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Can someone recommend a relatively simple, easy to learn & use, yet powerful enough to do what I want, imperative programming language like BASIC or Visual Basic, for making Atari VCS and 8-bit type games for the Windows desktop (or maybe Linux but prefer Windows)? I would mainly be making 2-D games - stuff like Pong or Combat up to 8-bit Atari or Commodore era games, but probably nothing more complex. Maybe remake Pinball Construction Set or classic Ultima. Some features that would help relatively self contained (not 1,000,000 libraries you have to go through) free or not too expensive (this would be just for fun) easy to find lots of sample code for how to do things, and strong active community to ask questions built in IDE (preferably a visual IDE) and most importantly: currently supported and should continue to keep working for some time developed with a backwards-compatible philosophy so your programs will still work after a couple years! I have dabbled in various languages / systems over the years and made some games or partial games: Commodore 64 / BASIC - easy but games ran too slow, compiler helped speed games up, used some simple assembly for speeding up little routines (hard!) Commodore 64 / Gamemaker - easy but too limited (plus I missed being able to type code) Mac Classic / Pascal - limited to black & white graphics, couldn't find any info on making sounds (pre-Web so it was very hard to find docs or examples) Windows / QuickBasic - nice and easy but obsolete & couldn't figure out anything past text graphics and simple beeps Windows / VB6 - I liked the language and IDE but limited graphics support (bitblt, kind of confusing), and I never figured out playing >1 sounds at a time, just playing back WAV files one at a time; eventually VB6 became obsolete so I had to start over Windows / VB.NET 1.1 and some C# - the .NET language kept changing and got too complicated with the enterprise OO features JavaScript / HTML5 - figured out canvas graphics, Javascript syntax is easy but I am not crazy about HTML and CSS, and parts of language were too complicated and ugly (prototype stuff, too many libraries & frameworks, no types, etc.) Python / Pygame - mainly playing around with other people's code from pygame.org, still not comfortable with Python, not crazy about certain things like the indentation, no types, too many libraries / choices, dependencies and things changing too much that can break your code, etc. After all these years and languages I still prefer BASIC or VB6 syntax (JavaScript/C syntax is OK, Pascal is OK) and a visual editor. Mainly I don't have a ton of time to invest in learning stuff and if I get busy (which is often the case!), I might put a project down for months at a time, or even a couple years, and by the time I get back to it, the language I wrote it in has updated/changed or become totally obsolete, and I have to go back and fix my code or start over from scratch. I know computers change and all that but come on So anyway, if anyone has any advice or recommendations that would be grand. And hey, if it doesn't exist, it doesn't exist, but I thought I would ask! PS here are some pages I was looking at, in no particular order - if anyone can share any opinions on these, please: SDLBasic XBASIC BASIC Compiler (Windows, Linux) QB64 (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux), QB64 Just BASIC (Windows) SmallBASIC (Windows, Linux, N770/N800, PalmOS, eBookMan) ThinBasic Basic Interpreter (Windows) ElectronJS How to create a 2D game with Python and the Arcade library | Opensource.com FUZE4: Bringing BASIC to Switch — Wireframe Magazine I am really looking for Windows, but this caught my eye! Construct 2 – The Windows favourite Clickteam Fusion 2.5 – The veteran RPG Maker – The RPG specialist Microsoft Small Basic (wikipedia) Unity (probably not what I am looking for) Microsoft MakeCode Arcade (info) Atari Dev Studio A way to make games for the 2600 using BASIC? Hmm... DarkBasic GLBasic Liberty BASIC PureBasic RapidQ REALbasic (Xojo) XBasic Free BASIC Compilers and Interpreters (thefreecountry.com) https://www.gamedesigning.org/career/software/ https://www.websitetooltester.com/en/blog/best-game-engine/#GameSalad_The_Educators_Choice What is the easiest programming language to make games with? - Quora App Development - Infinite Runner - CodaKid Action! is an Atari-specific programming language written by Clinton Parker and sold by Optimized Systems Software (OSS) in ROM cartridge form starting in August 1983. It is the only language other than BASIC and assembler) that had real popularity on the platform and saw any significant coverage in the Atari press; type-in programs and various technical articles were found in most magazines. In comparison, languages like Forth and Logo saw much less use and almost no press coverage. Processing Tutorial: Building a Simple Game | Toptal Much appreciated

