Toki Prototype For 7800 Discovered!

[+DrVenkman]

32 minutes ago, RevEng said:

We've already been over this in this thread. We're not holding back the Toki ROM because we're thinking Willard has claim to the copyright. We're holding it back because we gave our word to Willard we wouldn't share it, as one of the conditions for receiving it.

 

 

(SNIP)

 

 

If I ever go through this again with another proto, I'll insist on some kind of "dead project" terms, where a lack of communication for an extended period will release me from the agreement. Live and learn.

Yep, and yep. You're 100% correct to keep your word, and to learn from the experience. ?

[Greg2600]

"dead project" terms is probably wise, but if you intend on doing that from now on, prototype owners will know this beginning now.  So if you release the Willard rom after some period of time, why would that cause them consternation?  Also, it wasn't like he said don't ever release this publicly, he just wanted a cartridge release first.  I truly don't see the moral dilemma here, it's a piece of ancient software he didn't even write.

[RevEng]

30 minutes ago, Greg2600 said:

I truly don't see the moral dilemma here, it's a piece of ancient software he didn't even write.

Because having integrity and keeping my word is important to me.

[+davidcalgary29]

2 hours ago, RevEng said:

We've already been over this in this thread. We're not holding back the Toki ROM because we're thinking Willard has claim to the copyright. We're holding it back because we gave our word to Willard we wouldn't share it, as one of the conditions for receiving it.

 

The only way this gets released (from my hands anyway) is if :

1. Willard allows it.

2. Someone finds the rom from another source.

3. We learn Willard is dead.

 

If I ever go through this again with another proto, I'll insist on some kind of "dead project" terms, where a lack of communication for an extended period will release me from the agreement. Live and learn.

I don't see why you (or Tempest, or CPUWIZ) have to continually explain or justify your actions. In fact, I have the utmost respect for all of you because you made a promise and have kept to that. And it's profoundly unfair for anyone to ask you to change that. And I'm sure at least someone has been approached with an offer of a side deal. Ugh.

 

Let's face it: a lot of people who are honking and yapping about Toki are only doing so because they can't have it. Full stop, end of story. I really cannot see very many people saying "I will get this and play it until I beat it! My life will be incomplete until I score this game for the 7800, even though it was released on 50,000 other systems!". No, if it was in the Atari Age store, people would just complain that the music sucks. 

If this was a one-of-a-kind (like Jag Phear -- that one does irk me, even though I could play its successor on the N64), and had some rare and beautiful code that should be shared with the world, then it might be different, but no. If people had put all this misplaced passion into truly deserving projects, Rikki & Vikki would be on its third cart run, and we would probably have seen those two other projects from TailChao & co. Truly frustrating.

 

To the whiners: just play Toki on the Lynx. It's a great port, has amazing music, and is cheap. See? Problem fixed.

[+davidcalgary29]

3 hours ago, Tempest said:

That being said, my Toki review is coming along quite nicely,

Speaking of reviews, when are we going to see XE Jinks posted? I have been waiting for your review of that one for years.

[+Pat Brady]

37 minutes ago, davidcalgary29 said:

If people had put all this misplaced passion into truly deserving projects, Rikki & Vikki would be on its third cart run, and we would probably have seen those two other projects from TailChao & co. Truly frustrating.

 

Rikki & Vikki for 7800 is a spectacular success by 7800 standards. I know TailChao was disappointed in the sales of the PC version, but that is a different market altogether.

 

As for Toki, from what I understand: the prototype was found, people put in the work to finish it, everybody’s intent was always to release it, and all of that was stated publicly. I don’t think it’s appropriate to pressure RevEng et al to do something they feel would betray their word, but it’s really not hard to see why people are bummed about the current state.

 

(And all of this is clearly a first-world problem, but so is everything else on this forum.)

[+Sauron]

1 hour ago, davidcalgary29 said:

I don't see why you (or Tempest, or CPUWIZ) have to continually explain or justify your actions. In fact, I have the utmost respect for all of you because you made a promise and have kept to that. And it's profoundly unfair for anyone to ask you to change that. And I'm sure at least someone has been approached with an offer of a side deal. Ugh.

 

Let's face it: a lot of people who are honking and yapping about Toki are only doing so because they can't have it. Full stop, end of story. I really cannot see very many people saying "I will get this and play it until I beat it! My life will be incomplete until I score this game for the 7800, even though it was released on 50,000 other systems!". No, if it was in the Atari Age store, people would just complain that the music sucks. 

