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Early Promotional Video


BSRSteve

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To copy what I said on Tommy's Amico thread...

 

Well, this doesn't pick out all the differences (I skipped all the unreleased or changes games and software changes), but here's some of the changes:

 

  • Keyboard component (2:30):
    • Keys are different: all white instead of various colors, different sizes (ex: right shift), locations, different meanings.  One key is blank!
    • Keyboard surrounded by gold plate.
    • Tape drive is very different (turned sideways and is raised vertically)
    • Microphone is different (blocky instead of cylindrical)
    • Tape cases are different (clear bottoms so you can see the tape).
    • Tape drive lid wobbles when user inserts a tape.  KC looks strongly like a mock up.
  • Intellivision games:
    • Football
      • Font for letters looks very different; thinner and boxy.  The "I" in "TIME" is proportional width, not fixed width.  Might be using GRAM for letters.
      • Font for numbers looks mostly correct but the zero has a weird extra pixel in the lower right... as if a zero was merged with a Q.
      • Tackled quarterback 'explodes' when tackled.
      • One player returning to the huddle is stuck in running mode until the 2nd line-up starts.
      • Horizontal scrolling is buggy.  The green of the field is out of sync with the white of the field (watch left and right sides of screen)
    • Armor Battle
      • Tanks seem flickery when they turn
  • Keyboard Component tapes:
    • All text is mocked up: wrong font, font is blue instead of white, wrong sizes, different sizes on same screen.
    • Graphics are mocked up as well (ex: exercise figure at 9:36 looks like arranged paper cut outs)
    • Overall, it looks like it was mocked up with TV electronics, not computer electronics, of the the time (ex: "COMA TALAY VOO" is smoothly revealed in Conversational French instead of 1 letter appearing at a time)
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5 hours ago, BSRSteve said:

No one noticed The Electric Company Spelling Fun or Craps and Slots on the Roulette cartridge?

According to the old intellivisionlives website.

"APh completed (and was paid for) this adaptation of the dice game Craps, but it doesn't appear to have ever been announced or scheduled by Marketing for release."

 

Maybe it's on a floppy somewhere.

Edited by mr_me
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14 minutes ago, Atariboy2600 said:

 

I KNEW IT! When I first got this game in 79/80 every time I played SPACE BATTLE I always see the enemy ship looking like Battlestar Galactica Cylon Raider but now seeing the label help prove it

 

https://history.blueskyrangers.com/mattelelectronics/games/spacebattle.html

"If the enemy spacecraft look familiar, it's because they are Cylon raiders from the late-seventies TV programBattlestar Gallactica. One of Mattel's subsidiaries, Concepts 2000, had the license to produce Battlestar Galactica electronic toys, so it was figured to be a lock that Mattel would get the license to produce the official Battlestar Gallactica videogame. Wrong. The game was well into development when they discovered Mattel didn't get the license. The name was changed, but the graphics remained the same."

 

I wonder what happened to the license.  I don't think anyone else made battlestar galactica video games at the time.  Maybe they just wanted too much money.

 

Edited by mr_me
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The first thing I found was the easter egg.  If you have the ROM in .bin+.cfg format, just open up the .cfg file in the editor of your choice and add these lines at the bottom.  (I suggest making copies of the .bin and .cfg files first and appending " (Hack)" to their names.)

 

[macro]

p 502b 204

p 5031 204

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40 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Roulette itself is over 3.2k.  Not much room for anything else.

Yeah, nothing but padded zeroes after $5cc0.  I didn't find any text either except for "STAKE" and "PLAYER."  I'll see if I can decipher the graphical elements (not using the ECS "sucky" feature this time).

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On 12/4/2019 at 3:52 PM, Zendocon said:

Yeah, nothing but padded zeroes after $5cc0.  I didn't find any text either except for "STAKE" and "PLAYER."  I'll see if I can decipher the graphical elements (not using the ECS "sucky" feature this time).

Sadly I don't think there are any remnants of Craps or Slots in Roulette.  Here is a text file of the lower 8 bits of the game expressed as "graphics":

 

roulette.txt

 

The main graphics start at about $50e8, with some more at $57f8.  Sadly no dice or cherries to be seen :(

 

Taking a similar approach with Space Battle and Sharp Shot also fails to show the Cylon Basestar seen in the TV POWWW version of the game:

 

spaceBattle.txt sharpShot.txt

 

baseStar.thumb.png.176598b333e8a85c2fe8950cbc87a0a2.png

 

Is it just me, or does the Basestar look more like a Battlestar?  And is it not a bit weird that you would be shooting a Battlestar?

