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The Bally Shrine was a web site run by Charles Taylor in the mid-to-late 1990s. Along with Lance Squire's Bally / Astrocade FAQ, The Bally Shrine is the first Astrocade-related website that I ever saw. It is quite difficult to find any references to this website, as it seems to have been gone since the early 2000s. I've uploaded a three-page print out of The Astrocade Sale/Trade web page to archive.org. The first page looks like this: This document was scanned from the Bob Fabris Collection. Of course, all of these items that are listed for sale are no longer available. Which is a true shame, as this was probably the last place where the Astrocade kiosk was sold brand new; they cost $100. This is the seldom-seen-except-in-pictures kiosk: Imagine getting this kiosk, brand new, for a hundred bucks?!? Charles was unable to get rid of all the kiosks; they took up too much space. I think he threw away the unsold kiosks. Curt Vendel build a homebrew Astrocade Kiosk that was displayed at the Philly Classic 3 in April 2002. You can read about that here: http://www.ballyalley.com/pics/hardware_pics/astrocade_kiosk/Homebrew_Astrocade_Kiosk/Homebrew_Astrocade_Kiosk.html It's strange that people claim that once something is added to the Internet that it is around forever, for The Bally Shrine website clearly shows that this isn't true. It's nice to be able to see this small portion of the website again, even if it is only a small detail of what was available there. You can download the printout of the website here: https://archive.org/details/TheBallyShrine1999AstroSaleTradeWebPage It's is both strange and cool to see this "website" again! Does anyone else remember The Bally Shrine website? Adam

Season 2, Round 10 of the Astrocade High Score Club will last about two weeks. This round ends on Sunday, September 3, 2017 at 10pm MST. The main game is a prototype cartridge called Bowling. The BASIC bonus game is called Ten Pins by Esoterica. Bowling Bowling is a prototype game that first became available for purchase in 1985 or 1986 as a 4KB cartridge. Bowling, which was to be released by Astrocade Inc. in about 1982, was supposed to be part of the Sports Series. It would have been cartridge #3006. The programmer(s) of this game are unknown. Here is the cartridge's main menu: Here are three screenshots from Bowling: Here is what the Bally/Astrocade Game Cartridge and Hardware FAQ (version 1.82) says about this game: "This cartridge, though never finished, is playable; it contains two games: "Regulation" and "Flash." It was created by Astrocade, Inc., but was never released. New Image released it in cartridge format in 1985 (between forty and fifty were made). Mike White owns the original prototype (the only one known to exist)." The Bowling cartridge ROM image (called "bowling.bin") is part of this archive: http://www.ballyalley.com/emulation/cart_images/ROMs/astrocade_rom_collection.zip The prototype, Bowling, is a one-of-a-kind cartridge. Copies of it were made in the mid-80s until (probably) the early 2000s, therefore, it's possible, though not probable, to get your hands on an actual cartridge. If you don't have it, then it is included on, I think, every multicart that has been released for the Astrocade over the years. Bowling does require the knob, but it doesn't require precise control with it, so it should run okay using the MAME Astrocade emulator with proper setup. I suggest using an X-Box 360 controller for the knob, as this work well. In about 1981 or 1982, Astrocade, Inc. published a 34-page color game catalog of the cartridges available for the Bally Astrocade. The catalog was called "The Professional Arcade: More Games... More Fun... and More to Come..." Among the 28 cartridges showcased in the catalog, five were never released: Bowling, Creative Crayon, Conan the Barbarian, Music Maker, and Soccer. The catalog listing for Bowling looked like this: Here is the game description for Bowling from this catalog: "It's like actually being at the alley. The game has all of the action and sounds of the real thing. Direct your ball with as much hook as you want. Make strikes, spares-- but watch out for splits and gutter balls! Keeps score according to official rules. Try your hand at a perfect game! Can be played alone or by up to 4 players." In June of 1982, Bally released a press release for Bowling that looked like this: The pdf of the press release is here: http://www.ballyalley.com/documentation/press/Bowling_[Press_Release_06-06-1982].pdf I've OCRed the press release for Bowling. It says: "For Release June 6, 1982 --- "Astrocade unveils bowling video game cartridge at CES "CHICAGO-Astrocade, Inc. (formerly Astrovision, Inc.) unveiled its BOWLING video game cartridge at the Consumer Electronics Show here today. "BOWLING makes you feel like you're actually in a bowling alley. You can aim, control hooks, and watch the exciting pin action as the ball hits the pins with a bang. BOWLING keeps a running score on strikes, spares, and pins. "With a game variation called "flash bowling," you can also rack up bonus points by rolling over a moving dot, as in the popular commercial bowling machines. "BOWLING can be played only on the Astrocade home video game. It will be available this Fall at Astrocade dealers, priced at $29.95." Of course, since Bowling wasn't released, there is no official box. That didn't stop an enterprising go-getter with quite some artistic talent to create an "official" box for Bowling over on Hyperspin-fe.com. Thanks to "Avar" in the AtariAge forums, and member of the HyperSpin dev team, for sharing this picture with me (note, he didn't create it; I don't know who did). This is what the Bowling box may have looked like had it been released in 1982: I don't have a picture of the Bowling cartridge copy that was released by Michael White starting in the mid-80s. The cartridge's label was probably based on this screenshot that Michael printed to his printer (that was hooked-up to his Astrocade). I think that this label was probably originally printed in color: There is no manual for Bowling. Michael White did write some basic instructions for both versions of Bowling included on the cartridge ("regular" and "Flash"), I retyped these simple instructions back in 2001. Here they are: BOWLING Cartridge 1. Insert cartridge and press [RESET] 2. Choose #1 or #2 (from keypad or hand controller#1) 3. Set difficulty level (from keypad or hand controller#1) 4. Input number of players (1 to 4) Moving the joystick up or down positions the ball. Moving the joystick left or right aims the ball by moving the sight marker. The ball will roll straight towards (and over) it. Turning the knob puts a left hook on the ball (green marker below). The hook increases as the marker moves to the right. Sorry, there is no left hook for you left-handers. Pulling the trigger rolls the ball. Players use individual hand controls. FLASHING BOWLING works the same as FLASH-O-MATIC that can be seen on the coin-op "Shuffle-Alleys" found in bars and taverns. The "Flasher" gives strike and spare awards by its location. When the ball touches a pin the flash stops strobing. It does not resume on the second throw either (no DUAL FLASH). The highest scores are given by "freezing" the flasher at "dead center." The center of the alley gives 700 for a strike and 350 for a spare. If you can get any kind of score out of the upper three difficulties you are truly ready to BOWL FOR DOLLARS!! Even with Michael's directions, I'm not exactly how to keep track of this game's score, or even how close the prototype Bowling cartridge is to being complete. Here is a 30-second YouTube video (posted by "FunCade 64") that shows the basic gameplay of Bowling: Gameplay Options Bowling Options: Difficulty level: Intermediate Bowling (Scoring): Regular Bowling (Scoring) Up to eight points will be awarded for playing "Regular Bowling." We're playing for the highest score. A perfect game should be 300 points. Flash Bowling (Scoring) I don't understand "Flash Bowling," nor have I played the mechanical versions of this game (although, I think I have seen them before). For this reason, "Flash Bowling" is being treated as sort of a bonus game. If you play "Flash Bowling," then you get one point. If you play it correctly (however that gets done), then you'll earn two points. It's okay if one person explains how to play "Flash Bowling" and then we all pile on and play it correctly. Scoring Exception Since Bowling is a prototype, it may be that all functions of the game don't work properly (which may just add to the fun-- whoopee!). If we discover some issues with this game, or if it's just not fun, then I may change the scoring to make this round more enjoyable. Ten Pins This round's BASIC bonus game is a rather nice-looking, first-perspective bowling game called Ten Pins. The "AstroBASIC" version of Ten Pins was released by Esoterica on Tape 5 with Garbersville in 1982. Ten Pins is "an exciting game of bowling complete with hook ball, gutter balls, AMF style pinsetter and every spare situation found in real bowling." Here are a few pictures of Ten Pins: For this round's bonus game, I had originally picked Bowl by Edge Software. After trying it, I realized it is a two-player-only game. I needed to choose another game, so special thanks to Paul for recommending his favorite Astrocade BASIC pinball game, Ten Pins. The cassette tape that contains Ten Pins looks like this: The Box for Ten Pins looks like this: The instructions for Ten Pins are here: http://www.ballyalley.com/tape_manuals/esoterica/Ten%20Pins%20&%20Garbersville%20(instructions)(b&w)(300%20dpi).pdf I'm not pleased with how the instructions for Ten Pins are laid out, so I OCRed them, reformatted and simplified them: Ten Pins Instructions Ten Pins from Esoterica is a realistic, fun game of bowling complete with strikes, spares, hooks, and even gutter balls, for 1 to 4 players. To load the game, type: INPUT; RUN To begin: After the game load, you will see N: Now, input the number of players directly from key pad. Line the ball up by moving the joystick to the right or left. To throw a fast ball move the joystick forward, to throw a slow ball pull the joystick back. After the ball has been released you can hook the ball by moving the joystick to the right or left---Once for a moderate hook, twice for a sharp one. DO NOT HOOK THE BALL TOO SOON! The computer will keep accurate score for all players. Some practice may be required before scores over 200 are achieved. You can download the "AstroBASIC," 2000-baud version of Ten Pins here: http://www.ballyalley.com/program_downloads/2000_baud_programs/esoterica_ltd/ten_pins_[esoterica_ltd].zip Ten Pins is just one of many BASIC bowling games released on the Astrocade system. Not only are there plenty of bowling games for the Astorcade, but there are BASIC programs written to keep track of your really bowling league scores. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, at least by Astrocade standards, the world seemed crazy for bowling! The world of the Astrocade wasn't the only corner of the computer world that loved bowling. In about 1984, on my Commodore 64, I used to play a bowling game written in BASIC. It was given to me on a disk by a neighbor and, to me, was called "Bowling." I thought that I would try to find it today. To my surprise, I found it rather quickly. The game is actually called Bowling Champ by Joseph Ganci. It appeared in the December 1983 issue of Compute's Gazette. I had no idea that this was a type-in magazine listing! Bowling Champ looks very similar to the Astrocade game Bowl by Edge Software (the game we almost played this round). Here is a screenshot of the C64 game that I just made: Compute! Publications had pretty high standards. I just found the issue that Bowling Champ first appeared in. Check out this cool artwork that accompanied the game when it was published: There is nothing like this artwork in the Astrocade newsletters; that's too bad. In comparison to this simple Commodore 64 game, Ten Pins seems a little more sophisticated, but I guess I won't know for sure until I play it during this round. Bonus Points There are many bonus points available this round for both games. Bowling - Video Review - (1 Point) - Although I found examples of gameplay footage for this cartridge, I couldn't find any reviews. Anyone who makes a video review of Bowling will get a bonus point. Bowling - Multiplayer Game - (1 Point) - If you play a game with more than one person, than you'll get a bonus point.[/i] Bowling - Perfect Game - (1 Point) - If anyone manages a perfect game (300 points), then you'll get a bonus point. This seems really hard, but there may be a trick to it that makes it easy to do.[/i] Bowling - Documenting Bogs - (1 Point) - Since this game is a prototype, there may be some bugs in it. If anyone find any problems, and documents them, then you'll earn one bonus point. Just in case there are dozens of bugs, you can only earn one bonus point no matter how matter bugs are found. Ten Pins - Playing Ten Pins - (1 Point) - Yes, just for loading this game and giving it a quick in AstroBASIC will earn one point. Ten Pins - Highest Score - (1 Point) - The maximum points that can be earned are, of course, 300. Unlike bowling, there is no additional bonus for a perfect game of Ten Pins. Ten Pins - Video Review - (1 Point) - Anyone who makes a video review of Ten Pins will get a bonus point. Summary For such a late game in the Astrocade's history (1982), Bowling looks like it could have been released in 1978. Maybe Astrocade, Inc. didn't publish Bowling because it looked rather poor for the time. Or maybe its just not finished. I'm curious if anyone can figure-out a way to get the most out of this game. For instance, is it possible that "Flash Bowling" is more fun than the regular version of this game? I was pretty shocked to see Ten Pins when it first loaded; it looks really good for a BASIC game. I'm surprised that this wasn't released under a title such as "Bowling 3D" to capitalize on the game's first-person-like effect. Ten Pins has two separate loads, so I suspect that it may be using some machine language graphic routines, but I'm not sure. This round my strain us; I'm not sure I'm prepared to play one bowling game, let along two of them. However, this competition may make this round more fun than I expect. Please post scores early, as this will give us some scores to play against. I'll be gone for some key days during this round, including the weekend that this round ends. If it seems that it is taking me a little while to wrap-up Round 10 once it's over, you can be sure that I'll get to it when I can at the beginning of the next week. Adam

