eobet

I believe that picture is by Rodney Matthews and thus copyrighted. I could trace the logotype in a vector based illustration program and perhaps do something with the background, but I have a question: Old cartridges had the label go across over the back, didn't they? This new type of cartridge doesnt have this? I know the measurments are in the first post, but could you post a picture of a blank cart?

Usually caused by having disk 2 side 1 (or 2... the one you switch to anyway) write protected.

Haha, oops... it was a while since I played it. That's a good theory. I'll add it to the FAQ.

You've read Philip Price's messages from the mailing list archive on what he remembered about the copy protection, I hope? I do believe that the AR series have the nastiest copy protections out there...

Alternate reality gaming is something completely different. It's when you have a game going that... intermixes with your real life. Have you seen the movie "The Game"? That's an alternate reality game (and yes, they do exist, though that movie is pretty extreme).

Whoops, I just remembered that the list owner switched mailing list software a few weeks ago, so I haven't updated the FAQ with the new info. I'll mail him and try to fix it ASAP.

I just woke up, so forgive me if I'm slow, but what does the last part of the above sentence mean?

Thanks, I've added it (but who knows when I'll upload a new version, though). It supposedly affects a "dapper" stat, which nobody yet has found the memory location for. I guess it's for avoiding encounters with evil noblemen and such, but I'm not sure. Feel free to join the mailing list if you want to discuss this. If you complete it, and manage to break down how each color/fabric affects the final price, I'd be interested in adding that to the FAQ (I've begun a few spreadsheets myself, to find out monster experience gain and so on, but never finished them). No idea, but sounds interesting. Evil and Good is replaced with Chaos and Order, at least in the Dungeon. Thanks, I actually hadn't put that in the FAQ when I searched for it. It's in the general tips for The City now.

I'm the same eobet who wrote the AR FAQ and who hosts the oldest AR fan site, btw. Huge post, and I haven't read all of it, but I agree at least that AR is the grestest CRPG ever made. Regarding Philip Price, he was a member of the mailing list (he even at one point tried remake the game for PC, with Gary Gilbertson who was also on the list), but we unfortunately lost track of him a few years ago, and nobody has heard of him (or Gary Gilberston) since. Ken Jordan and Dan Pinal (of The Dungeon fame) are still members of the mailing list, though. The Matrix connection was heavily discussed a few years ago, where even Philip Price added to the conspiracy theories by mentioning that he pitched the AR concept to two brothers who were Hollywood directors (but I think he denied that it was the Wachowskis). You can read a rather weak (sorry for that) comparison between AR and Matrix in the FAQ at section 6.15: http://www.eobet.com/alternate-reality/alt-reality_FAQ.txt PS. Strange that the AR threads popped up just after I mentioned the lack of AR music in the SAP archives. EDIT 1: Oh, someone replied to OLD threads... EDIT 2: Also, to avoid having to link legally dubious Atari ROM files (though I used to do this myself), I'd suggest using the Atari++ emulator, as that one doesn't seem to need them.

The archive still doesn't contain the over two dozen songs Gary Gilbertson wrote for Alternate Reality: The City, Alternate Reality: The Dungeon and the preceeding various AMP demo discs. That music was revolutionary, and probably remains unique to this day (it was timed to in-game lyrics, and had vibrato and pitch modulations applied by hand to make it sound less machine made).

Is there a torrent of this anywhere?

I have an Edge article which has a very good and detailed description of the downfall of Atari. I also have a nice Discovery Channel documentary on "The History of Computer Games", with interesting quotes from Nolan Bushnell. Also interesting, is Ralph Baer's light gun, made six years before Atari appeared as a company, so no, the light gun was availible long before the 8-bits. (As you know, Baer won the trial, and the right to the title "father of video games".) * I've only had two hours of sleep tonight, so I hope I didn't misquote anything here.

Are they new and boxed? Or second-hand? Seems totally reasonable to me. I wouldn't even sell my own boxed games for that. To me, they're too valuable. Could you give me the URL to that store, as I am looking for various versions of International Karate.

Has everyone forgotten The Eidolon? (It's a C64 screenshot, but still... only difference is that the dragon was green on Atari, I think.) And drop this silly notion of vector graphics (ie. polygons). Wolfenstein didn't have them and the A8 doesn't have computing power to make much more than what Mercenary can produce. If you want to do a full 360 3D game, you need to cheat heavily, like the Alternate Reality games did.

The Amiga is probably more alive an kicking than Atari computers (note that I'm including hardware as well, and know that Atari today, is just the American name for the publisher Infogrames... it has absolutely nothing to do with the Atari we love, as they merely bought the name because of brand recognition). I know that some parts of Amiga was recently sold (again), so there's now a split between the companies who are going to make the new PPC hardware and OS4 (I think): http://www.amiga.com/ Then there's things like PegasOS, MorphOS, AROS and a whole bunch of stuff I have very little knowledge about, but it's all alive and kicking.

