. I wish every person on this forum knew everything there is to know about Intellivision on the inside but that is never going to happen. I don't think ignorance is virtue but then again I expect tons and tons of ignorance so I'm never let down by it or think I need to snuff it out, that would be exhausting. Well it sure did bitd when it came to the EXEC, that was a carefully navigated path towards 3rd party development. Thank you for the compassion, some of us are just mere mortals. I don't mind asking dumb questions, how else will I learn.

Hearing about the lack of arcade games compared to Atari I definitely think the original nature of INTV titles even with clones of other titles is definitely to its benefit, an arcade port can only be compromised in ports on lesser hardware while original titles can stand on there own legs. Maybe my perspective is unique with ports since I had hours of fun with the original 2600 Pac Man so to me compromises don't hurt my enjoyment. So statements of Robotron as impossible on INTV falls on deaf ears not out of ignorance but preferences.

Yeah that's my mistake, forgot some voice like sounds were done the harder way without added hardware. Listening to these games I think I was struggling to understand it sometimes that maybe I wished more games had subtitles to assist it. I think that is kind of what killed voice technology, no titles truly dependent on voice audio, as an enhancement it was kind of expensive in terms of bang for buck which is probably why fewer Intellivoice games exist. Like I was surprised Magic Carousel got a retroactive release based on the content but considering the lack of tools right now I guess it was that or nothing new for Intellivoice.

It's weird when you think about how much money companies want for these things. Keith couldn't get anywhere with Tron because of Disney, I mean it has a fanbase but the original film is pretty long in the tooth which most of the games are based on. Then take something like Frenzy, not nearly as popular as Berzerk was, 1982 arcade game on few platforms, and you're right they probably want a lot of money. Except who other than homebrew developers would ask them for that particular license, if I were Stern a little money is better than none at all which an old obscure license tends to gather. I am probably overestimating the number of people making these homebrews. Listening to the Intellivisionaries I wasn't too surprised that pretty much most of the original programmers have no interest in making more games. That is what it is like on every platform, just a job and next to no nostalgia other than the people they worked with but not the console in question. It's sad really to hear them talk about never playing other video games or never playing their own video game or never making games ever again afterwards. Well somebody is out there willing to make it and that is what these topics are about. Just based on your time estimates for a crappy version gives me hope for a proper one.

Really, well that is just awful of him to keep it to himself, he's hindering an entire global community doing that. I didn't realize how young this community was and how much IntyBASIC was as an influence for more INTV programming. I just assumed it was easier than the 2600 so there would be less obstacles to learning it's intricacies for most tech savy people. I'll adjust my thinking on the matter, how old roughly is the resurgence in interest? If I had the forte I would take it on, it's a shame so many people have lives to take care of.

I think it was the sports games mostly. With all those voice units it is more like "Does this sound like I think it does?", so you throw up some text to fill in the perception blanks. Voice technology was pretty good considering the time that happened but some words didn't come great despite tons of work. I kind of wish they had continued with the tech through all 8-bit and 16-bit but voice didn't really come back till CDs arrived, 16-bit had more like short statements rather than language which were hard to fit on carts and disks EG. "Hadoken".

Looking at my opened unit it looks like there is a mold injection point under that spot at least on the inside or at least a bump for some reason, can't tell if there is supposed to be a recess under the plate without removing it. If it always has a dip it would dent like that easily.

Glad you're here, I enjoy all kinds of feedback, not just the positive stuff. Did someone say Intellivoice was easy, did I say that? I heard about the whole Space Cunt origin, the auditions for the right kind of voice, telling that actor to talk a certain way, testing that voice through a screening process of review, cutting full scripts down to 20 words, then still needing on screen text to imply what is being said, and finally how much space it takes IE. equal or greater than the game ROM alone. As far as there is no tool, I'm sad to hear that, what has it been, 30 odd years and nobody has looked into that, never ever? If there are any tools for the Intellivoice I'd be totally surprised if the voice source files wouldn't have to be recorded again to be optimal rather than using the originals. And are you talking about arcade perfection recreated on an INTV, how often do any ports of the past match the arcade exactly? Even if a programmer tries their best it will still only be an approximation but that doesn't mean it won't still be a fun game to play. All those methods you mention are true for what it would take to get a lot of activity on screen but you make it sound like a bad thing if the INTV doesn't have the exact number of sprites as the arcade our whole universe will implode or something. Let's get real this thread is for wishes and whimsy, not pragmatic conclusions. I mean "logically" for most people no home brews should exist, Christmas Carol, DK2, Space Patrol, and so on, and so on. I feel for you if you've been talking about Frenzy on INTV for 10-20-30 years without progress but to me it's just a little fun tinkering with these hardware properties. The legality of license seem like the greatest obstacle, not how many Ottos are on screen.

Looking at Marc's Coleco box collection and thinking about Frenzy on Intellivision. Pretty basic HUD really, Player 1 and Score. Single strip vertical stack. Colors were close, nothing terribly unique in the arcade game. Wall colors get a few errors in color here and there to get the walls thinner than 8x8 pixels. 8 MOBs seems like enough on average but if more needed the BACKTAB option seems doable, even the arcade game elements bleed into each other in color attributes. I notice when it does scroll everything becomes purple during the transition over. Guess Intellivoice support would be welcome "Robot Attack!", probably better with modern memory costs, heard Berzerk arcade was $1000 a word yikes. The grid in the original is such an even layout that is makes me wish the INTV was 104 pixels tall instead of 96 lol. I kind of pinch the top or bottom passage thinner. The overall graphics scale definitely benefits from double height resolution in the sprites based on how small they are, couldn't get much detail into them in default res, also it's nice they are only single color too. Does Stern still own this property these days and do you think they want the money truck backed up to their offices for a INTV version?

Yeah that actually makes sense, that's a good idea.

Wow you guys really love your boxes. I admit they do look nice, didn't know Coleco planned that many. Smurf one almost happened but at least some of these could be made to fill those boxes.

That sounds alright to me, the flash cart would be the easiest route but these days an on board memory solution on the cartridge is probably practical now too. Damn memory was expensive in the past, I don't how anything got as much as it did in retrospect. Bet that would be hard to do on the 5200 but the 7800 shouldn't have trouble with user created tilemaps, I'm not even sure how they got ADV2 looking as good as it does, I mean it has more Player Objects than a 2600 but that is a lot of tiles. http://cafeman.www9.50megs.com/atari/5200dev/AdvII_XE.html http://cafeman.www9.50megs.com/atari/5200dev/AdventureII.html

It's a good observation and I can see the resemblance but no I wasn't influenced by Fatal Labyrinth, hear it isn't popular but I was going to give it a try if I found a cheap copy. The general look and layout is mostly just trying to do more of realistic perspective, most of the early RPGs look like people laying on the ground lol. The colors used was me trying to match the vibrancy seen in ADV2. The avatar has a couple influences. My Ma got me a wooden dude that transforms into a cube, sort of rubber band system. And the second aspect was thinking beyond ADV3 into ADV4 which I imagined being on Jaguar as a flat shaded model in a texture mapped world. Oh and the HUD is just Zelda based, not necessary final design but the size of screen clipping gives it a decent resolution. Dual wielding sounds good but you have to keep the console nearby to make that happen.

I've heard of that one, supposed to be one of the more challenging educational games ever made, some people never finished it. I guess it would be the most fun you could have learning.