A few weeks ago I was testing and comparing all of the programs on Ken Lill's latest Ultimulti cartridge (version 3.0) against the listing of programs that he made for it. My method of testing the programs is to switch the cartridge's DIP switches while the machine is still on and then press the reset button on the console to bring up the new game. Sometimes, before I press reset, this causes some pretty weird effects on the TV screen. Most of the time this looks like garbage or a program crash (which, technically, is what is happening because I'm switching out part of the ROM while the program is actually running). On rare occasions, the crashes look a little artistic. Rarer still are programs that continue to run, but act very strangely. Take this weird mish-mash of both Treasure Cove and The Incredible Wizard; it's an insanely cool Treasure Cove title screen mixed in with the maze from The Incredible Wizard: This happened while I was switching from one game to the other. Note that that DIP switch positions have only one bit difference between them: Treasure Cove - DIPSwitch position $3B, or 00111011B to The Incredible Wizard - DIPSwitch position $33, or 00110011B I tried to duplicate this feat again with no luck. I want to mention that this unusual picture is not a fault of the UltiMulti cartridge. This results from normal operation of the Astrocade. This reminds me of the Atari 2600 technique of "frying" (turning the Atari system on and off very quickly) which can get some very strange, and sometimes predictable, results. Has anyone else seen strange effects like this? I'd love to see some pictures of other unusual occurrences. Adam

Season 2, Round 9 of the Astrocade High Score Club will last about two weeks. This round ends on Sunday, August 20'th at 10pm MST. The two main games are on the cartridge Grand Prix / Demolition Derby. The BASIC bonus game is called Sideswipe. This very simple game was written in 1980 by Mike Peace and published in the Cursor newsletter. It was later re-printed in the "AstroBASIC" manual, and even eventually found its way onto a tape release by WaveMakers. Grand Prix / Demolition Derby Grand Prix / Demolition Derby is a 4KB cartridge released by Astrocade Inc. in 1981. It is cartridge #2014 and is part of the Action/Skills Series. There is a label variation called simply Grand Prix. These two games were programmed by Bob Ogden and Rickey Spiece. Scot L. Norris did the audio for this game. The Grand Prix/Demolition Derby cartridge ROM image (called "grandprx.bin") is part of this archive: http://www.ballyalley.com/emulation/cart_images/ROMs/astrocade_rom_collection.zip Grand Prix/Demolition Derby is a very common cartridge, but if you don't have it, then it is included on every multicart that has been released for the Astrocade over the years. Neither of the main games on this cartridge requires the knob, so both games play fine using the MAME Astrocade emulator. According to a letter sent to the Arcadian in January of 1979 by Glenn Pogue, the Grand Prix / Demolition Derby cartridge was supposed to be released by Bally on March 16, 1979, but I don't think that there is a Bally release of this game. You can read about the upcoming 1979 releases from Bally in Glenn's letter, here: http://www.ballyalley.com/newsletters/arcadian/letters/Glenn%20Pogue/Letter%20(Glenn%20Pogue)(Jan%2022%201979-).pdf Here is the description of the game from the manual's cover: "Four challenging courses in race car driving excitement! Jockey for position at Le Mans or go for broke on a dangerous Rally track! There's a constant trade-off between speed and maneuverability! Varying skill levels upgrade the challenge and the fun. Here is all the excitement of formula-style racing! The competition gets hotter as players improve their skills! 1 or 2 players." The game's manual cover looks like this: Here is what the cartridge looks like: Here is a label variant of the cartridge: Here is the cartridge's main menu: Here are Grand Prix's three different courses: Four-player games of Grand Prix are possible. Take a look: The winner of round of Grand Prix will see this announcement (sorry, there's no checkered flag!): In Demolition Derby, you can play with up to four players. If less than four people are playing, then the computer controls the extra cars. Here is how the derby begins: This is a game in-progress: Here are highlights from the Grand Prix/Demolition Derby manual: Grand Prix Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines! The starting gun fires, and you're off in a flash, careening around dangerous turns in the race for the finish line. Grand Prix gives you all the excitement of formula-style racing, with three different race tracks and two skill levels to choose from. Starting the Game Enter the number of players (1 to 4), then select the difficulty level by selecting 1 for pro, 2 for beginner. At the pro level, the race cars are able to reach higher speeds than at the beginner level. Select the number of laps (1-99). If you enter a number that is less than 10, press = to start the race. Playing the Game The hand control functions for Grand Prix are: Trigger - Accelerator for race car. Knob - Has no function. Joystick - In right position, race car will turn clockwise; in left position, it will turn counterclockwise. Up position will move car in forward direction. The object of Grand Prix is to be the first race car to reach the finish line. To check your racing time, watch the time clock in the upper middle part of the screen. Once the race has started, use the joystick to move your car around the track. But, be careful not to crash into the other cars or into the race track walls. Skillful driving maneuvers are as important for success as high speeds. The first car to reach the finish line after completing the specified number of laps is the winner. Demolition Derby (1 to 4 players) All the thrills of a live demolition derby! Contestants ram their cars into each other until only one car remains running. Starting the Game Enter the number of players (1 to 4). Computer-controlled cars are provided for more action in games with less than four players. Select the maximum number of points (1-99). If you enter a number that is less than 10, press the = to start the game. Playing the Game The hand control functions for Demolition Derby are: Trigger - Accelerator for car. Knob - Has no function. Joystick - In right position, car turns clockwise; in left position car turns counterclockwise. It automatically moves backward (to protect engine from being hit) unless the joystick is pushed forward. The object of the game is to be the last car remaining on the field with your engine still running. Points start at the number you specify, but one point is lost each time a car is hit in the front. When a car finally reaches 0 points, it is out commission. The last car with points remaining (and engine running) is declared the winner. You'll stay in the competition longer by protecting the front end of your car and backing into your opponent's. In this way, your car's radiator, engine, etc. will remain intact. Here is a YouTube video that shows the gameplay of Grand Prix/Demolition Derby. This video was created by "Highretrogamelord:" Gameplay Options Grand Prix Options: Difficulty level: Pro Number of Laps: 5 Demolition Derby (Options): Difficulty level: Pro Maximum Number of Points: 10 Grand Prix/Demolition Derby (Scoring): Five points will be awarded for playing each of the two main games. Grand Prix We are playing for lowest overall time for Grand Prix tracks 1-3. You can post each track score separately and I'll figure-out the math. Remember to complete 5 laps of each track. I presume all of our times will be very close; there may even be some ties. Demolition Derby This game does not keep track of the player's time. If you play a game and are the winner, then you'll receive five points. I don't expect that there will be anyone who can't win against the computer, but if there is anyone for some reason who can't beat the three computer players (how sad!), then that person will receive three "participation points." Yeah, yeah; that does sound a little like "everyone gets a trophy!" Sideswipe This round's bonus game is a straightforward "racing" game, one that I expect nearly every "AstroBASIC" owner played in the 1980s, as it was reprinted in the "AstroBASIC" Owner's Manual. The game is called Sideswipe. It's an early effort by Mike Peace, who wrote the WaveMakers games. Sideswipe looks very-much like an early BASIC game; that's because it is very early. Here are some screenshots of Sideswipe in action: Sideswipe was first published on page 69 of the October 1980 issue of Cursor: In 1981, it was reprinted in the "AstroBASIC" owner's manual on page 89: Eventually (in 1982, I think) it was included with three other programs program on WaveMakers' tape 12 called Four Famous Freebies. You can download the "AstroBASIC" version of Sideswipe here: http://www.ballyalley.com/program_downloads/2000_baud_programs/wave_makers/Sideswipe/Sideswipe%20(WaveMakers).zip This archive also includes a program modification by Lance Brisee that was submitted to the Arcadian, but never published. See his Lance's letter in the Arcadian area of BallyAlley.com for details: http://www.ballyalley.com/newsletters/arcadian/letters/Lance_Brisee_(1984)(Letter_to_Arcadian).pdf The difference that immediately jumps out in this game modification is that Lance added messages based upon your final score, like "YOU SHOULD BE DRIVING A WHEELCHAIR" or "YOU SHOULD BE DRIVING A RACING CAR". Here are the directions for Sideswipe as they were printed in Cursor: "Your goal is to steer your car through and around the other vehicles on the road at the same time making sure you don't hit the sides of the road. Your car is the one with the broken boxes at the top of the screen. The road moves up toward you from the bottom of the screen as shown in the photograph. Mike as usual has done a very thorough job using very limited memory. This program uses some interesting sounds, and a unique method of movement. Use Hand Control Knob #1." Here are the directions for Sideswipe as they were printed in the "AstroBASIC" manual: "The car appears on the top of the screen moving toward the bottom. Steer your car using knob (1) to avoid obstacles as they approach. Top score is 100 points. You lose 3 points for each sideswipe and 10 points for each collision." Don't be turned off by this game's primitive graphics. In the mid-eighties I used to play a type-in game very similar to this (probably even more primitive!) in typing class on a TRS-80 Model III. I had fun with the alternate TRS-80 version of the game then, and playing a few games of Sideswipe yesterday made me realize, that in some strange way the game holds up to this day. Maybe because it's so simple, or maybe because the game doesn't take long to play-- but I think you'll enjoy it for the brief period that you'll play it for this HSC round. Bonus Points There are many bonus points available this round for both games. Grand Prix/Demolition Derby - Video Review - (1 Point) - Although I found examples of gameplay footage for this cartridge, I couldn't find any reviews. Anyone who makes a video review of Grand Prix/Demolition Derby will get a bonus point. Grand Prix/Demolition Derby - Multiplayer Game - (Up to 3 Points) - This cartridge is a rarity in that up to four players can play at one time. For every additional player who you can round-up to play with you, then you'll earn an extra bonus point. Don't have any Astrocade fans nearby, then maybe it's time that you get your significant other into the incredible videogame system that is the Astrocade. That will be worth one extra point. If you can get that person, plus your trained dog, and possibly your Guinea pig, then that's three points right there! Easy! Sideswipe - Playing Sideswipe - (1 Point) Sideswipe - Highest Score - (1 Point) - The maximum points that can be earned are 100. Whoever gets the closest to 100 points gets a bonus point. If there is a tie, then multiple players can earn this bonus point. Sideswipe - Video Review - (1 Point) - Anyone who makes a video review of Sideswipe will get a bonus point. Summary Someday, I'd like to try a four-player game of Grand Prix/Demolition Derby at a large gaming get-together. I bet this game would be sure to please the crowd. Sideswipe is a very short, 29-line, BASIC program. For such a short program, I'd say that you get a lot of bang out of your buck. Is it a great game that you'll come back over and over again? Nope. Would Sideswipe have been worth the small time investment in time that it would have taken to type the program into BASIC in 1981. Certainly! Enjoy the two main games and the simple bonus game-- and, remember, post your high scores often. Adam

