Big_Mo

Well, I'll be there at the event. Might bring a friend of mine who used to work on the Coin side in the 90s. Atari veteran Mike Albaugh might pop in as well.

I'm hoping to be there for it.

I had already linked that in the entry under External Links, but thanks!

Hi all. Been a while since I posted. Anyway, while doing some research into some Atari history I ran into the Wikipedia entry on the Atari 2700, which was sadly lacking in detail. I did a little bit of work and substantially revised the entry (link). If anyone spots an errors please let me know and I'll correct them.

Hi Curt: That Atari Healthcare thing was really confusing because the page features a logo and everything, which implies that there's something factual there when the site is called Atari History. And just to be clear, it was accousticguitar who got an unautographed book, not I. Best, Maurice

So, Curt, I have a question about the book. The section about the Vidcomm is really different than the entry on the Atari History Museum. The latter refers to "The Vidcom I (Video Communications Device) from Atari Healthcare Systems...." but the book (page 497-98) doesn't mention Atari Healthcare systems at all. Why the discrepancy? Is the information on the site out of date? Thanks!

I happen to love Mappy, albeit it's a slightly flawed game in that the difficulty ramp is too high. I played it a lot when I was working at Namco, and my breakthrough with the game came when I realized you could operate the doors without actually being next to them. THAT changes the game entirely. The issue I have with the game is that Mappy has to be facing a given door in order to trigger it, which means joystick wiggling that often gets you killed. If the game had made it so that you could trigger the door on whatever platform you were standing on (or within a given proximity of said door) then that would have made the game a lot more playable. Hmmm, now I want to mockup how it would look!

Had such a thing been done, the software support would seem to have to fall to the PCS (Personal Computer System) group, but the console was under the videogaming group, so there might've been turf wars. Several Atari employees of that era I've spoken to think that Atari made a huge mistake going into the PCS business, and should have taken the chipset for what ended up in the computers and 5200 and gotten out a more powerful replacement system for the VCS closer to 1980.

Well, Superman's map is tricky because the key screens with the phone booth and bridge location are set up so that the normal map connections don't work, which feels like a cheat. For instance, if you fly up from the phone booth screen -- which my map would identify as A4 -- you end up on C1, but if you go down from C1 you end up on D1, not A4. So you can exit either phone or bridge screens vertically, but never enter them the same way. It's not easy to memorize a map that isn't consistent. I never quite "got" the Superman map until I actually drew it out, and even then it was a challenge to draw the map in anything approaching an understandable way.

Superman's map is virtually incomprehensible, so that, coupled with the annoying sound effects and mega-flicker make it less than delightful to play. E.T., well, it's just not a great game. Adventure has it's flicker-fault, but you can learn the map pretty easily and the game feels basically fair.

Everyone has an opinion on the Tramiels. I was recently chatting with a long-time Atari veteran employee and he said "Anyone who talks about [Jack] Tramiel without employing the term 'scumbag' clearly never worked for the man."

But that only works for a while. I believe eventually you can't tell on sight, and sometimes the wrecked ships are where a good line-of-sight isn;t possible, anyway. Since it startled me so much, I took to positioning my finger over the POWER ON button and would look away from the screen. If I heard the alien sound, ZAP. If I heard a knock, I'd look back and open the hatch.

I was just visiting an Atari alumnus who, while we were talking, pulled out a vintage printed listing of the actual source code for Adventure. I flipped through it eagerly, and giggled when I saw the game's singular weapon identified as AROW. Maybe this is widely known, but it's the first time I've seen it specifically identified as such. The comments in the code refer to the Bat as BAT and GIANT BAT, for what it's worth.

The 7800 high score cart has a small BIOS and battery backed RAM on it. The game still needs to allocate its own additional RAM to set up the buffers the HSC BIOS expects. Then it makes the requisite BIOS call(s). The 7800 HSC is not a passive device. Game code needs to know its there and how to handle it. Aha, I was wondering about that. It could have been done in that time frame. Once you factor in the size of the additional code to prep buffers and access the HSC BIOS I suspect that games would go over their allocated cart ROM sizes. At a guess it would also need some form of bank switching, RAM space for HSC data and RAM space for a workspace (to relieve the burden on the 128 bytes available on the machine). With all the hardware in the cart and the time frame it might have been too costly to produce at a reasonable price. Good point. So, it's reasonable to assume a company could have made one that works like the 7800 version: that works only with titles written specifically to support it?

Only if homebrew authors added support for it to their game. If a high score cart was specifically designed for the 2600 today you'd have to hack legacy games to support it (assuming there is space to do so in the binary) or homebrew authors would have to support it in their releases. Would that be true if it were a pass-though cart like the one for the 7800? And could such a thing have been done in 1982-4?

I did say back in the 80s. And doesn't the AtariVox save scores only for specific titles?

It's a pass-through cartridge or device that is set up to save scores and info from games plugged into/through it. Example.

Hmmm...no replies. Guess not!

I agree -- the kooky style hat of the original graphic fits right in with Noel Neill's look in the '50s Superman TV series. I may go back to that. Actually, one thing that strikes me is that maybe the helicopter should be something other than a copter. Bizzarro, maybe? Hmmm.

Even prototyped or designed? And I mean back in the 80s. I know there was a 7800 one being designed by GCC, but was anything like this done/planned for Stella?

Let's see if this works... Click to see it animate. One thing I was thinking is that, except for Superman/Clark, none of the other characters ever really stand still, so I think eliminating the "still" pose and replacing those with a second walking frame would make everything look better.

Here's an experiment I did in tweaking the characters for Superman. I don't know if it's entirely feasible, but I wanted to try to use more color changes by scanline to flesh out the characters in addition to improving their pixel layout. I have an animated GIF of the characters in motion. I gave Lex a jetpack, and just hid Lois's face with her hair. Somtimes it load...sometimes Tripod replaces it with an ad. Sorry if the latter occurs.

I did a cart by cart check and realized that the "stuck" button only occurred with my old 5200 multicart, and not with any individual game carts, so it appears the multicart is at fault, not the 5200 hardware (I was thrown initially because some other carts were malfunctioning, but that turned out to be some dirty contacts). I took the multicart apart to check it and while it's possible there's been some bit-rot on one or more of the EPROMs, I did notice that one of the contacts on the cart's edge connector appears to be worn away. If "top" is where I think it is, it's Pin1/D0 (it's the leftmost pin on the side of the cart towards the back of the machine). Could that have anything to do with this?

You can use one of those if you want. The one I'm using is from a Sears Video Arcade II controller. They can be bought cheaply brand new still. You can either glue it to the center pivot hole in the CX52 or you can just stuff bits of paper towel around it after assembly to hold it in position. Another method would involve using a washer on top and a nut to hold a paddle pot in position. Making one of these only takes about 15 minutes. I just removed both 5200 pots and all the stick parts and used the two wires for the lower pot on the paddle one. Black on center and grey/brown on the side post. The other ones are just tucked out of the way. Ah, okay! Thanks!

I'm interested in making something like this, but I'm not quite following what you're doing just based on the photos. Is that a POT out of a 2600 controller?