I'm putting together a set of .HD files for the Geneve with lots & lots of tested software & docs. One thing I'm doing in those set is TI99 GAMES, about 60+ all ready to go & tested. Here's a partial list of the cartridge games (no order) all working on the Geneve: 4Aflyer, ambulance, frogger, pacman, pole position, driving demon, protector II, adventure (& all disk games), all Infocom (except LGOP), anteater, blasto, burgertime, car-wars, card sharp, chisom trail, donkey kong, henpecked, jungle hunt, micro surgeon, moon mine, munchman 2, othello, parsec, popeye, princess & frog, return to pirate isle, roto raider, schnozola, the attack, ti invaders, tunnels of doom (& disks), tombstone city, topper, video chess, hunt the wumpus, buck rogers, centipede, congo bongo, dig dug, hopper, ms pacman, qbert, milton bradly 4 game+demo cart & the Tomy Tutor games. WHAT I haven't got to work but I have found are: munch mobile, defender, video games 1, star trek & moon patrol. for one reason or another they all blow up on the Geneve (and work on the TI99 COD). And the notable cart games that I haven't that haven't found a Geneve version are: munchman, alpiner, bigfoot, fathom, hen house, hustle, MASH, miner 2049er, moon sweeper, picnic paranoia, rabbit trail, robotron, treasure isle & tutankhan. NOTE: I found that MYGPL can run a lot of the PC99 .GRM files. So if you have the PC99 .grm cart versions they might work. SO if you know how to get the not-working list to work or have one of the games on the not-found list that be great. just add it to this post. I run all the working games using MYGPL or in XB in MYGPL from a batch file. With the action games I usually have to do a F4 in MYGPL to slow to 1 or the games are too fast. Sure would be nice to have a command line switch in MYGPL to do the F4=1 in the batch so would not have to start the batch, shft+shft+ctrl to the MYGPL menu, do a F4=1, then back to the game. Have the same problem with EXEC. it runs the games way too & but it has no way to slow them therefore, not useful for TI99 games.

I've been analyzing some disk images found on the web. None of them have iron-clad provenance, but I believe they show circumstantial evidence of at least 4 revisions during their 1985 production runs. Briefly, it looks like: first release fix shop sell-back award to match advertised price; tweak pub keywords and dialogue with Presto numerous text fixes; move Shamino away from Ankh; prevent X-it from a flying balloon dungeon fixes; Lord British dialogue fixes Have a look at my in-depth report, with justifications for why I believe these were retail updates and not after-market hobbyist patches: https://github.com/sean-gugler/u4remasteredA2/wiki/Identifying-Editions I welcome supplemental or contrary evidence! Especially any disk images that can be solidly traced back to a confirmed retail pressing, untampered by crackers or modders.

Hi everyone. I'm putting together vintage computer and console related items which I hope to sell. Please click below to see the current items I'm listing. Items For Sale I'll be adding more as I test, and package the items. Thanks, John

Which do you consider to be the most overlook game for Atari 8-bit computers? From my humble point of view, one of them is "The Infiltrator" (Mindscape, 1986). It doesn't show up in Atarimania's top listings. - Y -

Topic moved to... Thanks, John

A while back I wrote an Uno card game in Atari Microsoft BASIC (see here) . Here are the original blog game instructions. More instructions are in the short Uno manual in the .ZIP. To Play: the bottom 4 lines are the letters for your cards segregated by color; red, yellow, green and blue. last line is Spl which is the change color cards. the types of cards beside the colors are 0-9 D=draw 2, S=skip and R=reverse. under Spl are C=change color and F=draw 4. when the human plays you choose SORT, PLAY and TAKE. SORT just sorts your cards. TAKE will take a card from the pile. PLAY will play 1 of your cards. in Play you type the card you want to play by following the prompts. the game plays a standard game of Uno except; Uno call is automatic and has 1 in 12 chance of 'forgetting to call a Uno' penalty which is also automatic. The original version was the simple standard rules of the game. But the real fun of Uno is the various versions of the game that one can play. So I went back to program and added several of the additional game versions to spice up the game, and a little sound too. This is the opening menu choices for the versions. Note that you can load and save your profile choices to disk or just play a default game. I added six new versions of game play: 2S as pick 2? - this version has the 2 card as aTAKE 2 for ALL players. Play a 2 and all the other players will have to take 2 cards. 7S swap cards? - Play a 7 and you can swap your cards with any other player. Take till play? - when you have to take a card you must KEEP taking cards until you get to one that is playable. DRAW4 only? - you can't play a DRAW4 until it's the only card playable. Good Take must play? - When you TAKE a card, if that card is playable, you must play it. NOTE: If TAKE card is playable you get a beep then the game rolls you back to the SORT, PLAY, TAKE screen. The other 3 computer players play a very good game. I programed in that sometimes they will mess up, but not often. I found I win about 1 in 4 or 5 games, which is a good average. I want to also mention that Atari MS BASIC was such an under-rated BASIC. I gotten to really like. It's greatest strength is it's similarity to other 8-bit BASICs of the time. The game disk auto-boots the Atari MS BASIC which in turn auto-boots the Uno+ game. Anyway, enjoy the game. HLO UnoPlus.zip

