ballyalley

Yeah, I think the RF signal on the Astrocade is pretty good. Here is an example of some captured video footage from my own Astrocade. This is video art, one of my favorite uses of Bally BASIC: I have lots of Astrocade videos and all of the footage is captured from an RF signal going through a host of devices that probably degrades the signal before it is captured. Of course, if you're looking for the cleanest picture that you can get, then RGB would certainly be the way to go, but in the end, you'll always have an analog signal from this console. I used to chase the best picture I could get from all of my consoles, but now I've learned that the best picture will be to use traditional CRT TVs or monitors from the same vintage as the console or computer that I am trying to use. Adam

The Bally Arcade/Astrocade uses a custom chip that is only used in the Astroade and a few of Bally's arcade games, such as: https://ballyalley.com/ballyalley/articles/astrocade_arcade_games.txt I don't think that anyone has hooked up an Astrocade via RGB since the 1980s. There is a bit about it on my website if you search it: https://www.google.com/search?q=rgb+site:ballyalley.com The Astrocade, luckily, does have a high-quality RF signal. If you post to the Bally Alley discussion group, then you may find some more information there concerning S-Video and composite modifications: https://groups.io/g/ballyalley Have fun with your Bally console! Adam

This thread seems like the perfect place to add oddball pictures of hardware which I've scanned from the Bob Fabris Collection. Here are three Polaroid pictures of the Viper. I don't know anything about these pictures; they were just in one of the boxes that is in my collection now. These appear to be pre-production versions of the Viper System 1 with 32K RAM. These have not been added to BallyAlley.com, so I think this is the first time I've posted these photos anywhere. Here is the keyboard and memory expansion: Here are two close-ups of the RAM expansion (check out the size of those caps!): A few times a week I'll try to look through my directory called "Astrocade\To_Upload\Pictures (Hardware)" to see what else I can add here. If I don't post here for awhile, then please feel free to bump this thread to remind me to browse my collection. Keep in mind that while I've never added these photos to the website, anyone has access to these, and many more that aren't on BallyAlley.com, from the large downloads on archive.org, which you can see here: https://ballyalley.com/documentation/Archives/Archives.html I hope people enjoy these unusual pictures. Adam

I think that ad is a trick of the light. I used to own the Bally Home Library Computer and other early versions of the Bally Arcade. None had the woodgrain that you're describing. I did have the one with the red "Insert Cassette" (meaning "Insert Cartridge" area). Stupidly, I threw that system away in around 1994 because it was dead. Little did I know that only about 5,000 of those consoles were made. Also, I never thought of the Bally as having "fins" but I love that term! I'm going to point the groups.io Astrocade discussion group to this thread to see if anyone posts some pictures of their own systems. Maybe tomorrow, or over the next few days, I'll see what weird pictures of people's systems I can find that were sent to Bob Fabris (the publisher of the "The Arcadian" newsletter) in the early 1980s. Adam

The Bally never had a disk drive available for it. I guess it sort of had one, if you count the UV-1 computer, but that only uses the Bally Arcade's custom chips. The UV-1 was very expensive and not truly related to the Bally computer. Here is a price list for the UV-1 computer: https://ballyalley.com/documentation/zgrass/Price_List_Revised/Datamax_UV-1R_Price_List_Jan_15_1983_Revised.pdf Notice, that before the price dropped, in 1983, you could pay $10,000 (yeah, you read that right: ten-thousand dollars) for a complete system. The systems did sell and were sold for special applications, but they're so rare that the ROMs in them have not been dumped, and thus you can't even emulate a UV-1 computer, which ran Z-GRASS as its native language. In my eyes, I think of the UV-1 computer circa 1983 as an Amiga with a Video Toaster, circa 1990 or so. The beauty of the using tape drives is that many of the 8-bit computers used standard tape drives, so you can just substitute WAV files for a "tape." Adam

The Astrocade's 2000-baud tapes also seem fast because they're only loading 1.8K of RAM unless the user has a RAM expansion (which were quite rare). The Adam's Digital Data Packs are probably the fastest of the 8-bit computers; they're an amazing 19.2K baud! In around 1984, my buddy had a Coleco Adam and I had a Commodore 64. His Adam computer could load software faster than my Commodore 1541 disk drive. Of course, my disk drive was not a serial device; it had random access to jump to any area of the disk "instantly." Although, I seem to recall that the Adam's tapes could store a directory of sorts called the catalog. I think you could automatically load a program... but I don't remember how it worked. I think that the tape player fast-forwarded (quite loudly!) to the tape and then loaded it as normal. Ah, this makes me sort of miss tape drives... Adam