If this was a one-of-a-kind (like Jag Phear -- that one does irk me, even though I could play its successor on the N64), and had some rare and beautiful code that should be shared with the world, then it might be different, but no. If people had put all this misplaced passion into truly deserving projects, Rikki & Vikki would be on its third cart run, and we would probably have seen those two other projects from TailChao & co. Truly frustrating.

 

To the whiners: just play Toki on the Lynx. It's a great port, has amazing music, and is cheap. See? Problem fixed.

Couldn't have said it better myself. While it would be nice to see it, honestly I'm far more interested in many of the awesome homebrews that have come out and are readily available. If you guys want Toki that bad, why don't one of you work on your own port that's better than the one that hasn't been released? Nothing's stopping you from doing that.

 

 

[Tempest]

1 hour ago, davidcalgary29 said:

Speaking of reviews, when are we going to see XE Jinks posted? I have been waiting for your review of that one for years.

That's one of those protos that I need to know more about.  Was it actually released in Europe on disk?  Is the proto that's out there a disk to cart conversion or a real prototype?  The history behind that one is murky.

[Shawn]

5 hours ago, Tempest said:

 

 

That being said, my Toki review is coming along quite nicely, I hope to have it done by tomorrow.   Since I can't give it the rom, the review is more of a complete walkthrough than a simple review.  I hope to give people a sense of what the game is like even if they can't actually play it.

 

Are you reviewing both the proto and the NTSC fixed\expanded version or just the PAL proto as it was found?

[Greg2600]

9 hours ago, Shawn said:

I still have that last contact info to try but with the state of the world I figured it was very inappropriate to

do so over a video game he clearly doesn't give a shit about. That and I could be sending a message to someone

that is no longer with us. I'm not getting the kinda egg on my face that would come from such a thing and

a potentially grieving widow. 

Well, the Digital Press forum sends out birthday emails, and every once in awhile the person is deceased, and a family member (usually spouse) responds politely that person has died, yet seems appreciative of the person's hobby.  They feel their old remote friends deserve to know.  Just saying.

[Shawn]

7 minutes ago, Greg2600 said:

Well, the Digital Press forum sends out birthday emails, and every once in awhile the person is deceased, and a family member (usually spouse) responds politely that person has died, yet seems appreciative of the person's hobby.  They feel their old remote friends deserve to know.  Just saying.

 

This isn't email related but I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. I have also considered that it would be welcomed knowing others still have him in mind even if he's not interested or no longer with us. Like I said, It's a sensitive topic and I strongly feel that it's not an appropriate time currently to do so.

[Tempest]

1 hour ago, Shawn said:

 

Are you reviewing both the proto and the NTSC fixed\expanded version or just the PAL proto as it was found?

Just the PAL proto.  The fixed NTSC version is a hack of the proto so it doesn't fall into the scope of my page.

[+davidcalgary29]

1 hour ago, Tempest said:

That's one of those protos that I need to know more about.  Was it actually released in Europe on disk?  Is the proto that's out there a disk to cart conversion or a real prototype?  The history behind that one is murky.

The scuttlebutt in the A8 forum is that it was coded in Germany (1985?) and then sat around for some time. Apparently, someone at Atari thought it would make a "great" new title for the XEGS, and work was done on it before it was ultimately abandoned. I bought it as a  NTSC repro-proto from B&C nearly twenty years ago, but it really was released as a PAL disk title by AMC-Verlag, in Germany, in 1991. I have no idea who worked on the PAL-NTSC conversion. I haven't played the official release, but it looks like the same game, minus the title screen seen in the PAL version. XE Jinks is the worst of the XEGS releases (Mean 18 aside), but it's okay, and the controls aren't broken, and is generally much better than the horrible 7800 release.

[Tempest]

My review is up: http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/software/toki/toki.htm

[Lynxpro]

Well, since this is a dead-end, how about someone contact "Glenn the 5200 Man" and inquire about the 7800 protos he claimed he has in his possession during his Antic Podcast interview? Based upon his Twitter account, he's an Amiga fan so maybe there's some trade bait he might be interested in... Assuming what he claimed is true. He could be sitting on 7800 Track & Field or Elevator Action. Or, he could be completely mistaken...

Edited June 14, 2020 by Lynxpro

[+davidcalgary29]

10 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

Well, since this is a dead-end, how about someone contact "Glenn the 5200 Man" and inquire about the 7800 protos he claimed he has in his possession during his Antic Podcast interview? Based upon his Twitter account, he's an Amiga fan so maybe there's some trade bait he might be interested in... Assuming what he claimed is true. He could be sitting on 7800 Track & Field or Elevator Action. Or, he could be completely mistaken...