Season 2, Round 8 of the Astrocade High Score Club will last about two and a half weeks. This round ends on Sunday, July 30'th at 10pm MST. The main game is the arcade game Gorf, which uses the Astrocade chipset. The BASIC bonus program is called Nuke the #%@$*&!!, released in 1982, by Jay Fenton. This is a 1982 B-Side to Life, a "game" which was originally released on tape. We're playing Gorf because it gives us a glimpse of what could have been had Bally stuck with the Bally Arcade system. Maybe if the original Bally Arcade console systems didn't overheat from their initial release, then Bally would have added more memory and supported the hi-res ("commercial") mode that is built into the Astrocade's chipset. Perhaps this would have been called the Super Bally Arcade and released in 1981 once the price of RAM dropped. I guess we'll never know, for in 1981 Astrovision, Inc. released the Astrocade in the same configuration as its original January 1978 release by Bally. What did we really miss out on? We'll never know. Gorf Gorf is an arcade game released in 1981. It was programmed by Jay Fenton, who (among many other arcade games and Astrocade projects) programmed Bally BASIC and "AstroBASIC" for the Astrocade. I will be playing Gorf using the MAME emulator. If anyone knows of any classic arcade collections that contain Gorf, then let me know and I'll add information about it here. Here are a few screenshots of Gorf. Some of these screenshots include the bezel overlay, which is actually nearly-required to play the game, as there is analog feedback that lights up part of the bezel to tell the player which rank they have reached: Here is a zip file that includes all of the files needed to play Gorf on any version of MAME that doesn't emulate the Vortex voice synthesizer. I think that this means any version of MAME that is pre-version 0.181. Just place the files in the three appropriate directories in MAME (artwork, roms, and samples): Gorf (MAME).zip The upright version of the Gorf game looked like this: Here is a close-up of the game's marquee: The front of the arcade flyer for Gorf looked like this: Gorf uses a non-standard joystick. It looks like this: I have a little experience playing the arcade version of Gorf. This arcade joystick made my index finger tired, so I'm glad that I'll be playing the game in MAME using either an Atari CX40 joystick or the Edladdin Supreme 7800 joystick. I'm not overly familiar with Gorf, so I'm relying on background information from its Wikipedia page, which you can read in its entirety here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorf I've excerpted some of the key points and paragraphs from Gorf's Wikipedia entry: "Gorf is an arcade game released in 1981 by Midway Mfg., whose name was advertised as an acronym for "Galactic Orbiting Robot Force". It is a multiple-mission fixed shooter with five distinct modes of play, essentially making it five games in one. It is well known for its use of synthesized speech, a new feature at the time. [...] "The player controls a spaceship that can move left, right, up and down around the lower third of the screen. The ship can fire a single shot (called a "quark laser" in this game), which travels vertically up the screen. Unlike similar games, where the player cannot fire again until the existing shot has disappeared, the player can choose to fire another shot at any time; if the previous shot is still on screen, it disappears. "Gorf consists of five distinct "missions", each with its own patterns of enemies. The central goal of each mission is to destroy all enemies in that wave, which takes the player to the next mission. Successfully completing all five missions will increase the player's rank and loop back to the first mission, where play continues on a higher difficulty level. The game continues until the player loses all their lives. The player can advance through the ranks of Space Cadet, Space Captain, Space Colonel, Space General, Space Warrior, and Space Avenger, with a higher difficulty level at each rank. Along the way, a robotic voice heckles and threatens the player, often calling the player by their current rank (for example, "Some galactic defender you are, Space Cadet!"). Some versions also display the player's current rank via a series of lit panels in the cabinet." The five different screens in Gorf are: Astro Battles Laser Attack Galaxians Space Warp Flag Ship You can read more about the Gorf arcade game at the Arcade Museum website: http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7983 The newer versions of MAME don't use the prerecorded voice samples, and instead emulate the Vortex voice chip that was included with the game. I prefer to play the game using my slightly-older version of the emulator (MAME 0.177). If you have trouble emulating the game, then try reading this thread on AtariAge: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260595-gorf-on-mameproblems/ There are quite a few fun-to-watch video for Gorf, both using real hardware and emulation. Here is a selection of a few that I've browsed: "John's Arcade Game Reviews & Tech" has a video called "GORF Arcade Game Review - Bally/Midway 1981 - John's Arcade on the Road!" The video allows you to hear the digitized speech and see how a real machine functions: Here is a video by "gan9e" called "GORF 1981 HD." This shows Gorf running in MAME, with speech and with the bezel overlay. This is how it looks when I play the game in MAME: "bill heatherly" has a short video that does a good job of capturing the voice in the game. This video is called "Gorf Video Arcade Game:" This video, by "Gaming History Source," shows the arcade game and various different home conversions of the game. The video is called "Let's Compare ( Gorf ):" Midway sold a 28-page manual called Gorf Combat Manual for $1.95. It gives many hints on how to play the game. I've never seen another manual like this before for an arcade game. I'm also not sure where this manual was available for sale. The manual has been scanned and is available here: http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&db=videodb&id=2837 Gorf (Options): There is only one option for Gorf: start the game with three lives. You can insert additional quarters to start the game with more lives, but please don't do that for this round. Gorf (Scoring): Up to ten points are awarded for playing Gorf. We are playing for the highest score. Nuke the #%@$*&!! The BASIC bonus "game" is Nuke the #%@$*&!! by Jay Fenton. This was released in 1982 on a tape as the "B-Side" to the game Life. George Moses sold Jay's Life program. Advertisements for Life are here included in the October and December Arcadian newsletter: Arcadian 4, no. 12 (Oct. 07, 1982): 122. Arcadian 5, no. 2 (Dec. 3, 1982): 35. Here is what the ad says about Life (and "Nuke"): "Sure, you've seen Life games before. A BASIC program was published in a magazine a year or two ago. It took 5 or 10 minutes per generation! Well, how about one generation per second? Yup!!! Jay Fenton, the guy who wrote Bally BASIC, Gunfight, Scribbling, Calculator and Gorf has revved-up you Z-80 processor to give you a full screen scan and a new LIFE generation each second! Put some LIFE in your Arcade (and give some spending money to Jay Fenton to keep him in "programming mode!"). Buy Life and get Nuke the !$&! free!" The 12 pages of instructions for Nuke the #%@$*&!! and Life are available at BallyAlley.com: http://www.ballyalley.com/tape_manuals/misc/Life%20and%20Nuke%20the%20---.pdf The twelve-page manual has ten pages devoted to Life, and just one page devoted to the "B-Side." Here is a picture of the one page of short instructions for this round's bonus "game:" I've OCRed the short instructions for Nuke the #%@$*&!!: NUKE THE @%$* © Jay Fenton, 1982 Nuke the @%$* will automatically start after loading with the command: :INPUT GO. Use hand control trigger one to drop the bomb and to "speed up" the program. (Pulling the trigger will shorten the wait period for the title and score frames.) After Arcade power-up you should RESET without BASIC inserted before loading Nuke the @<%$?. This will set the alternate color map registers which are used to display a "fallout" pattern. The object of this game is prevent nuclear war by showing the emptiness of life even if you win the battle, because you have no human organisms left to share the victory with. So, if no nuclear war breaks out in the next five years, please give the credit to this program and its creator, Jay Fenton. In the meantime, have fun and remember... aim for the nuclear power plant for the most devastation for your bomb dollar!!! You can download the "AstroBASIC" version of Nuke the #%@$*&!! here: http://www.ballyalley.com/program_downloads/2000_baud_programs/jay_fenton/jay_fenton.html#NuketheBaddiesAB Bonus Points There are many bonus points available this round for both games. Gorf (1 Point) - Video Review - Unlike most games we play, there are scores of videos for Gorf. Still, as always, anyone who makes a video review of Gorf will get a bonus point. Gorf (1 Point) - Highest Rank - The player who reaches the highest rank among us players will receive one bonus point (i.e. you don't have to earn the rank of "Space Avenger" to get a bonus point-- just the highest among us players). Gorf (1 Point) - Play Home Versions - Gorf was released for many home systems in the early 1980s, but never for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. Anyone who plays home computer/console versions of Gorf from the 1980s will be awarded one bonus per version that you play. Some suggestions of versions of Gorf that you can play are for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200/Atari 8-Bit, Commodore 64 and any of the many other systems that this game was released on. If you like emulating other systems, then there are a ton of points that can be earned here. To keep this semi-fair, the maximum amount of points that can be earned for playing other versions of Gorf is five points! Nuke the #%@$*&!! (1 Point) - Playing Nuke the #%@$*&!! Nuke the #%@$*&!! (1 Point) - Secret bonus point - I'm not saying how to earn this bonus point. Try playing the game in a number of different ways to see the ending of the game. Post screenshots of what you find. To be fair, I don't qualify for this point. Nuke the #%@$*&!! (1 Point) - Video Review - Anyone who makes a video review of Nuke the #%@$*&!! will get a bonus point. Summary Nuke the #%@$*&!! isn't much of a game. It's not meant to be one; it's more of a political statement. I didn't miss the irony of the distribution of Nuke the #%@$*&!!. This game, which could have just as easily called Death to Them All!, is on the opposite side of a tape on which the main game is called Life. The game "Nuke" is everything that Life is not. Nuke the #%@$*&!! gives us an interesting glimpse into the human condition: do we want to play a "game" in which, with the push of the trigger button, we can kill millions of people? In this "game," we're not out to save the Earth from invaders from space. No, it's simply "us against them," and we just might be the bad guys. Can we handle that? Will you drop your one bomb, or will you allow yourself to be ridiculed for being weak and flying over the city without releasing death to millions of people? Post your scores as you play Gorf over the next couple of weeks. If anyone finds any tips while playing these games, then please share them. In the next round, we'll be back to playing a regular Astrocade game on cartridge. For now, enjoy playing a classic arcade game that's got a touch of the Astrocade inside of it. Have fun! Adam

How to Trim Astrocade Third-Party Cartridges to Fit More-Easily (I posted this fix today to the Bally Alley Yahoo groups, but I figure I should post it here to, as there seem to be more readers on Astrocade AtariAge sub-forum than on the Astrocade Yahoo group.) The third-party cartridge cases for several Astrocade games, such as Sea Devil, ICBM Attack and the various UltiMulti cartridges from Ken Lill (among others) can be little tough to fit into the cartridge slot when inserting them into the Astrocade. Ken explained to me a few days ago an easy way to fix this problem. Here's what you need to do: 1) Trim the cartridge case with an X-acto knife. Trim about 1/16'th of an inch (don't trim too much!) of plastic from these two areas in this picture: That's it. In the above picture , the top cartridge is a third-party cartridge, and the bottom cartridge is a regular cartridge from Bally/Astrocade, Inc. (in this case, the cartridge is The Incredible Wizard). I tried this fix, and now my third-party cartridges insert into the cartridge slot much easier now. Give it a try; you'll be happy you did it. (Special thanks to Ken for his help with this simple, but clever, fix.) Adam