This is a great idea for a thread! Here are some pictures of the various versions of the Viper/ZGRASS. This version of the Viper was released (the Viper keyboard is extremely rare!): Here is a color picture of that same keyboard: Here is a version of the Viper that was never released. Notice it has two 5 1/4" disk drives! These pictures are from here: https://ballyalley.com/pics/hardware_pics/viper/viper.html I probably have some pictures of weird Astroade systems that I've never posted to BallyAlley.com. Perhaps this thread will spur some folks here to share pictures of their personal Bally Arcade/Astroade setups. Adam

I had been spending quite a bit of time with another Z80 computer, the Timex 2068, when I got an email from Michael Matte. He was having some trouble with a version of Windows Movie Maker, which he seems to have corrected. He gave me an update about his Astrocade projects in this last of our emails that we exchanged together, which I'm including here, and which I also posted to the Astrocade dicussion group, here: https://groups.io/g/ballyalley/message/19413 One day someone will post a message here that they have also updated their Astrocaded to have access to hi-res mode. Will that person be you? Adam --------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2022 To: Adam T. Subject: [Astrocade Updates from Mid-August 2022] Actually, I'm planning to record a video later. I'm not ready yet to record a video until specific hardware projects are completed. I don't recall why I decided to access my WLMM a few days ago. That's when I couldn't find that program. I'm still experimenting with my YouTube channel videos. I'm going to try my 19"LED TV and see what happens. I'm also going to look into the possibility of recording short videos in HD. My newly revised BalcheckHR WW prototype board is finally finished. My quick connect composite video driver and audio driver board is still in the development stage. I spent more time experimenting on my breadboard with the low/hi-res screen SRAM interfacing scheme and eventually came up with a really cool idea, which required only a minor rewire. I may post or record a video to demonstrate how this latest change has created a major compatibility improvement on this scheme. Because of the several interfacing changes that have been made on my final hi-res SRAM Astrocade project, drawings DWG 2, 3, 4 and 5 posted on the Bally Alley are now obsolete. I plan to revise/update all 6 drawings, assigning a revision number to each. As a result of the recent SRAM interfacing change, the "low-res only" breadboard that can plug into my modified for hi-res Astrocade motherboard has been simplified. Two chips have been eliminated. This simplified scheme will eventually end up on a WW board. This latest interfacing change has also opened the door for a low-res modification option on an Astrocade motherboard which has a DRAM or DRAM interfacing failure. I have come up with a very clean way as an option to replace the DM81LS95 (U23) chip and 8 DRAM chips with just 2 chips: the 74LS373 (or equal) and 1 SRAM chip. I'm pretty sure, at this time, a 0.6" wide body SRAM chip could even be used. You should later expect to see a posting and likely a video on this new option, after I build and test the quick connect SRAM board that would plug into a U23 socket and U24 DRAM socket using short looped DIP ribbon cables. No further motherboard modifications would be required. When I will build this new scheme I don't know. Since Allen Schweitzer is occasionally replacing 8 RAMS with 5v only RAMs another, perhaps simpler, option might be to plug in a pro-grade designed pc board with this new SRAM scheme. Bye. MCM --------------------------------------- As always, even in the background, Michael is thinking about his Astrocade projects. Adam

I enjoy helping people find more information about the Astrocade. There is also a discussion group over at groups.io here: https://groups.io/g/ballyalley Maybe I'll see ya there. Adam

I presume that you have the more common AstroBASIC (the cartridge with the built-in tape interface). If you type in a program, then, yes, you'll have to do it line-by-line. Most programs have been archived already in WAV format and can be loaded into BASIC. All of the archived AstroBASIC programs are here: https://ballyalley.com/program_downloads/2000_baud_programs/2000_baud_programs.html I recommend starting with WaveMakers, a company that released 20 tapes with, usually, one program per side. The WaveMakers programs are available here: https://ballyalley.com/program_downloads/2000_baud_programs/wave_makers/wave_makers.html One of my favorite games for the Astrocade by WaveMakers is "The Gate Escape," which you can download, here: https://ballyalley.com/program_downloads/2000_baud_programs/wave_makers/wave_makers.html#TheGateEscapeWaveMakersAB Here is an overview of the game that I made in 2019: Try getting started with this game to see what you think of BASIC games. Keep in mind that BASIC save SEVERE limitations on the Astrocade. There is only 1.8K of RAM available and, in most cases, only two colors are on-screen at once. Still, Bally BASIC came out for the Bally Arcade in 1978. It was pretty impressive for the time of its release on a platform that could be purchased at a reasonable price. Adam

