Wilmunder's Star Raiders II released

[doctorclu]

Is there a chance we could get an .exe of this?

[Tinman]

You have to remember it came out in 1979 and no other machine was capable of running the game until maybe '82. And it was a complete 3D space battle simulator. We used to play it two player, one flying while the other mans the control.

Play the fastdiv update of the original, but read the manual first. You'll see that the game still holds up (and it is only 8K!).

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What is the fastdiv update and where can I find it?

[Mclaneinc]

The fastdiv update was added by Phaeron for the original Star Raiders in the thread regarding the Source Code for Star Raiders, sadly Phaeron has already said that the way the screen are done on Star Raiders II means that its rather heavy on the machine meaning the FPS is right down as it is.

 

Here a link to the V3 of the fastdiv by Phaeron, detailed explanations are toward the end of the thread..

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/243904-star-raiders-source-code-to-be-released/page-7?do=findComment&comment=3357462

Edited December 12, 2015 by Mclaneinc

[Tinman]

The fastdiv update was added by Phaeron for the original Star Raiders in the thread regarding the Source Code for Star Raiders, sadly Phaeron has already said that the way the screen are done on Star Raiders II means that its rather heavy on the machine meaning the FPS is right down as it is.

 

Here a link to the V3 of the fastdiv by Phaeron, detailed explanations are toward the end of the thread..

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/243904-star-raiders-source-code-to-be-released/page-7?do=findComment&comment=3357462

Thanks!!

[+Stephen]

Is there a chance we could get an .exe of this?

There already is. The ATR is simply a DOS 2.0S disk, with AUTORUN.SYS as the Star Raiders 2 game.

[doctorclu]

So it is. I with in with the disk image explorer in Atari800OSX and made a xex file from it (attached).

 

Since this game has the 1984 date on it, I have named the other 1985 Star Raiders game the third Star Raiders game. At least that is how I list in my game directory.

Star Raider 2 xex.zip

[StefanD]

The only thing, I'd really want for is an inverted Y-axis -- my brain is just programmed that way for space sims after spending countless hours playing Xwing in the 90's.

Press Shift-O for inverted control ...

Shift-P: Touch tablet

Shift-J: Left handed joystick

[doctorclu]

After a few hours of this I think I would like to try this mission with Star Cruiser 7 and photons.

 

I think the lasers were a good idea. Moving cursor? Not so much.

 

Always thought it would be nice to have lasers AND photons. A backup weapon system would be nice.

 

Lots of fun. I liked the the planet strike scene. Reminded me of Star Wars Arcade game.

 

Oh, tried the Commander mission, don't hyperspace to the Black Holes, but there is a cool 3-D graphic of a black hole on the galactic chart.

Edited December 13, 2015 by doctorclu

[Lynxpro]

How hard would it be to bring this game over to the Atari 5200?

 

My thoughts exactly. Although we'd probably want to see it finished first, and the analog joystick code optimization added to it so it can play just as well as 5200 Star Raiders.

[Lynxpro]

I'm also hoping it'll be ported over to the 5200. That wonky 5200 joystick was built for Star Raiders.

 

 

…or the Trak-Ball! Yeah, that might be a tad bit insane. Then again, ST Star Raiders used the mouse, if I recall correctly. Which makes me question how one would play it on the Jaguar per Groovy Bee's "port"...

[Lynxpro]

Wow! Kevin, you are a miracle! Great find! That is Christmas 2 weeks in advance.

 

In the 80's I heard rumors from Prof. Atari, "the invincible brain", that there is a version out there with not just front and aft view, but with board, starboard, top, down view!

 

If Aric may give us the source code, we can mix it with the recently published Star Raiders I source code?

Maybe multiplayer with one Atari as server? Via Internet? Via BT? Just guessing.

 

Further, there is a great successor as an app for iOS: Star Rangers

SR_Logo_400x400.jpg

ss3.jpg

 

If just Tom Hudson and Lee Papas could find a way to give it away? 30% for Apple, 10% for the person, who makes it iOS 8 and 9 ready and 60% for them. Would give $20 for a reselling of it.

 

Great times we live in. Kevin, again, you made our year! Just speaking for whole Europe.

 

Thank you.

 

Wouldn't the code from DANDY be of use to use one A8 as a server for the game? John Palevich (sic) is on LinkedIn. He works at Google.

 

Maybe use some code from A8 MIDI Maze for multiplayer. Assuming it's out there...

[billkendrick]

I just blasted a starbase, then visited another and it attacked me. I dropped my shields to see what happened, and of course died. Results:

 

Star Fleet to All Units. Star Cruiser Eight destroyed by Star Fleet. Posthumous rank is: Zylon Swine! Class 1.

