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Everything posted by decle
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Yes indeed sir!... <pedantAlert>Unusually, the CP-1610 at the heart of the Intellivision doesn't have an OR instruction, but it can do an XOR 🤔. So perhaps the name is inadvertently appropriate for the Inty, although Ian Downend and Paul Carruthers didn't know this when they wrote the original back in 1987</pedantAlert>
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Happy New Year everyone. For the traditional January 1st posting this year I'd like to share a little something I've been fiddling with... K-VADER is a single player, TV POWWW style game for the Inty. It's based on 1NVADER for the C64 by Darren Foulds (I recommend you also check out 1NVADER, as it's a more comprehensive game with 2 player competitive and co-op modes). In K-VADER you have 30 or 60 seconds to shoot down as many kamikaze aliens as possible. Luckily, the invading hoard are not the greatest strategic thinkers, and they hurl themselves at you one at a time! You'd be on easy street if it wasn't for your canon's glacial reload times, and the fact that every time it fires, your turret reverses direction. K-VADER should work on a stock Inty using the LTO Flash or similar, although it will probably look better in JzIntv. On real hardware the game can be played using a regular controller or the TV POWWW replica voice trigger. The following zip archive contains a ROM of K-VADER, an instruction manual, overlay and box art. As always, all feedback is most welcome... kvader.zip I hope you enjoy K-VADER and that 2023 is a good year for you and your loved ones. Cheers decle
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Yes, it's possible, because providing you're happy playing the non-steering version of the game, it was done back in 2018... 😀 This port was built using the TAS spreadsheet of the game created by Omnigamer during the Todd Rogers cheating drama, so the behaviour of Bottom Gas mirrors the 2600 original. Bottom Gas is primarily focused on the Intellivision's little brother, the Unisonic Champion, but it does include versions that will run on the Intellivision. The ROM and instructions for the game can be found here: bottomGas.zip I also did an enhanced version that tried to answer the question "could the Unisonic Champion have been a viable system with some minor hardware differences?". This was the result: And here is the Intellivision ROM for that version: lilBroBottomGasUp2.rom Yes all the appropriate Li'l Bro ROMs should work in JzIntv and on the LTO Flash (or similar). If you're interested in more details of the Unisonic Champion thought experiment you can find them here: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/273767-lil-bro-ii-a-better-unisonic-champion-simulator-for-the-intellivision/?do=findComment&comment=3944424 https://forums.atariage.com/topic/273767-lil-bro-ii-a-better-unisonic-champion-simulator-for-the-intellivision/?do=findComment&comment=4025407 With regard to controls, the Unisonic Champion is even more challenged than the Intellivision: Despite appearances there are only two buttons labelled "Yes" and "No" on each hard-wired controller. The third, black button is directly connected to the CPU's reset pin, ready for the moment you rage quit when you realise what you just blew 150 dollars on in 1978. 🤔 There are no discs, joysticks, paddles, etc. For Bottom Gas the controls are mapped as Yes = Shift and No = Gas, that's it. On the Intellivision they map to Shift = 1, 2 or 3 on the keypad and Gas = 7, 8 or 9. I don't know if you'd call it playable, but it is an accurate port of the Activision original's gameplay. If anyone wants to use Bottom Gas as the basis of a more fully fleshed Inty port of Dragster send me a PM and I'll share the CP1610 source code (sorry, the Unisonic Champion is too constrained to use IntyBASIC) 👍
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Well here we are, the last of the Keyboard Component tapes that Mattel released. Like Conversational French and Spelling Challenge, Jack LaLanne is written in assembly language using the PICSE audio / visual framework developed by APh. As a consequence, it can make use of the Master Component's colour graphics and pre-recorded audio from the Keyboard Component tape drive. Jack probably slots into the silver position when it comes to K/C software 🥈, behind Conversational French 🥇, but ahead of the rather lackluster Spelling Challenge 🥉. The program is broken into 6 parts. First there's an audio / visual introduction to the program by Jack LaLanne: Initially the new user then does a fitness test which comprises 12 exercises and lasts about 15 minutes. Based on their performance, they are then allocated to either a "personalized" or "specialized" exercise program, more on this later: Then the tape suggests you enter some body measurements which it check periodically and track over time: At this point the weekly exercise programme starts. This consists of a daily 20 minute workout and weekly fitness tests. Each daily routine has a number of aerobic and stretching exercises, interspersed with short bursts of jogging. The Personalized Exercise Session seems to be the baseline. It starts off with 1 minute of jogging, followed by four sets of 3 exercises. Between each block of exercises there is another minute of jogging. There are several different introductions to each exercise to mix things up a bit on each day, and Jack finishes off with an inspirational pep-talk: The Specialized Exercise Session seems to be the more advanced program which is selected once you achieve a high enough score on a fitness test. The structure is the same as personalized session, with four blocks of 3 exercises, but they seem to be a bit tougher this time, and each jogging session is 90 seconds, rather than the minute of the personalized program: I'm guessing that the number of repetitions and length of the jogging sessions probably increases as you get into the programme and your fitness improves. However, given each session takes 20 minutes and I'm a lazy, pizza-eating developer, I've not tested this. Finally, there is the Jog Log and Exit options. Because this is a new account the Jog Log isn't terribly inspiring. In fact it's better to look at the demonstration of it in action found in Jack's introduction here. Clearly, in order to do all the tracking of your performance etc. it is necessary to write