+somebooks Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 Just now, Albert said: Third party companies weren't paying anything to Atari. ..Al Well thank you for that clarification (and, uh, for this entire site by the way). Apparently i have a poor understanding of this stuff and probably shouldnt be talking about it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 2 minutes ago, somebooks said: Well thank you for that clarification (and, uh, for this entire site by the way). Apparently i have a poor understanding of this stuff and probably shouldnt be talking about it! Please do continue talking about it. ..Al 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jstick Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 54 minutes ago, Omegamatrix said: I love that we are hearing about it when the project is ready instead of waiting in Limbo for a few years. Yes! Just like those 2600 games with menus added, that keep popping up out of nowhere 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 3 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: There is nothing special with SuperBank which couldn't have done back then too. This is true. In fact Superbank can be done with TTL chips that have been around since the 70s (and in some cases, the 60s.) The first 128k EPROM was introduced in around 1986. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keithbk Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 Paying Royalties??? Hopefully none of it is going to Meghan and Harry. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 2 minutes ago, keithbk said: Paying Royalties??? Hopefully none of it is going to Meghan and Harry. No politics, please. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 20 minutes ago, batari said: This is true. In fact Superbank can be done with TTL chips that have been around since the 70s (and in some cases, the 60s.) The first 128k EPROM was introduced in around 1986. And they could have used multiple smaller chips instead of 128K EPROMs, as those larger chips would surely have been expensive when they were introduced. For instance, Atari's 8-bit computer boards had space for two EPROMs, typically two 8K EPROMs for a 16K game. ..Al 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keithbk Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 4 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: No politics, please. No politics implied. No one voted for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 (edited) It's highly unlikely we would have seen a 128K 2600 game back in the day. It would have been too expensive and probably required an extra long cart to contain multiple smaller chips. Consider that Fatal Run was 32K and came out in 1990. Had the 2600 lived into the mid 90s then maybe. The thing with these design decisions is they all involve tradeoffs of some kind. Activision always avoiding flicker tends to result in gameplay that always seems to resemble Pitfall 1/2. A lot of horizontal movement and not a lot going on within a single scanline, but everything is very pretty to look at. A looser policy can result in busier kernels with more action-oriented gameplay (think Stargate). And the more RAM you have the more depth of gameplay and less of a railed/scripted layout by virtue of more game-state. Edited March 13, 2021 by mos6507 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 7 minutes ago, Albert said: And they could have used multiple smaller chips instead of 128K EPROMs, as those larger chips would surely have been expensive when they were introduced. For instance, Atari's 8-bit computer boards had space for two EPROMs, typically two 8K EPROMs for a 16K game. 64K EPROMs were available in 1983. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 (edited) 6 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: 64K EPROMs were available in 1983. From memory things like SpartaDOS X was big but that was a pricey cart. By the time the XEGS came out carts were converted disk games like Ace of Aces and pretty big. Edited March 13, 2021 by mos6507 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 11 minutes ago, mos6507 said: It's highly unlikely we would have seen a 128K 2600 game back in the day. It would have been too expensive and probably required an extra long cart to contain multiple smaller chips. Consider that Fatal Run was 32K and came out in 1990. Had the 2600 lived into the mid 90s then maybe. There seems to be no info in the web. Someone should do some research (e.g. ads in old magazines) to find out the prices. I doubt the late date Fatal Run is a good evidence. The Atari 2600 was almost dead by then, so investment into development of large games didn't make sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 4 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: 64K EPROMs were available in 1983. One thing to keep in mind is that Atari didn't even use EPROMs in their 2600 games, they were masked ROMs that contained the game data and bankswitching logic. These were mass produced and I'm assuming in large quantities would have been significantly less expensive than EPROMs. Cost for larger games absolutely would have been a factor, but as time went on, Atari did make increasingly larger boards with more advanced hardware (such as the extra 128 bytes of SARA RAM), presumably because those hardware costs were coming down in price over time. ..Al 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 7 hours ago, AAA177 said: From the video, it seems as if many characters from the Activision-2600 days were present, such as the alligators, gold bars, sunset, etc. What I love is that is very obviously non-infringing because: A) The alligators clearly are crocodiles now. B) The gold bars clearly has been replaced with shiny yellow painted bricks. c) The horizon clearly has been changed from a sunset to an afterblast glow for the Los Alamos test site nearby. 1 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 16 minutes ago, mos6507 said: It's highly unlikely we would have seen a 128K 2600 game back in the day. It would have been too expensive and probably required an extra long cart to contain multiple smaller chips. Consider that Fatal Run was 32K and came out in 1990. Had the 2600 lived into the mid 90s then maybe. The thing with these design decisions is they all involve tradeoffs of some kind. Activision always avoiding flicker tends to result in gameplay that always seems to resemble Pitfall 1/2. A lot of horizontal movement and not a lot going on within a single scanline, but everything is very pretty to look at. A looser policy can result in busier kernels with more action-oriented gameplay (think Stargate). And the more RAM you have the more depth of gameplay and less of a railed/scripted layout by virtue of more game-state. Depends what "back in the day" means. There were quite a few 128k 7800 carts which were released well within the active life of the 2600. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 9 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: 64K EPROMs were available in 1983. Nice find! This is the earliest 128k EPROM I can find on that site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+D Train Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 7 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: 64K EPROMs were available in 1983. not sure how reliable this is: https://jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm but in 1982 64K was going for $279 and 256K was going for $495. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 7 minutes ago, D Train said: but in 1982 64K was going for $279 and 256K was going for $495. True, but that is RAM. Which has always been way more expensive than ROM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+D Train Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 1 minute ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: True, but that is RAM oh, DUH. of course. oops! never mind! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 I remember being shocked to find out that my XEGS carts like Lode Runner circa 1987 were 128K given that it wasn't a very pricey title. I'd really like to know what the economy of scale was on that at the time. Things changed so rapidly in the 80s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xeex Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 Is this the first 2600 game with... microtransactions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 8 minutes ago, xeex said: Is this the first 2600 game with... microtransactions? If I had to guess, it's offline. That is, maybe the game produces a unique code (based on a key encoded into the individual EPROM) and you purchase an unlock code and manually enter it into the game. I could be wrong of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xeex Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 1 hour ago, batari said: If I had to guess, it's offline. That is, maybe the game produces a unique code (based on a key encoded into the individual EPROM) and you purchase an unlock code and manually enter it into the game. I could be wrong of course. I'm not sure either, but I'm intrigued. I was imagining a closed section of the Audacity website with lore about the Chameleon. If it's on the cartridge/in the binary - even better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 The website now says countdown - 23 hours. I hope that's a glitch. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 "We apologize, but due to server problems the launch of CIRCUS CONVOY is delayed. Our goal is to launch at 2:00 PM (Daylight Savings time) tomorrow" Okay, one more day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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