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Showing results for tags 'david crane'.
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Hi everyone, FYI that my podcast - The Brokentoken Classic Gaming Podcast - and the Music City Multi-Con have partnered together to release the first in a 3-part panel series from the 2022 show featuring David Crane, Dan Kitchen and Garry Kitchen where, over the course of three inter-connected interviews, we explore: Part 1 – Atari and the Activision years (audio available in podcast episode 114) Part 2 – the Absolute Entertainment years (audio upcoming in episode 115 – link will go live when the show is released) Part 3 – the birth of their new development and publishing company – Audacity Games (audio upcoming in episode 116- link will go live when the show is released) The video for part 1 of the series is linked here and above and I will update the remaining links as the panel videos are published and the podcast episodes are released. I’m sure many of you have attended panels with these gentlemen before and heard some of the stories they tell, but I will say that I strived - as much as possible - to steer away from some of the “generic” questions that you hear on every interview and really press into the history and the state of the industry at each changing of the guard. It’s my intent that you hear some new content here and finish the panel with more insight and knowledge about their involvement than you may have started with. We hope you'll enjoy this very special presentation and retrospective look at the long and storied history of Activision and the people behind the powerhouse that it became. It was an honor being able to spend so much time (far more than originally planned) with these legends of the gaming industry and we hope it comes across the same.
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An essay on how the colonial influences on David Crane’s “Pitfall!” affected it and the platformers that followed. https://rjb.report/pitfalls-of-colonization image is licensed under CC 2.0
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I came across a booklet called Programming Pitdall Harry" mentioned in "Enter" Magazine, issue #11 (October 1984), here: https://archive.org/details/enter-magazine-11/page/n27/mode/1up According to "Enter," the booklet was give away at computer stores or you could get it directly from Activision for 25 cents (that sounds like a bargain). The booklet is described as allowing you to reprogram your Pitfall disk on the Commodore 64. I did find the booklet for the C64, here: https://pcmuseum.ca/Brochures/ProgramPitfall.pdf The lengthier-than-I-expected BASIC program included in the booklet allows you to "change Harry's speed," change the scene, "make Harry's shirt red... and more!" Has anyone seen this document before now? Was there an Atari version of this booklet? Adam
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Hey everyone, I'm the host of the YT channel TeacherGus & Mad Rox. We talk about retrogaming and other stuff, and most recently, we've created a new show called Atari Mania - which will feature interviews with David Crane, Dan and Garry Kitchen, Steve Cartwright and a few other surprises. The channel isn`t in English - but you can watch the interview in full English (albeit subtitled in Portuguese) starting at the 0:59 seconds mark. Enjoy - and subscribe if you want to watch the next episodes with interviews. https://youtu.be/DtqZJ12qiYo?t=59s Meeting mr. Crane was amazing. Such a humble and casual man! I got my Laser Blast cartridge and an Atari book signed.
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In the box with my scart-modded 2600 was Freeway, a game which previously didn't really interest me ("Er, so, it's like Frogger but you can't move left or right... right?")...but much to my surprise it was great fun, especially with two players. Has anyone else been very pleasantly surprised like this? If so, with which game/s? I enjoyed Freeway so much, I made a video (just one-game length long). For ease of capture, however, I emulated (Android/ Nvidea Shield TV). There's lots of silliness in this, so feel free to ignore:-)- 5 replies
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One of a number of links to a series of edits from the 20th Anniversary of the Atari 2600 at Nolan Bushnell's:
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Hi Guys Just thought I would share a friendly link to a nice interview with the Atari / Pitfall! legend David Crane: http://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/david-crane/ Please enjoy. Adrian
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Hi All, Long time member but, admittedly, I have not posted here in ages. A few years back I transitioned over to video arcades then, eventually, started to add pinball. That said, I do still have my Atari collection so my roots are solid. Fast Forward a few years and I am co-host of The Brokentoken Classic Arcade and Pinball Podcast. http://www.brokentoken.com/ At a recent show, The Louisville Arcade Expo, we had the opportunity to record a seminar hosted by Activision co-founder David Crane. My co-host Whitney is also an Atari console collector and huge Activision fan so, despite not being “arcade” it was still a no brainer to capture the seminar, and a 1 on 1 interview, for the show. Hopefully everyone will enjoy them! Mr Crane tells some interesting stories, talks behind the scenes of Activision, and gives us a look into how the awesome Activison catalog was created/coded. YouTube Video of the seminar. We had a sound feed right out of the PA so the sound is excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr-t9plOkHY&feature=youtu.be Audio only version of the David Crane Seminar. http://www.brokentoken.com/podcast-episodes/episode-28the-internal-magic-of-the-atari-2600/ Post Seminar interview with Mr. Crane. http://www.brokentoken.com/interviews/episode-29-1to1-with-david-crane/ Brent The Brokentoken Classic Arcade and Pinball Podcast. http://www.brokentoken.com https://www.facebook.com/brokentoken Podcast voicemail line – 470-2CALLBT / 470-222-5528