Here is the Uno+ TI-99/4a Extended BASIC version of the Atari Microsoft BASIC Uno+ that was an updated Uno that had been ported from the original TI-99/4a in that had been created using the KXBII Extended BASIC programing package. Got that. Anyway, here is the game and a fun one it is. It has color, it has sound, it has speech, it plays a fairly fast game and includes several of the variations of Uno. You can also save your games parameters to disk so that you wont have to type them in each time. To Play: the bottom 4 lines are the letters for your cards marked by color; red, yellow, green and blue. last line is Spl which is the change color cards with C (change color) or F(play draw 4 change color). the types of cards beside the colors are 0-9 D=draw 2, S=skip and R=reverse. under Spl are C=change color and F=draw 4. when the human plays you choose SORT, PLAY and TAKE. SORT just sorts your cards. TAKE will take a card from the pile. PLAY will play 1 of your cards. in Play you type the card you want to play by following the prompts. the game plays a standard game of Uno except; Uno call is automatic and has 1 in 12 chance of 'forgetting to call a Uno penalty which is also automatic. The original version was the simple standard rules of the game. But the real fun of Uno is the various versions of the game that one can play. So I went back to program and added several of the additional game versions to spice up the game, and a little sound and speech too. There are six new versions of game play: 2S as pick 2? - this version has the 2 card as aTAKE 2 for ALL players. Play a 2 and all the other players will have to take 2 cards. 7S swap cards? - Play a 7 and you can swap your cards with any other player. Take till play? - when you have to take a card you must KEEP taking cards until you get to one that is playable. DRAW4 only? - you can't play a DRAW4 until it's the only card playable. Good Take must play? - When you TAKE a card, if that card is playable, you must play it. NOTE: If TAKE card is playable you get a beep then the game rolls you back to the SORT, PLAY, TAKE screen. The other 3 computer players play a very good game. I programed in that sometimes they will mess up, but not often. I found I win about 1 in 4 or 5 games, which is a good average. The game disk auto-boots a loader program which in turn boots the Uno+ game. Anyway, enjoy the game. unoplus.zip

More Hidden Gems for Super Nintendo including uncommon 3rd Party Controllers! Games Shown: QBert 3 The Peace Keepers Wolf Child Kendo Rage Captain Commando Firepower 2000 Shadowrun Biometal Stealth Controller Messiah Wireless Capcom Arcade Stick What are some of the more interesting controllers for the SNES?

I'm retired and needed something to keep my brain working so I decided to port a video game. One of the first Atari 800 games I bought was Apple Panic. I decided it would be a nice place to start. Never having written in Atari 7800Basic, it's a learning experience. I've received help from others who have posted on this forum and I probably will ask for help from time to time. The last game I wrote was back in 1981 - I wrote a volleyball game on the Atari 400 for Softside magazine. It probably was the first they published that used player/missile graphics entirely in basic. This is as far as I have gone with my Apple Panic game written in 7800Basic.

Hi everyone, Anyone can help me with this? I wanna use 3 or more sprites in same screen, using the system of flickering, something like in Adventure, I don't know how to create something like a "corroutine" in this, so if anyone can help me, thank u.