your current state to a record at the start of the tape, hence why it takes a while to exit the program: Now, you might notice that, contrary to what the manual states, what Jack's commentary says and what @David Rolfe and @Shal (Shal Farley) remember, there is no music while the exercises play Trust me, @Lathe26 and I have had a good hunt for it, behind the sofa and everything! But we just can't find it. What we know from David Rolfe is that the music was generated by the sound chip in the Master Component, rather than being recorded on the tape itself. It was implemented using an enhanced music tracker called Jazz which David wrote in CP1610 assembly language (David still has images of the source code which he kindly shared with us). This tracker supported the three tone channels and single noise channel of the M/C sound chip, as well as adding musical effects such as volume envelopes (rising, falling and tremelo), glissando, trill and vibrato. According to David and Shal the music for Jack LaLanne's exercises was written by Bob Randles. To try to find the music we have converted recordings of two separate tapes and checked that they result in the same data files. These recordings come from an example of both an early tape (black shell with a red paper label), and a later tape (white shell with the title printed on it). As you can see, the resulting conversions don't have music when played on a K/C. Then we searched the data on the converted tapes for sequences of instructions we can see in David's Jazz source code, but no dice. Finally, we can also play Ron's copy of Jack LaLanne on his Keyboard Component. Here's the bit where Jack thinks there should be music (you can hear the tape drive clicking in the background as it loads the program data for the exercise): Unfortunately, there seems to be no music to be found. Sadly, I think we have to say that the copies of Jack LaLanne we have access to don't seem to have the music on them . If you have a copy of Jack LaLanne you'd be willing to record, and you want to try to help us find the music, let us know. 👍 Before I sign off this project of documenting K/C software I want to thank everyone involved, @Ron The Cat for enabling my participation through his Keyboard Component, @Knarfian for sharing his tape recordings and tools, @Lathe26 for his tool enhancements and work converting the BASIC tapes, @intvnut for his technical insights and guidance, and @David Rolfe,@Shal and Mark Stroberg for their recollections and clarifications. It was a real team effort and putting together these videos would not have been possible without their participation. If you missed one of the previous threads on other tapes, here are links to the other software (from best to worst, IMHO): Conversational French Spelling Challenge Geography Challenge Crosswords 1, 2 & 3 Family Budgeting Keyboard Component Demonstration Tape Super Football Prototype BI 2.0 Prototype Demonstration Tape Keyboard Component BASIC manual type-in programs Finally, a big thank you if you're one of the many AtariAge members who took the time to provide feedback and comment on this work, it's much appreciated.
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@mr_me asks some really good questions. Yes, we do have the BASIC listings of the programs 😉. Here's a snippet of the relevant section that chains the report program: 5200 PRINT CHR$ (12): PRINT : PRINT : PRINT : IF D = 0 GOTO 5225 5205 PRINT " It will take approximately 3 " 5210 PRINT " minutes to prepare summary." 5215 PRINT : PRINT : PRINT " Saving data on records 10"; 5220 GOSUB 6000: VSAV 10: PRINT : PRINT : PRINT 5225 PRINT " Loading summary program." 5230 SLOD 5 5300 GOSUB 1000: GOSUB 1150 5302 LL = 2:CC = 1: GOSUB 1200 The critical lines are 5220, where the VSAV stores our variables, and 5230 which loads the program starting at record 5. I've put together a little demo which illustrates the chaining behaviour and variable clearing (it uses PLOD rather than SLOD because the programs are stored on the R/W track, not the R/O track, but the behaviour is the same). It also shows a nice little quirk we've found: Clearly the PLOD command line bug poses all kinds of questions, like what happens if you delete a duplicated line?, or if a program uses GOTO or GOSUB?. However, I suspect this is all a bit moot, because the behaviour can only be instigated manually on the command line as far as I can tell, so it's just an interesting quirk and not really of any practical use.
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Who said that the Keyboard Component was boring?... ...oh yeah, that was Keith Robinson, well he may have had a point! 🤔 Buckle up for the white knuckle ride that is... Family Budgeting: Family Budgeting lets you set up annual budgets in up to 30 categories covering various types of income and expenditure. Then track your actuals against plan by adding month-by-month data. And at any point you can review your financial status in one of five report styles. It doesn't get more bean-countery than this. 1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣... The program is split in two, the first half deals with setting a budget and recording actual data. The second part (accessed through the rather cryptic "SUMMARIZE DATA" option on the main menu) generates status reports. The highlight has to be the three minute wait (cut from the video) while starting the reporting engine where the program... Saves the current budget and actual data to tape Loads the report program Reloads the budget and actual data As convoluted as this is, it's necessary. K/C BASIC doesn't have any commands to manipulate data on tape at a low level. The only thing it can do is save and load ALL BASIC variables. So all your precious data sits in BASIC arrays. These are belched to the tape in one big block, the reporting program is loaded (which nukes the variables), and then the variables are slurped back in again. This is the penultimate video in the great K/C software adventure. Next time we step things up for a grand finale with Jack Lalanne! 💦🏅
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As has been pointed out by @DZ-Jay and @cmadruga, like so many things in the Intellivision world, JoeZ got there first. In this case just over a decade ago... Whilst this posting contains the instructions to run the ROM, I think the latest greatest version can be found in the following posting, but you might want to take a look through the thread...