There are many Astrocade FAQs on my website, here: https://ballyalley.com/faqs/faqs.html These are kind of old-school, I know. The general Astrocade FAQ is here: https://ballyalley.com/faqs/bally-astrocade_faq.txt I suggest downloading it and viewing it with a monospace font like "Courier New" at 10pt with margins of 1" and 0.9". I have MANY videos about the Astroacade on YouTube, although not one that is an overivew of the system. You can view my playlists, here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ballyalley/playlists There are some general Astrocade overview videos, here: https://ballyalley.com/astrocade_videos/Astrocade_Hardware_Videos/Astrocade_Hardware_Videos.html The Bally Arcade is a strange, wonderful little box that offers more than most people could have expected in 1978. It's too bad it never realized its full potential. Adam

Congratulations on getting a Bally Arcade/Astrocade. I hope to see you posting questions and letting us know what you think of the system. If you have AstroBASIC, then you'll be able to try hundreds of programs. Hopefully the Astrocade multicart is still available to purchase. Adam

I haven't re-read the Wikipedia page for the Astrocade, but without referring to it, I can confirm that the Bally Arcade/Astrocade does not include a cassette tape port. The originally version of Bally BASIC, released in about September 1978, the one without the built-in tape interface, requires an external tape interface. This interface loads a BASIC program at 300-BAUD. The 300-baud interface plugged into joystick port 3 and the light-pen port. Examples of the interface are on this page: https://ballyalley.com/pics/hardware_pics/audio_interface/audio_interface.html In 1981, Bally BASIC was revised and re-released on a cartridge that included its own cassette tape interface. This interface loaded programs at 2000-BAUD. The 300-baud interface wasn't required to use this revised version of Bally BASIC, which is now usually referred to as AstroBASIC or Astrovision BASIC. Adam

I think that part of the issue with Bridgestone Media Group not allowing a follow-up to the Apshai games is that the company is "family friendly" and that they doesn't want to have that image tainted by having a game that could be gory. This is just my personal impression. You can visit the company's website to see what they're all about, here: https://www.gobmg.com/ It should be noted that in 1996, with the release of the Atari VCS Starpath Supercharger games on the "Stella Gets a New Brain" CD, that the company did grant "Cyber Punks" the right to make a limited run of the CDs. I think 300 of them were made at the time. This was one of the first modern releases that I ever bought when it was first released, and I loved using it on my Atari console. There was a second release of the CD that was slightly different. I have both releases and if you haven't tried those Supercharger games than you're missing out on some good fun. To bring this post back to the world of "Apshai," the Starpath game, "Dragonstomper," was on that CD. That was also an RPG, although it wasn't at all similar to the Apshai series. Adam

I only knew of two or three of these Atari 2600 games that have been ported to the Atari home computers. Maybe this isn't the right thread to ask this question, but are these "true" ports? By this I mean that most of the code is the same as the Atari 2600 game. For example, the Atari 8-bit version of the Activision game "Pitfall II" is based on the source code of the Atari 2600 game. This is unlike "Pitfall II" for the Commodore 64, which is a recreation of the game. I think I also read once that "River Raid" for the Atari 8-bit is also a true port from the Atari 2600, and is one of the few games that uses an kernel to draw the screen. I'm in a bit over my head here, so I may be stating some of these "facts" incorrectly, but I'm doing the best that I can here to ask this question correctly. Basically, I just wonder if these Atari 2600 ports are recreations, that are similar to the original game or if they are exactly the same as the original game. Adam

Epyx began having problems in the late 1980s and they went from RPG-like games (i.e. the Automated Simulation games) to more action-oriented games, mostly on the Commodore 64. By the time Bridgestone Media Group bought the rights to their back catalog in 1993, the company only had a few employees left. Bridgestone has been contacted a few timed by people that would like to revive the Apshai series, but Bridgestone has declined this idea. You can read about this a bit more in some of the previous posts in this thread. There is probably more to it than I've described here, perhaps Bill Loguidice can give us some more insight into this subject. Adam