 

Hahahahahahha!

[billkendrick]

Press Shift-O for inverted control ...

Shift-P: Touch tablet

Shift-J: Left handed joystick

DUDE! Touch tablet!? This is so awesome!

[potatohead]

I'm not sure what it is about Star Raiders but I've never been that impressed by it. *ducks for cover*

 

On the 2600, yes. I can see how it could be regarded as a must-have game. But on the A8? Not so much, particularly when you consider what other computers had at the time. Still, nice to find a piece of hidden history.

 

What other computers had at the time was squat. Really. It wasn't long, until there were a lot of compelling and or competing titles. But, if you were there, at that time, gaming on the various consoles, etc... "Star Raiders" was an awesome home gaming experience.

[tschak909]

I second Potatohead, Star Raiders was THE FIRST first person shooter. PEEEEERIOD.

 

It moved in three dimensional space, ran all of its parts in real time, utilized every unique feature of the Atari 800 at the time (the players, missiles, color indirection, display lists to quickly switch screens and provide status, display list interrupts, redefinable character sets.) ,that other systems would not get until some time after, all of this, in 8K of ROM, and only requiring the lowest-spec of 8K of RAM (although Star Raiders used roughly 1/6th of this).

 

So um...yeah...groundbreaking.

 

-Thom

[Zoyx]

I'm not sure what it is about Star Raiders but I've never been that impressed by it. *ducks for cover*

 

On the 2600, yes. I can see how it could be regarded as a must-have game. But on the A8? Not so much, particularly when you consider what other computers had at the time. Still, nice to find a piece of hidden history.

 

The original Star Raiders came out in 1979 for the Atari 400/800. It was groundbreaking. I first saw it at an electronic store, that was using it to sell their big screen TVs. I was guffawed, slack-jawed, jizzing myself, all at the same time.

 

I recall Star Raiders was a release title for the 5200. The knock-offs (Starmaster, Star Voyageur, Phaser Patrol, etc.) didn't start coming out until 2 or 3 years later.

 

The primary inspiration for Star Raiders was the text-base game, Star Trek, first coded in 1971. You can play Stellar Track, for the 2600, to get a feel for that game.

[lord_mike]

DUDE! Touch tablet!? This is so awesome!

I know!!! I actually have one of those!! I can't wait to try it out on the game.

 

In the meantime, can anyone figure out the Altirra settings for the touch tablet? There aren't any presets, and I can't seem to make anything work with the touchpad.

[elviticus]

This is amazing! Who owns the rights at this point? Is there a chance it might see a cart release ever?

[lord_mike]

This is amazing! Who owns the rights at this point? Is there a chance it might see a cart release ever?

 

Yeah, I'm in nerd heaven right now!!!

[ajw]

Let's see what I can do to answer some of the questions that have come up...

 

On the inverted flight controls for default, I am really glad someone found and posted the additional settings. I struggled with how to make a flight control also a targeting system and I was never fully satisfied with the results. I have also been an RC pilot since I was a teen, and I know when you hear someone yell, "Pull Up!", they are really describing what to do with the stick.

 

You may be able to plug the tablet and paddle controls into the second controller port. I had worked opposite from the team that did the Star Wars arcade game and I got my hands on one of their controls. I replaced the 100Ohm pots with the 10Ohm ones used in the Atari paddle controllers so I could control SRII like the Star Wars arcade. It was fun in the first-person areas, but nearly impossible to control the galactic chart.

 

I've seen a number of comments about making a cartridge. I designed the game so it could be shipped either on floppy or in a cartridge format and I'll explain how. Atari 800 cartridges were limited to 16K. As one poster pointed out, the game image is 22K. Atari had a cartridge in development that had a fixed 8K block of memory and the ability to swap in 1 of 3 other 8K blocks so you were only using 16K at a time. I re-arranged my code to put the common graphics, controls, and sound code in the primary block and the Damage Control screen in another, and I think the planet flyover in another. I burned a set of EPROMS and the cartridge worked great. At one point I was in touch with a journalist who wanted to write a story about SRII and I loaned him the cartridge but never heard from him again. If we can get the Corvus Hard drive with the source code working, making a cartridge might be possible, same with supporting the 5200.

 

I didn't know that the GTIA Damage Control screen wasn't working with PAL. That image was added late in the process and there wasn't time to fix the rectangle that appears around it when the shields are up. There should also be another ship image for machines that didn't have the GTIA chips. Perhaps someone can capture and post that for others to see. I was trying to do some shield effect similar to a scene in the movie Wrath of Kahn.

