Pac Man for Fairchild Channel F

[OldAtarian]

 

Nice homebrew. A lot better than the official 2600 version.

[Lord Helmet]

 

Nice homebrew. A lot better than the official 2600 version.

 

Yep, it's pretty cool and quite a feat. the programmer posts on these boards. If you search in the Homebrew forum you can find a thread dealing with the development of the game.

[Tr3vor]

Thats pretty good looking on the channel F.

[Eltigro]

I agree with the OP, much better looking than the 2600 version. Wasn't the 2600 version rushed during development? Would have been nice if they had been given time...

[Nukey Shay]

A common myth. The game had been "on the programmer's roundtable" for about half of a year before Frye picked it up (the game was announced nearly a year before it was produced). According to him, he spent some time designing a multisprite kernel which grew too large...so he asked if the game could be expanded to 8k to allow it. This request was turned down, so he had to fit his ideas into 4k with four-frame flicker. The latter was not viewed as unacceptable back then (Defender, programmed at the same time, is even worse...using five-frame flicker).

[Retro Rogue]

A common myth. The game had been "on the programmer's roundtable" for about half of a year before Frye picked it up (the game was announced nearly a year before it was produced). According to him, he spent some time designing a multisprite kernel which grew too large...so he asked if the game could be expanded to 8k to allow it. This request was turned down, so he had to fit his ideas into 4k with four-frame flicker. The latter was not viewed as unacceptable back then (Defender, programmed at the same time, is even worse...using five-frame flicker).

 

Do you have the source for that (short of going to him direct)? I've been interested in picking that myth apart.

[Nukey Shay]

"Stella at 20: Volume 2"

 

In it, Tod says that he had worked on the game for 6 months while on "probation"...and that part of that time was spent developing the multisprite kernel. The kernel was working (at least one other programmer backs this up, but I can't recall who that was at the moment).

I gather, the sole reason that the request for 8k was turned down was because the only 8k workstation at the time was in use developing Asteroids. This opinion is based on Frye's statement in SA20:2 that by the time the company agreed to let him use bankswitching that the game was nearly completed in 4k anyway. Howard Scott Warshaw (Digitalpress interview) backs up that statement.

[SoulBlazer]

A common myth. The game had been "on the programmer's roundtable" for about half of a year before Frye picked it up (the game was announced nearly a year before it was produced). According to him, he spent some time designing a multisprite kernel which grew too large...so he asked if the game could be expanded to 8k to allow it. This request was turned down, so he had to fit his ideas into 4k with four-frame flicker. The latter was not viewed as unacceptable back then (Defender, programmed at the same time, is even worse...using five-frame flicker).

 

Do you have the source for that (short of going to him direct)? I've been interested in picking that myth apart.

 

Just to add on, it's not a direct source, but it seems Frye and Atari have argued about Pac-Man before in the past. Taken from the AtariProto's article on the game (http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/pacman/pacman.htm) :

 

"These questions are a bit hard to answer as no one even to this day has fessed up for the Pac-Man debacle. Programmer Tod Frye claims he had made a much better 8K version of Pac-Man, but Atari wouldn't spring for the extra memory so he was forced to strip it down to 4K. Atari management claims that no 8K version existed and that this was Tod's best effort. Fans blame Atari for rushing Pac-Man into production, and Tod for doing a lazy mans conversion that could have been much better even at 4K. Who's right? I think there's a little truth to each side."

 

Would love to find out for sure 100 percent if one was more reponsible for this mess then the other.

 

I also wonder if it's true about the old story that Tod proudly stuck a photocopy of the 1M dollar check he got from Atari for programing the game on his office door. Based on some of his other efforts, he was clearly a talented programer, but I wonder if he was REALLY that vain as to do something like that. Makes for a entertaining story, but I have problems beliving it.

Edited October 12, 2010 by SoulBlazer

[Classic Pac]

No bad at all, 2 thumbs up

[Eltigro]

The controversy on the 2600 version being rushed is why I asked it as a question. I thought I had heard that it wasn't true but didn't have a reason why. Still, as bad as the 2600 version was, I still played the hell out of it.

[kool kitty89]

A common myth. The game had been "on the programmer's roundtable" for about half of a year before Frye picked it up (the game was announced nearly a year before it was produced). According to him, he spent some time designing a multisprite kernel which grew too large...so he asked if the game could be expanded to 8k to allow it. This request was turned down, so he had to fit his ideas into 4k with four-frame flicker. The latter was not viewed as unacceptable back then (Defender, programmed at the same time, is even worse...using five-frame flicker).

