chewy Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 (edited) its funny cause ive been on the board for only a year and it seems like a lot has happened in that short time but just like in the audio collecting world, things surface, so this is a great time to be an atari fan, im checking this game out right now on stella to see if i want to add it to the cart Edited October 23, 2019 by chewy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 can u share the crazy story how u found it n such Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 is this going to work w/ joystick/1650 or must we use trackball/paddle/keyboard-controller et al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 i dont think i see a title screen on stella Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 will report back when i try it on my sunnyvale light 6'er Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 Thanks for the ROM? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 light 6'r/1650/harmony-standard working here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 Alex gives credit to two other people who helped him with the code: Alex Nevelson and "Bob". Maybe someone has an idea about the names. BTW: I noticed that "Roklan" has no Wikipedia entry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 7 hours ago, Omegamatrix said: I found similar faults with the reset vector in some of Alex's other games. But these ROMs were ´fixed´ by altering the emulators and not the ROMs themselves, right? If so, then IMO the same should be done with the Kick-Man ROM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Alex gives credit to two other people who helped him with the code: Alex Nevelson and "Bob". Maybe someone has an idea about the names. In the other thread "RIP Alex Leavens" there was a Bob Curtiss (1 post), said to have worked with Alex L at Bally/Midway. Possibly a candidate? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 (edited) 40 minutes ago, carlsson said: In the other thread "RIP Alex Leavens" there was a Bob Curtiss (1 post), said to have worked with Alex L at Bally/Midway. Possibly a candidate? Thanks for the link. That would make sense, yes. But I am not sure if the timeline fits: Quote We shared an office at Bally Midway in 1982, working on 2600 games together. After about a year we both did work for a company called Roklan. Doesn't that mean that they worked together at Roklan in 1983? While Kickman was developed in early 20021982. I also compared the code Alex credited to Bob (BCD scoring, we also have Alex old code which shows that he did not know about the BCD mode before ) with Bob's own code in Solar Fox. They are similar, but unfortunately the code is too generic to draw any conclusions. Edited October 23, 2019 by Thomas Jentzsch 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 (edited) 16 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Thanks for the link. That would make sense, yes. But I am not sure if the timeline fits: Doesn't that mean that they worked together at Roklan in 1983? While Kickman was developed in early 2002. 2002?!? Aren´t you confusing Mika Mika´s WIP with Leaven´s WIP? Bob Curtiss seems most logical. BTW: I have also Richard K. Balaska credited for Kick-Man. Edited October 23, 2019 by Rom Hunter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 Does Kickman have to be developed from within Roklan? While I don't know all the details, I found it useful if Alex and Bob still were at Bally/Midway by January 1982, given that the arcade was out late 1981. I even looked up the manual for Kick/Kickman arcade to see any date markings on schematics. Most of the dating is from December 1981, though the manual refers to V1 and V2 of some of the PCBs, with dates back earlier in 1981. I don't know if the Kick arcade was out earlier in 1981 and the renaming to Kickman happended in December. Anyway, if Alex and c:o were within a division of Bally/Midway while developing this 2600 game, I imagine it makes more sense if they had a playable version so soon, compared to if they were working elsewhere and were contracted to make a home version of an arcade just released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 1 hour ago, Rom Hunter said: But these ROMs were ´fixed´ by altering the emulators and not the ROMs themselves, right? Nope. E.g. Stargunner works only out of luck: The game has the startup vector set to $0000. At that address the CPU accesses the CXM0P register of the TIA. This uses only two bits. Fortunately it is cleared when the system powers up. The other 6 bits are floating, usually filled with the LSB of the current address ($0000). So this results into 0, which is the BRK command. The BRK vector is set and leads to the correct initialization code. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 8 minutes ago, Rom Hunter said: 2002?!? Sorry, meant to write 1982. Corrected. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 7 minutes ago, carlsson said: Does Kickman have to be developed from within Roklan? Yes, the code says so: Quote PROGRAMMED BY ALEX LEAVENS (ROKLAN CORPORATION) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 15 minutes ago, Rom Hunter said: BTW: I have also Richard K. Balaska credited for Kick-Man. Where did you find that information? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 2 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Alex gives credit to two other people who helped him with the code: Alex Nevelson and "Bob". Maybe someone has an idea about the names. BTW: I noticed that "Roklan" has no Wikipedia entry. Thomas, do you have a link to these credits? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 Just now, Rom Hunter said: Thomas, do you have a link to these credits? These are from the source code, which we cannot share currently. Sorry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 Atarimania has Richard K. Balaska credited: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-kick-man_20490.html However it is not on his own resume of games he worked on: https://www.buckosoft.com/~dick/resume.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 1 minute ago, carlsson said: Atarimania has Richard K. Balaska credited: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-kick-man_20490.html Rom Hunter is Atarimania. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 I see, so the question is from where Atarimania originally got the info. Balaska's website was last updated in September 2018 so chances are he is around to clarify that, if needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 As a side note, I just realized there are two versions of Kickman for the MAX and C64 respectively. They look similar but not identical. A while ago I learned that the C64 version of Wizard of Wor was reprogrammed, not using the already existing MAX version which makes me wonder if the same is true about this. I suppose a code review could reveal similarities inbetween those versions, which of course has nothing to do with the 2600 version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Atari_Warlord Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 From the U.S. Copyright database, here is the Arcade game record: Type of Work: Visual Material Registration Number / Date: PA0000143122 / 1982-05-18 Title: Kick. Imprint: [s.l. : s.n.], c1981. Description: 1 videogame. Notes: Deposit consists of 1 videocassette & synopsis (1 p.) deposited in lieu of videogame. Title on synopsis: Kick man. Copyright Claimant: Bally Midway Manufacturing Company Date of Creation: 1981 Date of Publication: 1981-12-11 Authorship on Application: Bally Midway Manufacturing Company, employer for hire. Previous Registration: Appl. states other than material incorporated from "Pac-man" prev. reg. 13Nov80, PA 83-768, this audiovisual work is entirely original. Other Title: Kick man Names: Bally Midway Manufacturing Company ================================================================================ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 This is a fun game. Played a few rounds on my Harmony Encore and UnoCart multi carts. I haven't read up on the game, so I was surprised to see the Pac-Man characters. Wonder what other characters make an appearance ? I should have read the thread. Supergun explains it all in his post 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.