 

I didn't know that Jack Palevich was at Google. He and I would get together with Landon Dyer when they were working on DigDug while I was at Corp Research. I was a fan of Dandy and I have a copy of the early design document for Gauntlet but it was called 'Dungeons' at the time. Apparently someone who reviewed the document wasn't too fond of the game idea since the copy I have was rubber stamped with a frown face. Jack's wedding gift was a check for the amount of 65 dollars and 2 cents. My wife thought it was odd, but I understood right away.

 

On why this was released now, well there's a bit of a funny story. When I started work on SRII my boss tracked down a copy of the source code for the original Star Raiders. By this point I had already figured out how to do the star field and ships so I put it in the back of my desk. When I left Atari, I dumped my desk into a box that ended up in my garage. At one point Doug Neubauer, the author of SR, posted a photo of the first page of the code and I was able to match the date or version # with my copy so I was pretty sure my source was valid.

 

About 3 weeks ago, I spotted a link to a Github project where a team is trying to recreate the source code for the original Star Raiders. I was excited to see this and assumed that the project was based on Doug Neubauer's copy of the source. Then I saw a scan of the first page and there is a hand-written note that says 'Final Source' that looked like the handwriting on my copy. After I had gotten in touch with Kevin and did the interview and decided to release the disk image for SRII, only then did I learn where the Github source had come from.

 

About 10 years ago I was working on the T-Mobile Sidekick phone. One of my co-workers heard that I had worked for Atari and he brought in his 800 and a floppy drive. I went into my garage and pulled out that box of floppies along with the source code and brought that in to show. Another of my co-workers and I had been friends for many years and he had developed 800 games at Synapse. He saw the source code for Star Raiders and asked if he could make a copy. This was so long ago that I forgot that there was a third copy out there.

 

Now I have to go find that box since if we can't get the Corvus Hard Drive to work, there should be a printout or maybe even a floppy of the source out in the garage. My only concern is that it may not be from an earlier version.

[doctorclu]

Completed a Pilot mission, new rank Warrior Class 2!

 

 

So techniques I am learning with the lasers:

 

1) When entering the sector aim a little high. The enemies like being above the cross hairs for some reason.

2) Tracking helps. Fire forward and as it switches you will get about 80% of the fire and ships.

3) In aft view move the cursor up and down. Preferably keep the cursor above the cross hairs.

4) The enemies like to fly around a lot. Position the cursor at their level, wait till they fly back through the center.

 

The game is growing on me. Still trying to figure out when a surround situation at a Starbase is truly over. Seem to be when there are less than two squadrons? Can anyone confirm this? I have had one squadron around a starbase with no problem.

[doctorclu]

Hey AJW Welcome! Always great to meet anyone associated with Star Raiders anything! Been a fan of the Star Raiders franchise for years though I couldn't get into the game released for more modern systems a few years ago. Star Raiders 2 (1984) has been a lot of fun.

 

Let's see what I can do to answer some of the questions that have come up...

 

(clip)

 

You may be able to plug the tablet and paddle controls into the second controller port. I had worked opposite from the team that did the Star Wars arcade game and I got my hands on one of their controls. I replaced the 100Ohm pots with the 10Ohm ones used in the Atari paddle controllers so I could control SRII like the Star Wars arcade. It was fun in the first-person areas, but nearly impossible to control the galactic chart.

 

... If we can get the Corvus Hard drive with the source code working, making a cartridge might be possible, same with supporting the 5200.

 

(clip)

 

Now I have to go find that box since if we can't get the Corvus Hard Drive to work, there should be a printout or maybe even a floppy of the source out in the garage. My only concern is that it may not be from an earlier version.

 

What you wrote was a lot of fun to read. Playing this on my 800 I found it was like Star Raiders 1979 meets the Star Wars Arcade. The planet scene is definitely like flying over the Death Star.

 

So for the Corvus drive: I wonder if the data recovery services could get anything off that drive? What I was curious about the drive, I wonder if it is the hard drive platter that crashed, power supply, electronics surrounding the hard drive itself. What is it doing or not doing when you try to power it up and access it?

 

I'm also wondering how many Corvus users we have here on Atariage that could offer their experience? I know someone was talking about restoring a Corvus within recent years.

[Lynxpro]

Let's see what I can do to answer some of the questions that have come up...

 

On the inverted flight controls for default, I am really glad someone found and posted the additional settings. I struggled with how to make a flight control also a targeting system and I was never fully satisfied with the results. I have also been an RC pilot since I was a teen, and I know when you hear someone yell, "Pull Up!", they are really describing what to do with the stick.