Season 2, Round 7 of the Astrocade High Score Club will last about two weeks. This round ends on Sunday, July 9'th at 10pm MST. The main game is an unreleased Astrocade, Inc. prototype called Conan the Barbarian. The BASIC bonus game is a 1982 Arcadian type-in dungeon-crawler called The Crown of Zeus by Todd Johnson. Conan the Barbarian Conan the Barbarian is a prototype 8K game that never had an official release on cartridge. There is quite a bit of information known about this cartridge, which was known by three different names during its development: King Arthur's Adventure, Conan the Barbarian and Quest for the Orb. Since Conan had no official release, the only cartridge label that is available is one that I scanned in black and white: I used to have a version of this cartridge that was made for me in about 2001 by Michael White. I seem to remember that the label was printed in color on a dot-matrix printed. I think that the background was yellow. This game has a very long and convoluted background. The Bally/Astrocade Game Cartridge and Hardware FAQ has some interesting information on this game under its various titles: King Arthur's Adventure Astrovision Inc., #5005 Suffered the same fate as Roman Checkers. This time the number went to Artillery Duel. It was supposed to be a Dungeons & Dragons type game. (Cursor pg.73). It may be an early version of Conan the Barbarian, before the movie license was attached. (Brett Bilbrey, Astrocade Discussion Group, Message #7175) Conan the Barbarian Astrocade Inc., Strategy Series, #5005, 8K cart AKA Quest For The Orb. This cartridge is not finished, but did see a limited release through Dave Carson Software in 1985 (about forty were made). (Michigan Astrobugs Newsletter JUL.82 pg.1, Arcadian vol.4 pg.33,75, vol.5 pg.16,36,46,66, vol.6 pg. 99, vol.7 pg.2,13,46,67,94) Hyped up to be one of the greatest games Astrocade players would ever see, and the first video game to spin off from a movie. (Astrocade press release) They failed to secure the rights, however, and the game continued development as Quest for the Orb. Quest for the Orb Astrocade Inc., #5004 AKA Conan the Barbarian. When Astrocade failed to secure the Conan license, the game continued development as Quest for the Orb. According to a news item in Astro Bits that was published on page 11 of the August 1982 Electronic Games magazine, Quest for the Orb, like Conan, would also have also been a licensed property: "Two major licensing agreements soon bring star characters from other media into the world of videogaming. Astrocade has concluded agreements for games based on Conan and G.I. Joe. The two titles, both reworkings of programs already in development, should be available quite soon. (Conan is based on the Quest for the Orb game which the game-maker had previewed at 1982 industry shows)." I looked into this, and came across a few links about Orb Quest, a pen and paper role playing game based on The Fantasy Trip game system. Here is a picture of the book's cover: Here are some interesting links if you'd like to follow-up on this never-to-be released book tie-in. This is an overview of the Orb Quest game, including some interesting pictures: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18161/orb-quest Here is a scan of the Orb Quest booklet: http://www.mocagh.org/otherbook/fantasytrip-mq8.pdf Conan the Barbarian seems to have first been mentioned in a 1981 Astrocade, Inc. catalog. I have extracted the Conan ad from page 30 of the catalog: Here is a link to the complete catalog: http://www.ballyalley.com/ads_and_catalogs/bally/astrocade_game_catalog-(150dpi).pdf Here is the brief description of the game from the ad: "Fearsome monsters give chase through a series of mazes as Conan, armed with his sword, battles them. Various levels allow you to play this adventure game with skills ranging from novice to professional. See how many monsters you can get." The game, when it was known as Conan, was mentioned in a June 6, 1982 press release, which you can read here: [url=http://www.ballyalley.com/documentation/press/Conan_[Press_Release_06-06-1982].pdf]http://www.ballyalley.com/documentation/press/Conan_[Press_Release_06-06-1982].pdf Here is an ad for Quest for the Orb: I have OCRed the text for game's ad: Quest for the Orb "Ancient scientists of the lost civilization Morte managed to extract the essence of the universe and fuse it into a single precise object-- the Orb. You must find the Orb, hidden in the castle's labyrinth, and return it to its owner, the White Magician. "Demons, monsters and traps are threats along the way. Beware the powers of black magic, cursed items and other evil influence. In your aid are spells given to you by the White Magician, along with other magic items and weapons strewn along the way. Ancient treasures are hidden here also! Fare ye well, adventurer, in your quest for the Orb!" After reading this game description, there is no doubt that this Astrocade game was meant to be based on the game Orb Quest. You can view the full More Games. More Fun. More to Come... from the leader in video game technology catalog, which features nine cartridges. Four of these games were never released: Coloring Book with Light Pen, Munchie, Music Maker I, and Quest for the Orb. http://www.ballyalley.com/ads_and_catalogs/bally/BPA_Catalog_(With_9_Games).pdf Since Conan is a prototype cartridge, there are no official instructions, but Mike White did write these very brief instructions and send them to people who bought the game cartridge from him: CONAN THE BARBARIAN Cartridge 1. Insert cartridge and press [RESET] 2. Pull trigger #1 twice to start the play This game is for one player only, and all control is on hand controller #1 The joystick moves Conan around inside the arena The knob raises and lowers Conan's sword The trigger exchanges the sword between Conan's left and right hand To slay evil creatures, use the sword by turning the knob If strength, stamina, or defenses fail, "FAREWELL WARRIOR!" The Conan the Barbarian cartridge ROM image (called "conan.bin") is part of this archive: http://http://www.ballyalley.com/emulation/cart_images/cart_images.html#AstrocadeROMCollection I think that Conan is included on every multicart that has been released for the Astrocade over the years. This game is best played on real hardware. Since there is so much that is unknown about this game, there are some fun ways to earn bonus points this round-- so make sure to give some of them a try. Quest for the Orb - Game Review Oddly, although Quest for the Orb was never released, it was reviewed in the 1982 book The Complete Guide to Conquering Video Games: How to Win Every Game in the Galaxy by Jeff Rovin. Here is the full review: "This is a well-developed, multifaceted action game which crams a great deal of activity into a single cartridge. It is similar to Quest for the Rings [for the Magnavox Odyssey 2 system], though played without the aid of a game board. "Long dead scientists of the lost civilization of Morte once unlocked the essence of life itself and encased it within the orb. This was sealed deep into the catacombs of a castle, which was subsequently invaded by an evil enchanter. He tried and failed to crack the orb. He perished years ago, but his demonic familiars live on. Making your way through the labyrinths and dungeons of the castle, you will be protected by magical spells and enchanted weapons belonging to your sponsor, the White Magician, who seeks to use the orb for good. You will also uncover ancient treasures along the way, as well as monsters, traps, and curses, any of which can slay you. Be prepared to dip into your bag of tricks for the power to induce sleep, hurl magic missiles, become invisible, confuse your enemies, launch fireballs, teleport and so on!" Rating **** There's a lot to learn in order to master this game, but it is almost without peer as engrossing, escapist, and entertaining videogames go." Bilbrey's Suggestions for Conan the Barbarian In the early 1980s, Brett Bilbrey, saw Astrovision's Conan cartridge at a "show." He didn't like what he saw and made suggestions at the time for what he thought would have made for a better game. You can read his handwrittten suggestions here: http://www.ballyalley.com/documentation/spectre_systems/Suggestions_for_Conan_(Brett_Bilbrey).pdf The much-preferred method to read Brett's suggestions are in the above pdf document, but I have also re-typed Brett's handwritten notes. Note, that these lack his drawings, which add quite a bit to his suggestions: "This would be better than what was at the show!" Rooms (Type) ---------------------- Set Patterns for: Open Plain Tunnel Stone Hall Rough Room Stone Room Colors ------ Define Rooms better 10 or 12 color sets (How about 256 colors in the game! Four at a time, but still 256!) Things in Rooms --------------- Chair Table Doors (Special Case) [This entire line is circled] Chests Treasure Objects to get (Special) - Keep with you (swords) or objects of game) Monsters --------------- Easy, Dumb ---> Hard, Smart A situation would (or could) be defined by: (Room type)(Color Set)(Number of things in Room) 0 -> # 1-? 0 -> ? (1) (3) (6) " " " Chair Door Chest 0 -> # (Number of Monsters)( )( )( ) 0 -> ? So that, 5,4,4,1,2,4,1,3 would define a stone room with brown floor, gray walls, black outlines, and light brown objects, a chair, a table and a chest and one monster. Matrix for room connection: Room 6 gets to 7,8,9 and 11, but room 11 only goes to 6! [Example drawing of hallway to illustrate the matrix idea]" For a prototype game, there really is a lot of information available for Conan, isn't there? Conan the Barbarian (Options): There are no options for Conan. You get one life, which you lose as your stamina wears down. Everyone playing this game starts on equal footing. Conan the Barbarian (Scoring): Up to ten points are awarded for playing Conan the Barbarian. Since there is no score in Conan, we will be playing for the highest level reached. On my test-run of the game today, I was able to reach level 20 on my first (and only) try. For available bonus points, see "Bonus Points" section below. The Crown of Zeus The BASIC bonus game is The Crown of Zeus by Todd Johnson. This game appeared in the November 1982 Arcadian newsletter. This game "takes you to a dark decaying castle in the evil land of Sorom. You've been asked, as the best warrior in the land of Beekum, to retrieve the Crown of Zeus which the Scromites have stolen." According to ads in Arcadian 5, no. 1 (Nov. 5, 1982): 9. and Arcadian 4, no. 10 (Aug. 06, 1982): 103., The Crown of Zeus is the first in a series of four programs that take place on the planet Gibeleous. The other three games in the series are available only on tape and are called: The Rescue of Catherine Escape from Rantanam IV The Tower of Machor Regular and Expert versions of this game are included in the archive. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two programs. Six issues after The Crown of Zeus was published, the Arcadian newsletter printed this small note about user maps: "Crown of Zeus castle floor plan - Have you determined what the castle looks like? We have one idea here and would like to get other opinions, so send in your version." (Arcadian 5, no. 7 (May 6, 1983): 106.) As it turns out, two people sent The Crown of Zeus maps to Bob Fabris, but they were never published in the Arcadian. Luckily, there are part of the Bob Fabris Collection, and I was able to scan and archive them. You can view them here: 1) The Crown of Zeus Maps, Set 1 - Castle Map by Edward Mahoney (April 20, 1983) http://www.ballyalley.com/tape_manuals/misc/misc.html#CrownofZeusMapEdwardMahoney 2) The Crown of Zeus Maps, Set 2 - Floor Plans by Kent Brenden (July 9, 1983) http://www.ballyalley.com/tape_manuals/misc/misc.html#CrownofZeusMapKentBrenden The original program submission letter from Todd Johnson to the Arcadian is available here: http://www.ballyalley.com/type-in_programs/arcadian_progs/arcadian_vol_5_progs/Crown%20of%20Zeus%20(1982)(Todd%20Johnson)/Crown%20of%20Zeus%20(1982)(Todd%20Johnson)(Original%20BASIC%20Listing).pdf The Crown of Zeus instructions, minus the parts on how to type in the game, from the Arcadian are here: This program, for AstroBASIC only, takes you to a dark decaying castle in the evil land of Scrom. You've been asked, as the best warrior in the land of Beekum, to retrieve the Crown of Zeus which the Scromites have stolen. The crown, when worn, gives the wearer the awesome ability to cause anything he or she wishes to vanish. Apparently the Scromites have not yet discovered the crown's powers. But as you hid in the forest outside the castle, you saw a troop of orcs from the warring land of Machor slip in through the front gate. They surely know the power of the crown and will have to be dealt with... [Detailed directions for typing in the game have been excluded here.] Now rewind your tape and input the main program with :INPUT. Say RUN and you're on your way. The computer will print: ROOM: STRENGTH: EXPERIENCE: ENEMY: EXITS LEAD: ACTION? Keeping strength above zero is the key to this game. You can survive a negative strength value as long as it's not too much negative and there is not an enemy in the room, but generally a negative strength value means you're dead. Strength can be increased to its maximum by resting. Finding a magic sword in the castle will also increase your strength and increase your maximum strength too. The number after ENEMY: is a code number which tells you which enemy from the enemy list is in the room. EXITS LEAD: Tells you which directions, (north, south, east, west, up, down), you can go. ACTION? prompts you to enter the number code for the action you wish to take from the action list. When you reach a room that has no exit, you are at the entrance to level 3. If you wish to enter this level, press HALT then type: R=R-24;:INPUT @(0),192 <GO> Now press the play button on your recorder to load the array for the next levels. Then RUN the program and you're on level 3. If instead you want to stay on level 2 a little longer, type HALT then type: R=R-24;RUN GO <GO> You'll be back up the stairs. This program must be reloaded after you are killed or find the crown since the data in the array gets altered. If you want to quit for a while during a game you can save it by halting it and loading it onto a blank tape. Also, you don't have to get any treasure at the time you are asked by the computer. If you