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A couple of weeks ago Sam, aka Look Mum No Computer, challenged his Youtube followers to bring along a MIDI controller to This Museum is Not Obsolete in Ramsgate UK. He would then allow the controllers to play a church organ he is restoring! I took my Sears Super Video Arcade, ECS and IMDI (a combined cartridge and MIDI interface) along to play a bit of ragtime: The Sears and ECS are playing a six voice chip-tune version of 12th Street Rag. At the same time, the music tracker on the IMDI cartridge is sending out MIDI messages to the organ which plays along. Sam says that the organ is tuned a little sharp, and unfortunately with me being the musical scuffer I am, I don't know how to correct for this. Never-the-less I think the results are quite fun, and this is definitely one of the more unusual peripherals for the venerable Inty! If you have the opportunity to get along to This Museum is Not Obsolete, I'd recommend it. It's really eclectic and hands on, and the Sam and the crew are very friendly. Not only that, but you can also visit the Ramsgate Micro Museum, which is right next door and has a fine collection of home micros to indulge yourself with. Finally if you would like the chip-tune version of 12th Street Rag we played on the organ, here is the ROM file that can be used in JzItnv or with the LTO Flash: 12thStreetRag.rom Cheers decle
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YouTuber Winslinator posted a video a couple of days back showing a bot they've written that plays Astrosmash: As you can see it is essentially unstoppable. The video is quite long, but the following points are definitely worth your time: The early game, just to get a feel for how it plays 5 million points, the human high score? (https://youtu.be/osSe8nzu1m0?t=2611) 10 million points when the score starts to scramble (https://youtu.be/osSe8nzu1m0?t=2663) 32,767,995 points when the difficulty resets (https://youtu.be/osSe8nzu1m0?t=2705) My understanding is the bot controls the game while it runs in the BizHawk emulator. It reads the Intellivision memory to identify and locate rocks and other targets. It then has an algorithm that Winslinator wrote in the language Lua that controls the cannon. The video description has more details on the algorithm itself, how it prioritizes targets etc. it's worth a read. My observations of the bot's behaviour are: My understanding is that high level human players essentially get into an equilibrium with the game. They reach a point where the rate at which they gain lives is matched by the rate at which they lose them, overall the game stops getting harder and essentially becomes endless. This does not seem to be what happens with Winslinator's bot. The number of lives the bot has just keeps climbing, no equilibrium is ever established, which is kind of cool. I think the algorithm makes greater use of hyperspace than a human player, especially in the early game. This seems to be because it uses it as both a means of targeting spinners and of escaping risky shots. I'd be interested in your thoughts. I wonder what other interesting projects might spring from this approach, perhaps this is a means to add a second player AI to one player games (although the second player would only be available when playing in the BizHawk emulator)? Anyway, hat's off to Winslinator, for some excellent work, and I notice they have some other Inty videos too.
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For today's Keyboard Component software fun @Ron The Cat and I bring you Crosswords II. This is one of three Crosswords tapes for the Intellivision. Each tape contains 15 American style puzzles and, according to Mattel, they vary in difficulty with Crosswords I being described as "simple", II as "challenging" and III as "difficult". Like Geography Challenge, the Crosswords tapes are written in Microsoft BASIC, and therefore, they're pretty stripped back affairs, with no real graphics or sound beyond the odd ding. I've put together a couple of videos showing off the first puzzle in Crosswords II captured from Ron's K/C. The first video has been edited to cut out most of the faffing about and has a bit of chip-tune Ragtime added to jolly things along: The second video has my full game, complete with keyboard entry glitches, all 23 minutes of it in excruciating real-time: Finally, I've previously published a video of Crosswords III being played from a tape, this one doesn't use video capture so you can get a sense of what's happening at the keyboard: Enjoy!
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Why Does Rob Fulop Hate The Intellivision?
