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Intelligentleman

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Posts posted by Intelligentleman

  2. Posted

    55 minutes ago, MattelAquarius said:

    I used the Aquarius modem to logon to CompuServe starting around the time I was in 5th and 6th grade.  That would be around 1984/1985.  I distinctly recall having a chat/email with my 6th grade teacher on via platform.  At school, she was teaching us how to program in LOGO on a room full of C64's.  It was a good time.

     

    I remember being disappointed that there was no choice for "Mattel Aquarius" in the CompuServe setup menu, so I had to choose something like "Other/Terminal".  At least I was able to set the correct column width and lines per screen.  Played a couple MMORPGS that were all text character based...at 300 baud.  ;)  IIRC, it was $6.00 per hour during off peak hours.  Occasionally, I'd sneak in some time during peak hours (I think it jumped to $12/hr), and my dad was NOT happy to get the bill.  LOL  

     

    Within a year or two after that, I bought a COCO3 with my own paper route money, so that upped my online game a little.  I was also afforded the "opportunity" to start paying my own online fees.  ;)

    That is incredible. How did your family come to acquire the Aquarius and the necessary gear to actually get "online?" Can you describe the process of logging on and what it was like? How long did it take? What was the interface? And then once you did log on, what was the first thing you'd see? Any detail you can remember would be awesome!

    • Like 1

  6. Posted · Edited by Intelligentleman

    Space Hawk - a "generic" running person game. Night Stalker. The list goes on. It's a generic "character" but maybe it wouldn't be so generic if it had a decent backstory? What if any running man game had an accompanying "pre-quel" or some other such literary device? Text adventures. Augmented by graphical and audio flourishes from the hardware...

     

    Edit - I'd plan to use the INTV cartridge from which to pull graphical assets....

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

    1 hour ago, intvnut said:

    It seems like you'd want higher-order snippets than just a BASIC statement.  You want a full-blown subroutine.  If you use IntyBASIC, it seems like it shouldn't be too hard to write a program that scanned the synth keyboard and had an ON x GOSUB to invoke one of 49 different routines based on which synth key you pressed.

     

    You'd need to write that scanner, or integrate my assembly code synth scanner.

     

    My assembly code scanner would actually do the "ON x GOSUB" thing for you, the way it's currently written.  It dispatches key-down and key-up events for all 49 keys independently, so you can press chords, etc.

     

    A different approach, depending on what you're going for, might be to have a main loop that has up to 49 * 4 different condition tests ("just pressed", "held down", "just released", "not pressed") that repeatedly cycles and processes all keys.

     

    That won't quite work, as I believe the data structure that represents each line of an ECS BASIC program has absolute address information hardcoded in it.  MS BASIC does the same thing; however, MS BASIC has a fixup pass that runs after loading the program.  I don't think ECS BASIC has that.

     

    All that said, it seems like it shouldn't be too hard to write an ECS BASIC tokenizer that runs on a PC and produces a binary that can be run through a binary-to-wave converter to produce something you could CLOD.  (I believe I've posted my bin2wav utility in the past that did the necessary FSK encoding.  It's not a difficult conversion)

     

  13. Posted

    6 hours ago, Stephen said:

    I tried to zoom in as best as I could on the picture - that power supply they have sitting behind it is definitely not an original unit.  The machine runs on a 9VAC supply, I believe 31 watts.  When the 400 was sold new, I do believe it came with a BASIC language programming cart, as the original models did not have BASIC built in.  The unit has the standard Atari SIO port (serial port, pre-cursor to USB_ for connecting cassette drive, disk drive, printer, modem, etc.

     

    I don't know what the current ebay prices are, but I would certainly not pay $180 for a 16kB 400 with the original membrane keyboard.

    Thank you. Yeah... and i

     had to teach as high up as I could just to get those crappy shots...

  14. Posted

    Might it be possible in theory to assign BASIC programming snippets to the keys on an Intellivision music synthesizer?

