Tarzilla

March 1, 2014

I'm starting work on new classic computing books, and would like your input and help.

1. Best of Antic Magazine

While I was interviewing Jim Capparell for the Atari podcast (AtariPodcast.com) I got permission to create a book reprinting selected articles from Antic magazine. My vision is to make a book with articles that remain relevant to today's Atari users. I can probably explain it best by telling what will not be in the book: type-in programs, reviews, tutorials on programming in BASIC. I DO want it to include things like interviews that ran in the magazine (e.g. Scott Adams, Nolan Bushnell, etc.) and things about computing itself -- for instance, Atari and the 1984 Olympics, a Harvard Confernece on video games, Lucasfilm's collaboration with Atari.

So with that in mind, I'd like to know if people are interested in this book. ebook or paper? I'd also like to get a few people to help select the articles that will be included. I've started a first pass. The list is already getting long, and will need to be culled.

2. The First Computer Magazines

Project two is a history of the first computer magazines. I plan to focus on Creative Computing, Byte, and Kilobaud. I've already done extensive interviews with publishers and have more planned.

I am looking for people with stories about those magazines -- in your role as a reader, subscriber, advertiser, writer, whatever. If you have memories about Creative Computing, the early years of Byte, or Kilobaud, let me know.

3. 8-Bit Computing Stories

This project is the most nebulous in my mind -- I'm less confident about it than the other two but want to see what people think. After reading my book Terrible Nerd, many folks have told me that my stories remind them of their stories growing up with 8-bit computers. So -- I'm thinking of a book of collected true stories about computing's early days: the best stories of the things people created, the people they met, the challenges they faced with computers in the 70s and 80s. For instance, from Terrible Nerd: the story of how I stole my first computer, or my love affair with the Atari 800. I've already told those stories -- this book would be YOUR stories. This could end up being just Atari stories, or 8-bit in general, not sure.

So those are my projects. Let me know what you think.

In my narrow mind, no book about BYTE would be compete without an interview with Jerry Pournelle. His column was the first thing I read in each issue as it reflected the regular user and his trials and tribulations with new technology.

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/

February 27, 2014

What!?

Consumers Distributing was the sick back then!

For me it's the "Ebay" of the 80's

My younger brother used to always steal the little pencils...and I don't mean just one or two...

Some Consumers Distributing Catalogues here.

http://www.cdarchive.ca/

One of my teachers in college was the part of CD's IT for awhile. He had a great explanation of their inventory system.

When a store ran out of something, they would place an order with central. If central had it, they would throw it into the cage for that city. Only when the cage was full would they then put it on the truck to send to the city, which would then ship to the store...but only if the the store's cage at the city's warehouse was full...

February 27, 2014

Right? That would explain why the big box giants of the era (Sears, JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, etc) never really embraced videogaming even when it returned post-crash. "Burn me once..." type mentality. It would take a new wave of more eager big box stores for it to take root fully (Circuit City, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc). As for Toys R Us, well they really didn't have a choice did they? However it did seem to me that some of the luster they poured into in-store marketing (remember those early kiosks?) ended with the crash (in the US anyway). Even though videogaming remained a well promoted item for them, and still is. Y'kno there should be a site dedicated to preserving these catalogs of the era digitally. Anyone know of one?

There is a site for that:

https://www.wishbookweb.com

However, they need to up their professionalism a bit, the url redirects to an IP address...I have to give them credit though, scanning a complete catalogue is labor intensive and tedious, not to mention that you basically have to destroy the bindings to do a proper job.

February 27, 2014

I remember always being disappointed as a kid as we lived out in the country so my parents would do a lot of ordering over the phone or catalogue orders at the local depot Sears in town. They never had stock on the listed games carts. A place called Consumer's Distributing was even worse; it was like their catalogue was obsolete before it was printed....

February 25, 2014

Changes

Robot and Tank animation sequences are in place

Robot and Tank "cool down" logic implemented, should prevent "rapid fire"

Moved routines from Vertical Blank to Overscan to fix screen roll problem

Special object animation in place

Big Otto's face will update, launches extra Evil Ottos with very primitive movement logic

Hit the Power Plant and robots can't move, but can still shoot

Hit the Central Computer and robots can't shoot and will randomly move (even into walls)

Factory doesn't do anything yet, but if you hit it the animation stops

Big Otto
frantic_19.png

Power Plant

frantic_21.png

Central Computer

frantic_22.png

Factory

frantic_23.png

Controls

RESET = start game

SELECT = return to menu

Left Difficulty, Frenzy Special Room Test¹: B = Off, A = On

Right Difficulty, Stress Test Mode²: B = Off, A = On

¹Frenzy Special Room Test will always put a special object in the room.
²Stress Test Mode is infinite lives and max robots. Score will be red when active.

ROM

frantic20140224.bin

One thing about the Special Objects in the Arcade version of Frenzy...they are always in the same quadrant, 4th over and 2nd down. I like the idea of being able to play either variation...Fixed locations as in Arcade or random slots (including the four corners)

February 24, 2014

A friend of mine is a game collector (Atari VCS and up) and has decided he wants to collect the Sears Canada Wishbooks from the 70's and 80's. Here is a scan from the 1985 Sears Canada Wishbook. The Colecovision was given a whole page. The Atari page has no systems and only features cheap games and controllers. There is no Intellivision page. I have a bunch of scans from 1985, 1977 and 1982, I'll start a new thread for those in a more appropriate forum.

Warning, the Scan is big...

February 24, 2014

I have an original Frenzy stand up by Stern, and a cocktail of indeterminate origin with a 60-in-1 board in it with a monitor that was hooked to an Alpine Ski board in its past life. In the past I have owned Mr Do, Satan's Hollow, and a Gorf that I still kick myself for selling.

I technically owned a Rampage and a Disks of Tron Environmental for 25 minutes (in the days before ebay drove the local arcade providers to double their prices) but measuring them resulted in me having to give them up as they wouldn't fit thru the doors of my house...

February 12, 2014

A friend has been using VGCollect as well. Has some features like cataloging different hardware, not just carts and you can show your collection publically like this:

http://vgcollect.com/TheKid4Ever/

February 11, 2014

What about some sort of puzzle card sub set? I have several card sets that do this, they can be framed and displayed this way. Maybe a unique, distinctive poster can be worked up (like the Intellivison running man poster made of the 125 original box covers) and turned into a 3x3 or 4x4 subset puzzle.