Scott Stilphen

Plucked this from Jed Margolin's VAX email collection From: KIM::HOGG 6-SEP-1984 09:03 To: @ALL Subj: Two more Bar Games for your comments The Fishing Games for Bars Video Game This is a casting game that involves a joystick type control except that it has two encoder wheels for two way rotation. The control revolves around a shaft out of the side with a button activated by the thumb. I'm not sure what to do for right or left handed players. The control also has a 30-45 degree left-right movement for lateral casting control. The idea is to cast a fly rod, with fly, at rising fish. If the player manages to get close enough to a rising fish then the fish takes the bait and the player receives points based upon the size of the fish. The size of the fish can most often be determined by the player by the amount of splash that the rising fish make. The larger fish will tend to make a smaller amount of water disturbance. Some of the fish will jump completely out of the water, others might just show their dorsal fin. The target area might be indicated by the maximum size of the water rings generated by the rising fish, i.e., the larger fish making the smaller disturbance would be a more difficult target and thereby being worth more points. Losing the hook, i.e., by snagging something or losing the fish loses the player a life. A bad cast might catch a fish anyway if the cast at least reaches the minimum target. A cast that is released on the backward swing will always foul on a tree, bush, rock or maybe, just fall to the water behind, i.e., it's random, but most likely it will cost the player a hook. A bad forward cast (too short) will cause the player to catch a CARP that will cost the player points. A cast that is too long might catch a minnow (or a Bluegill) and be worth very little. Or maybe the bad cast is recoverable and the player tries it again. The fishing could be done on a lake environment or a stream for making the targets more difficult, i.e., fish are in pocket water. The fishing could be for bass which would involve snags and targets of a more difficult nature. The type of fishing could be selected by the players at the start of the game or during the attract mode. The game is over when a number of fish have been caught, or when the hooks are all lost, or ... Mechanical Game This is a fish landing game that uses a feed-back joystick, but has no video. Instead the game uses back-lit fish pictures or images and a string of LEDs for feed-back to the player and audience. The feed-back joystick is the rod which has a thumb controlled release button for the cast. The cast is really a start the rotating selection of the type of fish being caught. The amount of forward speed the player puts on the control determines the rate of cycling the selection arrow goes through before coming to rest on the selection. The player does not really make the selection, but affects the selection process. The selection of fish might be Marlin, Shark, Salmon, Trout, Bass, Bluegill, Minnow, and definitely a CARP (catching the CARP might cost the player points or some penalty). Each will have a different point value, length of fight, and force of fight. There will be a string of LEDs that will reflect the force of the cast, and the force of the fish's tug on the pole. The player will get 3-5 fish per game. The play is started by a player gripping the control and depressing the button with the thumb. Forward movement of the control and the release of the button will start the selection cycling of the lights behind the selection arrows to the left of the set of fish pictures or images. The selection cycling will slow down of its own accord and rest on the selected fish. The selected fish is worth a number of points scaled to reflect the size of the fish being represented. A Marlin might be worth 1000 points and a minnow 100. The selected fish will be hooked and begin fighting the pole. The player must try to keep the pole as centered as possible so as not to let it contact the ring switch. If the front or sides of the ring switch makes contact with the pole the fish gets away and it is the next players turn. If the back of the ring switch (i.e., the stick is pulled all the way back) makes contact with the pole, there will be a delay before the fish gets away. This will allow the player to pull all the way back, momentarily, on the control without losing the fish, but if held back too long the fish is lost. Each fish will fight for a predetermined amount of time. The time will vary depending upon the size of the fish. The fish will be considered landed if the player maintains control for this time duration. The points awarded for the fish will be determined by the length of time that the player plays the fish. The player receives points up to the maximum for the size fish selected and possibly bonus points for landing it. If the player loses the fish (the pole makes contact with the ring switch) before the fish is done fighting, the player is awarded the points earned up to that time. The length of time, points earned and bonus at landing are determined by the size of the fish that was selected on the cast. Then the next player gets a turn. While the fish is being played by the player the string of LEDs should light in a series to reflect the amount of pull the player is fighting to provide the player and onlookers with control feed-back. The harder the pull by the fish causes more LEDs to be turned on. This will provide for the player and the audience a visual indication as to what is happening with the control. This game should be a 1-4 player game. This will require 4 sets of 8 segment displays for scores. The rest of the needed indications for the players will be done in back-lit graphics, such as, who's turn, fish lost, and any other needed messages.

