Please welcome Jon Williams (Road Riot 4WD) to AtarAge forums :)

[Nojeee]

Thanks for all the info Jon; I have a question for you, something I've been curious about for quite some time now. There are several game carts I've run into (including Road Riot) that appear to be pre-release test carts that have the initials "RSA" written on them along with a date. I'll attach a couple of reference photos. I have always assumed they were the initials of a person, do you happen to know who; or if they perhaps have a different meaning? Thank in advance

 

 

I have a feeling that refers to RSA encryption on the cartridge?

 

I never got as far as creating physical ROMs as all my work was done on the Howard development system.

[Nojeee]

Glad you got chance to see the documents.

 

It's been fantastic to be able to put the likes of these to the very people named on them or involved in the games mentioned and get an extra level of insight.

 

None of this would of been at all possible without the kindness of Scott Stilphen sharing them and likes of yourself taking time out to discuss them.

 

As for the Imagitec Design documents.. :-))

 

A few surprises were in among those...

 

Despite having a company profile feature done on them by RetroGamer magazine, no one seemed aware they had been working on 7800 Toki..Maybe it's something they would rather forget?

 

Martin Hooley has also presented several 'official' reasons why Space Junk and Freelancer 2120 never arrived...but the documents and other accounts suggest other reasons :-))

 

 

I'm still eagerly awaiting the results of the research GTW did based on the internal Atari documents i passed on to them alone.

 

Several lengthy Skype interviews took place as a result and hopefully there are yet more mysteries yet to be solved as a result of them.

 

It's all been very interesting to me too

 

I've actually just found an old folder that contained my working notebook and a few documents relating to Road Riot.

 

The notebook reminded me how much of a 'fudge' the whole course system was. I'd like to claim it was very complex and mathematical but it was really a very simple system that ended up looking reasonable on screen.

 

NB: I had to laugh when I saw I'd written 'Bloody Images!' at the top of one page ... ah, the memories come flooding back

 

In case anybody is interested, I've attached my final demo update memo to Images Software before handing back the system

[sage]

haha ... rom space is limited... the files are not even packed.

[Lost Dragon]

@Jon.

 

This is simply amazing.

 

When i converted and shared Scott's files,i had hoped people from the industry would see them,memories get jogged and they could provide yet more insights and documentation, to be preserved and the community learn more about the games development history.

 

Your doing us proud here.

[SlidellMan]

Mr. Williams, I wonder if you have considered a series of tutorials on Programming for the Atari Lynx for those who are interested, such as myself?

[Nojeee]

Mr. Williams, I wonder if you have considered a series of tutorials on Programming for the Atari Lynx for those who are interested, such as myself?

 

If I thought I knew enough about the Lynx I would have been pleased to. Unfortunately, I only spent 6 or 7 months (on and off) programming the Lynx and that was over 25 year ago.

 

My knowledge of the Lynx is much less than the experienced people on this forum. I'm amazed at how people have reverse engineered the system so it can be programmed without all of the bulky development system I used. I have a feeling that if I returned to doing any Lynx programming I'd be asking them for help.

 

I do appreciate the request though.

[retrorussell]

It's always cool to hear from programmers of the games we grew up with. I only played Road Riot 4WD for the arcade but liked it quite a bit; made it my top 20 of 1991 in my YouTube video series (at #15). Welcome to AtariAge Jon!