The first episode of a new Atari 8-bit podcast, Player/Missile, is available at http://playermissile.com It should be in iTunes soon. I'm going to look at games and classic magazines that covered the Atari 8-bit systems, and go chronologically. This first episode is an introduction, and next episode I'll start covering 1979. My goal is to review one game per episode as well, and for the first episode I'm going to review Star Raiders. Sort of like Ferg's 2600 game-by-game podcast, I'll be looking for feedback from folks about the games that I'll talk about, so I'll announce the games in advance if you'd like to send in stories about the games. I'm looking forward to playing some of these games again, and maybe finding games I missed. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

Thanks to some advice from this Great community I have revised my Atari 7800 bundle. I have 29 7800 games up for grabs. Some of them are less common than others. What I did was I went to pricecharting.com looked at the price of every game “loose” and rounded down. Total came to $478 (after rounding down) I am selling the lot for $300. Hopefully you can either round out your collection or snag these up and make a few bucks. -Asking price $300 + Shipping. I work for FedEx and get a discount on shipping. So once we strike a deal, ill box them up, and get a price quote. Again, thanks for all the advice everyone.

My name is Robert Anschuetz. Together with my brother Eric Anschuetz and friend John Weisgerber, we wrote 3 Atari BASIC games that were published in 1985 in Antic magazine (Kooky's Quest (Feb. 1985), Overflow (July 1985), and Robot Dungeon (Nov. 1985, Antic Disk Bonus). In addition to these three games, we also submitted and sold two games to Compute! Magazine that were never published (Kooky Klimber and Night Rescue). We also wrote several other games that were never offered for publication. We are now releasing all of these games to the Public Domain with the hope that the Atari 8-Bit community will take a look at them, and perhaps they can be added to the Holmes or TOSEC archives for preservation. Again, these are not new games, but they are new to the Atari 8-Bit community. Many of these games really pushed the envelope at the time for what could be done in Atari BASIC, including bi-directional smooth scrolling, assembly language subroutines, parallax scrolling, cut scenes, attract modes, display-list tricks, interleaved-displays, etc. In conjunction with the release of these games, we have written a short article that describes how we got together as a team to write these programs, along with game instructions, and development notes. This article gives a really good insight into what it was like in the 1980's to discover the hidden programming secrets of the Atari computers during many late-night programming sessions. All of these games were written for an Atari 400/800 with 48K RAM (most run with less) and BASIC. An Atari 800XL configuration should run all of these games with no problem. Each game is saved to an individual ATR file, which also includes an AUTORUN.SYS that automatically runs the game at coldstart bootup. One note, after the games start, almost all of them require a lengthy initialization process. Even after the "Press Start to Begin", some require another minute of initialization before the game actually starts. As part of this release, we updated one of our old games called "Alien Assault" because it only ran with a cassette system. It now works fine with a disk. Included in the zip file are both versions. We are also re-releasing a 2017 version of the game "Robot Dungeon" that was originally published as an Antic Disk Bonus in November 1985. The original game had 3 levels of 400 rooms. This newer update cuts the size of the levels way down and makes the game winnable (the cut scene at the end is worth seeing!). The user can create mazes of any size from 5x5 to 20x20. The ATR comes with three 5x5 levels (25 rooms per level) (use the filename D:DUNJIN.DAT to load the maze). We have also added a cheat so you can walk through interior walls and not be killed by monsters. ​Attachments include the "Anschuetz/Weisgberber/Anschuetz Atari 8-Bit Programming Saga" as well as a zip file containing all the ATRs that can be run with an emulator. Again, remember to have BASIC turned on and Coldboot to auto-run these games. And be patient during initialization! We hope that you enjoy this release of "new old stock" games! And if anyone can submit these to the Atari repositories, please do so! ​ Sincerely, ​Robert Anschuetz / Eric Anschuetz / John Weisgerber Atari 8-Bit Game Programs - Anschuetz-Wesigerber-Anschuetz.pdf AWA ATR Floppy Disk Images.zip

Have some genesis games I'm looking to sell. All are repros except for Golden Axe. MKII unlimited is in an original MKII cart and uses its original pcb. Truxton uses a sega cart and pcb as a donor as well. The labels for those are glossy and professionally printed. Golden Axe is original in original box and artwork. no manual Zero wing is a repro the whole way. It uses the now infamous European translation. The PCB is a high quality Muramasa with a rom chip, not a flash chip. The cart is clear and painted glossy silver on the inside for a gun metal type effect. Professional quality box art and label too All games are NTSC, Shipped in a box USPS first class, US only please. If you buy all of them at once or a few I'll ship priority mail. Payment through Paypal, I will provide tracking. Golden Axe 25 shipped MKII unlimited 25 shipped Truxton 20 shipped Zero Wing 45 Shipped

