dr. kwack Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 I've been playing some of the old Microprose games lately. I was looking through a catalog that was in one of the boxes and saw Gunship was advertised for the 800XL. Was this ever released? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 Nope. And boy did that piss me off back then! Had to wait until I got an ST to play its stunningly superior version. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Just found this one-year old thread... and I must add something to it. Back then in 1987, a friend from school had somehow managed to get a copy of an 8-bit version of Gunship... yes, that's right. Don't ask me where it came from, he said he had gotten it from some friend of his. He didn't have any manuals, so he borrowed the C64's ones (I believe) from another friend and photocopied them. Later that year, as he was going to leave for Germany to get into college the next year, he offered to sell me the disk, but back then I didn't have a disk drive... I tried to convince my cousin-in-law, who had a 130XE, to buy it, but he wasn't interested enough. Later, around March 1988, I met another Atari 8-bit user and told him about it, but unfortunately, my schoolfriend had already left for Germany by then and we couldn't get in contact with him anymore... That day when I had taken my cousin-in-law to my friend's house, he demoed us the game, and I can tell you it wasn't Tomahawk, Super Huey or some other game... it was Gunship. The screen looked like this one from the C64 version, with what appeared to be P/M graphics used for the enemy helicopters... I've been trying to find anybody else who has seen this game ever since, to prove that I'm not crazy. It was one of the first things I looked for when I got access to the Internet around 1992... Also, a friend's manual for the ST version of Gunship also features instalaltion instructions for the XL/XE version, I consider that further proof that it existed at some point, maybe as unreleased prototypes only or something... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fres Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 "Also, a friend's manual for the ST version of Gunship also features instalaltion instructions for the XL/XE version, I consider that further proof that it existed at some point, maybe as unreleased prototypes only or something..." Maybe that was RemoWilliams's manual, since he was pissed off before witnessing the "stunningly superior" ST version. The XE version -- apparently not much of a product in comparison to the ST version. Oh yeah -- in case no one else has said it, "remowilliams" is a great nickname. Sorry I didn't think of it first. Really enjoyed that movie and that period of time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreatPW Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 (edited) Just found this one-year old thread... and I must add something to it.Back then in 1987, a friend from school had somehow managed to get a copy of an 8-bit version of Gunship... yes, that's right. Don't ask me where it came from, he said he had gotten it from some friend of his. He didn't have any manuals, so he borrowed the C64's ones (I believe) from another friend and photocopied them. Later that year, as he was going to leave for Germany to get into college the next year, he offered to sell me the disk, but back then I didn't have a disk drive... I tried to convince my cousin-in-law, who had a 130XE, to buy it, but he wasn't interested enough. Later, around March 1988, I met another Atari 8-bit user and told him about it, but unfortunately, my schoolfriend had already left for Germany by then and we couldn't get in contact with him anymore... That day when I had taken my cousin-in-law to my friend's house, he demoed us the game, and I can tell you it wasn't Tomahawk, Super Huey or some other game... it was Gunship. The screen looked like this one from the C64 version, with what appeared to be P/M graphics used for the enemy helicopters... I've been trying to find anybody else who has seen this game ever since, to prove that I'm not crazy. It was one of the first things I looked for when I got access to the Internet around 1992... Also, a friend's manual for the ST version of Gunship also features instalaltion instructions for the XL/XE version, I consider that further proof that it existed at some point, maybe as unreleased prototypes only or something... Interesting story and while it is certainly possible, in this instance, it was probably not Gunship only because of the piracy scene and how easily a game that was playable and pirated (as in your friend's case) would have spread quickly. Unreleased and games that were supposed to be European only releases for the Atari 8-bit use to spread like wildfire once it was in the right hands (which meant every other Atari 8-bit owner back then) back in the 80s so unfortunately I am not convinced that it was Gunship that you were playing although anything is possible. However if it did exist, the pirate copy would have turned up by now. As for the manual for the Atari ST version having XL/XE installation instructions, that was probably just Microprose being too lazy to update its installation section of the manual for systems they may have no longer supported as much as they use to. Third party companies that had many versions of the same game generally had installations for many systems in their manuals. One thing to note, Antic magazine once had a section where subscribers would write in to request games they would like to see an Atari conversion for and Gunship was on that list. This was right after Antic's successful campaign to have an Atari 8-bit version of Springboard's Newsroom. Edited June 21, 2008 by TheGreatPW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 Maybe that was RemoWilliams's manual, since he was pissed off before witnessing the "stunningly superior" ST version. The XE version -- apparently not much of a product in comparison to the ST version. I actually was referring to the ST version being stunning in comparison to the C64 version. A friend and I were once told by some little turd ages ago that he had a copy of Gunship for the 8 bits. Well turns out he was lying to us and then avoided us for weeks (in fear of the wedgie he rightfully deserved). That's probably as close as anyone got to Gunship for the A8. Oh yeah -- in case no one else has said it, "remowilliams" is a great nickname. Sorry I didn't think of it first. Really enjoyed that movie and that period of time. Thanks! Loved the movies and the first hundred or so books. Sure they are bubblegum for the mind, but entertaining bubble gum! Interesting story and while it is certainly possible, in this instance, it was probably not Gunship only because of the piracy scene and how easily a game that was playable and pirated (as in your friend's case) would have spread quickly. I agree. I'll (sheepishly ) admit that if there had been any truth to an A8 version of even beta out anywhere back in the day, I would have been able to get my hands on it. As for the manual for the Atari ST version having XL/XE installation instructions, that was probably just Microprose being too lazy to update its installation section of the manual for systems they may have no longer supported as much as they use to. Yup. In case anyone does want to see, here's the pages of the C0 version of the Gunship manual that references the A8s. Sadly that was probably as far as Microprose ever got. Further revisions of the manual dropped the A8 references. Gunship_C0.