Pac Man for Fairchild Channel F

[kool kitty89]

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

Yeah, Atari played a major role in taking down the industry alright, but things like Pac Man, ET, and issues with the 5200 were more small problems and symptoms of a much larger overlying issue in Atari Inc's management.

 

Atari wad over 70% of the market at the time, and when a market leaser with monopolistic market share has big problems, so will the whole industry. (I'm simplifying things, but Curt and Marty have addressed this before) One of the biggest issues was to do with distribution and getting accurate sales and demand figures. (the flawed/corrupt network used inflated figures and contributed to oversaturation and the so-called glut in the market -many 3rd parties had related problems, but Atari's own were the most significant)

Had the competition had a larger market share it might have stabilized things, though the C64 also had a lot to do with catalyzing the crash as it was.

James Morgan did work hard to correct those issues with a very promising reorganization plan, but that was halted by Warner's sale of Atari consumer in '84 and it started too late to fully avoid a crash in general (at very least not with the C64's price war). Had Morgan come in 6 months to a year sooner it could have been very different; they really needed to start addressing the serious problems forming by 1982 that Warner was blind to by the massive sales and bureaucratic mess in general. (the one unfortunate thing about Morgan's initial actions was the across the board halt on Atari operations in fall of 1983 for his evaluation period of their situation... necessary perhaps but it couldn't have come at a worse time with the C64 in the position it was: leaving the market wide open for competition without a full marketing push for the consoles or computers -especially the new 600 and 800XL machines)

 

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.

I agree, but the color choices exacerbated that a good bit more than even the more flickery Defender (which granted is missing even more content in some respects, but was also a more ambitious game to port, and in terms of flicker it had a proper multiplexing system where flicker was only used when necessary, not constantly -more like Ms. Pac Man).

 

It was apparently Atari management who forced the colored background (something even Ms. Pac Man had) though the A8 and 5200 versions didn't do that, so it's a bit odd.

With no other changes: a pure black background and higher contrast sprite colors would have gone a long way in general: things like fixing Pac Man's animation or at least removing the stupid eye could have helped too along with a more reasonable maze layout. (even if stuff very cut down and simplified to save space) In the case of animation: it wouldn't have been so bad to cut down the animation in general to allow up and down... (even if it meant only 2 frames per direction, or one frame plus solid circle)

The sound was a bti weak, but I'm not sure if that could have been addressed within 4k or not.

Edited October 16, 2010 by kool kitty89

[kool kitty89]

Scratch that about the 2600 version of defender... I'd though it was missing some more things than it really is. It looks and sounds far more competitive for a 2600 game in general than Pac Man IMO.

I'm not sure if they could have done a better job of mimicking the background or not (though a blockly line drawn BG might have looked worse than the stylized city scape, especially with scrolling -games like Vanguard and Jungle hunt used equally blocky graphics with scrolling), but it's pretty decent in general. (the colecovision version seems like it uses sprites for the scrolling BG like Jungle hunt does -or at least I assume so given how smoothly it moves given it's horizontal -smooth vertical software scrolling is another story like in Pitfall II)

[OldAtarian]

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.

 

Here's the source reference

 

^ Kent, Steven L. (2001). "The Fall". The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon - The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. Roseville, California: Prima Publishing. p. 236. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4. "...Atari contracted with a programmer named Tod Frye, promising him a royalty on every Pac-Man cartridge the company manufactured."

 

This man has a Masters degree and I'm sure he wouldn't have included the material in his book if it hadn't been thoroughly researched.

[Bill Loguidice]

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.

 

Here's the source reference

 

^ Kent, Steven L. (2001). "The Fall". The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon - The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. Roseville, California: Prima Publishing. p. 236. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4. "...Atari contracted with a programmer named Tod Frye, promising him a royalty on every Pac-Man cartridge the company manufactured."

 

This man has a Masters degree and I'm sure he wouldn't have included the material in his book if it hadn't been thoroughly researched.

 

I assume you're being ironic? Kent's book is well known to be full of inaccuracies.

[kool kitty89]

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.

