Asteroids: have you ever had bullets pass through a spaceship?

[rhindlethereddragon]

Yesterday, I was playing Asteroids on my 2600 console. A blue spaceship to the right appeared and I began firing at it. The bullets went right through.

 

Now I played this game for hundreds of hours back in the day, and I don't remember this EVER happening. So, I figured it was a "one in a million" shot, and I'd never see it again.

 

Tonight, I was playing Asteroids again, and a small yellow ship came out from the left side of the screen, in perfect alighnment with my ship, so I began firing at it, I fired 6-8 shots and the shots went directly THROUGH the ship.

 

I am playing a classic "non text" blue labeled cartridge. It does NOT display "Copyright 1981" on the screen when you turn it on.

 

Any ideas what's going on?

[SlowCoder]

Collision detection is apparently borked. Tried doing the normal contact cleaning? Tried a different Asteroids cart on the same console to see if it makes a difference?

[rhindlethereddragon]

Collision detection is apparently borked. Tried doing the normal contact cleaning? Tried a different Asteroids cart on the same console to see if it makes a difference?

 

I had no idea these things could make a difference. I thought a cartridge either "worked" or didn't.

[SlowCoder]

Computer RAM usually starts to go bad when it stops properly storing ones and zeros. A single incorrectly written or read bit can cause a computer to act strangely, or completely fail. In the case of your cart, it is plausible that a single bit has gone bad on the game's chip, maybe in a data area, that doesn't cause the game to completely fail, but causes it to perform irratically.

[rhindlethereddragon]

Computer RAM usually starts to go bad when it stops properly storing ones and zeros. A single incorrectly written or read bit can cause a computer to act strangely, or completely fail. In the case of your cart, it is plausible that a single bit has gone bad on the game's chip, maybe in a data area, that doesn't cause the game to completely fail, but causes it to perform irratically.

 

Thanks for the info. I thought Atari cartridges would last forever. I mean, I thought since most of them are still working perfectly after 31 years, they would basically last forever. Am I wrong?

[Benzman66]

Computer RAM usually starts to go bad when it stops properly storing ones and zeros. A single incorrectly written or read bit can cause a computer to act strangely, or completely fail. In the case of your cart, it is plausible that a single bit has gone bad on the game's chip, maybe in a data area, that doesn't cause the game to completely fail, but causes it to perform irratically.

 

^ AGREED!

[zylon]

Computer RAM usually starts to go bad when it stops properly storing ones and zeros. A single incorrectly written or read bit can cause a computer to act strangely, or completely fail. In the case of your cart, it is plausible that a single bit has gone bad on the game's chip, maybe in a data area, that doesn't cause the game to completely fail, but causes it to perform irratically.

 

Thanks for the info. I thought Atari cartridges would last forever. I mean, I thought since most of them are still working perfectly after 31 years, they would basically last forever. Am I wrong?

Nope. Carts do go bad over time+conditions+usage. It is a good idea to keep a few extra of you favorites for just such reasons. I've had a couple die in last few years.

[Nukey Shay]

Thanks for the info. I thought Atari cartridges would last forever. I mean, I thought since most of them are still working perfectly after 31 years, they would basically last forever. Am I wrong?

 

Yes. Nothing is designed to last forever. Especially from a marketing POV

 

Mask ROMs (i.e. the data chip inside the cartridge) are pretty durable and should outlast the game system they are used on...since the game system itself uses more components (and even mask ROMs of it's own) than any individual cartridge...and hence, has more that can ultimately fail. Hell, a given game might outlive you. But there are a lot of things that can contribute to a mask ROM failure (storing in less-than-ideal conditions, being tossed around for 3+ decades, etc). There's also added risk of failure if the ROM chip inside the cartridge is an erasable EPROM chip or has been epoxied to the board instead of enclosed in a DIP package (the rectagular bit of plastic with metal fingers sprouting from it that everyone is familiar with when somebody mentions the word "chip"). Those are not unheard-of for even large-production run games. If the production run at a factory was stopped short, the latter method(s) could have been used to make up the difference and complete the quota. Eproms are sensitive to UV radiation which contributes to data loss...and epoxied chips were more difficult to maintain QC for (IIRC that is the reason behind the relatively large numbers of Bomb carts failing these days...their cleanroom environment might have been less than perfect).

[rhindlethereddragon]

Thanks for the info. I thought Atari cartridges would last forever. I mean, I thought since most of them are still working perfectly after 31 years, they would basically last forever. Am I wrong?

 

Yes. Nothing is designed to last forever. Especially from a marketing POV

 

Mask ROMs (i.e. the data chip inside the cartridge) are pretty durable and should outlast the game system they are used on...since the game system itself uses more components (and even mask ROMs of it's own) than any individual cartridge...and hence, has more that can ultimately fail. Hell, a given game might outlive you. But there are a lot of things that can contribute to a mask ROM failure (storing in less-than-ideal conditions, being tossed around for 3+ decades, etc). There's also added risk of failure if the ROM chip inside the cartridge is an erasable EPROM chip or has been epoxied to the board instead of enclosed in a DIP package (the rectagular bit of plastic with metal fingers sprouting from it that everyone is familiar with when somebody mentions the word "chip"). Those are not unheard-of for even large-production run games. If the production run at a factory was stopped short, the latter method(s) could have been used to make up the difference and complete the quota. Eproms are sensitive to UV radiation which contributes to data loss...and epoxied chips were more difficult to maintain QC for (IIRC that is the reason behind the relatively large numbers of Bomb carts failing these days...their cleanroom environment might have been less than perfect).

 

Thank you Shay, great information as usual. I store my cartridges sometimes in fairly close vicinity to the television screen (I have an Atari Kiosk, so for convenience sake, I often have a stack of cartridges just to the left of the TV, maybe 2-3 inches to the side of the TV. Is this bad in any way for the cartridges????

[Schizophretard]

May I see your Atari Kiosk?

[mtshark7]

Yea I never seen an Atari Kiosk before

[raskar42]

yes - pictures of this kiosk you speak of please

[davyK]

I can remember this happening back in the day on the left hand side of the screen occasionally. There is an area somewhere there were a ship - you or a ufo - will be invincible. It's quite a narrow strip put there to give ufos a chance to get on screen (at least that is what I think I can remember reading). Maybe an inspection of the ROM will reveal this to be true or bunkem? I had the PAL version with no copyright message on boot up.

Edited June 26, 2011 by davyK

[+Omegamatrix]

Thomas Jentzsch disassembled Asteroids before. Asteroids uses software collision, and not hardware collision. Thomas said the collision routine was over-complex, and not very reliable. The collisions aren't checked every frame, and sometimes they are not checked until every 12th frame! So yeah, sometimes a shot will pass right through.

[mtshark7]

I just played Asteroids last night and noticed that the asteroids seem to shift alot causing them to miss being hit, as well as the UFO's...isn't there an Asteroids hack in the market place that fixes this and looks more like the vector arcade? I'm not 100% sure and can't confirm since the store is down.

 

Also I thought it was funny how the smaller UFO sounds like a telephone