I fondly remember the loading tunes to each Last Ninja level. You didn't mind at all waiting the 5-10 minutes (!) of loading every level on that game, because they were absolutely stunning. In comparison, however, I found that the Atari had a much warmer sound, especially with tracks like the main menu of Rescue on Fractulus. The SID chip was probably much more versatile, though. There's even something called the "SidStation" out there right now, which is a professional synthesizer with a SID chip. There's a Swedish synthpop group called Robot who has released a CD titles "Fake or Real" using it, and it sounds great!

When I grew up, I was the only kid in town with an Atari 130XE (granted, a small Swedish town, but still). All the other kids had Commodore 64 machines with tape stations, and I remember they having hundreds of games on those tapes! I only had boxed floppy games (hey, I didn't know anyone else with an Atari, so I couldn't copy anything), but I had a father who also liked playing video games, so he/we bought quite a lot. Today, I know that my Atari had 4 voices instead of the 3 on the Commodore 64, and could display a lot more colors on screen than that machine. But that didn't matter back then. All I knew was that I couldn't play Blood'n Guts or The Last Ninja, and that was something I really envied those who had Commodore 64. I think I managed to impress a few people with some games, though, because when the Atari ST came out, I wasn't alone with it (in fact, I knew more people with ST machines than Amigas). Today, I know that the Amiga could have been the ST, and that the ST was made from scratch, and forced into production in less than 12 months by that asshole Jack Tramiel. In fact, it seems that all managers of Atari have been assholes, more or less. When Nolan Bushnell sold the company to Warner, he told the new managers that "the 2600 is dead, what shall we come up with now?" and they went totally pale and argued that the should concentrate all efforts into advertising the 2600 instead of coming up with new inventions.

I should still have that cart somewhere, though I can't remember if I still have the box or not. As we only ever had a 130XE in our household, I am sure that it ran just fine on that machine.

Dual boot? Wow, thanks for the info! I'll keep an eye out. The reason the game is slower on WKC sounds like PAL timing issue, which yields 25fps at 50hz, while NTSC yields 30fps at its 60hz. Never thought about it back in those days, but I remember it being a constant annoyance on early Playstation games.

Quite an answer! So, if I dump my game, and send in the disk image... I get the disk image back? Or did I read that wrong? Anyway, I understand the legal problems, but the thing is that a majority of people with old games don't have a way of dumping them, and thus have to use "illegal" channels in order to obtain them in a usable format. I say "illegal" within quotes, because they themselves aren't doing anything illegal. On the matter of inventive copy protection, I have to let you know about the copy protection for the Atari 8-bit games Alternate Reality (which will undoubtedly become a hurdle, when trying to preserve): When it is triggered in The City, you become immensly evil in the game, and get thrown out of shops and attacked by city guards. When it is triggered in The Dungeon, you get ambushed by two FBI agents (even though it is a fantasy game). Really golden. I believe you can find more information about the copy protection (it included custom encryption and custom OS) in the mailing list archives at: http://www.avatardesign.net/alternatereality/ If not, get in touch with me and I will dig through my own mail, since I used to be in contact with all of the authors (though I've lost contact with the two original authos, sadly).

Oh, sorry for confusing you. I meant that the graphics were unique for the ST because Archer Maclean didn't do them himself. And no, as I said, I don't have the System 3 release either. I have actually corresponded with Archer Maclean a little bit. Once when the Gamboy version was released (which he was unaware of) and once when the Playstation version was released.

Thank you for the information, I will keep looking on Ebay. And yeah, sorry, I don't differentiate between International Karate and IK+, since they're basically the same game. Both were made by Archer Maclean and use the same control system (merely changing a few moves). On the 8-bit computers, they even use the same sprites (ST/Amiga versions has new sprite graphics, though). The Atari ST version is very interesting, though. There were two releases of International Karate's for that system, using completely unique graphics. System 3 did the original (presumably) and the other was published by Epyx under the name World Karate Championship. And neither credited Archer Maclean. I'm very interested in acquiring the original System 3 version for Atari ST.

I have Technicolor Dream by Red Rat Software on original floppy (it's "boxed", but in one of these DVD case like plastic slips). I believe you could do 256 colors on screen at once, from a 512 color palette in that one, which was pretty special. I'll have to check when I go down to my dad's basement next.

Thank you both for the information! As I am in need of money right now (or will be soon, anyway) I think I will put my Ultima III up for auction, once I figure out how I can actually retrieve my money from Paypal. My box is in fair condition, but all the contents are in mint condition, and I also have the official cluebook, which was made by Origin themselves, in an equally high quality as the manuals (it's got the fake pergament feel and all). I don't want to risk selling my game too cheap, but I wonder if people will be put off by a high initial price...