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In another thread, I have posted a hack to Pitfall to change the map of the game, while keep (approximately) the same difficulty as the original Pitfall. Near the end of that thread, I posted a "training game" variant of Pitfall. I fell this training game really deserves its own thread. In reply to one user who would like to see a Pitfall variant with multiple maps, I have made it possible to select from two different maps in this Pitfall map. The main map is an easier 125-location "trainer" map for Pitfall players. Despite the smaller jungle, all 32 treasures are to be found. In addition, the time limit has been increased to 60 minutes and the player now has unlimited lives; however, one minute is lost every time Harry dies. Also: There are no underground walls (every underground passage will put Harry somewhere else on the map). To play this map, download the attached file and invoke the xor.image tool in the same directory as both the pitfallT.xor file and a ROM image of the original Pitfall game: xor.image pitfall.rom pitfallT.xor pitfallT.rom (Note: pitfall.rom, the original Pitfall game ROM, may have the name pitfall.bin. If so: "xor.image pitfall.bin pitfallT.xor pitfallT.rom") This will create a ROM image--pitfallT.rom--that can be played in Stella or any other 2600 emulator. It is probably also possible to download it to a Harmony Cartridge (or even burn an EPROM) to play it on a real 2600. The resulting pitfallT.rom has the following cryptographic sums: md5 0c885840ea4b08b7709639ef95812e65 sha-2-256 2a40b2896a044bfb18dba0cf9eb0a4db0365940e32ea4010ee6ae0a5eaed1222 Unlike the original Pitfall, "game Select" does something: It places Harry in a small training course suitable for practicing movement and jumping. There are no treasures in this practice course. All of my changes to Pitfall in the attached zip file are public domain. - Sam small-jungle.zip
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Welcome everyone! I hope y'all enjoy my very first post to atariage.com While there are a few hacks for the original 2600 Pitfall, I haven't seen one that changes the map Pitfall uses. That in mind, using modern random number generation techniques that did not exist when David Crane wrote the original 2600 Pitfall in the early 1980s, I have created a version of Pitfall with a new map. I have not fully play tested this map, but simulations indicate it should be possible to finish the map in under 20 minutes (just like in the original Pitfall). A download is here: http://samiam.org/pitfall/ I have also attached the files available there. This doesn't have the actual final rom; to play this new map, download the pitfall.xor file as well as the public domain xor.image (source code for Linux and Mac users) tool, and invoke the tool in the same directory as a ROM image of the original Pitfall game: xor.image pitfall.rom pitfall.xor pitfallX.rom (Note: pitfall.rom, the original Pitfall game ROM, may have the name pitfall.bin. If so: "xor.image pitfall.bin pitfall.xor pitfallX.rom") This will create a ROM image—pitfallX.rom—that can be played in Stella or any other 2600 emulator (it is probably also possible to burn a EPROM and play it on a real 2600). The resulting pitfallX.rom has the following cryptographic sums: md5 5ed1d839f908f580220d6cf487633f90 sha1 fcb9b2068e05017e98c6502e0cb685f1aee3b6db sha2-256 fe6be7879e58cc29e1fbbf6008a69244004c2b6b6c477d92a8b960d65503b7b7 All of the files attached to this post are donated to the public domain. I hope people enjoy this hack of Pitfall as much as I enjoyed seeing how much of a modern ranom number generator I could squeeze in to a 35-year-old 2600. I am also working on a series of blogs looking at and exploring the pseudo random number generator (PRNG) Pitfall uses: http://www.samiam.or...g/20130606.html David Crane did agressively optimize the PRNG and made best use of the then state-of-the-art PRNG techniques of the early 1980s. While the generator I use is a little smaller and more flexible than the "LFSR" he uses, it does require more cycles to generate a decent map--cycles which Pitfall thankfully has during the vblank. I hope to have time in the coming days to explain iin my blog just how clever Crane's optimizations were (the 16 bytes of 6502 code that is the core of his RNG is brilliant, taking me hours to fully understand), and to explain what PRNG I am using (it’s something called add-rotate-xor which, while used as early as 1987—five years after Pitfall—did not see widespread use until the late '00s). Pitfall-newmap.zip
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