wish to get it later Just press 1 when asked for an action and the computer will let you get the treasure. Enemies ------- 0 Nothing 1 Orc(s) 2 Killer Bees 3 Rats 4 Skeleton 5 Ghost 6 Zombie 7 Bear 8 Wolf 9 Black Knight 10 Giant Viper 11 Giant Spiders 12 Minotaur 13 Goblin 14 Tiger 15 Evil Warlock 17 Evil Wizard 18 Mummy 19 Dragon (Small) 20 Dragon (Medium) 21 Dragon (Large) 22 Dragon (Immense) 23 Demon 24 Giant 25 Giant Slime Monster 26 Orange Blob 27 Fire Fiend 28 5-headed Hydra 29 Cyclops 30 Demon King Actions ------- 1 Fight 2 Leave Room 3 Rest Treasure -------- 1 Magic Wand (detects traps) 2 Magic Sword (increases strength) 3 Magic Helm (increases experience) 90 The Crown! All other numbers refer to gold pieces. Traps ----- 1 Needles shoot at you 2 Small rocks fall on you 3 A pit opens beneath you 4 Poisonous gas fills the room 5 Crossbow bolt hits you 6 You receive electrical shock from treasure THE CROWN OF ZEUS is the first in a series of programs that take place on the planet Gibeleous. Others now available are: THE RESCUE OF CATHERINE: After you went to save the crown, the Scromites became angry with you and have kidnapped Catherine, the princess of Beekum, hoping that you will be sent to save her. They've set some traps so Watch Out! ESCAPE FROM RANTANAM IV: You've been captured by mechanical aliens who have come to Gibeleous for unknown reasons. You must escape and warn the leaders of Beekum. THE TOWER OF MACHOR: The orcs are after you again in this one with 8 levels. You must destroy the alien computer which has been leading the orcs in their quest for domination of Gibeleous. You can get all three great programs on one cassette tape with complete descriptions and instructions for the low, low price of only $10.00! To add these programs to your Gibeleous series collection, send check or M.O. to: Todd Johnson [Address removed] You can download the "AstroBASIC" version of The Crown of Zues here: http://www.ballyalley.com/program_downloads/2000_baud_programs/arcadian/programs_a-h/programs_a-h.html#CrownofZeusToddJohnsonAB Bonus Points There are many bonus points available this round for both games. Conan the Barbarian (1 Point) - Write directions on how to play this game. Conan the Barbarian (1 Point) - Listing the different monsters that you encounter. Conan the Barbarian (1 Point) - List the differences between this game and the prototype (called cononp.bin). Conan the Barbarian (1 Point) - Video Review - Anyone who makes a video review of Conan the Barbarian will get a bonus point. The Crown of Zeus (1 Point) - Playing The Crown of Zeus. The Crown of Zeus (1 Point) - Getting the Crown of Zeus in the game. The Crown of Zeus (1 Point) - Video Review - Anyone who makes a video review of The Crown of Zeus will get a bonus point. Summary Obviously, much more was to be done for Conan the Barbarian before it would have been considered complete. What is finished are the fighting and level progression, which work okay. The game lacks any depth-of-play, which would have made the game much better. This game reminds me, in some ways, of one of my favorite games: The Temple of Apshai. Much more about this game can be read in the AtariAge "Temple of Apshai Map" thread that I started in 2011: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/183584-temple-of-apshai-trilogy-maps/ I wonder how Conan might have worked had it been completed, or was somehow actually based on an Apshai-type game? I have no experience with The Crown of Zeus, but I love the deep concept of the game. It is amazing to me that there were three sequels to this game, none of which have been archived in any way. Post your scores (i.e. level) as you play Conan the Barbarian over the next couple of weeks. If anyone finds any tips while playing these games, then please share them. As we make our way through the Astrocade's tape and cartridge library, we're bound to encounter some usual games. These two games probably aren't for everybody, but do your best to enjoy both games for what they are: a glimpse into the creative potential of two similar games in the fantasy genre that were represented in two completely different ways on a platform that didn't really have a chance to experience other games of this type. Adam

I have received many questions over the past fifteen years on how to use Bally BASIC and "AstroBASIC." In this thread, which I may pin if it becomes popular, I am creating a place where people can ask questions about Bally BASIC, "AstroBASIC," Blue Ram BASIC and Vipersoft BASIC, the four different BASIC languages available for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade game console/computer that was released in 1978. To get this thread started, I've created a video overview of "AstroBASIC," by far, the most common BASIC available for the Bally Arcade system. This 4KB cartridge, which includes a built-in tape interface, was released by Astrovision Inc in 1981. "AstroBASIC" is part #6004 of the Functional Series. You can view the video here: This video includes: An overview of "AstroBASIC" and the over 100-page "AstroBASIC" manual Explains how to type in BASIC commands and keywords using the Bally BASIC overlay for the 24-key keypad Shows examples of loading "AstroBASIC" programs via 2000-baud interface Shows an example of loading and listing a BASIC program (Chicago Loop by Mike Peace) from the BASIC manual The "Bally/Astrocade Game Cartridge and Hardware FAQ" says this about this "AstroBASIC:" "This updated version of the Bally BASIC cartridge is notably set apart from the original because it has a built-in 2000 baud interface that connects to a standard cassette recorder; there are also some additional commands added for the programmer. It's visually different from the original release as well. This cartridge was packaged with some Astrocade consoles (these consoles were designated as Arcade Plus). Astrocade, Inc. manufactured the later releases of this. Written by Jay Fenton." I would appreciate any feedback that you may have about this video. For instance, do you find it helpful? What would you like to see next if I decide to cover one or more of the various Astrocade versions of BASIC in more detail? I hope that you enjoy the video and find it useful. Please post any questions or comments that you have on this subject here. Adam

This is an expanded post about the General Video Assembler for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. A just posted a much shorter version of this to the Bally Alley Yahoo Group. I was going to make a "quick" video review of the Centipede clone, Sneaky Snake. This is the main game cartridge that we're currently playing in the Astrocade High Score Club. It's a 4K game. I wanted to give some background for the game, so I looked into how it was programmed. It was created entirely using an Astrocade with expansion RAM: the source code was created and assembled using the General Video Assembler, a program that was available on tape. Even the Sneak Snake EPROMs were burned using an Astrocade . This intrigued me, so I skimmed the General Video Assembler manual... and then spent some time updating the Dave Ibach area on BallyAlley.com. Silly, Adam, now I probably won't have time to make a video for Sneaky Snake to get bonus points in the Astrocade HSC. Ah, well... You can read the updated description of the General Video Assembler here: http://www.ballyalley.com/tape_manuals/dave_ibach/dave_ibach.html#GeneralVideoAssemblerDocs This is an extended version of what's in the above link (minus the link to the manual): General Video Assembler. By General Video (Steve Walter and Dave Ibach). Arcadian 4, no. 12 (Oct. 07, 1982): 123. (First Advertisement) Arcadian 5, no. 4 (Feb. 18, 1983): 57. (Review) Requires: "AstroBASIC" and a minimum of 4K add-On RAM expansion. This machine language assembler cost $35. Here is an overview of it from an ad in the October 1982 Arcadian: Speak to your Astrocade in its native language! Uses standard Z80 mnemonics Has complete editing facilities Prints extensive error messages Provides symbolic access to BASIC's variables Create object programs of unlimited size Requires Astrovision BASIC with taping facility and 4K (minimum) of add-on memory switchable between 6K and 2K address ranges (like Blue Ram) The tape that this assembler was released on looks like this: Side 1: Side 2: The General Video Assembler is made-up of four programs: Collector, Pass I, Pass II and Text Editor. Also included are two sample programs: Flying Witch, and Logo. The software can be downloaded here: http://www.ballyalley.com/program_downloads/ram_expansion_required/programs_a-h/programs_a-h.html#GeneralVideoAssemblerXB This assembler actually required a keypad overlay that looked like this: This 16-page manual is quite extensive. Here is the complete first page from the manual. It gives the user an indication of what the program can do on the Astrocade. Provided in this manual is a comprehensive description of the General Video Assembler for the Z80-based Astrocade. The General Video Assembler includes an editor for preparation of the source program, Pass I and Pass II which translate Z8O source statements into hexadecimal, and the Collector for joining together multiple segments. An assembler is different from [an interpreter]. Your Astrocade BASIC is [an interpreter]. It can execute a BASIC program directly by a RUN command, translating each BASIC statement before executing it. Consequently a BASIC [interpreter] is very convenient, but also very slow in execution since every statement must be translated before execution. With an assembler, the source program cannot simply be RUN. It must first be assembled. This is a one-time process, converting source statements to hexadecimal, and is completely finished by the time the object program is CALLed. A change in the source program requires a new assembly. Since no translation goes on during execution, the speed is greatly increased. It is not the purpose of this manual to teach Z8O machine coding. If you have experience with other assembler languages and understand hexadecimal, and need only a familiarity with the processor architecture and instructions, then you can get by with the Z80 Instruction Handbook by Nat Wadsworth (SCELBI Publications, 1978, about $6). Otherwise, get a more comprehensive textbook, like Programming the Z80 by Rodney Zaks (Sybex, 1980, about $12). Hardware Required An Astrocade game computer, Astrocade BASIC with taping facilities and add-on memory is required. The add-on memory must be at least 4K (hex) in size and it must be switch able from the 2K (hex) to the 6K (hex) address ranges (like the Blue RAM or Viper). Since there is no floppy disk capability, all intermediate files must be recorded on tape. Thus tape handling can be excessive at times, in spite of operational streamlining. This is true in particular of multi-segment programs. To facilitate this, the user is strongly urged to install an I/O switch for switching between input and output taping. Steve Walters explained how to do this in Arcadian 4, no. 2 (Dec. 07, 1981): 16. It's hard for me to believe that a Z80 assembler exists for the Astrocade; that's just crazy to me. According to the Paul's interview with Dave Ibach, about 100 copies of the program were sold; more than I would expect in the little Astrocade community. The full interview with Dave Ibach is here: http://www.ballyalley.com/ballyalley/interviews/interview_with_david_ibach.txt Has anyone here used this assembler besides Paul? I haven't used it, but revisiting the documentation makes me want to try it out. Maybe I'll make a video of me using the General Video Assembler; now that would bore some folks to death! Adam

I posted this to the Bally Yahoo group today, but I'm cross-posting it here. Hmm... is this even considered cross-posting? I'm afraid that the Yahoo group will disappear now that Yahoo has been sold, so I'm sorta-of/kinda transitioning postings to AtariAge. Here my original post: I'm scanning in letters from the Bob Fabris Collection. One letter caught my eye. There are some great comments in a November 11, 1979 written to Bob Fabris from John Hurst. I've OCRed the part of the letter that is interesting and have put it here. Enjoy! Any comments...? Adam The following are John Hurst's comments: On Nov. 6, I received a phone call from Mr. Jack Nieman, Director of Sales, Bally Mfg. Co., in response to a letter that I had written on the 25th of Oct. It was the second letter I had sent since I never received an answer to my first one dated 4 Aug. The gist of the telephone conversation that I had with Mr. Nieman was as follows: 1. Bally never advertised that there would be a keyboard add-on available. 2. Bally is not happy with the amount of units purchased. (30,000) 3. A decision will be made in January if the keyboard will be made. 4. To make the keyboard feasible, 100,000 Arcade units would have to be sold, so that the percentage of keyboard sales would be high enough to warrant production. 5. If the keyboard is not produced, the specifications, plans, and other info would be supplied to the ARCADIANS, for our use. 6. Software for the Bally, except for the game cartridges, is not being produced because the retail price would be higher than what the ARCADIANS can get it from the newsletter, or club members selling it through the newsletter. 7. Bally is still waiting for FCC specs, that will be needed if the Add-On is produced. 8. Only 50% of the United States is being covered by Bally as far as distribution is concerned. As you can see, there are no new answers, the same old ones, along with a lot of excuses. So, although I appreciated the phone call, I really didn't find out much useful new information.