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 Interesting story and while it is certainly possible, in this instance, it was probably not Gunship only because of the piracy scene and how easily a game that was playable and pirated (as in your friend's case) would have spread quickly. Unreleased and games that were supposed to be European only releases for the Atari 8-bit use to spread like wildfire once it was in the right hands (which meant every other Atari 8-bit owner back then) back in the 80s so unfortunately I am not convinced that it was Gunship that you were playing although anything is possible. However if it did exist, the pirate copy would have turned up by now. I remember him saying that it was a real bitch to copy, it required two different chips to copy the disk, one was the Happy, and I can't remember what he said the other one was (the name wasn't familiar to me at the time, and later I haven't been able to remember it). He also said that the copy would only be able to run on a disk drive with the same enhancement, and that meant he'd have to keep the copy for himself and give the other disk to whoever was interested in it... and no, I'm not inventing this stuff. Even today I wonder what happened to him after all this years, I've never been able to find any traces of him over the Internet, and I never knew who was it that gave him the game in the first place... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreatPW Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 (edited) I remember him saying that it was a real bitch to copy, it required two different chips to copy the disk, one was the Happy, and I can't remember what he said the other one was (the name wasn't familiar to me at the time, and later I haven't been able to remember it). He also said that the copy would only be able to run on a disk drive with the same enhancement, and that meant he'd have to keep the copy for himself and give the other disk to whoever was interested in it... and no, I'm not inventing this stuff. Even today I wonder what happened to him after all this years, I've never been able to find any traces of him over the Internet, and I never knew who was it that gave him the game in the first place... Yeah unfortunately this sounds like one of those urban myths of games that was either a prototype or a copy of a game that was on a different PC that someone was able to get to work on an Atari. These stories usually revolve around the Happy chip and one or two other chips (chips that few can ever recall their names) that was required to make this special version run. One of the biggest urban myths of a game that was supposedly converted by pirates was Epyx's Summer Games II which as far as I know has no working version exists either in prototype or pirated form. Edited June 21, 2008 by TheGreatPW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 This is no urban myth, I saw it and played it for a gew minutes... if I had a time machine, I'd convince my former self of getting it from him no matter what, I never suspected it was such a rarity that I'd never see it anywhere else again... Something else that I remember is that apparently it was a 2-sided "flippy", one side could be copied with the Happy but the other was the one that required that other chip, he said he didn't have it but had a friend who did, and thus he'd need to pay him something in order to allow him to copy the disk, that's why my cousin-in-law wasn't interested, it was more than what you'd pay for any other game back then... This is our class picture taken at the end of 1987 right after the final exams were over... the big guy with the girl on his shoulders is him, if anybody has ever seen him since 1988, let me know... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEtalGuy66 Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 I believe him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miker Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 (edited) Maybe he wasn't only one who own this piece of rarity (at least he didn't write the game, or... ). Edited June 22, 2008 by miker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted June 23, 2008 Share Posted June 23, 2008 (edited) At least one other person must have had it, and that's whoever he got it from in the first place. I just found the list of programs he had back then, folded in the box where I keep my old cassette tapes (as I said, I didn't have a disk drive yet, I had only had the 800XL for a year). It's not his original printed list but a copy by hand I wrote to show to my cousin-in-law, but it definitely says "Gunship" there under "New ones", so at least my memory isn't betraying me. These other pictures are from our class in 1986. The guy in the red pullover (Roland) is the C64 guy from whom he borrowed the Gunship manual for photocopying, and since he left at the end of the year for Quito, it can't have happened after that, so this likely means that 1986 must be the year he (Andreas, aka Magilla) got the game at most. Those two were friends, and I located Roland (as well as about half a dozen other former schoolmates) yesterday on one of those "keep in touch with old classmates" sites which require you to register, I wonder if he'have kept in touch with Andreas after so long... If it is of any help, Andreas used to have a logo labeled "Nucleus Software" back then, which consisted of a mathematical graph vaguely resembling a spider web or a Christmas ornament with the word "Nucleus" on the upper left quarter and the word "Software" in the lower right, with the graph in the center. I may still have a printout of that logo lying around among some other papers somewhere... Hmmm, does my guess of one chip being required for one side and the other for a second side makes any sense, or is it more likely that he actually meant that one chip was needed to read the disk and the other to write the copy simultaneously? UPDATE: Scanned this ad from the January 1987 issue of COMPUTE! Edited June 23, 2008 by machf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LS650 Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but I can distinctly recall playing a pirated version of Gunship on my 8-bit back in the late 80s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 Hopefully it was the same I saw and played... let's see if you can remember something else from it, I only played it for a few minutes, so there's not much I can say about it other than that it existed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 Everyone sure they weren't seeing Infiltrator or something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 Don't think so... I had seen Infiltrator back then, and it didn't look the same (although I don't remember it anymore nowadays). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenkenson Posted June 30, 2008 Share Posted June 30, 2008 Hello everyone, Here is a little info which might help. I purchased a 130XE early in the 80's. As some of you may know, Microprose initially *was* developing Gunship for the Atari 8-bit but eventually gave up because they couldn't fit the game into 48K. They needed at least 64K for the game but didn't feel that enough Atari owners had 64K systems. I know this for a fact because I called Microprose and talked to them. In addition, their decision to terminate the project was also reported in some of the magazines. Therefore...is it possible that they *had* finished some initial work that could be booted and played? Is it possible that they never released it but that a few copies slipped out? I'd love to see it. Maybe we should contact Andy Hollis, the original developer? Regards, Bob Niemann Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 This was all a very interesting read, and it would be kinda cool if an A8 Gunship ever did turn up. I remember wanting a copy after seeing and ad, but I was quite happy with Tomahawk back then, and after getting it, I never even thought about Gunship again until now. Tomahawk ROCKS! (so does Infiltrator, even though the actual flying part is secondary to the adventure game) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEtalGuy66 Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 This was all a very interesting read, and it would be kinda cool if an A8 Gunship ever did turn up. I remember wanting a copy after seeing and ad, but I was quite happy with Tomahawk back then, and after getting it, I never even thought about Gunship again until now. Tomahawk ROCKS! (so does Infiltrator, even though the actual flying part is secondary to the adventure game) YEah Tomohawk is an awesome game.. I'd love to see the original source... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UNIXcoffee928 Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 Ugg. After 20 years of silence he just ratted out all of his hacking friends (with photos no less!) just to convince you... eeeek! = ) Never happened. It WAS all a joke, RIGHT? = ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I worked for MPS in the early 90's (check me out on Moby Games - Stephen Goss) and inquired of some of the longer term inmates (Scott Spanburg, Andy Hollis etc) about the oft rumored A8 games that never were... No one had recollections of the A8 version of Gunship being anything more than planned and no code archive of the project existed (unlike the published versions)... sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I didn't know that Spanburg worked for the 'prose'...I do recall that he coded 'the goonies' for datasoft Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenkenson Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 I worked for MPS in the early 90's (check me out on Moby Games - Stephen Goss) and inquired of some of the longer term inmates (Scott Spanburg, Andy Hollis etc) about the oft rumored A8 games that never were... No one had recollections of the A8 version of Gunship being anything more than planned and no code archive of the project existed (unlike the published versions)... sTeVE Thanks for the info. I tend to agree with what you've stated. In all probability, there never was anything released and the "sightings" mentioned in this thread, although sincere, were mistaken. Sigh... Still, keep in mind that the development work on Gunship was done in 85 and it was released in 86. As a new Atari owner then, I remember being very excited when Microprose initally *did* announce that they would release Gunship for A8 and that it was in development. I also remember repeatedly calling Microprose and asking when it would be released and always being told sometime in the future. Now it could be that the person's I talked to were front desk customer service types who really didn't know what was going on and that there really was no development. Regards, Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted July 3, 2008 Share Posted July 3, 2008 I worked for MPS in the early 90's (check me out on Moby Games - Stephen Goss) and inquired of some of the longer term inmates (Scott Spanburg, Andy Hollis etc) about the oft rumored A8 games that never were... Neat, I see you credited for GS2000 - what did you work on for that project? I'm a huge Microprose fan - even have my poster here still as a thanks for external testing, signed by Wild Bill and Andy Hollis. I was thinking about contacting Hollis too, but you beat me too it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted July 8, 2008 Share Posted July 8, 2008 I worked for MPS in the early 90's (check me out on Moby Games - Stephen Goss) and inquired of some of the longer term inmates (Scott Spanburg, Andy Hollis etc) about the oft rumored A8 games that never were... No one had recollections of the A8 version of Gunship being anything more than planned and no code archive of the project existed (unlike the published versions)... sTeVE Thanks for the info. I tend to agree with what you've stated. In all probability, there never was anything released and the "sightings" mentioned in this thread, although sincere, were mistaken. Sigh... Well, there is a chance that it may have been just some other game with a hacked title screen reading "Gunship", but what could it have been? It wasn't Tomahawk, Super Huey or Infiltrator (I had seen those back then), and as I said, it looked very much like the C64 version of Gunship. I doubt it was an elaborate hoax with a Commodore computer and drive hidden inside Atari casings... One possibility is that it might be something like when another guy told me of a friend who had ruined an A8 version of Outrun (!) attempting to crack it - and then it turned out to be California Run, with this guy saying they both were basically the same. So, any info on someone programming a Gunship-lookalike in 1986 or earlier? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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