For him to call it 'revisionist history' is incorrect. The definition of that means attempting to re-write history by altering the facts, and I don't see any examples of that here. The video is of course biased towards towards the VCS department (perhaps it should have included a subtitle alluding to that...), but the VCS was by far the most influential product ever produced by Atari, and that's logically the audience you would target. Not to say he couldn't add other volumes covering other aspects of the company, but he's simply sticking to what he knows best. As for it failing to cover the internal conflicts, I doubt you'll find many people willing to spend their time and money on 20-year-old tales of bickering, just as I doubt Warshaw would be willing to interview any ex-marketing folks. At Atari, the marketing department was marketing run amok. I've talked at length with close to a dozen ex-Atari programmers, and this is a common thread with all of them - here you had a department comprised of people who were totally unfamiliar with the product, and yet had influence over what products should be created and who to market them to! With that scenario, it's inevitable there's going to be friction with other departments. Marketing and lack of recognition (both artistically and financially) were the major reasons people left. Given that background, I wouldn't expect to see an opposing viewpoint from a story told soley by programmers. Ironically some of the facts Crawford stated might be considered revisionist history. Since he was only in the VCS department between 79-80, any information he knows about it is second-hand at best. On Tod Frye and Pac-Man: Atari created the situation that led to him demanding the creation of a royalty program (and rightly so), but another important factor here Crawford didn't mention is that at that time both Frye and Warshaw were approached by 20th Century Fox to head up a VCS programming division. He might not have been as outspoken without that offer to fall back on if Atari called his "bluff". If he either took or erased his Pac-Man code, he could have faced a lawsuit or even criminal action (and/or possibly leading to him being 'blackballed' in the industry). At worst, the game would have been delayed, which is what should have happened all along. Over the years the blame has fallen squarely on Tod, but Atari had the final say and chose to release it. The deal for the E.T. home rights was completed at the end of July, not June, giving Warshaw at most 6 weeks to program it, not 9. Also, his comment that his game "would make the movie famous" was certainly spoken in jest, if true (given his persona as being the "stand up comedian" of the department, it's certainly plausible!), since at that point the movie was already the highest-grossing film of all time. In his own words he admitted the game's concept was weak, but from a technical viewpoint, I think did an incredible job with it. Whether someone else could have done a better job is debatable. In this case, Atari (1) paid far too much for the rights - something like 35 million (?), (2) didn't allow enough programming time, and (3) over-produced the game, which led to the infamous landfill story. Even accounting for all returns, the game sold over 1 million copies, but they produced approx. 4 million! They would have had to sell at least half that to break even. They knew it was a risky gamble to take, especially after Pac-Man. In both situations, Frye and Warshaw took advantage of a company that routinely took advantage of its employees - namely the programmers. They both saw an opportunity of a lifetime and took it, and I'm sure neither have any second-thoughts about it. Would you?

http://www.erasmatazz.com/

FYI: The Airworld hoaxer and the admin ("Osiris") for that site are the same person. Why is this guy still allowed to even post here?

Thanks for the info! What's Craig Pell's website? I'll try and track down a copy at a local library, or buy one, and post a better scan.

Could either be a bad trace (the pin is grounded somewhere between teh connector and the RIOT chip) or the RIOT chip is bad. I think Best Electronics still sells those chips.

Looking through the latest DP guide, there's still quite a few titles that lack any programmer names, but there's only 5 pre-80 titles: Circus Atari Code Breaker Human Cannonball Miniature Golf Space War Anyone know who programmed them?

(From auction description) Please check the following location for the latest information, including a link to a thread in which the classic gaming experts attempt to resolve it's origin Attempted......and SUCCEEDED! In fact, a recent CNN poll found that more people believe NASA faked the moon landings, than they do your story that you have a real Airworld prototype.[/i]

Agreed. The PAL bin currently available doesn't have that bug.

How ironic that the 'master of prototypes' doesn't have an EPROM reader

DVD FAQ You can either use 2 single-layer DVDs, or 1 dual-layer DVD (which holds at least 4 hours of footage). Either way, there's plenty of space to add the extra footage....and the Doug Neubauer interview

Russ: There's no footage of Doug in Volume 2. The programmers that are featured are: Al Miller, David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Carol Shaw, Larry Wagner, Bob Smith, Dennis Koble, Tod Frye, Rick Maurer, Rob Fulop, and Steve DeFrisco. If you're serious about making a DVD, considering that there was hours of footage shot for that gathering (the better part of a day, I'm guessing), why not fill it with some of that footage?

Are there actually 2 different released versions, or are you counting the cart version and the fixed bin version released here?

...in Popular Mechanics, December 1977, along with a mock-up Air-Sea Battle screen. Space Mission was the early name for Star Ship. Sorry for the poor quality - it's from a microfilm machine (does anybody have this issue? I'd like to get a better scan of it). [/img]

Check out my Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man pages for more info on those glitches (which result in some cool tricks).

Here's an NES mod link I modified one years ago, and it works great with most games.

The carts with the copyright were the last run of carts made. It's unknown who added that screen but it wasn't Brad Stewart. You can see an interview with him at http://digitpress.com/archives/arc00120.htm For more info on Asteroids, go to http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/26asteroids.htm

He's listed in the credits on both volumes, but he's only in #1 - for about 3 seconds. Sounds like his interview got left on the cutting room floor.

What interview? Can you post a link to it?

*gasp* You should know there's only one true site for Easter eggs

I use either TV tuner or electronics cleaner (which evaporates quickly) unlike WD40 which will initially clean it, but will cause grime to build up even faster afterwards.

I did an article on Atari-made 2600 carts, which is included in #7. I have no plans to cover any 3rd-party companies so if somebody wants to, feel free.

An abomination of all that is pulp?

A few 1982 issues of EG mention Foxbat - an air combat/war strategy game Atari was developing (btw, "Foxbat" is the name for the Russian MIG-25 fighter plane"). One of the EG news bits also said Foxbat was replaced by Raiders on the release schedule. A letter in the Oct 82 issue (page 28 ) from Atari rep Karen Johnson stated it was Warshaw's game, although years later I found out (from him directly) it wasn't. It was later learned that Doug Neubauer was the Foxbat programmer. He was working on Solaris (then called The Last Starfighter) as early as 1984, and it's obvious that Solaris and Radar lock use most of the same display kernel code (and even Super Football to a lesser extent). So it seems very possible that Foxbat and Radar Lock are the same game, but only a Foxbat proto or Neubauer himself could prove my theory.....

The fake Airworld site is back up, with updates (but no ROM or video files )