     

    So if I play a certain "note” on the keyboard, the program knows to call up a specified BASIC routine. This routine then runs and causes the audio/visual experience to change.

     

    Alternatively, could I record the audio “sound” of rudimentary BASIC programs or definitions and piece together a BASIC program in a wav editor like audacity? Then, play it back to a the intellivision?
     

     

  17. Posted

    34 minutes ago, mr_me said:

    Try saving a basic program from one computer and then loading it on the other computer.  The basic in the ecs and aquarius are very different so I expect it doesn't work.

    Yeah that's probably the easiest thing to try first. I suppose it's a long shot, but I'll try just for curiosity's sake. As soon as my Aquarius arrives next week, that is.

  19. Posted

    3 hours ago, mr_me said:

    The ecs and aquarius have very different basic interpreters.  The aquarius does share a similar basic with lots of other computers e.g. msx, c64, apple ii,  ibm pc.  If they all use the same kc standard tape format they might load the program?

    It wouldn't be too hard to try, I think. Probably just need a splitter so that one could run a cable to both computers from the shared tape deck.

  22. Posted

    5 minutes ago, Zendocon said:

    Right.  I'm in the US, so I should have had a white ECS all along for NTSC televisions.  The brown ECS worked fine otherwise, and I had the original Intellivision all these years, so I prefer the brown ECS cosmetically.

     

    Yes, to have done what I did with just the ECS is something I consider an accomplishment.  Those Bomb Run and Number Cruncher games are not too bad for ECS I think.  I had a couple of other series of games: one called Think Fast and another called Fall Of The Human Race.  Maybe I could revisit those and make them better, so I would feel good about making them readily available.

    I suspect I'm not the only person like this, but to me, there is just something nostalgic and appealing about playing a game that - in theory - could have been made in 1983 by some dedicated, passionate person and shared among his/her nerdy friends on cassette tapes.

    • Like 1

  23. Posted · Edited by Intelligentleman

    58 minutes ago, Zendocon said:

    I'm glad you enjoyed my better efforts.

     

    ECS was all I had for a "computer" until the 12th grade, so I spent a lot of time making the most of it.  My family bought it because we accidentally bought The Jetsons' Ways With Words without knowing we needed the ECS to play.  Thank goodness it became available through the INTV catalogs shortly after.

     

    Also, I had the brown ECS, which was intended for PAL televisions.  As a result of different timing, I could never save my programs to tape and never knew why, so I "saved" everything to a spiral-bound notebook with a pencil.  Very humble beginnings!

     

    Not that all that time was in vain though.  Before getting a real computer, I went on to cracking passwords in a number of 8-bit and 16-bit games, in a heuristic method: just recording a bunch of passwords and solving the logic behind them.  That was how I taught myself binary arithmetic, and gained a rudimentary understanding of code validation schemes.

    You mention you had the brown UK one as if it was unusual - which it would be if you lived in the US, I suppose. At any rate, I love your story, and I can relate to it if not directly. Here's my philosophy on development - and not just software dev; ALL development - do what you can with what you have. The true measure of your accomplishment is married to the conditions under which it was executed.

     

    Here's another way to look at it - If we judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life thinking it is useless.

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    1 hour ago, JasonlikesINTV said:

    I don't think I've ever seen one of those.  Neat!

    Oh hell yeah. That looks way more useful than this god-awful sears tele-games "organizer" thing. The way they want you to insert your game carts is the worst. They're always falling over and the whole thing quickly becomes a plastic box where all of your games are haphazardly piled up for you to sort through until you find the one you wanted. If you even still want to play it by the time you find it.

     

  25. Posted

    Regarding that potential TutorVision, does that system do anything differently/better with it's advanced circuitry? Or is it just desirable for it's rarity? If I recall... isn't it possible to have the advanced components but lack the modified EXEC, essentially making it just a heavier Intellivision?

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