An easy introduction to the Apshai games would be to play the Commodore Amiga or Atari ST ports, which both include, as DavidD already mentioned, the room descriptions in the game. However, since you'll want the manuals handy anyway (they're full of background and other needed material), I would suggest playing either the Atari 8-bit or Commodore 64 version of "Temple of Apshai Trilogy." The trilogy-release of the game is turn-based, rather than real-time, so it is quite different from the original BASIC releases of the Temple of Apshai games. As a quick way to get started with any of the Apshai games, then the trilogy is probably the way to go to get started. If you like it, then try the games written in BASIC. If you do play the BASIC games, then I suggest playing the Atari versions, as those have the best graphics. If you play the Amiga version of the game, then avoid using the mouse, as it slows down the gameplay considerably. Also, avoid using the joystick to play the "Trilogy," as you get much better control using the keyboard. There wasn't a console port of the "Temple of Apshai," but, as was stated by others here, there was the game "Gateway to Apshai," which plays quite differently from the original game. There are some unusual ports of the game, such as the French conversion to the Amstrad CPC Computer, which you can read about in an earlier post in this thread, here: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/183584-temple-of-apshai-trilogy-maps/?do=findComment&comment=3040319 I'm glad that people still stumble upon this thread that I started eleven years ago. That sort of amazes me. Adam

I would like to try the Apple II version that has the animated scene with Brian Hammerhand decapitating a giant ant. I've never seen that version of the game and I think a screenshot of it would fit in nicely with this thread. Also, I wasn't aware of a "vault" command that makes your character jump far and (maybe?) over an enemy. That's a neat idea, although it's not exactly an easy feat to pull off in dungeon. For one thing, where does one keep the pole vault pole? In a gigantic backpack? How the heck is someone wearing armor gonna pole vault? I'd like to see that event in the next Olyimpics: the Full Plate Mail Pole Vault. Marco, would you please point me to links for these two different Apple II versions of "Temple of Apshai?" I'm not sure why, but I'm especially eager to see Brian chop the head off a Giant Ant. Adam

Let me ask around to find you a system. I have a couple of non-working systems in the garage, but, hmmm, I might have donated them to a buddy for parts. I'll have to check. I also have a mostly-working backup system that has some issues loading BASIC programs, so their is something wrong with it, but I'm not sure what it is at all. However, it does use carts just fine. Also, feel free to send me a message through AtariAge and maybe we can have a phone call or Zoom meeting this coming week. Adam

Okay, I understand. Perhaps you're already a member of the Astrocade forum on Groups.io, but if you're not there yet, then many more people frequent that group. Adam

You're probably right about the reason I needed to approve your post is because you are a new member here at AtariAge. Welcome! I took a quick look at this PNG and it looks MUCH better; it's readable. I do recall that someone did what you're doing once before, but I can't remember where I saw that posted. This was several years ago. Adam

For some reason this topic needed approval. It has now been approved. This image looks like it took a LOT of work. The picture that was uploaded is basically a thumbnail; the file is less than 1MB. Can you upload an image in a higher resolution? Adam

Hmm... what was wrong with the corridor in Zone Ranger last time? Was the bug a problem with the original program or something that happened when the program was archived. I'm not sure if I'll be able to play this round, but if Beam Rider wins this round, then I'll certainly try to get involved a bit. Adam

Nice of you to drop into this forum, Andy. I just played your game under emulation using MESS and I took these three screenshots: I got my one frog across the street and then across the river. After that, my game ended. Froggy is a simple little game. I like that it isn't too fussy with jumping from log to log. If you're close to the log, then you make the jump just fine. Andy, please tell us about "EXTENDED SOFTWARE COMPANY." What other games did you write and release? How long did the company last? When was it founded? When did it end? Were all the games written in BASIC? Adam

I don't have the files that were part of the VideoBrain Yahoo group, but I do have the messages. I probably have all of them. If not, then I have most of them. I'll try to archive them to archive.org in a few different formats by next week. Most of these formats won't be usable in the output that I can get from PG Offline, but one of them is just "plain" html files, with 50 messages per file. This isn't ideal for searching, but all of the information will be in those files in an easy-to-read format. Adam