Source code and printed matter from Gray Chang!

[Savetz]

TLDR: now available: source code for Claim Jumper, Dog Daze, Dog Daze Deluxe, and Bumpomov's Dogs, plus Gray Chang's design documents, fan mail, and users' review forms.

 

 

Earlier this month, Gray Chang sent me a box of ephemera from his days programming Atari computer games. Gray is author of Dog Daze, Dog Daze Deluxe, Bumpomov's Dogs, and Claim Jumper.

I scanned all the paper matter in the box, which you can download from https://archive.org/details/GrayChangAtariPapers

It contains:

Bumper sticker ideas

Concepts for bumper stickers for Bumpomov's Dogs. Unknown if stickers were actually produced.

Bumpomov's Dogs - draft description

Draft description of Bumpomov's Dogs for the Atari Program Exchange catalog, along with correspondence with APX staff.

Bumpomov's Dogs - draft instructions

Draft manual for Bumpomov's Dogs for Atari Program Exchange, along with correspondence with APX staff.

Design Documents

Screen concepts on graph paper (for Dog Daze and Claim Jumper?)

Dog Daze - user review forms

Atari Program Exchange customers could send in forms to provide feedback on their purchases. This folder includes the 5 forms that Gray had, along with correspondence cover letters from APX.

Dog Daze manual - Educational Software version

A version of Dog Daze was released by Educational Software. Here's that manual.

Dog Daze manual - variation

Another version of the Dog Daze manual, perhaps for a self-published version of the game?

Fan mail

Three letters that Gray received from users of his games.

He also sent several floppy disks with source code, which I have made available here: https://archive.org/details/GrayChangAtariSourceCode

There are multiple versions of some things, and it will take someone who is a better programmer than I am to sort it all out. Please share what you learn!

Dog Daze - two disks. One includes just a runtime version, the other has source code.

Dog Daze Deluxe - four disks of source code, seem to be different variations.

Bumpomov's Dogs - the source disks are labeled SLOTS. Gray wrote: "The diskettes labeled "SLOTS" have the source code for Bumpomov's Dogs (patterned after the Slot Racers game). You can see there are several revisions: disk J, disk K, and so on. The time stamps on the files might reveal which is the final version." (Dates are written on some of the diskettes.)

Claim Jumper - here's something I bet you didn't know! The working title was "Gold Rush". A working version with that name is on the disk Dogdaze_Goldrush_Speed_10errorsectors.ATR.

Useful information about the disks might be gleaned by the pictures of the actual floppies in the "pictures of the disks" folder.

The "misc. disks" folder has a "continuous demo disk" advertising Educational Software's Tricky Tutorials. I am not aware of this having been available on the Internet before. (I like how it says 'EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE AND "STORE NAME" PRESENTS THE TRICKY TUTORIAL DEMONSTRATION') Also in that folder is the source code for Eastern Front: 1941 (which is available elsewhere and I include merely for completeness.)

My interview with Gray is available in episode 15 of ANTIC: The Atari 8-Bit Podcast at http://www.ataripodcast.com

[Savetz]

Here's a screenshot of Gold Rush.

[jacobus]

Thanks very much for scanning and uploading this, and a really big thanks to Gray Chang for sharing! Claim Jumper is one of my eight year old's favourite games!

[+DrVenkman]

I remember listening to the interview with him awhile back on your podcast. That's really great that he provided all that material.

[popmilo]

Great material!

 

Big thanks to Savetz and Chang !!!

[TXG/MNX]

do I miss anything or are the disk images not availble for download ?

[+Allan]

https://ia802205.us.archive.org/5/items/GrayChangAtariSourceCode/

 

Allan

[+DrVenkman]

do I miss anything or are the disk images not availble for download ?

 

Follow the link to Archive.org, click on the Download link on the left. Download the zip file archive. There are .atr images inside the extracted folders.

[idavis]

Yes, many thanks to Gray and Kevin for putting this out. I hope all of these old developers realize how cool it is that they are interacting with us. These are very cool times we live in.

 

And a hearty thanks to Albert for hosting the central hub that seems to be bringing us all together these days.

[DanBoris]

 

TLDR: now available: source code for Claim Jumper, Dog Daze, Dog Daze Deluxe, and Bumpomov's Dogs, plus Gray Chang's design documents, fan mail, and users' review forms.

 

 

Earlier this month, Gray Chang sent me a box of ephemera from his days programming Atari computer games. Gray is author of Dog Daze, Dog Daze Deluxe, Bumpomov's Dogs, and Claim Jumper.

I scanned all the paper matter in the box, which you can download from https://archive.org/details/GrayChangAtariPapers

It contains:

Bumper sticker ideas

Concepts for bumper stickers for Bumpomov's Dogs. Unknown if stickers were actually produced.

Bumpomov's Dogs - draft description

Draft description of Bumpomov's Dogs for the Atari Program Exchange catalog, along with correspondence with APX staff.

Bumpomov's Dogs - draft instructions

Draft manual for Bumpomov's Dogs for Atari Program Exchange, along with correspondence with APX staff.

Design Documents

Screen concepts on graph paper (for Dog Daze and Claim Jumper?)

Dog Daze - user review forms

Atari Program Exchange customers could send in forms to provide feedback on their purchases. This folder includes the 5 forms that Gray had, along with correspondence cover letters from APX.

Dog Daze manual - Educational Software version

A version of Dog Daze was released by Educational Software. Here's that manual.

Dog Daze manual - variation

Another version of the Dog Daze manual, perhaps for a self-published version of the game?

Fan mail

Three letters that Gray received from users of his games.

He also sent several floppy disks with source code, which I have made available here: https://archive.org/details/GrayChangAtariSourceCode

There are multiple versions of some things, and it will take someone who is a better programmer than I am to sort it all out. Please share what you learn!

Dog Daze - two disks. One includes just a runtime version, the other has source code.

Dog Daze Deluxe - four disks of source code, seem to be different variations.

Bumpomov's Dogs - the source disks are labeled SLOTS. Gray wrote: "The diskettes labeled "SLOTS" have the source code for Bumpomov's Dogs (patterned after the Slot Racers game). You can see there are several revisions: disk J, disk K, and so on. The time stamps on the files might reveal which is the final version." (Dates are written on some of the diskettes.)

Claim Jumper - here's something I bet you didn't know! The working title was "Gold Rush". A working version with that name is on the disk Dogdaze_Goldrush_Speed_10errorsectors.ATR.

Useful information about the disks might be gleaned by the pictures of the actual floppies in the "pictures of the disks" folder.

The "misc. disks" folder has a "continuous demo disk" advertising Educational Software's Tricky Tutorials. I am not aware of this having been available on the Internet before. (I like how it says 'EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE AND "STORE NAME" PRESENTS THE TRICKY TUTORIAL DEMONSTRATION') Also in that folder is the source code for Eastern Front: 1941 (which is available elsewhere and I include merely for completeness.)

My interview with Gray is available in episode 15 of ANTIC: The Atari 8-Bit Podcast at http://www.ataripodcast.com

 

 

Kevin, thanks for making this material available, I love to see this original source code!

 

The source files are in Syn Assembler format so I wrote from code to convert the files to plain ASCII. Attached is a file with the ascii versions of the files on disk DiskW_thru16K_081282.atr. The file CLAIMW.SRC appears to be a binary file, not a source file so it is not included.

ClaimJumper.zip