Birthday Mania - Unwrapped

[high voltage]

any new minor updates?

[+Atari_Warlord]

It's been awhile since I've had any news to share, but I made some progress today. I talked with a very helpful person at the copyright office and my request is officially in the queue. Money has changed hands and the minimum turnaround they would promise is 15 weeks. That puts it right around Christmas or the beginning of January at the earliest.

[high voltage]

I'm the first to say....COOOOOOLLLLLLL

[IHATETHEBEARS]

Nice!

[+Atari_Warlord]

The government finally agrees with everyone that has researched this.

 

All the "Happy Birthday" song copyright claims are invalid.

 

Hopefully Time Warner has saved some of the money they took illegally to settle the class action lawsuit that is forming.

[trevgauntlet]

The New Jersey State Library, located at Trenton, NJ, has The Newark Star Ledger achieves as well.

[+Atari_Warlord]

I was pleasently surprised last weekend when a package arrived from the copyright office. I quickly opened it and found copies of the manual and computer code. The manual is 4 pages and appears to just be a sheet folded in half.

 

Picture of the front and back cover:

 

Picture of the inside pages:

 

It took awhile to get the computer code into a text file and Thomas used his excellent skills to turn it into a playable ROM.

 

There were notes in the documents that Mr. Tokar intended to port this game to other video game systems, which I'm sure he abandoned after selling only around 10 copies.

 

There is still work to be done, but it looks like this project officially has legs now.

[+Omegamatrix]

Cool! Good to see the rom has been recovered. Reading the manual it is a paddle game (I was wondering about that). It kind of looked like Kaboom from the pictures I saw years ago.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Yea, it reminded my at Kaboom! too. But it doesn't have that rhythm which makes Kaboom! so special.

[+Omegamatrix]

Does it borrow code from other games?

[rasch_C]

Very exciting news!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

The title screen has some garbage above the message, probably just a place holder. There is space for ~2 rows above and below the message. The width is only 40 pixel.

 

At the beginning the candles come with big vertical gaps, later on it gets more intense and you have to prepared to miss some.

 

Here are some screenshots (the last one shows game over):

Edited November 14, 2015 by Thomas Jentzsch

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Does it borrow code from other games?

I haven't checked with CloneSpy. But the code seems very unique.

[Supergun]

Holy Cow!

Waggie, you are the man!!

All my doubts just went out the window!!!

The only thing left to say is:

GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!

[+Omegamatrix]

I found the old pictures on my hard drive:

 

 

 

 

Now we can clearly see everything. I thought the man blowing out the candles was a air gun before...

[LS_Dracon]

So cool Waggie, thank you man!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I uploaded a short video.

[high voltage]

Awesome.

[high voltage]

The garbage above the on-screen birthday message could be the name of the birthday person. Weren't they personalized carts?

Edited November 14, 2015 by high voltage

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Yes, they were personalized. I just have no clue where the garbage pattern came from. It seems not exactly random.

[+Atari_Warlord]

In the 2005 thread as well as the manual it mentions the name is below. It just might be an error he cleaned up later.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

There could have been some decorative graphics or maybe the name of the person who wishes Happy Birthday.

[+Atari_Warlord]

It kind of looks like "Personal Games" in cursive?

[LS_Dracon]

Note on tv picture (cart) the background is light blue, (just like the title screen?)

Perhaps the source is not the final revision.

 

Arkyology and now Birthday Mania, what a great year, how many games are out there just waiting to be re-discovered?

[Rom Hunter]

Finally then...

 

Thanks for all the effort you put into this, Waggie!