I just posted this to the BallyAlley Yahoo groups, but I've decided to post this here too. I'm going to continue to post any updates about screenshots that I've added to BallyAlley.com here. Over the last two days, I've added 30 screenshots of "AstroBASIC" games to the Arcadian A-H program download section. It's actually be pretty fun loading some of these BASIC programs, some of which I don't think I've actually played before. It's nice that any "AstroBASIC" game loads in 20 seconds. I've recently been using the Timex/Sinclair and a few games take 10 minutes to load (that's not much fun!). You can see the screenshots of the BASIC programs here: http://www.ballyalley.com/program_downloads/2000_baud_programs/arcadian/programs_a-h/programs_a-h.html I took many more screenshots of these programs (most of which are games). However, I'll probably not add these other full-size screenshots to BallyAlley.com anytime soon. Even though the quality is higher, I have no easy method to add these to the website. The screenshots that I've added so far are just thumbnails, but they will give anyone a much better idea of what to expect before trying a program. I used/played most of the 30 programs while taking these pictures. Here are ten that are worth noting: 1) 2-Letter Music Maker, by Ken Lill - Neat utility that allows you to manipulate AstroBASIC's sound registers via a sort-of graphical user interface. Very neat-- but you do need to understand how the registers work-- else you'll just get easy-to-create screech-like sound effects. 2) 4D2, by Rusty Blommaert and Dale Smith - Colorful and just plain weird. If you've never tried this one out, then give it a go. I think the art demo is a non-random 20-minute loop. If you're wondering why it is called 4D2, it's pronounced "42." The name was inspired by Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of books. 3) Alien 2000, by Henry Sopko - There are some neat graphics in this program. 4) aMAZEd in SPACE, by Aquila and Richard Houser - This is a neat little maze game where you control a spaceship with inertia. More fun than it looks, and there are many options different sizes of mazes. I'd love a machine language update of this game released on cart. 5) Bagels, by Carl Morimoto - I finally read and understood the rules for this game. This one reminds me of Mastermind. I tried it a few times, but never solved it. I got close though! 6) Bally Christmas Card, by Ed Grobe (Edge Software) - This program very slowly draws a Christmas tree with shimmering lights. This is a pretty good use of colors for an "AstroBASIC" program... or maybe it uses machine language...? 7) Baseball, by Dave Martin - This Baseball game is really more than you should be able to do in BASIC. It is quite a neat idea on how to hit the ball; it's sort of random and sort of not. I'm going to have to try playing this two-player-only game against someone sometime, and that's say a lot, as I never play sports games. 8 ) Blackjack, by Dick Harris - I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the graphics for this one. Plus, it plays quite fast. Impressive! 9) Black Hole, by Ron Picardi - I tried and tried to orbit the black hole, but I could never do it, not even on the "easy" level. I think I remember Paul Thacker saying once that he had problems with this too. However, Ron wrote to the Arcadian and said that the game is meant to be hard. Yeah-- he's right; it's certainly quite difficult! 10) Bots, by Ron McCoy / Bots II, by Ron McCoy and Steve Walters - Bots game inspired the arcade game, Berzerk. Well, not the Astrocade version of the game, but the version in (I think) one of the Creative Computing's book of games. I guess there are some changes between these two "AstroBASIC" versions of the game, but I can't tell what they are, as they both seem to play the same; the changes must be subtle. I took screenshots of many other BASIC programs, too, but these are the programs that interested me the most! Next week I'll add some more screenshots. Adam

Tim Duarte, of the Atari 2600 website (http://www.2600connection.com/), gave me a bit of news a few days ago concerning new Astrocades. Technically they are not new, but NOS (New Old Stock). When I read how much these systems were selling for, and (even better) what they were shipping with, I was pretty doubtful about this information (seeing what time of year that it is right now). I spent a few days following-up on this information, and to my delight and surprise, I discovered that Tim is absolutely right! Here's the information as Tim sent it to me originally: Astrocade Resurfaces and Releases the Astrocade with Pack-In Game The Incredible Wizard 2017 A recent Topeka, Kansas warehouse find of over 10,000 new-still-sealed-and-in-the-box Bally Astrocade video game systems has led to the restructure and start-up of a new company who has taken on the name of Astrocade to sell these systems to the general public. These systems are prone to overheating, so you are taking a chance if you purchase one. After all, all this hardware has been in a box just sitting there in a warehouse for over 35 years! The retail price of each system will be $45.99. Shipping rates will vary. Astrocade has stated they will ship internationally, so our international Bally Astrocade fans are all set (of course, all these units are NTSC-- no PAL Astrocade systems were ever made). So, the bad news is that you may end up with an Astrocade system that does not work, or works but overheats after a short period of time. There will be no refunds, but at this price... even a non-working NOS Astrocade seems like a fair deal. The newly-setup company, run by just two men, have done some spot checking of the units. They said that they're sure at least 90% of units work. The good news is that the package includes a new version of the Wizard of Wor game, entitled The Incredible Wizard 2017. It looks like it is the programming assembly language code from the 1982 game release from what can be determined from the screen shots, but that is okay. This is a great game and I am just happy to report that the Astrocade system is back! Take a look at the game box and packaging! It is just awesome! That's all the news that Tim sent to me. He promises to follow-up on it when he gets more information. As I said, since this news seemed so, you know, not quite right, I followed-up on this news using information that Tim sent to me. I contacted Astrocade to see if I could pre-order a couple of the Astrocade consoles. I was so happy when the man I spoke to recognized my name (from my http://www.ballyalley.com/ website). He decided to send me a new Astrocade free of charge. I'm supposed to get it at the beginning of this coming week. I already have the package's tracking number. I just check and the system is half-way here already. Now, was that nice of the guy or what?!? I can't wait to open up the box and let out some of that 1980s' air. Hooray for Astrocade! Hooray for us all! Adam

Solar Conqueror is the main game for Round 1 of the second season of the Astrocade High Score Club. This game, which takes place in space with you controlling a ship that must shoot baddies, reminds me of Blast Droids, the last game that we played in season 1 of the HSC. However, the similarities are slight. Whereas Blast Droids was a chore to play, Solar Conqueror is fun! The BASIC bonus game, Space Gauntlet, is an another game that takes place in in the depths of the dark forbidden universe that teams with, you got it!, more baddies. This game, while released on tape for both Bally BASIC and "AstroBASIC," the program has only been archived in 300-baud Bally BASIC format. This means that you'll need the Bally Tape interface to load it. Season 3, Round 1 will last about three weeks. The round ends on Sunday, February 26'th at 8pm MST. Solar Conqueror Solar Conqueror is an 8K cartridge by Astrocade, Inc. released in 1983. This game is among the last official releases for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. This game was developed at Action Graphics by Scot L. Norris (design and audio), Thomas McHugh (programmer), and Julie Malan (graphics). In the Bally/Astrocade Game Cartridge and Hardware FAQ, Michael White says that this game "was called Solar Quest in some references in Astrocade newsletters." A game called Solar Quest was released for the Vectrex game system, but (other than taking place in space), this Vectrex game seems unrelated to Solar Conqueror. For emulation use in MESS, the Solar Conqueror cartridge ROM image (called "solarcnq.bin") is part of this archive: http://www.ballyalley.com/emulation/cart_images/cart_images.html#AstrocadeROMCollection In the October 24, 1983 issue of the Arcadian newsletter, in The Game Player column, Michael Prosise wrote a positive review of Solar Conqueror, which you can read here: http://www.ballyalley.com/documentation/reviews/astrocade_reviews.txt A pdf of the Solar Conqueror manual is here: http://www.ballyalley.com/cart_manuals/pdf_manuals/Solor_Conqueror_(instructions)(astrocade)(color)(300%20dpi).pdf The Solar Conqueror announcement/press release is here: http://www.ballyalley.com/documentation/press/Solar_Conqueror_[Press_Release_06-06-1982].pdf On March 30, 2011, "Nice and Games" published a video review of Solar Conqueror: On February 2, 1999, Rob Mitchell retyped the Solor Conqueror manual. I've included it here: Solar Conqueror Instructions You are in deep space, test-piloting the latest in space technology, when your home planet Libnah learns of a surprise attack of the diabolical, war hungry DEMENS from the NATIS galaxy. A radiation death-ray threatens to wipe out your entire race. It's up to you to conquer the enemy solar systems! Solar Conqueror (1-4 players) As the dreaded DEMENS death-ray gets closer and closer, your computer has classified their solar systems from lightly defensed to almost invincible! It will guide you through harder and harder systems until you have conquered their entire civilization. Starting the Game Choose Solar Conqueror by pressing 1 on the keypad or by using remote game selection (pull the trigger on hand control #1, turn the knob until 1 appears on the screen, then pull the trigger again). Select the number of players (1-4). As the player proceeds from one solar system to another, the game becomes increasingly more difficult. Players can start at a more difficult level by choosing a higher number solar system to begin with. This serves as a handicapping for better players. Playing the Game The hand control functions for Solar Conqueror are: Joystick - Steers the ship and controls its speed Knob - Has no function Trigger - Shoots the bullets The object of the game is to score the most points by destroying enemy defenses, defeating their planets, and conquering their solar systems. Each player starts by selecting the number of ships on the menu. Ships have 8 possible directions and a maximum speed controlled by the joystick. A ship decelerates when no direction is selected, but it is always in motion. The trigger shoots 1 of 8 possible "in-air" bullets. You have defeated a planet once you destroy all its weapons. When you have conquered all the planets in a solar system, you advance to the next. Whenever a player is hit, he loses a ship and he gives up his turn to the next player. If a planet is defeated and the player dies, he still moves on to the next planet. Solar System Number of Planets 1 and 2 2 3 and beyond 4 Planets appear on the right side of the screen, numbered in decreasing order as you get closer to the sun, e.g. in Solar System 1, which has 2 planets, Planet 2 appears first, followed by Planet 1. The more gravity a planet has, the more difficult it is to control your spaceship. The larger the planet, the stronger the planet's gravity. The higher a planet's solar system, the better its defenses. As you fly closer to the planet, the effect of its gravity increases. The alien defenses have 3 types of weapons: Kamikaze combat ships Ground-to-air missiles Super fighting (killer) satellites Planets also have dangerous asteroids floating around them. All alien