After a long time of procrastination I have finally got around to updating the Mille Borne for the TI-99 in Extended BASIC. I have added some sound effects, some voice CALL SAY("UHOH"), sped up parts of the program and cleaned up some minor bugs that had been long standing. This is 'probably' the last version but I have learned never to say never. The game is XB autoboot and is in .DSK v9t9 format. Enjoy. MILLEBORNE-V340.dsk

Hey guys, so I finally got myself an Atari 1040 STf. I used to own one back 1992 and I really missed it. Now the only thing is, I have like zero games for it. I know there are Goteks and Ultrasatans out there and I might buy one of those one day but for now I really just want some good old floppy disks so I can enjoy it the way I used to back in the day. At this point, Im not too picky as Id be happy to play almost anything at this point but I will list some of my favorites that Id love to have. With that said, if you have anything available and its not on my list, please let me know anyways. The only two things are, first, I really would like to have them in box if possible as I find the box art makes a real cool display piece and second, I live in Canada, so if you are from the UK or the USA, it only makes sense for me to buy multiple games at once since the shipping starts our pretty expensive but it doesnt go up much the more you add. Anyways, thanks to everyone that takes the time to look at my post and for all replies. Top Wanted Games: Arkanoid Ballyhoo Code Name: Iceman Flood Forgotten Worlds Gold Rush James Pond 2 Kings Quest 1,2,3 & 4 Lemmings Marble Madness Police Quest 1 & 2 Rod-Land Sensible Soccer Space Quest 1,2 & 3 Tetris Time Bandit