decle replied to SpicedUp!'s topic in Intellivision Programming
This thread is very interesting, thanks @SpicedUp! for highlighting Retrogamer's interview with Rob. Perhaps the EXEC discussion is a bit of a poisson rouge? I don't think that Demon Attack uses the EXEC as a game framework. Sure there are some calls in the code to the likes of X_PRINT_R5 and X_FILL_ZERO, however, the game code starts at address $4800, so it doesn't use the EXEC's standard bootstrap block at $5000, and I don't think its start up hands back to the EXEC. Certainly, it installs its own ISR handler by reprogramming the ISR vector at $100-$101. Demon Attack does seem to rely on some EXEC code to read the controller (reads from $1fe & $1ff seem to originate from $14f* and $152*). but the STIC largely seems to be programmed by Imagic code in the $49** and $4b** range. In fact looking at the timing in JzIntv it seems to me that the state of all MOBs are refreshed at 60Hz (and certainly Inty Demon Attack looks to be way more fluid than a 20Hz EXEC game). So I'm going to say that Rob's comments in Retrogamer are just plain wrong. Non-integer pixel movement is a software feature, and is possible on the Inty. As has been mentioned above, the EXEC does support this feature, as described on page 4-4 of YFTE: It looks to me as though Demon Attack does not use the EXEC as anything other than a library of useful utility functions anyway. So, if there are any shortcomings in regard to MOB motion it's down to Imagic's framework, or the code in Demon Attack itself. Now, according to the BSR's, Demon Attack was programmed by Gary Kato, something that is confirmed in this interview with Gary: https://www.classic-consoles-center.at/interviews/interview-with-gary-kato Gary says that he wrote his own mini-EXEC prior to Imagic getting a full reverse engineering report on the Mattel EXEC (he also wrote Imagic's CP-1610 cross-assembler). This was used in Demon Attack and perhaps Atlantis. This is something that corroborated by the code comparison analysis - see the third image in this posting: So, if Rob has any complaints regarding MOB motion, I think he needs to take them up with his colleague Gary! Having said all this, I recognise that the Inty is far from perfect, and I can understand that someone used to the kind of flexibility and control that the VCS allows might not really being comfortable with the constraints imposed by the Intellivision. It's just that this particular beef is not justified. Finally, to be fair to Rob, this is all a long time ago now, and it's possible he's just misremembering things after 40 years - I know I am! -
Next in our series exploring the Keyboard Component software is "Geography Challenge". This is one of 5 tapes that contain programs written in Microsoft BASIC. This means that they only have limited access to the Intellivision Master Component. The graphics are blocky and low resolution, and can only be white on green. Also, there isn't any sound other than a few bleeps and bloops as you type. Geography Challenge comprises 7 quizzes split across 3 programs. The most sophisticated quiz is Map Identification, program 3, which includes some graphics (this is the one to look at). All tests have 12 randomly selected questions which helps a bit with replayability and each program tracks the performance of up to 6 people through a report card. Unfortunately, all of the programs suffer from long load times that significantly detract from the experience (most of this has been cut from the videos). Program 1 - "The States", contains tests on state capitals, products and industries, and year of statehood. All questions are multiple choice. Each test builds on the previous, so "State Capitals" asks 12 questions on capital cities; "Products and Industries" asks 2 questions on 6 states, one on the state capital and one on their products; and "Years of Statehood" asks 3 questions about 4 states. Program 2 - "U.S. Cities", is similar to program 1. It asks about which major cities are in each state, which cities are the state capitals (again!) and which are largest cities in each state. Like program 1, each quiz builds on the last within the program. Ironically, this makes test 2, which includes questions on state capitals, decidedly easier than test 1. The handling of the report card is rather different in program 2 to program 1, perhaps suggesting they were written by different people. Program 3 - "Map Identification", is the best of the bunch, although its use of graphics and position at the end of the tape means the load times are horrible. I especially like the idea that the blocky graphics are the result of "Satellite photos". That said, the low resolution renditions of state outlines does make for an interesting challenge. This is the only quiz that is not multiple choice, making it a bit of a Spelling Challenge for us Limeys in some instances too. I've also had a hack at the Map Identification BASIC program and put together a version that removed the quiz element and goes through each state and draw its map instead (the music has been added in post)... And then I thought it might be amusing to generate an overall map of the USA according to Mattel Electronics... Finally, for those that are interested the manual (such as it is) can be found on the Intellivision Library... http://www.intellivision.us/intvlibrary/Manuals/Keyboard_Component_Software/Geography_Challenge/gallery.php Cheers decle
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This is very cool @Lathe26 , of course you knew the implicit challenge couldn't go unanswered. When you're next in your local Sears, watching gobsmacked as the K/C demo plays on the kiosk, you need to key in "DEI" instead of using the space bar to fire within the Space Battle section of the demo. Then, at the end of the current show, you will see the following... ...accompanied by another rousing rendition of Ride of the Valkyries. I like the smooth scrolling, I guess this is a feature of the TI TMS9927 chip that the K/C uses to generate it's text overlay. (Apologies for the really poor sound, but I don't have my capture rig set up).
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It seems we're on a bit of a retro-roll, with a trip to Swindon to visit the Museum of Computing... https://www.museumofcomputing.org.uk/ The museum is small, but perfectly formed with lots of home computers and consoles to take a crack at. Most are set up with menus to take you straight to some games. The £5 entry fee is well worth the retro fix for a couple of hours. The staff were all really friendly and helpful (thanks Simon, Simon and Ollie), and if you're lucky enough to be offered it, definitely accept a behind the scenes tour! Hopefully the Apple Lisa will be up and running soon, and we'll be back. To get a sense of what's on offer you can take a virtual tour (spoilers!) https://www.google.com/maps/place/Retro+Games+HQ/@51.5614978,-1.789039,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipMGd976G3Jwe8WGz3T3tA_uimA_xsoojswODzGo!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMGd976G3Jwe8WGz3T3tA_uimA_xsoojswODzGo%3Dw203-h152-k-no!7i4032!8i3024!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xde1812ef2842811e!8m2!3d51.5614978!4d-1.789039# After the museum we took the 10 minute walk through the middle of town to Retro Games HQ... https://retrogames-swindon.co.uk/ ...this is located in and above Holmes Music store. Wow! it too is amazing. For the second time in a year I found some Intellivision games in the wild. Unfortunately, there was nothing I was after, but we were able to pick up some Gameboy bits and pieces I was after. Their entire upstairs is given over to Nintendo from NES through Wii-U: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Retro+Games+HQ/@51.5614978,-1.789039,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipMGd976G3Jwe8WGz3T3tA_uimA_xsoojswODzGo!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMGd976G3Jwe8WGz3T3tA_uimA_xsoojswODzGo%3Dw203-h152-k-no!7i4032!8i3024!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xde1812ef2842811e!8m2!3d51.5614978!4d-1.789039# And downstairs they have everything from 2600 onward. Just don't expect to walk out with Pete's childhood Vectrex, it's not for sale! Overall, a really successful day. Swindon is well worth a visit for retro kicks.