forces appear near the planet and travel toward the player. Kamikaze ships are essentially flying bombs. True to their name, they will try to crash into you. Missiles are fired from the planet's surface. If a missile launcher is left after all other weapons and asteroids have been destroyed, it will launch its last missiles and disappear. If there are alien defenses remaining, the launcher will rebuild. A timer appears in the upper left corner to time the rebuilding process. Rebuilding is quicker in higher systems. Killer satellites have minimal weaponry range but excellent timing and accuracy. And they change size depending on how close they are to the player. In higher systems there are two at once of every weapon! Whenever you are ready to enter the space vortex to reach your next planet, or to enter hyperspace to reach a new solar system, the pulsating aura near the left edge of the screen surrounds your ship and makes you invisible until you are in range of the next planet. The moment you become visible to each other, the fighting begins! Scoring The number of points you score depends on the type of enemy force you destroy: Type of Defense Points Asteroids (large to small) 4, 6, 8, 10 Kamikaze Ships 20 Missiles 10 Missile Launchers 50 Killer satellites (large to small) 10, 20, 30, 40 Conquering a planet gives you bonus points equal to the solar system number times 25. Conquering a solar system awards the player a free ship and bonus points equal to the system number times 100. When playing System 9 and beyond, the same scoring applies, except you are given 2 free ships instead of 1. Strategies for Winning Learning to control your spaceship against the ever changing forces of gravity is the most difficult aspect of the game. There is also a SLIPPER built into the ion drives of the ship, which enables you SLIP in one direction and face another without accelerating in the direction of the ship; e.g. accelerate up, then face right for an instant and let go of the joystick. The ship will continue to slide up while the player faces right and strikes a target. Becoming skillful at the SLIPPER will prove a powerful advantage over the enemy. If you begin at the lowest system, it will be easier to gain extra ships, but you will accumulate points slower and you risk losing ships. Starting higher gives you more points sooner, but be careful: they won't come easy! Playing Again To play Solar Conqueror again, press the RESET button, and follow the instructions for starting the game. As usual, 10 points can be earned this round (excluding bonus points). The play settings for Solar Conqueror are: # of Ships - 3 Enter System - 1 There is a hyperdrive-like sequence before every solar system. Watching the stars whizz by your "windshield" is neat a few times, but then it gets repetitive and seems to take too long. You can skip this "warp" screen by pulling the trigger. Solar Conqueror Bonus Points There are five ways to score bonus points for Solar Conqueror: 1) Highest Solar System and Planet Reached - The player who reaches the furthest in the game will be awarded a bonus point. If you can manage it, take a screenshot of your highest solar system (which is displayed prior to a level beginning). 2) Beating 89,588 points starting on level 1 - Chuck Hirsch scored 89,588 points with three men on the "Official Astrocade Scoreboard," ARCADIAN, 6, no. 11/12 (Oct. 31 1984): 111. Beat his score and you'll get bonus point. 3) Beating 136,742 points starting on level 9 - Thomas Wenzel scored 136,742 points with three men on the "Official Astrocade Scoreboard," ARCADIAN, 6, no. 11/12 (Oct. 31 1984): 111. Beat this impressive score starting from system 9 and earn a bonus point. 4) Spotting a Possible Bug at 10,000 Points - As noted in the December 22, 1983 The Game Player column in the Arcadian newsletter: "Solar Conqueror programming flaw? Maybe. When the score goes over 9,999, it changes to two digits instead of five, and six extra ships are awarded. Also, the sound effects become distorted. What's the story here?" The first person to document what happens at 10,000 points gets a bonus point. If you make a video of this "bug," then you'll earn another bonus point. 5) Documenting the Solar Conqueror Prototypes - There are three prototype versions of Solar Conqueror that are available in the Astrocade software archive. You'll earn a bonus point for each prototype that you play and document. Yes, you can earn up to three bonus points here. It is possible to earn up to eight Solar Conqueror bonus points. Wow, that's a whole lot of bonus points! Space Gauntlet (BASIC Bonus Game) Space Gauntlet is this round's BASIC bonus game. This game was released in 1982 by Tiny Arcade on tape 100 and Supertape 1. It was programmed by Tom McConnell. Space Gauntlet is pretty simple, and it controls quite slowly. I'm not sure how much fun there is to be had here, but I'm putting this game forward for others to try because I like the idea of this game. Unfortunately, I don't think that BASIC has the power to do this game justice. Perhaps the "AstroBASIC" version of this game plays a little better (since "AstroBASIC" runs a little faster than Bally BASIC). It would be double-plus cool to see a machine language homebrew cartridge based on this idea. Here is the tape that was sent to Bob Fabris of the Arcadian (there was probably a Tiny Arcade labeled version of this tape, but I've not seen it). You can read the game's instructions here: http://www.ballyalley.com/tape_manuals/tiny_arcade/tiny_arcade.html#SpaceGauntletTinyArcadeDocs There are two different BASIC listing for Space Gauntlet available: BASIC Listing (as printed on a printer): http://www.ballyalley.com/type-in_programs/Tiny_Arcade/Tiny_Arcade.html#SpaceGauntletPrintedBASICListing BASIC Listing (hand-written): http://http://www.ballyalley.com/type-in_programs/Tiny_Arcade/Tiny_Arcade.html#SpaceGauntletHandwittenBASICListing You can download Space Gauntlet for Bally BASIC here: http://www.ballyalley.com/program_downloads/300_baud_programs/Tiny_Arcade/Space%20Gauntlet%20(1982)(The%20Tiny%20Arcade)(BB).zip Here is a game description of Space Gauntlet from the Winter/Spring 1984 Sourcebook catalog: You're at the controls of an interstellar cruiser patrolling a remote sector of the galaxy when you encounter the local inhabitants. These denizens of deep space don't "cotton" to strangers and they arrange themselves into two columns, firing missiles and daring you to survive their deadly gauntlet. The longer you survive, the closer the two columns of alien nasties approach (making it more difficult to avoid their missiles). Exiting graphics and excellent play value. One player. Here are the full instructions (which I've OCR'ed) for Space Gauntlet: Space Gauntlet Instructions (One Player) You control a star cruiser patrolling a remote sector of the galaxy when you encounter the local inhabitants. These denizens of deep-space don't "cotton" to strangers and they arrange themselves into two columns, firing missiles and challenging you to fly between them and survive the deadly gauntlet. Your objective is to pilot the ship through the attackers, avoid their missiles (the small square objects) and score points by destroying as many of the hostiles as possible. To accelerate through the columns (down the middle of the screen) pull the joystick back; to slow down, push the stick forward. The engines of the ship work on an action-reaction principle, so it takes a short time to speed up and slow down. Use the ability to change speed to avoid enemy missiles and position the ship to fire at the attackers. (You cannot move "backwards"-i.e. toward the top of the screen, but you can come to a dead stop.) To fire at the right column of aliens, push the joystick to the right. To fire left, move the stick to the left. The right column fires missiles at random, while the left column fires missiles that tend to "home in" on your ship. The longer you survive, the closer the two columns of aliens will approach. At the start of the game, each alien hit is worth 10 points. At their closest approach, each is worth 50 points. You have a fleet of four ships with which to engage the enemy. The game ends when all four have been destroyed. Press any key for replay Space Gauntlet Bonus Points 1) Playing Space Gauntlet - You get a bonus point just for playing Space Gauntlet. 2) Highest Score for Space Gauntlet- You can earn another bonus point if score the highest on this game. 3) Video of Space Gauntlet - A bonus point will be awarded to the first person to upload a video of Space Gauntlet containing a full game. If the video is a video review, then you'll earn two points! High Score Club Rules Please post all of your scores for both games here. Scores posted on the Bally Alley discussion group will not be accepted. If you post a video score, then please note the score obtained in the video-- as this makes it easier for me to keep track of all the scores. It's time to conquer the combined power of this round's Solar Gauntlet. Tightly strap yourself into your ship and blast off into space to do battle with the Bally Baddies! Adam

This round, we're trying a game that's a little different. The main game is not going to be a cartridge-based game. Instead we're going to play an arcade game that uses the "Astrocade chipset." The Adventures of Robby Roto! is the main game for Round 12 of the Astrocade High Score Club. The BASIC bonus game is a Q*Bert clone called QB-2B by WaveMakers. Due to scheduling on my part, Round 12 will last about four weeks. The round ends on Sunday, November 13'th at 8pm MST. This may give more people a chance to play the game, but it will also allow people that have never set up the MAME emulator to get it going. The Adventures of Robby Roto! The Adventures of Robby Roto! is a 40K game released to the arcades by Bally/Midway in 1981. The game uses 6K RAM, plus an additional 16K for screen RAM, and 2K for battery backed-up RAM. That means the game uses all 64K of the Z80 address space! The Adventures of Robby Roto! was written by Jay Fenton using the commercial (hi-res) mode of the Astrocade chipset. Many people immediately spot "Robby Roto's" similar characteristics to Dig-Dug, Mr. Do! or even the lesser-known arcade game The Pit (which inspired Boulder Dash). These are all games in which you move underground through the Earth collecting items. However, "Robby Roto" predates these three arcade games. If anyone knows of an underground digging game that came out before "Robby Roto," then let me know-- as I've wondered where Jay may have got his original inspiration for this game. Here is what the arcade cabinet for "The Adventures of Robby Roto!" looks like: Here are several screenshots of this game as it is played under the MAME emulator: There is a colorful arcade flyer for "Robby Roto:" I've OCRed the text from the "Robby Roto!" arcade flyer: Robby Roto Digs His Way into the Hearts of Game Players Everywhere Thrill to the adventures of Robby Roto, rescuer extraordinaire, as he saves hostages and treasures placed underground by the evil Voltar. Fearless Robby can save up to three hostages at a time, turning their frowns to smiles as he gains more points. Robby runs and digs his way through increasingly more difficult mazes, though he can only dig at junction points in the direction of the arrows. Help Robby with the magic button that freezes his enemies, and makes Robby invincible. Earn a bonus Roto by completing each 3rd maze, as you dig Robby Roto's adventures and earn higher point values per maze. For players in the 1980s, the instructions from the arcade game's glass bezel was all the information that they had to go on to play the game. Here are the instructions from the bezel that arcade players lived and died by: Insert coin. Guide Roto through the maze avoiding the cunning trolls and spiders. Find the key for the exit door. Grab Treasures for bonus points. Remove as many hostages each trip into the maze as possible. When all 3 are saved the maze ends. Magic makes Roto invisible to monsters Save ALL 3 hostages GRAB treasures for maximum points Maximum