This is (again :)) Dracon from TAQUART Group. I have the honor to present another interview with a person known (this time) for his excellent games on Atari XL/XE. At the time of the interview he is currently 30 years old and... it's English programmer Ivan Mackintosh, to whom we owe such hits as CRUMBLE`s CRISIS or REBOUND (giving only a few of the collection). Despite the passage of time, however, I decided to publish it, with the consent of the Ivan himself... This interview was based on a series of our emails from 1999 year and was firstly published at Polish website Atari.Area. D = Dracon I = Ivan Mackintosh D - Hello, at first I must say that you were a really great Atari 8-bit programmer. I remember you from such great games as BLACK LAMP or CAVERNIA (was it your latter game on Atari ?). I - Hi. I am glad that you like my games. CAVERNIA was not my last game, because I wrote one more for Atari, which has never been released - "TUBE BADDIES". It's a two-player game where you have to shoot down the monsters and stick holes in the pipes so that no new monsters appear. It was another game made with Richard Munns - so, as usual, there is great music and graphics. My first game written in assembler 6502 was REBOUND. Previous games (Crumble`s Crisis and continuation - Space Lobsters which is only good for graphics - no playability) were written in compiled Basic. This is probably the reason why they are so slow. D - The English magazine NEW ATARI USER once published a review of your game TAGALON. I also read there that there was a big break between writing and publishing this game... Is it true ? I - I think so, as I've never seen it in the sold version or even the cover ! D - So it seems that you didn't make much money writing games for Atari... Am I right ? I - I had a promised fee of 1500 English pounds (9500 PLN ?) for Black Lamp and 2000 English pounds (13000 PLN ?) for Tube Baddies game. Since they were never properly spent, we didn't get that fee. These two games were also the biggest earner. So in fact, when all the money was divided between Richard and me, we didn't have that much for 5-6 years of Atari XL programming. Certainly not enough to do it as a full-time job. D - Where did you get the inspiration your games from ? I - TAGALON was similar to SABRE WULF (from ZX SPECTRUM) for 2 players. TUBE BADDIES was inspired by another spectrum game - COOKIE. We were asked by Atari company to create BLACK LAMP. REBOUND was an attempt to write a sports game. And the other games just "happened" (without direct inspiration). D - Have you programmed games on a "clean" Atari or with the help of e.g. Atari ST (I'm asking in the sense of creating games on an 8-bit computer)? I - The first two games (CRUMBLES CRISIS and SPACE LOBSTERS) were written in Atari Basic and then compiled. It took two 1050 stations to speed up the compilation to about half an hour. I used a software assembler (Synapse Synassembler) to do the REBOUND. The rest of the games were programmed using my cartridge with MAC-65 assembler. All games were encoded on my faithful 800XL. D - And how did it look like to create e.g. music ? I - Richard used a synthesizer to work out the melody. Once he composed it, he manually translated the notes into values in the Basic's DATA command. When it was done, I converted his music player into an assembler and run it on VBI interrupts. D - Can you tell what is happening now with other famous people from Atari XL, like programmer Ian Copeland or musician Adam Gilmore ? I - Unfortunately I can't help it - I never talked to these people. D - Do you know that there are still people in Poland who write amazing programs, especially demos ? I - About three years ago (1996) I was in contact with one of the guys who made JOYRIDEcurrently doing demo. It was the last time my Atari 1050 drive was still working ! D - Well, what is your opinion about the so-called demo programs ? Is there any sense to write such programs instead of good games ? I - I think that some demos coming from Poland are excellent. It's just a shame that all this didn't happen 10 years before the Atari scene died. Anyway, as I see it, in the UK the 8-bit Atari scene is now extinct. D - Can you tell us what Richard Munns and HARLEQUIN (who has released the PLASTRON game, for example) are currently doing? I - Richard is messing up with PC computers, although he is not doing it professionally. I don't know what is happening with HARLEQUIN. Richard had contacts there when he was making music for it. As far as I can remember, he was cheated by HARLEQUIN because they did not pay him for his work. Richard didn't hear about HARLEQUIN later - maybe the company went bankrupt. D - Where do you work now ? I - I am a professional programmer (more precisely: "senior software engineer"), writing C++/COM applications for Reuters. D - Do you know if NEW ATARI USER magazine still exists ? I heard that it is (was?) available only for subscription... I - About 2 years ago (i.e. in 1997) I saw a copy of it on a computer show. It was A5 format. Really not much bigger than some leaflet. I don't think it's in print anymore. D - Do you sometimes turn on your 800XL (or emulate on PC) nowadays? I - None of that. My hobby nowadays is rather arcade machines. However, I still have 3 Atari computers (400, 800XL, 130XE) at home. D - So say something more about it. I - Currently I am more interested in games and arcade emulators. I have one slot machine and a NeoGeo console with 5 cartridges. I've never been to Poland, so I don't know anything about your resorts, but those in England usually have a lot of entertainment gaming machines, full of big "cabinets", containing a monitor, joystick, special table, etc. This is the kind of machine I have in my private room. D - You mentioned that SPACE LOBSTERS is only good for graphics. Yes, that's right, but why is it so difficult ? Why didn't you put any codes in your games (like Frank Cohen or Chris Murray) ? I - You mean, you haven't found any cheats yet ! There are none in CRUMBLES CRISIS nor in LOBSTERS SPACE. However, in CRUMBLES CRISIS you can rename the files so that you can play faster in the later stages of the game. In BLACK LAMP, as far as I remember, you can type "forest" and you will get infinite life. In CAVERNIA, type "tamsin" (my wife's name) to go to level 16 and "stevie nicks" (she's Richard's favorite pop artist) to move forward 1 level. It seems to me that this last code also works in TUBE BADDIES! D - Besides, I'm curious what happens when a player completes SPACE LOBSTERS or CRUMBLE CRISIS - is there any "final sequence" ? I - I don't remember what it is like in CRUMBLES... but there is nothing in SPACE LOBSTERS - we thought that the game is so bad that we don't have to do something like that, as nobody will get that far. So the game starts again, but it's more difficult. I think you have to collect more codes or something like that. Richard used to play it to get this far! D - In general - do