Interesting, so the original design was to use sprite multiplexing more like Ms Pac Man? (ie only flickering when more than 2 sprites were on the same line) I'd image the lack of up/down animation for pac man was due to the 4k limit as well. (unless he'd been willing to cut the resolution in 1/2 or cut the number of animation frames used in general)

 

Even so, there were things that made the game worse in general: layout with the escape tunnels on the top and bottom, odd maze design, but most importantly: bad color choices that really made the flicker intolerable (I don't mind it so much in Defender), that and the Pac Man sprite looks really odd with the eye and odd biting animation (not too few frames, but just odd in the way it bites).

Had the background been black like in the arcade and the sprites used as high contrast colors as possible (and reasonably close to the arcade) it should have been far more tolerable. (ie use dark red -or near dark- pale pink, dark blue, and brown/orange -perhaps compensating for color shift by flicker -ie black BG darkening normally brighter colors- and switch to dark purple with a power pellet).

Also, maybe he could have gotten it down to 3 frame flicker if pac man's sprite was made to flicker as well. (unless managing that would have taken more ROM) The limited music and SFX likely would have been expanded with 8k as well. (which Ms Pac Man did do to a fair extent)

 

Albeit even Ms. Pac Man had the odd saturated blue background...

 

 

"Stella at 20: Volume 2"

 

In it, Tod says that he had worked on the game for 6 months while on "probation"...and that part of that time was spent developing the multisprite kernel. The kernel was working (at least one other programmer backs this up, but I can't recall who that was at the moment).

I gather, the sole reason that the request for 8k was turned down was because the only 8k workstation at the time was in use developing Asteroids. This opinion is based on Frye's statement in SA20:2 that by the time the company agreed to let him use bankswitching that the game was nearly completed in 4k anyway. Howard Scott Warshaw (Digitalpress interview) backs up that statement.

Huh, so it wasn't so much that Atari was unwilling to go with 8k due to profits, but more that they weren't giving Tod the resources due to Asteroids getting priority? (and not willing to delay either Pac Man or Asteroids)

[Nukey Shay]

How the game turned out the way that it did is not so much a mystery IMO. From purely a consumer viewpoint, it would be.

[Video]

There's a hackbrew for the 2600 using Ms Pac'man as the base and it's much better too.

 

But to be honest, back in the day, people didn't know the game sucked. Hindsight is 20/20, and it wasn't until Ms Pac-man came out that I ever heard anyone say anything about Pac-man. I know me and my friends sure loved and played the hell out of it.

[Bill Loguidice]

I don't know Video, I'd say a fair share of us knew it sucked back in the day (controls, graphics and sound were pretty poor even in comparison to other 2600 titles). As you say, though, it doesn't mean we didn't play the heck out of it. It's a shame it wasn't better, though.

[Video]

I knew it was different but even as a small child, I assumed originally that the differences were due to hardware limitations or whatever. And I assume most other people thought that too. As I said, it wasn't until Ms Pac-man came out that people knew it could have been done better, and back in the day (between pac-man and Ms Pac-man) I never once heard anyone bitch "this isn't like the arcade" "this is trash" "the colors are bad" "the controls off" etc, etc, etc. All of that came after.

[cimerians]

I knew it was different but even as a small child, I assumed originally that the differences were due to hardware limitations or whatever. And I assume most other people thought that too. As I said, it wasn't until Ms Pac-man came out that people knew it could have been done better, and back in the day (between pac-man and Ms Pac-man) I never once heard anyone bitch "this isn't like the arcade" "this is trash" "the colors are bad" "the controls off" etc, etc, etc. All of that came after.

 

 

I agree. Thats exactly how I felt. We didnt know any better.

[jaybird3rd]

I agree. Thats exactly how I felt. We didnt know any better.

I remember playing a lot of 2600 Pac-Man without having even seen the arcade game, so the differences certainly didn't bother me. I think a lot of the complaining about 2600 Pac-Man is just piling on after the fact. Judging from how many copies are still floating around out there, and judging from the fact that 2600 Pac-Man sound effects are still turning up as "recognizable video game sounds" in movies and on TV all these years later, it couldn't have been as universally disliked as the modern-day critics would lead you to believe.

[OldAtarian]

A common myth. The game had been "on the programmer's roundtable" for about half of a year before Frye picked it up (the game was announced nearly a year before it was produced). According to him, he spent some time designing a multisprite kernel which grew too large...so he asked if the game could be expanded to 8k to allow it. This request was turned down, so he had to fit his ideas into 4k with four-frame flicker. The latter was not viewed as unacceptable back then (Defender, programmed at the same time, is even worse...using five-frame flicker).