 

You may be able to plug the tablet and paddle controls into the second controller port. I had worked opposite from the team that did the Star Wars arcade game and I got my hands on one of their controls. I replaced the 100Ohm pots with the 10Ohm ones used in the Atari paddle controllers so I could control SRII like the Star Wars arcade. It was fun in the first-person areas, but nearly impossible to control the galactic chart.

 

I've seen a number of comments about making a cartridge. I designed the game so it could be shipped either on floppy or in a cartridge format and I'll explain how. Atari 800 cartridges were limited to 16K. As one poster pointed out, the game image is 22K. Atari had a cartridge in development that had a fixed 8K block of memory and the ability to swap in 1 of 3 other 8K blocks so you were only using 16K at a time. I re-arranged my code to put the common graphics, controls, and sound code in the primary block and the Damage Control screen in another, and I think the planet flyover in another. I burned a set of EPROMS and the cartridge worked great. At one point I was in touch with a journalist who wanted to write a story about SRII and I loaned him the cartridge but never heard from him again. If we can get the Corvus Hard drive with the source code working, making a cartridge might be possible, same with supporting the 5200.

 

I didn't know that the GTIA Damage Control screen wasn't working with PAL. That image was added late in the process and there wasn't time to fix the rectangle that appears around it when the shields are up. There should also be another ship image for machines that didn't have the GTIA chips. Perhaps someone can capture and post that for others to see. I was trying to do some shield effect similar to a scene in the movie Wrath of Kahn.

 

I didn't know that Jack Palevich was at Google. He and I would get together with Landon Dyer when they were working on DigDug while I was at Corp Research. I was a fan of Dandy and I have a copy of the early design document for Gauntlet but it was called 'Dungeons' at the time. Apparently someone who reviewed the document wasn't too fond of the game idea since the copy I have was rubber stamped with a frown face. Jack's wedding gift was a check for the amount of 65 dollars and 2 cents. My wife thought it was odd, but I understood right away.

 

On why this was released now, well there's a bit of a funny story. When I started work on SRII my boss tracked down a copy of the source code for the original Star Raiders. By this point I had already figured out how to do the star field and ships so I put it in the back of my desk. When I left Atari, I dumped my desk into a box that ended up in my garage. At one point Doug Neubauer, the author of SR, posted a photo of the first page of the code and I was able to match the date or version # with my copy so I was pretty sure my source was valid.

 

About 3 weeks ago, I spotted a link to a Github project where a team is trying to recreate the source code for the original Star Raiders. I was excited to see this and assumed that the project was based on Doug Neubauer's copy of the source. Then I saw a scan of the first page and there is a hand-written note that says 'Final Source' that looked like the handwriting on my copy. After I had gotten in touch with Kevin and did the interview and decided to release the disk image for SRII, only then did I learn where the Github source had come from.

 

About 10 years ago I was working on the T-Mobile Sidekick phone. One of my co-workers heard that I had worked for Atari and he brought in his 800 and a floppy drive. I went into my garage and pulled out that box of floppies along with the source code and brought that in to show. Another of my co-workers and I had been friends for many years and he had developed 800 games at Synapse. He saw the source code for Star Raiders and asked if he could make a copy. This was so long ago that I forgot that there was a third copy out there.

 

Now I have to go find that box since if we can't get the Corvus Hard Drive to work, there should be a printout or maybe even a floppy of the source out in the garage. My only concern is that it may not be from an earlier version.

 

Cool! I started listening to your Podcast as you were typing this! I'm having to take breaks though due to the kids…

 

On a side note, the Sidekick phone was cool! So cool about the DANDY/Gauntlet story. Just now getting to the Atari Coin part of the interview...

[Tempest]

The funny thing is that I was looking through my old e-mails and I had talked to Aric about Star Raiders II back in 2009. However I was finishing up my masters degree at the time and I got married a few months later so totally forgot to post anything about it. I don't think there's anything new in those e-mails, but it's funny that I was inadvertently sitting on this info for all these years.

[doctorclu]

The funny thing is that I was looking through my old e-mails and I had talked to Aric about Star Raiders II back in 2009. However I was finishing up my masters degree at the time and I got married a few months later so totally forgot to post anything about it. I don't think there's anything new in those e-mails, but it's funny that I was inadvertently sitting on this info for all these years.

 

Where is the "unlike" button?

 

Congrats on the Masters degree and getting married though.

Edited December 13, 2015 by doctorclu