you remember coding on Atari and you still have this ability ? I - I have Atari so I still remember those times. I think I could still code on it. It would be quite slow as I only remember what it can do, not how to do it. So I would have to take a good look at the book "Mapping the Atari". I would even like to program the Atari again, but I just don't have time. D - What's your favorite Atari game ? Mine is BLACK LAMP and DRACONUS. Both have a unique fantasy atmosphere and I am still impressed by the craftmaship in them. Appropriate, refined graphics, music and the rest - I think that these games take the maximum out of XL ! I - You've probably noticed from several of our games (Rebound, Tagalon, Tube Baddies) that we really like games for 2 players. One of our favorite games of all time was M.U.L.E. We also played a lot in International Karate, Drop Zone (we liked Archer McLean's games) and the games from Lucasfilm were also outstanding (Ballblazer, Rescue on Fractulas, etc.). D - And which games were favorites on other 8-bit computers? I - Our (my and Richard's) favourite games are arcade adventures. We grew up on ZX Spectrum games such as ATIC ATAC, SABRE WULF, ALIEN 8, etc. D - What is your opinion on your various "rewritten" (patched) games? I mean your games with trainers, intros, etc. ? I - After seeing it, I am generally flattered by the fact that people considered these games worth modifying ! D - In that case, what about such a case - a "transfer" of the CAVERNIA's hero in another game named DEIMOS? Is that OK? I - I really enjoyed playing DEIMOS. It reminded me very much of the kind of game that Richard and I would write together. As for the observations, it was a shame that the whole scenery was in gray tones and the colors of the hero were strange. I was tempted to make a modified version with other colors, but I noticed that the image with the game is compressed. I would need to have it unpacked on disk for modification. Although to tell you the truth, I don't have any free time for this. D - What made you stop writing games on XL/XE ? Haven't you thought about releasing e.g. TUBE BADDIES in Poland (here was a big market for this computer in mid 90's), Germany or somewhere else ? I - I went to the University and because of that I didn't have much free time, besides, companies in the UK were offering less and less money for games. I didn't realize there was a market outside my country and I didn't speak other languages either. D - Have you seen some games in which Richard Munns was involved (Plastron, Zero War)? How did you like them ? I - I saw Plastron during the creation, as Andy Dickinson was a friend of mine who lived in the neighboring city. However, I did not like his games very much. He also created the game COUNTDOWN. Nevertheless, the graphics and music in Plastron were good. D - Why was there no music or any ending in CAVERNIA ? Not enough memory (anyway, the hero's animation was great!) ? I - We didn't get a lot of money for the game - there was no incentive to make the game more beautiful. D - Going back to the emulation. Have you seen any Atari emulator on PC ? I - To be honest, I haven't touched any Atari stuff in a few years. I used an XL-it emulator by Markus Geitzen but about 3 or 4 years ago. This emulator was really good except for some problems with player/battle graphics (PMG) and the inability to overlay 2 players to get a third color on the bits I applied. This unfortunately meant that Richard's sprites didn't look so great. Now, however, there is a significant change - thank you very much for sending the Atari800Win emulator! It is excellent, so much better than the XL-it I had. It is more or less perfect ! I was so impressed that now I can even get rid of my real Atari. I was playing my games really well. D - Why did you choose Atari instead of C-64 (for creating games) ? I - We (me and Richard) did not choose, it just happened. We both had Atari for a few years before I started programming. It's a real shame that the C-64 came on the market (at least in the UK) more than Atari, as Atari was great for programming. I suppose if we were creating for the C-64, we could make more money. D - How long did it take you to create Black Lamp game ? The result was amazing and the game is just wonderful ! I also played Black Lamp on Amiga, but it was much worse version. I - Atari told us that they want the same Black Lamp as the Atari ST version. But when we started asking for game maps and other details, they couldn't provide that and then they let us encode what we wanted, if that was similar. I don't remember exactly, but I think it took 9 months to write (remember that it was all done on weekends and free evenings). Atari wanted to see how far we were every 2 months, so they could change things if they weren't satisfied with something. D - It's a shame there aren't any more games as well done as yours and Ian Copeland's. Maybe the 8-bit period was just one stage in creating games, a kind of training... Nowadays it is easier to use the advantages of the machine (good graphics cards) and make nice games (almost unoptimized algorithms and games require more and more CPU power). What do you think about it? I - Nobody cares anymore. There aren't many games that pull everything out of a machine now. TURISMO GAME on PSX was the last game I was really impressed with. It seems that many developers think that just nice graphics will make the game a hit. I completely disagree with that. I believe that gameplay is the most important thing. I can support it with the fact that I bought an arcade slot machine with a 1982 Mr.Do! game. It's a great game. D - You are right that certainly playability (inherent in the idea) is the most important thing in any game. So what do you say about the super hits from the 8-bit games (Blinky`s Scary School, World Soccer, Black Lamp, etc.), which were also released in 16-bit versions? They were certainly not appreciated as popular and good games, even though the idea was the same and the graphics were much better so what about this sad fact ? I - It seems to me that when people get new machines, they want newgames that use the power of the machine rather than some old games that just improved the graphics. Well, in the world of emulation it doesn't matter much now. Can you get Gameboy Color in Poland (small console) ? As I noticed, the DROPZONE game is soon to be released on it ! D - It's supposed to be available, but I don't know if in large quantities. Thanks for the interview ! I - No problem. At the end of this interview I'd add, that Ivan Mackintosh after stopping creating games on Atari also released some small PC utilities, which were related to XL emulation. These were quite a few programmers that helped to handle Atari floppy disk images: IMAGEMAN and ATARI DISK IMAGE MANAGER. Besides, one more interesting thing - at this address you can find a couple of small Ivan's games for NEOGEO Pocket! Polish version available here.