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I'm on vacation in the Midlands of the UK at the moment, and in addition to visiting lots of excellent industrial heritage sites, we've been on the lookout for a retro gaming fix. We spent the afternoon at the National Videogame Museum in the centre of Sheffield. This was OK, but I don't think it's as good as either the National Museum of Computing or the Centre of Computing History. Although there were a few earlier arcade machines to play and consoles behind glass, the exhibit really focused on playing console games from the period between the NES and the XBox 360. Other than a glut of Mario and Sonic, the choice of games seems a bit random, and is obviously limited by the need to remain completely family friendly. Looking round, I only managed to find a single reference to the Intellivision, and that was in the Donkey Kong video wall. The Intellivision description reads... "The Intellivision was the first 16-bit console. As well as a curious "telephone" controller design with a numeric keypad, it was also the first console to feature speech synthesis with its "Intellivoice" expansion pack. Donkey Kong - The Intellivision version was programmed by Coleco who also programmed the Atari 2600 version. The Intellivision's graphics capabilities mean things look a bit blocky and Donkey Kong is a sickly share of green!" Now, I'm not saying that the Intellivision was embarrassed by Donkey Kong being the standard bearer for the machine, but the console (actually an emulator) wasn't working. Probably for the best! So, if you're a retro head in the neighbourhood I'd be inclined to save your pennies and take a trip down the road to the Game and Movie Store instead. Unfortunately, there was no Intellivision in stock, but discipline is still required! They have everything from the 2600 and Magnavox Odyssey 2 onwards. Lots of lovely boxed consoles and accessories in excellent condition.
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...well, kind of Work on Jack Lalanne has been stalled owing to some household bits and bobs. So I've filled the time with some other K/C related fun, and this is something that everyone join in. It seems it's not widely known that, thanks to Frank Palazzolo, MAME can partially emulate the K/C. It doesn't include a simulation of the tape drive, so it can't run most commercial software, but it can run BASIC programs. Instructions on how to do this can be found at the end of this post. First up, I've ported the version of the game Hexapawn published in David Ahl's book "BASIC Computer Games" to the K/C. This program is interesting as it's an early and simple example of machine learning through reinforcement. Initially the program doesn't know how to win, but as it is rewarded and punished for its play it improves. The code for this port can be downloaded from here... http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/hexapawn.bas Next we have a couple of graphics programs. On page 22 of the K/C Owner's Book, there are a two images. These were probably made using the K/C's "SCREEN" mode, so it's unlikely there was any code to create them. Of course, that doesn't mean there couldn't be! BASIC programs to generate these can be downloaded from here... http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/flowers.bas http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/landscape.bas Finally, the K/C BASIC manual also has a number of programs in it. These have been typed in and checked. Now before you get your hopes up, these programs are not very complex or interesting. Heck, I've tried to accurately represent the code in the manual, so they're not even very polished, but they do all run. Page 17 - Painter version 1 - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/017-painter1.bas Page 22 - Painter version 2 - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/022-painter2.bas Page 25 - Painter version 3 - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/025-painter3.bas Page 34 - Vacation Planner - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/034-vacationPlanner.bas Page 43 - One For The Road - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/043-oneForTheRoad.bas Page 53 - Bank Statement Checker - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/053-bankStatement.bas Page 57 - Interest Calculator - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/057-interest.bas Page 60 - Poem Creator - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/060-poem.bas Page 65 - Random Number Generator version 1 - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/065-random1.bas Page 65 - Random Number Generator version 2 - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/065-random2.bas Page 67 - Multiplication Drill - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/067-multiplication.bas Page 68 - Dice Roller version 1 - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/068-dice1.bas Page 69 - Dice Roller version 2 - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/069-dice2.bas Page 75 - Recipe Calculator - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/075-recipe.bas Page 89 - Football Game Forecaster - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/089-footballForecaster.bas Page 99 - Tape Index - http://decle.org.uk/intellivision/whale/basic/099-tape.bas So there we are, perhaps not the most inspiring set of software, but another 18 Intellivision programs preserved and shared for all to enjoy. Cheers decle Instructions to use these programs in MAME: Once you've downloaded and installed MAME, you need to acquire the intvkbd.zip file containing the Intellivision and K/C EXEC ROMs and put it in the MAME ROMs folder (no need to unzip the file, MAME does this for you). The power of Google is probably your friend in finding this file. We also need kbdbasic.bin, the K/C BASIC ROM, which can be found as one of the "orig" files within the msbasic project on Github. We just download and save this to our machine. To start up the K/C emulation in MAME we open a command window in the MAME folder and use the following to give us a decently sized window: mame.exe -window -resolution 800x600 -nomouse intvkbd -cart2 kbdbasic.bin Hit RETURN a couple of times, and once the Intellivison splash screen appears type "B" to start BASIC. Now, if we copy the BASIC code for one of the programs we can then paste it into MAME, as though we typed it in (complete with bleeps and bloops). Each time we want to paste something, just press the "Scroll Lock" key on your keyboard to enable UI controls, and then "SHIFT + Scroll Lock" to start pasting. You will find that the paste starts straight away. This is a pain as it means holding the SHIFT key will cause the start of the first line to be "shifted", corrupting the line number. To fix this I've added a blank line to the start of each program with some spaces on it. SHIFT space is still space and is ignored by the K/C, and the space characters gives you enough time to release the SHIFT key before the first line of code. So, just include that "blank" first line in the code you copy and all should be fine. The copy and paste method is quite slow (but much faster than typing) and forces all characters to upper or lower case. This is nothing to worry about, K/C BASIC is case insensitive, it just looks a bit weird. Once the paste operation finishes, just type RUN to start the program.