hostages removed in one trip = 1 hostages = 1x Bonus 2 hostages = 2x Bonus 3 hostages = 3x Bonus + Special bonus next maze!! For those players who want to "dig deeper" into how the game is play, I've retyped/OCRed additional information on how to play the game from Bally/Midway's Adventures of Robby Roto - Parts and Operating Manual. These instructions are much more detailed… maybe even too detailed for some people. I) The Adventures of Robby Roto! - Introduction ROTO is a one or a two player game. There are three models: the "UPRIGHT", "MINI", and "COCKTAIL TABLE". When the two player mode is selected on the Upright or Mini model, the players take turns at the controls to guide ROTO to the stolen treasures and the captured hostages while avoiding VOLTAR and his co-conspirators. If you have purchased the Cocktail Table model of this game, the rules of play are the same. The only difference is that in the two player mode of the Cocktail Table game, the picture flips to face you when it's your turn. When playing this game, YOU are ROTO's mentor. He takes his directions ONLY from YOU and will do your bidding exclusively. YOU determine the strategies he will use to defeat the evil monster VOLTAR who has invaded the Earth, stealing all types of treasures and burying them deep within the earth. VOLTAR also takes hostages and seals them in vaults deep within the earth. There is only one way to save the hostages and recover the stolen treasures. We must send in ROTO. He will follow VOLTAR right into his own home tunnels to rescue the hostages and recover the stolen treasures VOLTAR has salted away. To say the least, this makes VOLTAR more than just a little bit upset with ROTO. To help protect his stolen treasures and kidnapped hostages, VOLTAR has developed a breed of giant SPIDER that can sense ROTO's location and that can also travel through solid earth. These SPIDERS attempt to corner and capture ROTO. And to direct their hunt for ROTO, VOLTAR turns himself into a TROLL that can travel through solid earth. If and when ROTO is captured by the SPIDERS or the TROLL, he is forcibly ejected from VOLTAR's tunnels and you lose one player. As your skill level increases and you get into the higher racks of the game, the ability of the SPIDERS and the TROLL to sense ROTO's location increases. This makes ROTO's chances of survival considerably smaller. And VOLTAR, being what he is, has reinforcements in the form of a set of disembodied TEETH that he can call on to help him track ROTO down and put the bite on him. These TEETH also have the ability to travel through solid earth. ROTO has no reinforcements he can call on to help him defend himself against his enemies. He has ONLY YOUR SKILL at maneuvering and forming strategies plus one use of the MAGIC button (which makes ROTO and any hostages he has with him invisible to all monsters for a short period of time) per rack to keep him safe as he carries out his rescue missions. Bonus ROTOs are awarded to you periodically throughout the game: after you complete every third rack of the game. Each recaptured treasure and rescued hostage has an assigned point value as listed in Figure 1-1. In the "2 times" and "3 times" racks, the values of all items are doubled or tripled respectively. Major Features Your ROTO game has several outstanding features, among which is the fact that: A bonus ROTO is awarded to each player after every third rack completed. The award of these bonus ROTOs is NOT tied to any scoring ability of the player (a low scoring player can receive just as many bonus ROTOs as a high scoring one if he can survive as long as the other player. survivability is what the award of bonus ROTOs is tied to). Your ROTO is allowed one use of the MAGIC button per rack of the game. If you do not use the MAGIC button in any particular rack, you are allowed to accumulate your unused MAGICs. When you do use the MAGIC button, your ROTO and any hostages he has with him at that time will become invisible to all the monsters on the screen for approximately 5 to 7 seconds (he can go right through them and not be caught). The Upright model is provided with a front slide out service shelf for ease of maintenance. All models are provided with a service outlet to aid the service technician and provide an electrical source for whatever purpose he may have in mind. Game Objective The object of the game is to HAVE FUN and survive as long as possible while constantly improving your skills, rescuing as many of the hostages as you can, and recapturing as much stolen treasure as possible. As you do this, each following maze will be harder and harder to complete. Even more detailed instructions are available in chapter 3 of the operating manual: The Adventures of Robby Roto! - Game Operation Play Mode 1. The Play mode begins when either the "1 PLAYER" or the "2 PLAYER" start button is pressed. "PLAYER 1 UP" or "PLAYER 2 UP" is displayed centered on the screen ONLY when a 2 player game has been selected. In a 1 player game, the screen says "GET READY" and play begins. 2. The Play mode ends when all of your ROTOs have been captured by VOLTAR. When this happens, "GAME OVER" is written across the center of the monitor screen. 3. The game is made up of buried stolen treasures and imprisoned kidnapped hostages which it is ROBBY ROTOs mission to rescue. The evil VOLTAR is the one responsible for all of this. When playing this game, YOU are ROBBY's mentor. He takes his directions ONLY from YOU and will do your bidding exclusively. YOU determine the strategies he will use to defeat the evil monster VOLTAR who has invaded the Earth, stealing treasurers and kidnapping hostages. 4. There is only one way to save the hostages and recover the stolen treasures. We must send in ROBBY ROTO. He will follow VOLTAR right into his own home tunnels to rescue the hostages and recover the stolen treasures VOLTAR has salted away. 5. The player begins each game with 3 ROTOs and 1 Magic. Reserve Magics are symbolized by "Ghost ROTOs" behind your regular reserve ROTOs. The Magic will make ROBBY ROTO and any hostages with him invisible to VOLTAR and all his creatures. It also makes ROBBY able to move faster. If you do not use your Magic in this rack, it will accumulate to the next rack. You get 1 Magic at the beginning of each rack. When used, they will last for 5 seconds, the game makes a special magical sound, the screen flashes, and ROTO becomes a ghost image of his former self. 6. A bonus ROTO is awarded to the player after the completion of every third rack (3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th, and so on). The award of these bonus ROTOs is in NO way related to the level of a player's score. You MUST SURVIVE long enough to make it to the ends of these particular racks to collect your bonus ROTOs. There are 3 different "BONUS ROTO MACHINES". 7. There are 30 DIFFERENT mazes in the game divided into categories as follows: Category Number of Mazes Beginners 2 Medium 3 Hard 25 Generally speaking, a player should never get the same maze twice in any game until he has gone through all 25 of the "HARD" mazes. After the 2nd rack, all future racks are in the "HARD" category. ROBBY ROTO enters all mazes through the door at the top center of the monitor screen. When he is in the mazes, ROBBY can only dig in the directions of the pointing arrows at each room (tunnel junction point). He can move freely about any of the tunnels that have been dug out. 8. Game Participants - Their side: The evil monster VOLTAR has invaded the Earth, stealing all types of treasures and burying them deep within the earth. VOLTAR also takes hostages and seals them in vaults. To help protect his stolen treasures and kidnapped hostages, VOLTAR has developed a breed of giant SPIDER that can sense ROTO's location and that can also travel through solid earth. These SPIDERS attempt to corner and capture ROTO. And to direct their hunt for ROTO, VOLTAR turns himself into a TROLL that can travel through solid earth. If and when ROTO is captured by the SPIDERS or the TROLL, he is forcibly ejected from VOLTAR's tunnels and you lose one player. As your skill level increases and you get into the higher racks of the game, the ability of the SPIDERS and the TROLL to sense ROTO's location increases. This makes ROTO's chances of survival considerably smaller. And VOLTAR, being what he is, has reinforcements in the form of a set of disembodied TEETH that he can call on to help him track ROTO down and put the bite on him. These TEETH also have the ability to travel through solid earth. I've read that only about 2,000 arcade cabinets of "Robby Roto" were ever mad, so I presume all of us will be playing this game under emulation. If you've never installed MAME, download and install this arcade emulator from here: http://www.mamedev.org The Adventures of Robby Roto! is made up of ten 4K ROM images (collected into one file called "robby.zip"). Jay Fenton donated this game for free distribution in the late 90s. It is available from the MAME website: http://www.mamedev.org/roms/robby/ Here is a video, created by Bradley Czech, of The Adventures of Robby Roto! gameplay on a real arcade cabinet: After watching this video, I noticed that the underground soil seems to look a little different on real hardware than it does under MAME emulation. I'm not sure if that is because of the way the video was shot, or if the emulation in MAME isn't 100% accurate. The play settings for The Adventures of Robby Roto!, are the default settings. You probably shouldn't have to change the settings, but just in case check to make sure that the dip-switch settings look like this: As usual, 10 points can be earned this round (excluding bonus points). The Adventures of Robby Roto! - Bonus Points There are two ways to score bonus points for "Robby Roto:" 1) Highest Level Reached - Robby Roto has thirty levels. The player who reaches the furthest level gets one bonus point. At this time, I'm not sure what is the best way to keep track of what level you're on. In case of a tie here, then the tie is broken by the player with the highest score. 2) Play "Robby Roto" on Real Arcade Hardware - Do you own the arcade game, or live near an arcade that has the arcade cabinet setup for play? If so (lucky, you!), then you'll earn two bonus points for playing this game on real hardware. Most of us will be out of luck for these two bonus points... but anyone who can play this game on real hardware deserves something a little bet extra! QB-2B (BASIC Bonus Game) QB-2B is a Q*Bert clone that was created by WaveMakers. It was supposed to be released in 1984 on Tape 20 along with Tomb Pirates. Both of these games were unreleased. No documentation for QB-2B exists (or, at least, has been archived). If you're familiar with Q*Bert, then you'll have no problems playing this BASIC game. You can download QB-2B here: http://www.ballyalley.com/program_downloads/2000_baud_programs/wave_makers/QB-2B%20(WaveMakers).zip QB-2B Bonus Points 1) Playing QB-2B - You get a bonus point just for playing QB-2B. 2) QB-2B High Score - You can earn another bonus point if you get the highest score for this game. 3) Video of QB-2B - To continue to promote Astrocade BASIC programs, a bonus point will be awarded to any person to upload a video of QB-2B containing a full game. If the video is a video review, then you'll earn two points! Any number of people can qualify for these points. 4) Instructions/Backstory for QB-2B - There are no instructions for this game. Anyone who comes up with a backstory and full instructions on how to play this game gets a bonus point. Be creative and have fun with this one. If there is an outrageous backstory that makes me laugh out loud, then there just might be a bonus point or two awarded here! Please post all of your scores for both games here. Scores posted on the Bally Alley discussion group will no longer be accepted. If you post a video score, then please note the score obtained in the video-- as this makes it easier for me to keep track of all the scores. Have fun digging through The Adventures of Robby Roto! and hopping around QB-2B! Adam