We all know that the C64 was given the console treatment as the C64 Game System to compete against Nintendo & SEGA, but what Console Generation does it really fall under. Wikipedia says it Third Generation, but it launched in December 1990. The Forth Generation was already in full swing by then worldwide. The real question I'm asking is does it fall under Third Gen or Forth Gen?

So I've been playing some of the games I had back in 80s when I had an actually Aquarius computer (Sold it like 25 years ago and I'm regretting it now). Thanks to those who worked hard to develop Aquarius emulators, now I can playing my childhood favorite games on PC any day. However I wonder if anyone managed to crack/modify games to change some of the parameters such as how many lives you have in the game (nightstalker or astrosmash) or increase weapon and armor level in games like AD&D. Basically I need to do cheats lol. I played around with Night Stalker a little bit using Virtual Aquarius emulator and I tried to get ridiculous number of lives by altering the .bin RAM file I received from using "File --> Save Ram" command. I simply opened the file in hex editor and increased the number of lives to 99 and then loaded the file again in the emulator. It worked visually but as soon as I lose one life, the number gets back to the default value. Can someone explain why this happened? I also wonder if someone successfully managed to crack these games. Kind regards.

After almost 40 years. I finally purchased an Atari 800 so I can play the 2 games I still had a printout of on real hardware. I had a basic game that I retyped in from compute magazine that I have running on an ATR image. Space Mines was my Assembly game - 4k in length - that I wrote and I have it running on an ATR image by using Binary Load "L" on Dos 2.5. If I want to make Space Mines game a cartridge, with code changes so I can start it at a different address, what would be the quickest and easiest way to make a cartridge? I have a couple of old Brown carts I can open and replace stuff. All the classic consoles/computers sit at the corner of our office. I don't know why my child self liked the name "space" in all my titles. ?

#Atari8bit #FujiNet users have access to a lot of great software on TNFS servers all over the Internet. In this video, we take a tour through six Q*BERT and clone games!

I have pictures below of items I have that I would like to get rid of. EXCEPT, I'd like to have one of the controllers refurbished and one of the trackball controllers refurbished so I can play with them. All cartridges are unboxed. All games work, except for Defender and the Sean Kelly multi-cart. Instruction manuals are included for these games: super breakout, did dug, choplifter, centipede, pole position, qix, defender, galaxian, berzerk, space invaders, ms pac man, missile command, pac man, super cobra, star wars, pitfall, meteorites No manuals for these games: qbert, joust, star raiders, astro chase Assorted 5200 system manuals are pictured. Assorted keypad overlays are pictured. The box top is in very bad shape but the bottom is ok. None of the controllers work completely. Some start games and move characters but most all buttons do not work. The trackball controllers work but not completely (one will only go up but not side to side, the other has buttons that don't work). The Wico controller works well and comes with the Y adapter. The Competition Pro controller comes with the Y adaptor. It works but you have to really push up to get it to go up.

I'm looking for a good and finished games written in Action! At the moment, I only know about a few, of which, in my opinion, the following are noteworthy: At Arion Line: Mission Zero Problem Jasia Can anyone name any other title?

I just got a C64 Mini recommend me some games to add to it. I'll need to update it first but I got a 1GB Flash drive (which should fit a lot of games on it). I'm mostly into shoot 'em ups (which the Mini seems to only have a few).