 

The TV POWWW videos of Space Battle (or KSPACE as the game was known inside Mattel) might show an interesting development titbit.  You will notice in the single player version of the game the centre of your crosshair is very similar to the Space Battle one, and the Cylons sometimes turn and leave the screen, such that you can see the top or bottom of the spaceship, just like they do in Space Battle:

 

 

However, in the (later?) two player version of the game, the Space Battle like target is missing and the Cylons seem to have more limited movement, never turning such that your can see their top or underside:

 

 

This more limited movement is also seen the Sharp Shot version of the game, and might suggest that the two player version of KSPACE is a significant rewrite, more closely related to the Sharp Shot version of the game than its Space Battle based single player sibling.

 

Anyway, if you fancy looking through game ROMs for graphics, here is the Perl script I used to generate the files above:

 

stdBin2Gfx.pl

 

 

Cheers

 

decle

 

 

Having found a better video of the single player version of KSPACE it also has a some interesting Basestar graphics that are momentarily garbled as it comes onto screen at 1:00:

 

garbled.thumb.gif.e2863d123620f4bbf8f1113b5630333a.gif

Edited by decle
Better single player KSPACE video
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On 12/4/2019 at 1:37 AM, Lathe26 said:

To copy what I said on Tommy's Amico thread...

 

Well, this doesn't pick out all the differences (I skipped all the unreleased or changes games and software changes), but here's some of the changes:

 

  • Keyboard component (2:30):
    • Keys are different: all white instead of various colors, different sizes (ex: right shift), locations, different meanings.  One key is blank!
    • Keyboard surrounded by gold plate.
    • Tape drive is very different (turned sideways and is raised vertically)
    • Microphone is different (blocky instead of cylindrical)
    • Tape cases are different (clear bottoms so you can see the tape).
    • Tape drive lid wobbles when user inserts a tape.  KC looks strongly like a mock up.
  • Intellivision games:
    • Football
      • Font for letters looks very different; thinner and boxy.  The "I" in "TIME" is proportional width, not fixed width.  Might be using GRAM for letters.
      • Font for numbers looks mostly correct but the zero has a weird extra pixel in the lower right... as if a zero was merged with a Q.
      • Tackled quarterback 'explodes' when tackled.
      • One player returning to the huddle is stuck in running mode until the 2nd line-up starts.
      • Horizontal scrolling is buggy.  The green of the field is out of sync with the white of the field (watch left and right sides of screen)
    • Armor Battle
      • Tanks seem flickery when they turn
  • Keyboard Component tapes:
    • All text is mocked up: wrong font, font is blue instead of white, wrong sizes, different sizes on same screen.
    • Graphics are mocked up as well (ex: exercise figure at 9:36 looks like arranged paper cut outs)
    • Overall, it looks like it was mocked up with TV electronics, not computer electronics, of the the time (ex: "COMA TALAY VOO" is smoothly revealed in Conversational French instead of 1 letter appearing at a time)

 

The tape drive is chonk!

image.thumb.png.9d6b12ce9ffc681935194e2bfb4d3198.png

 

So's that electric razor... I mean microphone:

image.png.b784bb136f7a012ef06b734f4d50cefc.png

 

Watch closely at around 2:54 - 3:00, where the cassette "lid" shifts in a way that makes it obvious it's just a piece of plastic sitting over a hole.

 

And yeah, something's weird with the text in Football.  Good spot on the extra pixel on the 0. The other labels do indeed seem to be GRAM-based text.  Also, watch the display glitches during horizontal scroll around 3:54 (+/-).

 

As you noted, the background wash doesn't seem to scroll with the foreground pixels (see right edge of screen). At the very least, they aren't suppressing the pixels that went beyond the right-hand boundary.  In 1978, they would still be using a STIC emulator box rather than the final chip.  That still seems like a weird bug to have.

 

The blue in Baseball is somewhat muted.  (Also seen in Armor Battle and Math Fun.)  It actually looks a lot like the blue I got from the AY-3-8915 data sheet a long time ago.

 

The flickery tanks in Armor Battle are likely due to the fact they're two MOBs each, and they probably haven't coordinated the MOB updates properly yet.

 

The version of Math Fun is the "forward digits" version, and that brown looks brown!  Well, orangish brown rather than greenish brown.

 

And yeah... that text from the keyboard component was a total mockup.  And the physical fitness... LOL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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When they removed the other games from Roulette, they left room for this:

.TITLECODE:
        PSHR    R5                              ; 5026   0275
        MVI     .PSG0.rgt_hand,R0               ; 5027   0280 01FE
        CMPI    #$001E, R0                      ; 5029   0378 001E
        BNEQ    L_5079                          ; 502B   020C 004C

        MVI     .PSG0.lft_hand,R0               ; 502D   0280 01FF
        CMPI    #$005E, R0                      ; 502F   0378 005E
        BNEQ    L_5079                          ; 5031   020C 0046

        MVII    #$0007, R3                      ; 5033   02BB 0007
        MVII    #$023C, R4                      ; 5035   02BC 023C

