mr_me

I was wondering if it was a Canadian source. Do you have any other software? The BASIC cartridge? Data tapes? edit: I think Nurmix is right about Crosswords being a basic program. But I think the French Tutor, and the Jack Lalanne Exercise Program, and Spelling run without BASIC

Nice. Ultimately it would be good to know if it reads and writes data. Where did you find yours?

Yes you are right some of my words you quoted were not correct. However, as I mentioned before, the technology itself is not illegal, the monopoly Nintendo had in the late eighties was illegal, regardless if their business practices were fair or not. Had anyone properly challenged Nintendo's monopoly, their lockout chip would have been ordered gone. Imagine if Microsoft put a lock on Microsoft Windows so any software developer would need Microsoft's permission to publish software. Nintendo's monopoly resolved itself. edit: for Nintendo's NES market share numbers please see post 172 ( http://atariage.com/forums/topic/252820-stupid-things-you-hear-collectors-say/?p=3523368 )

I spent a bit of time with this but I honestly can't see the improvement in control over the original 6K Lock'n'Chase. I still miss turns if I'm late; the only thing I see is they took out the ability to stop. If there is an improvement its subtle and I'm not enough of a player to tell the difference. When you play this game enough, you learn to make your turns early, and you don't really notice a problem.

I remember commercials for the NES; there was a robot and some spinning tops. I wasn't sure what it was but at the time I wanted a computer. Looks like it was first marketed as a toy. Don't underestimate the toy market, over 1 Billion barbies have sold. But you're right, the NES appealed to more than just kids.

I did some research and technically the kid might be right about the SNES being the next console with a 16-bit microprocessor. The Turbografx-16 actually had an 8-bit cpu with 16-bit graphics (lots of colours); the Sega Genesis had the 32-bit Motorola 68000 (16-bit external bus). edit: as you guys know bits and bytes aren't everything

I'd give it a solid C+. There's a few sloppy mistakes. They mention the Intellivision having 3KB RAM (where would that come from). The SNES was not the next 16-bit console after the Intelllvision. And I like this quote when referring to how games were programmed before the Intellivision. "whereas earlier, if one wanted to change something in a game , one would have to go into the hardware and physically mess around with the wiring". There were lots of programmable CPU based systems prior to the Intellivision. But he did clearly point out the advantage of the Intellivision's Exec providing a software framework for other programmers.

I'm surprised that anyone would care about the Intellivision, unless they owned one in the 1980s (or they are a historian). Doesn't matter to me, as long as there is one other person out there to discuss it with.

I wasn't talking about 4-tris. A judge has ruled in favour of the Tetris company in a different case and everyone has to respect the law. In my layman's opinion I disagree with the Judge's ruling. As you know, copyright law permits you to copy a game idea (unless its patented). I disagree with the law here as well, I think ethically the creator of a game should get credit. But you're right its always hard for a layman or a lawyer to predict what a Judge is going to do.

Thanks. Yeah Vectron is one of the games we returned for a refund. And I understand the recommended strategy is to work your way in one direction. edit: With jzintv I think you can completely remap the intellivision controller functions including each disc direction; I remember I was thinking of doing this for Vectron.

I completely agree that using both the left and right side buttons is a problem, but I can't think of any Mattel action games that are done this way (except Bomb Squad if you call that an Action game). Normally in Mattel games, two action functions are duplicated on the left and right side buttons. World Cup Soccer (not from Mattel) did use a third side button function, and I think that was a bad decision. World Championship Baseball does but it's a little different in that you normally make your batting selection before the pitch is thrown. Some of Mattel's simulation games did as well like Utopia, B-17 Bomber, Treasure of Tarmin. There may be others but I agree that an action game should not make you use left and right side buttons. A lot of people hold the Intellivision controller with their fingers, much like a modern game pad, only using their thumbs for buttons and disc. I actually hold it the way you describe using my fingers for the two side buttons. In fact for a game like Pac-Man you can easily play one handed. edit: I was never a fan of rapid fire games on the Intellivision; maybe the hand cramping was due to the stiff side button; as dz-jay pointed out an intellivision flashback controller might help with that.

If you got the original source code, it might be in some Russian based script with Russian comments.

I can't believe someone has a copyright on a simple geometric shape. You can only make five different shapes from combining four squares. Tetris is such a simple game that you don't need to convert the source code; you can reproduce the game just from watching it. Nice tile screen. I always preferred the old PC-DOS version of Tetris to the arcade version. 4-Tris is pretty good too.

I agree with fdr4prez that "port" means reusing the original code with perhaps only some minor changes. The code is portable. If the CPU is different, it maybe be possible with higher level languages but for assembly, most likely the code has to be re-written. If you have access to the original code it is converted or translated. I prefer the term "converted" rather than port. But most people say "port"; and I agree with fdr4prez that people are using the term incorrectly. -------------------------------- This is what Keith Robinson said about the BumpNjump programmers: "One day, Mattel Electronics was contacted by a couple of guys from New Jersey, Joe Jacobs and Dennis Clark, with startling information: they had hooked up a PlayCable unit to a personal computer and made their own Intellivision development system. They demonstrated that they had figured out how to program Intellivision games quite well, and they wanted to offer their services to Mattel before going to some other company. Ah, blackmail is such an ugly word... To keep them away from the competition, Mattel contracted with them to program the Intellivision version of the arcade game Bump 'N' Jump. They, under the name Technology Associates, were paid $24,000 for the conversion. David Warhol (Mind Strike) served as liaison, giving technical assistance as needed. Except for the title screen graphics by Daisy Nguyen, all the work was done in New Jersey, in one of the programmers' basements; they weren't invited to Mattel headquarters." They got unauthorised access to the PlayCable memory, Isn't that the definition of 'hack'? edit: reverse engineering is just a fancy term for 'hack' I think David W. talked about it in one of the podcasts; I can't remember, but I wouldn't be surprised if he said he didn't need to provide much technical help. ----------------------- I see Beamrider being Tempest-like but I think it was inspired by Radar Scope. It could be a just a coincidence; you'd have to ask Tom Loughry. Similarly I think Sub Hunt was inspired by Fire One.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I remember the Atari 2600 joystick being uncomfortable and it gave me blisters. I could play as long as I wanted on the Intellivision. Maybe if I owned an Atari 2600 my delicate hands would have gotten use to it. What's not ergonomic of the intellivision controller? A thumb directional pad is what everyone has standardized on now; It gives equal chance for left and right handed players; if the side buttons were less stiff it would have been even better. edit: Perhaps a lot of people have only tried the Intellivision II controller. I've never used one, but from what I understand, even though it looks similar, it is less comfortable than the original.

