Rudy

Not having really done much programming yet (I can't get the compiler working so far) I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you can do what the author of the atari pacman did, modify the game so the graphics fit in the rom size.

Ok I'll try it then but I can't do it tomorrow unfortunately. Thanks for the help.

I tried it turns out I was thinking of 32b stella which loaded I couldn't test it because I didn't check if I had any roms. Still can't run either the current bb or version 1.0. Maybe I need to try it on another computer. I'm disappointed I hoped to have this set up and working this weekend but it looks like that's not going to happen.

I already downloaded bb so I'd like to try to get that to work given my lack of experience with vb. I have another idea I can try that I just thought of, I can see if the 32 bit version of bb I downloaded from the bb website works. I haven't tried it yet.

Thanks for the idea I didn't consider vbb because I don't know visual basic. I guess I'll try it if I can't get bb to work.

I dragged some of the sample code to the executables but I couldn't get it to compile. Any advice? Thanks.

I downloaded the current version and I'm going to download the manual also, thanks again.

Thanks!

I have extracted batari 64 bit and 32 bit, stella, and although I haven't been able to yet will be transferring the text files I've been working with and I'd like a calculator shortcut in the folder. Is there anything else I need to get started? Thanks.

My bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_Interface_Adaptor

Download batari source code from the batari subforum and add comments to the code explaining what is going on. If you don't understand google the commands and other terms and when you do understand, add a comment, but make sure you put a remark command before your comments so they won't affect the code.

On a related point, I understand that for some reason some third party developers for Coleco decided to bypass the 12 second delay at the start of the game that displayed the colecovision trademark. However doing this bypassed part or all of the bios which had to be then written into the rom, leaving less room for the game itself.

Lockout technology seems to have made any type of playing one game on another console impossible, and if it was attempted it would probably be the subject of more litigation since part of the marketing of consoles are games exclusive to that console.

I don't know what an expansion module one cost versus a VCS. That could be significant to this discussion.

Thanks!

It appears that I was relying on bad information then. I'm satisfied that there was no court order. Why would coleco have settled if they'd gotten atari's claims dismissed? The only good source of information appears to be the news articles which clearly state the case settled.

Eventually I'd like to do an essay on legal ip issues in electronic gaming, but I'm far away from that. I figure figuring what happened with the coleco-Atari expansion module 1 lawsuit is a good place to start

I admit I didn't read the whole thing or have any familiarity with the litigation. I just thought it was cool someone was apparently doing some sort of electronic game in the 50s.

PACER is a good idea but I don't have the case docket number. I'd like to find that before I tried PACER because they charge you per page so if your result is 300 pages because you searched by litigation parties you could have to pay $30 or whatever. Also I'm not sure what the parties are styled as, Atari could be "Warner Entertainment" or whatever.

I have one. I use it instead of a VCS. I was surprised it worked because I remember it was tempermental back in the 1980s. There's a slot in the front of the CV that it fits into. It turned out to be the only released hardware by Coleco that uses it (although homebrew hardware called the SGM would use it later).

Here are my games (all loose) Laser Blast Stampede Superman Spider Fighter Barnstorming Bridge Grand Prix Pacman Pacman 4k Ladybug Donkey Kong (twice) Mouse Trap Missile Command Mr. Do! Venture Raiders of the Lost Ark Chopper Command Phoenix River Raid Sky Diver Asteroids Circus Atari Tutankman Centipede Sorry about no picture I will upload one later. The games could be in better condition and Tutankman is missing its label. I don't mind because its part of the fun if the games look old. Also some of these are games I ordered that haven't arrived yet. I have a lot of colecovision games also but I haven't been playing them lately.

Here's the death knell to there being a mystery court order I couldn't find. http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/12/business/company-news-atari-coleco-pact.html NY Times COMPANY NEWS; Atari-Coleco Pact Published: March 12, 1983 Warner Communications Inc., its Atari Inc. unit and Coleco Industries said they had settled all issues that were the subject of litigation. Under the agreement, Coleco has become licensed on a royalty basis under Atari's patents to continue making and selling the Expansion Module No.1 for the Colecovision video game system and the free-standing Gemini video game system. It's amazing all of this information is available online, and it's even more amazing that it appears that the traditional narrative of how the case went down is completely wrong! Edit: wait : we have a change of fortune! http://www.colecoworld.com/expansion_module1.html EXPANSION MODULE #1 - ATARI 2600 ADAPTOR: This expansion module allowed Colecovision owners to play all Atari 2600 cartridges. A great marketing strategy, this allowed Coleco to tap in to the Atari user base and also gave them a game library larger than any other gaming system. Atari of course, promptly sued Coleco for $350 million in December of '82, claiming Coleco ripped off propriertary designs to make their compatible expansion module. Coleco countered with a $500 million anti-trust lawsuit that claimed Atari was trying to discourage retailers carrying Atari products from also carrying Coleco. They also charged that Atari created an unfair advantage in the industry when it bought part of Pac-man inventor Namco, and that it violated anti-trust laws as well. Atari's claims remained unproven and dismissed, and both sets of charges were settled out of court by April 1983 when Coleco agreed to pay royalties. Not all cartridges fit properly in to the module, so Coleco provided an adaptor to anyone that wrote to the company to complain. Source: gamingmuseum So Atari's case was thrown out of court before the settlement. That's the order everyone is referring to. I need to find that but without the docket number of the case it's going to be hard. It must be a district court order that didn't get reported and which was not appealed because of the settlement.

The funny thing is even Wikipedia reports that Coleco won and cites the off the shelf argument, without citing anything. It sounds like this could be a case of bad information taken as truth. I'm confident the court opinion is vapor unless it was a district court opinion that wasn't appealed. But that doesn't explain the report that the case settled.

Which is why if there is a court opinion I'd like to see it so I see exactly what was going on. The online descriptions seem too simplistic.