 

Here's the source reference

 

^ Kent, Steven L. (2001). "The Fall". The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon - The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. Roseville, California: Prima Publishing. p. 236. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4. "...Atari contracted with a programmer named Tod Frye, promising him a royalty on every Pac-Man cartridge the company manufactured."

 

This man has a Masters degree and I'm sure he wouldn't have included the material in his book if it hadn't been thoroughly researched.

 

I assume you're being ironic? Kent's book is well known to be full of inaccuracies.

 

Yep, pretty much the only thing that his book is worth is bare bones quotes and some statistics: but even those should be taken as only single perspectives and not necessarily accurate. (as far as quotes/memories/interviews are limited without multiple POV and fact checking)

The entire book is devoid of any necessary level of fact checking to be a reliable reference. (not just for Atari, but every topic in the book) He spent most of his time compiling interviews and not researching most topics well enough.

Unfortunately he no longer owns the rights to the book and isn't interested in the topic any more.

 

Curt Vendel and Marty Goldberg are the best Atari history authorities out there and their info is more or less what I was basing my comments in post #26. They've uncovered tons of long-held "facts" to be totally false, even ones that were still thought true a couple years ago. (including some of Steve Golson's comments/recollection on the politics surrounding the 7800 recounted at CGE 2004 -specifically most of the explanation of what Tramiel did: the delay of the 7800 was due to Warner contending ownership as they had the direct contract and not Atari -that wasn't solved until mid 1995)

It's a shame that there aren't contemporaries with similar dedication for other companies in the industry. (Sega's history is particularly convoluted and complex with a lot of conflicting info and speculation) There IS some good history on other aspects of the home computer industry at least and The Rise and Fall of Commodore is very accurate and well-researched from what I understand.

Edited October 18, 2010 by kool kitty89

[Atarifever]

So is there a lively Channel F homebrew/ collecting scene? I've always wanted one, but it felt too "dead end" and a bit lonely to think of collecting for such an obscure system. If there are physical homebrews being made and a decent forums somewhere, I'd like to pick one up.

[Atari2008]

So is there a lively Channel F homebrew/ collecting scene? I've always wanted one, but it felt too "dead end" and a bit lonely to think of collecting for such an obscure system. If there are physical homebrews being made and a decent forums somewhere, I'd like to pick one up.

 

I'm not aware of a lively Channel F homebrew scene. e5frog who programmed the Pac-Man homebrew is the only person I'm aware of who has produced a new Channel F game and released it on a cartridge. If you check out this site you'll see that a couple of other games have been made for it:

VES Homebrew Development

 

However I'm not aware of those being released on a cart. e5frog also programmed a Multi-Cart. But I believe that's it for the homebrew scene. I got a Channel F specifically because of the Pac-Man game. I have been curious for a while, but that made me take the leap. It's a funky, cool system. However it will get pretty lonely as there isn't a large fan base or many homebrews coming out for it. It would be nice if the scene picked up.

[Atari2008]

So is there a lively Channel F homebrew/ collecting scene? I've always wanted one, but it felt too "dead end" and a bit lonely to think of collecting for such an obscure system. If there are physical homebrews being made and a decent forums somewhere, I'd like to pick one up.

 

I'm not aware of a lively Channel F homebrew scene. e5frog who programmed the Pac-Man homebrew is the only person I'm aware of who has produced a new Channel F game and released it on a cartridge. If you check out this site you'll see that a couple of other games have been made for it:

VES Homebrew Development

 

However I'm not aware of those being released on a cart. e5frog also programmed a Multi-Cart. But I believe that's it for the homebrew scene. I got a Channel F specifically because of the Pac-Man game. I have been curious for a while, but that made me take the leap. It's a funky, cool system. However it will get pretty lonely as there isn't a large fan base or many homebrews coming out for it. It would be nice if the scene picked up.

 

I've had a personal goal of cracking the 50,000 point mark in Pac-Man for the Channel F but that proved a rather elusive goal until last night. Maybe we should start a Channel F high score club. Dodge It anyone?