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Hey all, @Ron The Cat is heading over to my place next Saturday (16th) for an Intellivision session, and we thought we might open up participation to members of the forum. We're thinking of having an informal video chat for an hour or so on Zoom or Google Meet. It's an opportunity to discuss our work reverse engineering the K/C and PlayCable, see where we're at, ask any questions and generally geek out. As we're based in the UK, we were thinking of starting at 4pm CET / 3pm UK / 10am EST / 7am PST. We want to keep things interactive, so we're going to limit attendance to 10 or so people. If you fancy joining us, drop me a PM here on AA and let's have a chat about what you might want to see / do. Cheers decle
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A good day as an Inty "collector" in the UK
decle replied to decle's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
Now before you judge me, remember I'm not an collector now, doesn't mean I wasn't in the past It looks like I have 5 variants of the Golf manual. Two different versions of 1816-0820, a 0820-G1, a 0820-G2 and a 1816-0920-G3. I'm guessing the 0920-G3 is not of interest. This is the baseline 1816-0820... This differs from the US manual as replacement overlay ordering is in the inside front cover rather than the standard Object of the Game page - this page does not appear in the manual at all: and there's an invitation to join the Intellivision Club inside the back cover (which seems to have been taken up in this case): The G1 version drops the Club invitation in favour of some notes, otherwise the contents look to be the same: The G2 variant removes references to the PGA in the text of the manual, making it consistent with the title of the manual (see first sentence of Add Overlays on page 1 for an example): And finally I have what I think is an INTV variant which is numbered 1816-0820. It's printed in black and white on really cheap non-glossy stock and is folded vertically with a single staple. It has the same text as the 0920-G3 version (with the Object of the game page and no PGA reference), but omits the 90 day warranty and replacement overlays order sheet on the the last two pages. It also doesn't have any references to Mattel: Hope this helps. -
As I've mentioned before I've not really collected Inty games for ages, however, I do keep an eye out, and whenever I see somewhere selling 2600 stuff I ask about Intellivision games, in the totally unrealistic hope they have a mispriced K/C for £10. I guess like most places, there aren't many retro stores in the UK that cater for anything prior to the SNES / Genesis, so I probably find myself in one maybe once a year if I'm lucky. My family are on vacation in Kent at the moment, where we discovered Level-Up games in Canterbury (https://levelup-games.co.uk/). They had a 2600 on display with some common titles, so I asked Alex, the proprietor, whether he had any Intellivision games. I was ready with my "no worries, I had to ask" response for when he replied "no", but then to my surprise he came back with, "uhh, yes", reached into his small store room and pulled out boxed copies of Golf and Word Fun... This is the first time in well over a decade that I've found any Inty title in the wild, let alone CIB ones! I needed a manual for Golf (told you I'm not a big collector), so I picked it up. However, the Word Fun box was pretty rough, and although Alex knocked it down to £5, I didn't need it, so I left it. We wandered round Canterbury for a bit as my son decided whether to purchase Pokemon Colosseum or Pokemon Diamond, and I pondered. Given how unusual it is to find Inty games and how great Level-Up Games is (going in there requires serious discipline), it would be a shame to leave the Word Fun, besides it's unlikely anyone else would buy it. So, when my son made his decision (Colosseum) and we returned to Alex, I picked it up. As it turned out, this was a good decision. On returning home and checking my collection spready, it turns out I already had the manual for Golf, but I was missing the one for Word Fun! Now, that would have been some non-buyers regret! So, whilst it's not exactly an earth shattering pick-up, it's the best day I've had as a UK Inty non-collector anywhere other than eBay in a loooonnnggg time.