        JSR     R5,     X_PRINT_R5              ; 5037   0004 0118 007B
        STRING  "        JOHN        "          ; 503A  
        DECLE   $0000                           ; 504E   0000

        MVII    #$0007, R3                      ; 504F   02BB 0007
        MVII    #$0292, R4                      ; 5051   02BC 0292

        JSR     R5,     X_PRINT_R5              ; 5053   0004 0118 007B
        STRING  "ETTELUOR"                      ; 5056  
        DECLE   $0000                           ; 505E   0000

        MVII    #$0007, R3                      ; 505F   02BB 0007
        MVII    #$02D0, R4                      ; 5061   02BC 02D0

        JSR     R5,     X_PRINT_R5              ; 5063   0004 0118 007B
        STRING  "2001"                          ; 5066   0032 0030 0030 0031
        DECLE   $0000                           ; 506A   0000

        MVII    #$0007, R3                      ; 506B   02BB 0007
        MVII    #$02D5, R4                      ; 506D   02BC 02D5

        JSR     R5,     X_PRINT_R5              ; 506F   0004 0118 007B
        STRING  " D E I"                        ; 5072  
        DECLE   $0000                           ; 5078   0000
L_5079:
        PULR    R5                              ; 5079   02B5
        MOVR    R5,     R7                      ; 507A   00AF

 

Dabney Eats It, I suppose.

 

If I decoded that correctly with my calibrated eyeball, that requires you to press 1+2+3 on the right controller, and 1+3 on the left controller.  (O HAI!, I DID!)

You should get this:

 

Roulette Easter Egg

 

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  • 2 years later...
On 12/3/2019 at 8:02 AM, BSRSteve said:

For the 40th anniversary. here is an early promotional video, which was on a tape dated 12/31/1978.  I suspect (but do not know for sure) that it was made for 1979 January CES. This was copied from a 3/4" tape just in the last week.

This is the same video that was rescued from a Betamax tape and previously discussed at https://forums.atariage.com/topic/285319-early-keyboard-component-video/

 

On 12/3/2019 at 9:49 PM, BSRSteve said:

No one noticed The Electric Company Spelling Fun or Craps and Slots on the Roulette cartridge?

Rochlis would come up with titles that he thought would appeal to retail chain buyers with little thought as to playability or implementability. Given that he pulled the titles out of his, uh, thin air, it's hardly surprising that changes were made as development progressed and reality intruded.

 

On 12/4/2019 at 1:37 AM, Lathe26 said:

Font for numbers looks mostly correct but the zero has a weird extra pixel in the lower right... as if a zero was merged with a Q.

These images were generated using an emulator whose "GROM" was really RAM and it's likely that the font file Football was loading had a bit error. It happens. Fixing it would not have been a high priority—the programmer would surely defer doing so until he got a round tuit.

 

On 12/4/2019 at 1:37 AM, Lathe26 said:

Horizontal scrolling is buggy.  The green of the field is out of sync with the white of the field (watch left and right sides of screen)

The border is not extended on the left. The background's foreground pixels are not being suppressed as they extend into the border area at right, a chip circuit issue. Nothing to see here, folks; Duncan and Steve will fix it. Move along.

 

On 12/4/2019 at 4:25 AM, mr_me said:

I wonder what happened to the license.  I don't think anyone else made battlestar galactica video games at the time.  Maybe they just wanted too much money.

Glen Larson thought he had created another Star Wars. He closed a pre-broadcast deal with Mattel on toys, but delayed closing the video game deal with the expectation that the show's reception would bridge the gap between what he wanted and what Mattel was willing to pay. It didn't. The price that Mattel was willing to pay fell faster than did the price Larson was willing to take and negotiations fizzled out for lack of energy.

 

On 12/6/2019 at 1:31 PM, BSRSteve said:

So, I guess that Roulette just took more space than they expected and the other games couldn't fit in the cartridge.

Who is "they?" If Rochlis or Chandler, neither had any clue as to how much space a game would take—"they" went into 1978 planning for 2K cartridges without regard for actual content, and without an EXEC. If Chang, "he" knew better by mid-1977 because he was responsible for handhelds, took the trouble to have APh make a realistic and accepted the estimate as rational. "He" shared the information with "they" who, exhibiting a textbook case of Feynman Gap, ignored it.

 

On 12/13/2019 at 6:09 PM, intvnut said:

The blue in Baseball is somewhat muted.  (Also seen in Armor Battle and Math Fun.)  It actually looks a lot like the blue I got from the AY-3-8915 data sheet a long time ago. The flickery tanks in Armor Battle are likely due to the fact they're two MOBs each, and they probably haven't coordinated the MOB updates properly yet. The version of Math Fun is the "forward digits" version, and that brown looks brown!  Well, orangish brown rather than greenish brown.

The emulator didn't use the same color circuitry as the final hardware and the colors were place-holders chosen by GI.

 

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