luckybuck Posted August 29, 2017 Share Posted August 29, 2017 Hi together, There are those who say, that the Atari Liberator from 1982 coin-up game was ported to the 8bit-system. Well, if someone has that very special above rarity 10 game, the community would be very glad, if you can upload it. Any hint, any fragment of source code or development step is very welcome at any time. In case you don't know the game, please see 3 images below and all images I have in the attached zip file. Thank you very much for your support, we really appreciate your help. :-))) References: Set 1: https://www.emuparadise.me/M.A.M.E._-_Multiple_Arcade_Machine_Emulator_ROMs/Liberator_(set_1)/14238 Set 2: https://www.emuparadise.me/M.A.M.E._-_Multiple_Arcade_Machine_Emulator_ROMs/Liberator_(set_2)/97741 Liberator.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted August 29, 2017 Share Posted August 29, 2017 It was definetly ported, but I don't think anyone has found the prototype. It might still be out there on an old development disk somewhere. Who knows? But it did exist at one time for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killersquirel Posted August 29, 2017 Share Posted August 29, 2017 I didn't know they ported this game. Hopefully we will all get to play it sometime in the nearish future. I love the arcade version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted August 29, 2017 Author Share Posted August 29, 2017 Thank you Tempest for the info. At least, we now have a trace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted August 29, 2017 Share Posted August 29, 2017 Thank you Tempest for the info. At least, we now have a trace. Curt Vendel or Dutchman 2000 (Ken) might have more info on it. I just remember them telling me about it several years back. I really need to get my 8-bit Rumor Mill section going. Too much work, too little time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted August 29, 2017 Author Share Posted August 29, 2017 Yes, very true, but who can convince Curt to share with us? Even, if we will make the work, pay the shipping and offer credits to him... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted August 29, 2017 Share Posted August 29, 2017 Yes, very true, but who can convince Curt to share with us? Even, if we will make the work, pay the shipping and offer credits to him... I'm not saying he has it, but if anyone had a chance to find it on Atari's old systems it would be him. He might know more about the development of it as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted May 29, 2020 Author Share Posted May 29, 2020 We have a new trace! ? The Liberator for A8 may be stored on very old Diskpacks, please see the picture below. Is someone at the West Coast able to get data from those Diskpacks? Sadly, time is running against us, the magnetic layers won't last forever. Meanwhile preservation through digital fusion from fragments is coming more and more into fashion... OMG... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted May 29, 2020 Share Posted May 29, 2020 1 hour ago, luckybuck said: We have a new trace! ? The Liberator for A8 may be stored on very old Diskpacks, please see the picture below. Is someone at the West Coast able to get data from those Diskpacks? Sadly, time is running against us, the magnetic layers won't last forever. Meanwhile preservation through digital fusion from fragments is coming more and more into fashion... OMG... Curt Vendel can do that. He specializes in that sort of thing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted May 29, 2020 Share Posted May 29, 2020 1 hour ago, luckybuck said: We have a new trace! ? The Liberator for A8 may be stored on very old Diskpacks, please see the picture below. Is someone at the West Coast able to get data from those Diskpacks? Sadly, time is running against us, the magnetic layers won't last forever. Meanwhile preservation through digital fusion from fragments is coming more and more into fashion... OMG... It may be on 1 of 14 300MB RM05/CDC9976 disk packs. These were placed into the top of a disk drive the size of the washing machine, it would be locked into the hub, the cover lifted off of it and the lid of the drive closed. I own a very bad shape CDC9976 and supposedly the Rhode Island Computer Society has an RM05. I've been asking around for years in the vintage computer community if anyone has a working RM05/CDC9976 and no one has stepped up. I just recently, perhaps 5-6 weeks ago, again asked someone from The Computer Museum if he may have any knowlegde of anyone with a working drive connected to a Vax or PDP that would be willing to read all of the data from the packs and in exchange I would let them keep the physical media, which is also very scare these days. Ken Van Mersbergen and I researched this for numerous years and during the attempt to get Cloak and Dagger for the 800 finished (I only had the early prototype recovered from a severely bend 5.25" disk found at the bottom of Leonard Tramiels banker box of desk items found thrown out in the dumpster behind 1196 Borregas back in March of 1996 while I was out there.) Well, Ken and I had found some internal proof that Liberator had in fact been started and it should be on one of the Vax 11/750 disk paks or on a Data General MV4000 disk pack that I have. I have 14 of these, they are 14" platters, 7 platters in height, about 12" high total and they weigh a good 25-30 lbs each. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted May 29, 2020 Author Share Posted May 29, 2020 Thank you so much Curt, first, that is really great news. So sad, the VCF East was skipped this year. Maybe, that would be a place to call for a RM05/CDC9976? Even a printout with hex numbers would do it. We type it in, like we did with Star Raiders or TURBO-Basic XL. My hope was, that someone from here, has a personal backup, which will surface by random some day... At least, I have hope for... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted May 29, 2020 Share Posted May 29, 2020 Just to give you an idea of these drives. Here is a Dec RL02. These are only 5mb platter drives. I have 2 of these, both working perfectly fine. I recovered about 20 of the RL02 platters of Atari data from them. One platter was actually dedicated to RBP and had all of the data, chip files and memo's on the development of what would become the ST computer. The RM05 is a BEAST and is a scary monster, it has to be precision aligned. I had an alignment pack, but the person I gave it to has disappeared from the vintage computer community and with it, my alignment pack. These drives have to meticulously maintained. If they aren't aligned the heads will slag the media surface and destroy them and itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK99WuaU_k8 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted May 29, 2020 Share Posted May 29, 2020 2 minutes ago, luckybuck said: Thank you so much Curt, first, that is really great news. So sad, the VCF East was skipped this year. Maybe, that would be a place to call for a RM05/CDC9976? Even a printout with hex numbers would do it. We type it in, like we did with Star Raiders or TURBO-Basic XL. My hope was, that someone from here, has a personal backup, which will surface by random some day... At least, I have hope for... I've asked numerous times already. sadly, they don't have a working drive. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted May 29, 2020 Author Share Posted May 29, 2020 Uh ha, that is heavy. Hard to solve. So, we just can wait, maybe someone comes forward with a private backup or listing? Thank you so much Curt, now, we know at least the facts and are out of the rumors. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KLund1 Posted June 29, 2020 Share Posted June 29, 2020 Curt could you post more info about what you need to get the data off the disks? 300MB RM05/CDC9976 ? RM05 I think refers to a DEC unit. I am not sure if this is the platter pack that sits on top or the washing machine size drive unit? CDC9976 is a Control Data Corporation unit? A competing company to DEC. I do not think they would have compatible units? Though I could defiantly be wrong. Could you also list the VAX mainframe model they were used with. I found this link, but unsure if it would be helpful http://www.conticomp.com/item_show.cfm?itemID=158873&category=Drives&family=RM Series Have you spoken with BitSavers?Or other HD recovery firms? They possibly could be persuaded to help recover the data for free for use in promotional material and historical reasons? Being able to advertise they were able to recover data from 40 year old "ATARI" hard drives might look good on their website landing page. Just thinking out loud, as it were..... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StickJock Posted June 29, 2020 Share Posted June 29, 2020 The Wang 2200VS system that I used in high school also used removable disk packs. I don't know if they would be compatible or not, but it would be about the same time period. I remember going to a scrap yard in the mid to late 80s looking for some brass scrap for a project. One of the big dumpsters that I looked in was filled about halfway up with disk packs. There must have been hundreds of them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted June 29, 2020 Share Posted June 29, 2020 1 hour ago, StickJock said: The Wang 2200VS system that I used in high school also used removable disk packs. I don't know if they would be compatible or not, but it would be about the same time period. I remember going to a scrap yard in the mid to late 80s looking for some brass scrap for a project. One of the big dumpsters that I looked in was filled about halfway up with disk packs. There must have been hundreds of them! chances those packs are right where you left them and could be dug up.... still would work too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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