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Nice! Thanks for taking the time to do this and report your findings. I've added your results to my list of Brazilian pirate games which I've transferred to a Google spreadsheet that can be viewed here (we've now identified 53 Shock Vision games and 19 IntelliGame titles): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gg49VKGUp8k7y5MeHOFcnsFeO77G8FPPwPOUYrA8yhE/edit?usp=sharing In doing this I've split the Shock Vision and IntelliGame lists onto separate worksheets, and tried to provide links to evidence that supports the assertions made. When it comes to ROM variants I've applied the following rules: Yes - If there is a picture of a doctored title screen or there is a ROM dump to support the variation No - If there is a ROM dump that confirms the game is a standard version No? - If there is a picture of a standard title screen or someone states the game appears to be unchanged Blank - There is no evidence at the moment As always, if anyone has any corrections or additional information please let us know and I'll add it (if we could persuade @cmart604 down into his Inty dungeon for an hour with a Shock Vision adapter and camera, we could probably add a couple more ROM variants to the list! ). Cheers decle
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Whilst I appreciate the vote of confidence, I'm only one member of the team working on K/C software that also includes @Lathe26, @Ron The Cat, @Knarfian and @intvnut. I would agree with the sentiment that the Chandlers don't seem to be being well served by their reseller. The quality of the images and descriptions don't seem to be consistent with the sum of money being sought to me. Personally, I find the discrepancies between what is listed, and what is shown on papaintellivision.com are interesting. Specifically, none of the pre-production carts, t-cards or EPROMs are listed in the auction (potentially this is consistent with the t-carts being loaned to Intellivision Productions as stated on papaintellivision). Also, I can only find 29 "loose" tapes shown on papaintellivision, the most interesting of which are 2x Diagnostic Test, Address Lists, BI Tape 2.0, 2x Demo cassettes, General Instruments demo and Household Inventory. Presumably, the auction includes 7 tapes not previously shown, one of which seems to be the hand labelled "BASIC Tape". To bring everyone up to date with the state of our work to preserve K/C software. Unfortunately, @Ron The Cat's K/C has had to be safely packed away since February while some work is done to my house. I hope to get back to Jack Lalanne in a few weeks time. Once Jack is complete, we have Geography Challenge to do, but then I think we will have captured and digitized all the released programs. In addition, we need to put together videos showing Jack Lalanne, Family Budgeting, Crosswords and the Basic Test Tape in operation. At that point, we had intended to contact the Chandlers and the other owners of undocumented K/C tapes we know about, with a view to capturing and digitizing their content, so that it could all be preserved and potentially used by the owners. Although we have the capability within the team to make 4-track recordings, our work doesn't necessarily require tapes being sent to us. We just need a recording of both sides of each tape made on a mid-range stereo hi-fi tape deck to work from. Distribution of the resulting K/C software beyond the original owner would be dependent on obtaining both the tape owner's and copyright holder's permission, presumably Intellivision Entertainment at this point. Obviously, things probably change with any potential sale, however, if a prospective owner of the Chandler collection, or owners of other K/C tapes, would be interested in helping us document and preserve this software, please contact us here on AtariAge. Cheers decle
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Need Help Identifying these Intellivision Carts
decle replied to MRnuff's topic in Intellivision / Aquarius
LOL, dweebs seldom differ. My first thought... "Ooo, the ceramic IC in the ZIF socket looks interesting! " Thanks for the link to the SSS datasheet. It's interesting that it supports bank-switching. I wonder if WSMLB uses a couple of these, I've never opened my copy to look. For those that don't know, the sequence of tech associated with development was... Test harnesses like the Magus or Datawidget were used during development for debugging games. EPROMs in T-cards were used by QA to evaluate games (and other interesting things like TV POWWW). ROM ICs in ceramic packages are likely to be samples of the production ROMs used to confirm the correctness of manufacturing. I would expect these also to be used when bringing a new ROM supplier onboard or possibly a new ROM technology (e.g. a smaller process or bigger ROM). There had been a couple of 12K games released before Pinball (e.g. B17 Bomber), however I notice this is a Solid State Scientific device, rather than a GI one, so perhaps this was part of their being assessed as a supplier? Interestingly, the two ceramic chips in @Rev's images might be from a different manufacturer, perhaps American Microsystems Inc (AMI), although I can't find an example of the particular logo shown here, and according to their 1982 catalog, they didn't manufacture 10-bit ROMs. I guess AMI (or whoever it is) being trialed might explain a SNAFU ROM in a ceramic package with a production date of 1982 week 33, well after the game was released in the fall of 1981. Frog Bog's chip date of 1982 week 12 looks to be more relevant to its release date in May 1982. ROMs in plastic packages and later on chip-on-card "glob tops" were volume production units as they were cheaper than ceramic packages.- 37 replies
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Interesting. As you know I'm not a big collector, but I have a Melt-o-vision copy of Sea Battle: Is this another little something I've lucked into that doesn't have an equivalent in the @cmart604 dungeon? I got the cart sealed from a seller in Venezuela about 5 years ago: I don't buy sealed to keep them sealed, but in this case the warped shell prevents me checking to see if it's a ROM variant, or if it even works! Bizarrely the seal hadn't melted, although it was rather more crinkly than usual. The overlays and manual were unscathed, although the glue on the spine of the box has given up. In many ways I like these unusual if worthless things you sometimes stumble on. It's one of my favourite carts, right up there with my Pat Burnell Frog Bog that someone randomly included in a trade in the late 90s:
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Back in 1982 Joe Jacobs and Dennis Clark put together a personal version of PlayCable, called PlayComp. This used PDP-11 computers they had at home to "broadcast" games over a serial connection to their development kits based on Jerrold PlayCable adapters. I believe it was the rarest and best version of PlayCable. I've put together a replica of PlayComp that uses modern hardware to run the system on a regular Intellivision Master Component. You can find a short explanatory video, showing PlayComp in use and its advantages over the standard PlayCable service here: Joe, Dennis and the other Jerrold engineers constructed a library of over 40 games for use with PlayComp, and its pre-cursor PlayTape. In addition to the standard Mattel titles, this included games from Activision, Imagic and Coleco (yes, the dreaded Donkey Kong even made it both PlayTape and PlayComp). Overall, I've found PlayComp to be slick and reliable, offering a significantly better user experience that the real PlayCable service, thanks to its use of two-way communication between the server and adapter. So, now I have a PlayCable of my very own (well, sort of). What's more, unlike most adapters, it's not a doorstop, and it's even a variant that @cmart604 doesn't own! Let me know what you think. Now I really must stop being distracted by shiny things, and get back to Jack Lalanne, or @Ron The Cat is going to kill me. Cheers decle
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Happy New Year everyone, In amongst the files archived by Joe Jacobs and Dennis Clark are some associated with the menu program that subscribers used to choose PlayCable games. For example, I have previously written about a jukebox program that plays the tunes played by the menu program here: These files are interesting because the menu program was broadcast over the PlayCable service, and therefore, is believed to be lost to time. However, a couple of Joe and Dennis' files are programs that seem to mimic the PlayCable menu, for example DIRTAP is one of the PlayTape titles, that is described as a PlayCable demonstration: It's not known quite how close DIRTAP is to the actual menu program used, for example there are differences when comparing the splash screen with the known images of the menu program (see below) and Ride of the Valkyries is not a tune known to be broadcast. However, the pages of game selection screens do seem to match the descriptions of the menu quite well. DIRTAP is designed to work with a PlayCable adapter modified for PlayTape use. Once a game is selected, DIRTAP hands off to the PlayTape firmware to load the game, and things rapidly come to a grinding halt in JzIntv. However, given that the PlayTape was modified to make using it without a menu easier, DIRTAP is rather redundant, and perhaps explains its description as a PlayCable demonstration. Joe and Dennis also created a DIRTAP variant called DIRHOM, part of a more complex system called they named PlayComp. This was designed to work with their PlayCable development kit to create a personal PlayCable system. This would have been the snappiest version of PlayCable, as in effect you had your own PlayCable server, just sitting, waiting for you to request a game over the development kit serial link. You can find out more about both PlayTape and PlayComp in the latest update to the PlayCable Technical Summary. Both DIRTAP and DIRHOM use a file containing a list of the games available, called a "map". There are several of these map files for PlayTape and PlayComp in the Technology Associates archive, dating from 1981 to 1983. However, one is much older, MAP7.ASM dates from May 1979, and its contents are rather interesting... TITLE "MAP7" PSECT CREDIT:: DECLE 32,74,101,114,114,111,108,100,32,69,108,101,99,116,114,111,110,105,99,115,0 ; Jerrold Electronics DIRLST:: DECLE "DIR1 ",78,70,76,32,70,79,79,84,66,65,76,76,0,128,18 ;NFL FOOTBALL DECLE "BASKET",78,66,65,32,66,65,83,75,69,84,66,65,76,76,0,80,18 ;NBA BASKETBALL DECLE "DIR1 ",78,72,76,32,72,79,67,75,69,89,0,128,18 ;NHL HOCKEY DECLE "BASBAL",66,65,83,69,66,65,76,76,0,112,18 ;BASEBALL DECLE "CARDS ",66,76,65,67,75,74,65,67,75,47,80,79,75,69,82,0,80,18 ;BLACKJACK/POKER DECLE "CHECKR",67,72,69,67,75,69,82,83,0,80,18 ;CHECKERS DECLE "DIR1 ",67,72,69,83,83,0,128,18 ;CHESS DECLE "DIR1 ",66,65,67,75,71,65,77,77,79,78,0,128,18 ;BACKGAMMON DECLE "MATH ",69,76,69,67,32,67,79,77,80,65,78,89,32,77,65,84,72,0,80,18 ;ELEC COMPANY MATH DECLE "DIR1 ",80,85,80,80,69,84,32,84,72,69,65,84,69,82,0,128,18 ;PUPPET THEATER DECLE "DIR1 ",67,79,76,79,82,83,32,38,32,83,72,65,80,69,83,0,128,18 ;COLORS & SHAPES DECLE "DIR1 ",83,80,69,69,68,32,82,69,65,68,73,78,71,0,128,18 ;SPEED READING DECLE "DIR1 ",66,65,84,84,76,69,83,84,65,82,32,71,65,76,65,67,84,0,128,18 ;BATTLESTAR GALACT DECLE "DIR1 ",84,65,78,75,32,66,65,84,84,76,69,0,128,18 ;TANK BATTLE DECLE "DIR1 ",83,69,65,32,66,65,84,84,76,69,0,128,18 ;SEA BATTLE DECLE "DIR1 ",65,73,82,32,66,65,84,84,76,69,0,128,18 ;AIR BATTLE DECLE "DIR1 ",83,75,73,73,78,71,0,128,18 ;SKIING DECLE "DIR1 ",84,69,78,78,73,83,0,128,18 ;TENNIS DECLE "DIR1 ",66,79,87,76,73,78,71,0,128,18 ;BOWLING DECLE "DIR1 ",71,79,76,70,0,128,18 ;GOLF BIDECLE 0 In addition to the familiar early games we see some unreleased titles, Puppet Theater, Colors & Shapes, Speed Reading and Air Battle. Along with these, Armor Battle and Space Battle are listed with their earlier names Tank Battle and Battlestar Galactica. Air Battle went on to become Triple Action Biplanes, and mention of Puppet Theatre had previously been found here, however, it looks as though Colors & Shapes and Speed Reading are previously unknown, at least as Master Component titles. Perhaps something for @cmart604 to be on the lookout for in 2022? Does this mean that Jerrold had access to these prototype games? Perhaps, although I'm a little suspicious that these games have "DIR1" as their PlayCable stream names, rather than the more specific names like "BASBAL", this might indicate that these entries are just placeholders, and there are no other files related to these games in the archive. Anyway, have a great new year. Cheers decle
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