 

Do you have the source for that (short of going to him direct)? I've been interested in picking that myth apart.

 

The rumor I always heard was that the programmer had a beef with Atari for not paying their programmers enough or giving them enough credit for their hard work so he deliberately screwed them by making the worst version of Pac Man he could and not giving it to them until there wasn't enough time to make another one without missing the deadline they set. We all know the 2600 can do a lot better than what we got from some of the hacks and homebrews and I'm sure any programmer working for Atari would know how to do a Pac Man 4k, so it does make the crappy Pac Man look more like a deliberate foul up than an actual best effort.

[Nukey Shay]

Not at all. The program is coded well enough, but some of the aspects are poorly implemented (apart from the intermission kernel, the 8k hack I did features hardly any changes at all to the game)...and a couple of routines do not "play nice" with the rest of the program which lead to ghost behavior glitches. IMO a better game could have been done if more time was given in the beta stage of development...so I'll buy that they signed off and rushed it to production in that sense. Nothing new there...the more time that could be saved before holiday season, the better.

 

About "holding the program hostage for royalties"...that's venturing into the land of make-believe. If such tactics were used by the programmer, why wouldn't have management fired him on the spot once the finished game went to production? IMO it was enough that no other programmer even wanted to touch the project (Bob said that it would be impossible, which is why he chose to do Defender). Tod Frye is a smart, capable programmer that didn't need to resort to extortion...have you even seen "Red Vs. Blue"?

[OldAtarian]

Not at all. The program is coded well enough, but some of the aspects are poorly implemented (apart from the intermission kernel, the 8k hack I did features hardly any changes at all to the game)...and a couple of routines do not "play nice" with the rest of the program which lead to ghost behavior glitches. IMO a better game could have been done if more time was given in the beta stage of development...so I'll buy that they signed off and rushed it to production in that sense. Nothing new there...the more time that could be saved before holiday season, the better.

 

About "holding the program hostage for royalties"...that's venturing into the land of make-believe. If such tactics were used by the programmer, why wouldn't have management fired him on the spot once the finished game went to production? IMO it was enough that no other programmer even wanted to touch the project (Bob said that it would be impossible, which is why he chose to do Defender). Tod Frye is a smart, capable programmer that didn't need to resort to extortion...have you even seen "Red Vs. Blue"?

 

I never said he withheld the code in exchange for royalties just that he dragged his feet a bit in handing it over to make sure they would miss the deadline if they did a complete rewrite. I also said that this was the story as it was told to me. This isn't my story that I personally made up.

[Lord Helmet]

Not at all. The program is coded well enough, but some of the aspects are poorly implemented (apart from the intermission kernel, the 8k hack I did features hardly any changes at all to the game)...and a couple of routines do not "play nice" with the rest of the program which lead to ghost behavior glitches. IMO a better game could have been done if more time was given in the beta stage of development...so I'll buy that they signed off and rushed it to production in that sense. Nothing new there...the more time that could be saved before holiday season, the better.

 

About "holding the program hostage for royalties"...that's venturing into the land of make-believe. If such tactics were used by the programmer, why wouldn't have management fired him on the spot once the finished game went to production? IMO it was enough that no other programmer even wanted to touch the project (Bob said that it would be impossible, which is why he chose to do Defender). Tod Frye is a smart, capable programmer that didn't need to resort to extortion...have you even seen "Red Vs. Blue"?

 

I never said he withheld the code in exchange for royalties just that he dragged his feet a bit in handing it over to make sure they would miss the deadline if they did a complete rewrite. I also said that this was the story as it was told to me. This isn't my story that I personally made up.

 

This is the first time I've ever heard of Frye withholding the game for royalties. IIRC the royalty program was in effect before Frye picked up the project. Nukey's description of the Pac-Man lifecycle has been pieced together from lots of interviews over the years and is the commonly accepted story...though I'm sure we don't know the whole story.

[OldAtarian]

Not at all. The program is coded well enough, but some of the aspects are poorly implemented (apart from the intermission kernel, the 8k hack I did features hardly any changes at all to the game)...and a couple of routines do not "play nice" with the rest of the program which lead to ghost behavior glitches. IMO a better game could have been done if more time was given in the beta stage of development...so I'll buy that they signed off and rushed it to production in that sense. Nothing new there...the more time that could be saved before holiday season, the better.