I think the first screen in Jeff's D2K (arcade hack version) is a pita. It was a good idea that Carl replaced it. The second Inteliivision D2K on the SE cartridge is more comparable to the arcade hack. So the extra music in Carl's DK Arcade is actually programmed in the original arcade game but never used? Is that the game over music in Carl's DK Arcade. Radar Scope reminds of Beamrider; not enough to call it an arcade conversion.

They may have no interest in selling; only want to have it out on display. Odd that the facebook post refers to it as the "consumer edition". I guess they are referring to the ones that were not modified into development systems for Mattel (blue whales and black whales). They also say this. "...and the fellows told me there is a slight problem with the video output. No software or manuals included, but I was told the tape drive does spin up." Video output uses the Intellivision Master Component. I think you'd have to type a command to get the tape drive to do anything.

Intellivision lives says some of its software was written in 1610 assembly. Probably uses more ram and the io has to be emulated or reproduced, maybe it can run without much more work (I really dont know). I'm guessing the basic interpreter ran on the 6502. MAME emulates this thing but I haven't heard of any software being dumped/converted to file.

Nintendo's monopoly is in the numbers; from http://www.giantbomb.com/nintendo-entertainment-system/3045-21/ "Nintendo's licensing techniques were both revolutionary and for a time, illegal. Nintendo had a veritable monopoly on the market at the time..." US Cumulative Sales1985: 90,000 (New York City) (ref) (ref1986: 1,190,000 (+1,100,000) (73% market share1987: 4,190,000 (+3,000,000) (70% market share1988: 11,190,000 (+7,000,000) (85% market share1989: 20,390,000 (+9,200,000) (80-90% market share1990: 27,590,000 (+7,200,000) (90% market share1991: 30,000,000 (ref ------------------ Regarding Space Invaders, Galaxian/Galaga; those are 1-dimensional controls with heavy use of the fire button. And they still might favour left handed players, and the goal of arcade games were to generate quarters per hour. I don't know about you guys but I played pac-man with my right hand.

Beta wasn't even the more popular format. The technology itself is not illegal but monopolies are. In the late 1980s Nintendo clearly had an illegal monopoly on the north american video game software market and if it was properly challenged the NES lockout chip would have been gone. If Nintendo challenged anyone who legally circumvented the lockout chip they would have lossed. The monopoly somewhat resolved itself when the Sega Genesis came out. Not saying that the Intellivision d-pad is better or worse (I did say that), only that it predates Nintendo's. I think any of those 2D Nintendo/Sega sports games would have benefited from a controller with more than eight directions. Did people complain about the Vectrex analog stick? I was pleased when Nintendo re-introduced the analog stick. I'm right handed and I prefer using my right hand for the broader movement of the computer mouse and my left hand does okay with all those keyboard buttons. But I'm sure there is some truth to cross-dominant handedness. The NES d-pad was borrowed from the Donkey Kong Game & Watch. That handheld put the control on the left like the arcade game. The arcade game was created by Shigeru Miyamoto. Here's a video of his left-handedness. The inventor of the handheld d-pad was Gunpei Yokoi. I can't find any videos showing his left handedness. Note that his other inventions the Virtual Boy and WonderSwan both had dual d-pads.

Nintendo's d-pad was a step backward. We lost half the precision and it took years to get that back. Further, Nintendo forced most players to control with their non-dominant hand. Sure thats how many people learned and are comfortable, but without choice and would have possibly been better players using their dominant hand. Many arcade games are left handed but they are also designed to maximise quarters per hour. Why would Nintendo make a left handed controller? Simply because the inventor is left handed. Nintendo Atari case was about copyright infringement, Atari tried to use Nintendo monopoly as a defense but Atari was denied any defense because it was dishonest in obtaining patent information. Nintendo's lockout chip is monopolistic and illegal by anyone's standard. It was not properly challenged and for years Nintendo got away with it. Microsoft was successfully sued by Netscape for doing alot less than what Nintendo got away with. Edit: Not saying Nintendo's monopoly was good or bad, just saying legally it shouldn't have happened.

Mattel Intellivision's directional pad "disc" came out in 1979, and it has 16 directions. Nintendo's in 1982. Nintendo's cartridge locking was illegal in Europe and should not have been permitted in the US. No one challenged it for some reason.

I'd say read and write to tape. You might need some software to do that, but as Nurmix advised, you can do some tape drive tests without software. The basic cartridge since it uses a different slot. What premium would a working one have over one that hasn't been tested?

Two of the very best games for the system are The Dreadnaught Factor and B17 Bomber and you don't need overlays for dreadnaught factor. Intellivoices might be the best value out there.

This is the Intellivoice catalog/brochures screen images the guys were talking about. They're all wrong but they continued to use the same B-17 Bomber image. That's a factory on the left but what is that suppose to be to its right? a power plant with power lines? a train station and tracks?