TeddyBear89 Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 On 2/7/2021 at 1:31 PM, TeddyBear89 said: Just a "thank you" to all who contributed to this thread. I came across Bigfoot today on Ebay, got intrigued, started wondering what in the hell a MBX was and finally found this thread. Knowing that having a MBX is not a requirement to play this game was very helpful. Cart will be on its way, manual is already printed and I do have a speech synthesizer ......... Just a "this game is freakin' sweet" comment.......This game is an example (of many) of how enjoyable this hobby of 1980's retro gaming can be. The crow on level 3 is starting to piss me off but otherwise I am thoroughly enjoying this recent purchase. And again, props for this very informative thread. I initially thought that I could not play Bigfoot without the MBX set up. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrhodes Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 The deeper down the TI-99 hole you go, the more surprises you find. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TVisitor Posted March 21, 2023 Share Posted March 21, 2023 Does anyone have any technical information on anything to do with the MBX, such as Joystick pinouts of the MBX controllers? I'm repairing one and it's a little vexing that while the buttons work, I do not see any lines being brought out on the DB9 connector for the buttons - all I can buzz out with my meter is +5V, Common, XPOT, YPOT, ZPOT. There's one that has no pin, so it's NC. There are 4 pins leftover, perfect number for the buttons, but no lines for them. Anyone have a clue how this works? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelpedant Posted March 21, 2023 Author Share Posted March 21, 2023 I kind of doubt there's any surviving manufacturer documentation on the joystick interface, though someone may have worked it out by experimentation at some point. However, otherwise of interest when it comes to documentation on the machine (as a computer per se), here's a product sheet for the GI SP1000 speech synth/recognition chip used by the MBX: sp1000-sheet.pdf Interfacing with the 6809 is addressed as an option there, and this is what is used on the MBX. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InfiniteTape Posted March 21, 2023 Share Posted March 21, 2023 It might be that the buttons inputs are run through a shift register rather than being individual signals, similar to an NES controller. Might have to peek inside, or maybe someone already has some pictures posted. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeV Posted March 27, 2023 Share Posted March 27, 2023 Great job! Very nicely done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digdugnate Posted June 29, 2023 Share Posted June 29, 2023 Necroing this because i came across a cool post by Justin Forsell on Facebook whose dad was manager at a model shop at Milton Bradley's Advanced R&D department. There's some really cool pictures I think you guys would like. Quote I guarantee nobody here has seen this before and hoping someone thinks it's interesting...the Milton Bradley Electronics Video Entertainment System, in prototype form. I don't see any controllers, just carts, and I don't know how far they went with this. My guess is this is sometime before 1982 because it was taken at their small State St. facility in Springfield, MA before everything moved to Shaker Rd in East Longmeadow. My father was a manager of the model shop at MB's advanced research & development dept. from the late 70s til early 90s. I found these photos a few years ago after a water heater in our cellar burst and I was cleaning things up (you can actually see the water on some of the photos here, and they were stuck together, sadly) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toucan Posted June 29, 2023 Share Posted June 29, 2023 The cart on the side might say "Meteor Belt" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digdugnate Posted June 29, 2023 Share Posted June 29, 2023 1 hour ago, Toucan said: The cart on the side might say "Meteor Belt" that was my thinking, too, which immediately had me make the connection from this to the MBX 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horizon2374 Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 Under careful examination of the pic, indeed it does look like “Meteor Belt”. Similar buttons to the MBX too, like Yes, No, Go. This is the VCS that was scrapped because MB believed there was too much competition. But then it was revived and reconfigured to work with the popular TI-99/4A! Sadly months later TI pulled out of the market. Amazing pictures! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toucan Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 (edited) 18 minutes ago, horizon2374 said: Under careful examination of the pic, indeed it does look like “Meteor Belt”. Similar buttons to the MBX too, like Yes, No, Go. This is the VCS that was scrapped because MB believed there was too much competition. But then it was revived and reconfigured to work with the popular TI-99/4A! Sadly months later TI pulled out of the market. Amazing pictures! That was the Gemini that was pictured earlier that became the MBX which was scrapped and became the MBX. This could have been an earlier version the Gemini possibly. The Gemini has some other titles that you might recognize, like Bigfoot, Turtle Maze, Baseball, etc. However, this could have been an even earlier incarnation of that. I also have to wonder if this could also be a toy and not an actual video game unit, but one made to look like one for kids to play with. I only say that since the unit seems very thin as do the carts (and there's not much room for electronics when you see it with the keyboard removed), and the carts store nicely inside and its made for 4 which seem like that would be the complete set. Edited June 30, 2023 by Toucan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 12 hours ago, digdugnate said: What happened to the pics?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelpedant Posted June 30, 2023 Author Share Posted June 30, 2023 2 hours ago, OLD CS1 said: What happened to the pics?? Atariage does weird things with embedded images sometimes. Or maybe it's the source host. Regardless, here they are as simple attachments: 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 6 hours ago, OLD CS1 said: What happened to the pics?? It's a Flip-Keyboard!🐬 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digdugnate Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 8 hours ago, OLD CS1 said: What happened to the pics?? I think he was saying these were water-damaged from storage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelpedant Posted June 30, 2023 Author Share Posted June 30, 2023 35 minutes ago, digdugnate said: I think he was saying these were water-damaged from storage. Perhaps, but here is how I see the original pics: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digdugnate Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 1 hour ago, pixelpedant said: Perhaps, but here is how I see the original pics: oh wow, lol. they just show up as pictures for me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelpedant Posted June 30, 2023 Author Share Posted June 30, 2023 Now that I look at the image sources, it appears they're being directly served by Facebook. So that makes sense now. As I outright block Meta's cross-site content. Though I don't know if Facebook allows cross-site image embedding regardless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 5 hours ago, pixelpedant said: Now that I look at the image sources, it appears they're being directly served by Facebook. So that makes sense now. As I outright block Meta's cross-site content. Though I don't know if Facebook allows cross-site image embedding regardless. I don't have them blocked, but I also only see the weird text descriptions when using Firefox (but not when using Edge). It may be a side effect of one of my Firefox extensions though, and I can live with that. . . 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 1 hour ago, Ksarul said: I don't have them blocked, but I also only see the weird text descriptions when using Firefox (but not when using Edge). It may be a side effect of one of my Firefox extensions though, and I can live with that. . . Trying not to pull this off-topic too much, I suspect Facebook only allows a certain amount of off-site traffic. BITD, and many services do this in a more complex manner, we used to block outside linkage by examining the http "Referer:" header. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digdugnate Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 ah, that makes sense. I'll make sure to download the pics next time- I didn't even think about the fact it was linked from Facebook since I was a lazy and copy/pasted. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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