 

About "holding the program hostage for royalties"...that's venturing into the land of make-believe. If such tactics were used by the programmer, why wouldn't have management fired him on the spot once the finished game went to production? IMO it was enough that no other programmer even wanted to touch the project (Bob said that it would be impossible, which is why he chose to do Defender). Tod Frye is a smart, capable programmer that didn't need to resort to extortion...have you even seen "Red Vs. Blue"?

 

I never said he withheld the code in exchange for royalties just that he dragged his feet a bit in handing it over to make sure they would miss the deadline if they did a complete rewrite. I also said that this was the story as it was told to me. This isn't my story that I personally made up.

 

This is the first time I've ever heard of Frye withholding the game for royalties. IIRC the royalty program was in effect before Frye picked up the project. Nukey's description of the Pac-Man lifecycle has been pieced together from lots of interviews over the years and is the commonly accepted story...though I'm sure we don't know the whole story.

 

Can you all please stop going on about royalties. Royalties was never a part of the story as I heard it. As I heard it, the lousy coding and delay in turning it in was supposedly done purely as an act of a disgruntled employee to screw his employer. Revenge can be a strong motivator on it's own without needing to bring money into it. It's obviously not true, though, since you all seem to have a different story about how it went down.

[OldAtarian]

Well, it looks like there really was something going on behind the scenes at Atari concerning Pac Man. I thought it was a revenge thing, but it turns out there was money involved to the tune of $1.2 million.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tod_Frye

 

"Pac-Man would prove the most anticipated release of the upcoming holiday season, and marketing pressed Frye to produce the game on a very strict timetable. Atari engineering would demand Frye complete the game in the standard 4K ROM, despite his repeated requests that 8K of ROM be allocated. Confined by time and available memory, Frye proposed the unthinkable. He approached Atari CEO Ray Kassar, and suggested a royalty agreement. Frye threatened to quit Atari and join Activision, leaving Pac-Man unfinished and Atari without its benchmark title. Kassar rewarded Frye with an unprecedented royalty agreement, having no other option. If the game was completed on schedule, it was agreed a royalty of 10 cents be retained for each Pac-Man cartridge manufactured.[1] Atari would manufacture 12 million Pac-Man cartridges, making Frye a millionaire in the process."

 

 

So it looks like money and not revenge was his motive and he DID actually blackmail Atari into forking over some money before he would take the project.

Edited October 16, 2010 by OldAtarian

[jaybird3rd]

So it looks like money and not revenge was his motive and he DID actually blackmail Atari into forking over some money before he would take the project.

That's a popular story, but it isn't true. It's another example of something that's been repeated so many times by so many different people that it's become "documented historical fact." In his review of the Once Upon Atari series, Chris Crawford told the story this way:

 

Here's the story as I heard it: Tod Frye was assigned the task of converting the smash hit arcade game, Pac-Man, to the VCS. This was before programmers were paid royalties. It was an immensely important assignment. Towards the end of the project, the Atari Marketing people made the mistake of emphasizing just how many millions of dollars were riding on his timely completion of the game. Realizing his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Tod put a gun to the head of his managers: pay me royalties of ten cents per cartridge for this, or I walk. You'll have to start all over with a new programmer, and the game will be delayed by months, costing you millions in wasted marketing expenses. Atari was caught in a terrible position. They had presumed that, having agreed to take the project, Tod would finish it in good faith. Now they were caught in a trap. They had no recourse -- they had to cave in to Tod's demands. His ploy gained him several million dollars.

But, Howard Scott Warshaw contacted Crawford and denied this:

 

Your recounting of Tod in the royalty issue is simply not true. Tod never demanded anything, he merely told George Kiss the truth, that he and I were going to another company. Ray Kassar was the one who launched the royalty program. And it did change things as discussed in the series.

Also, the "other company" that Frye and Warshaw were approached about joining was apparently 20th Century Fox, not Activision. Frye alludes to this in Once Upon Atari, and Warshaw has mentioned it in other interviews.

[Nukey Shay]

Ooo...next do the one about how two Atari games brought down an entire industry...including companies that are in no way connected to Atari

 

 

These rumors, whether it's demands for royalties or a deliberate act of sabotage, have no basis in reality. If they did, why wouldn't Atari sack him right after the game had been finished? As mentioned, management began offering royalties in an attempt to keep senior employees from defecting to other companies such as their largest competitors...and Pac-Man could have been made into an entirely unplayable game if it were sabotage. The plain fact is that flicker was not such a big issue at the time, and it was not a problem if a port deviated from the game it was based on. Space Invaders is missing half of it's rows, and nobody complained about that.