What would be the point? I kind of doubt that he doesn't know that people are hungry for 7800 protos -- or the fact that many people have very generously shared their protos with the general gaming community over the years. This leads me to the conclusion that if he does have any, he doesn't want to share them, and that's fine -- and we should respect his position. Unless some supercollector has a change of heart, I think the best chance of finding future protos is either by accident, or by carefully reconstructing old damaged hard drives (and diskettes!), or by finding some retired hoarder coder who's unaware of the interest in 7800 programming and has a bunch of dusty crap in their attic. And wants to share it.

[Lynxpro]

7 minutes ago, davidcalgary29 said:

What would be the point? I kind of doubt that he doesn't know that people are hungry for 7800 protos -- or the fact that many people have very generously shared their protos with the general gaming community over the years. This leads me to the conclusion that if he does have any, he doesn't want to share them, and that's fine -- and we should respect his position. Unless some supercollector has a change of heart, I think the best chance of finding future protos is either by accident, or by carefully reconstructing old damaged hard drives (and diskettes!), or by finding some retired hoarder coder who's unaware of the interest in 7800 programming and has a bunch of dusty crap in their attic. And wants to share it.

 

The point would be to successfully engage in communication with him to gauge his interest and discover what he has. The Antic Podcast interview didn't ask him about his claims since they didn't correspond to the Atari 8-bit line, unfortunately. The squeaky wheel sometimes gets the oil. Especially when it doesn't have a defeatist attitude from the start.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Lynxpro

[+davidcalgary29]

5 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

 

The point would be to successfully engage in communication with him to gauge his interest and discover what he has. The Antic Podcast interview didn't ask him about his claims since they didn't correspond to the Atari 8-bit line, unfortunately. The squeaky wheel sometimes gets the oil. Especially when it doesn't have a defeatist attitude from the start.

I get what you're saying, but you've posted that you already tried to contact him back in December about his claimed 7800 protos, and that he didn't respond at all. That doesn't seem like a very positive sign that he wants to engage about this topic any further.

[KidGameR186496]

10 hours ago, Tempest said:

My review is up: http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/software/toki/toki.htm

Cool! At the very least is re-assuring to know the 7800 version wasn't completely lost to the sands of time, 'cause those HDD crashes are very scary, especially to video game preservationists.

[CPUWIZ]

18 hours ago, KidGameR186496 said:

'cause those HDD crashes are very scary, especially to video game preservationists

 

Yeah, if your friends don't have it.  We are all old shits, I probably have it somewhere on a pile of drives or USB sticks.  It has been so long, I still have all the prepped PCB's.  LOL

[Tempest]

9 hours ago, CPUWIZ said:

 

Yeah, if your friends don't have it.  We are all old shits, I probably have it somewhere on a pile of drives or USB sticks.  It has been so long, I still have all the prepped PCB's.  LOL

All my protos are backed up in multiple places.  Years ago I lost a valuable email archive due to a hard drive crash (all my late 90's/early 2000 programmer interviews), so I learned my lesson.

[Lynxpro]

On 6/13/2020 at 10:47 PM, davidcalgary29 said:

I get what you're saying, but you've posted that you already tried to contact him back in December about his claimed 7800 protos, and that he didn't respond at all. That doesn't seem like a very positive sign that he wants to engage about this topic any further.

 

Someone with more street cred might have different results. Don't give up so easily...

[Cousin Vinnie]

On 6/13/2020 at 1:47 PM, davidcalgary29 said:

if it was in the Atari Age store, people would just complain that the music sucks. 

 

That made me lol

[Shawn]

On 6/19/2020 at 1:14 AM, Lynxpro said:

 

Someone with more street cred might have different results. Don't give up so easily...

 

A few people have tried to reach out to him. Personally I think he was blowing hot air.

[Lost Dragon]

On 6/19/2020 at 6:14 AM, Lynxpro said:

 

Someone with more street cred might have different results. Don't give up so easily...

It's often not so much street cred, as pure chance, when industry sources are contacted. 

 

Unseen64 passed Brian McNeely ( of Lobotomy Software) onto myself after making numerous attempts to interview him, with no reply, I got a response from him at the first attempt. Jaguar Conan coder was similar, though i found his details myself. 

 

On the flipside I had various ex-Core Design and other staff he had worked with, vouch for myself to Jeremy Heath-Smith, was given his personal email and nothing ever came back. 

 

As luck would have it with him, I found numerous press interviews he did which answered the Q's i had.