ECS Games Without the ECS?

[Tempest]

Have any games other than Mindstrike been hacked to run without the ECS with an LTO Flash?   I don't believe all of them need the keyboard or are playable somewhat without it like Scooby Doo.

[intvdave]

Kind of....

 

Flintstones Keyboard Fun and Jestons require the keyboard. Scooby and Mind Strike no longer need the keyboard. Working on WSBaseball soon

[Tempest]

14 hours ago, intvdave said:

Kind of....

 

Flintstones Keyboard Fun and Jestons require the keyboard. Scooby and Mind Strike no longer need the keyboard. Working on WSBaseball soon

Perfect!  Those three are the ones I'm interested in.  Are the modded roms for Mind Strike and Scooby Doo available somewhere?

[intvdave]

Not yet.

 

I do not think there is much interest in these games. Scooby is an alright game. I think Mind Strike is underrated.

[Tempest]

12 minutes ago, intvdave said:

Not yet.

 

I do not think there is much interest in these games. Scooby is an alright game. I think Mind Strike is underrated.

Unfortunately you're right, none of the ECS games are exactly outstanding.  Scooby Doo is alright but gets boring after a while (it was a kids game though), and I never did learn how to play Mindstrike but I've always wanted to.  WSB is technically amazing but I'm not a huge sports fan.   The rest of the ECS games are educational so I don't really care too much.  Although I'd really like to try Mr. Basic sometime, which is the only reason I still keep my ECS out.  That and Melody Blaster I suppose but I don't have to room to keep that keyboard just laying around.

 

Still, I'm looking forward to seeing these when you release them.  

[Sinjinhawke]

I forgot I owned Scooby Doo and recently tried it.  Lost my interest pretty quickly.  Thunder/Mystic Castle is a much better maze game.  I am also meaning to try Mind Strike.  I wonder if the stakes are as high as Star Strike.

[carlsson]

From a technical point of view, what does the ECS add? An extra sound chip, 2K RAM, two extra controllers, ability to plug in various keyboards. Something else that I overlooked without checking? I mean other than party games for four players or very musically oriented games, I'm not sure what it could add to the gaming experience (*) enough to warrant ECS only games back in the days. Those 2K extra RAM perhaps could come handy but without knowing exactly how Intellivision cartidges are constructed (except that they're rather complex on the inside which explains why they're more expensive to build), I would assume the cartridge could map in RAM as well - after all, the LTO! Flash does. In that case, it meant even back in the day that any action/strategy game that required more workspace RAM might have it onboard the cartridge, playable on every console, or rely on the ECS RAM.

 

(*) Ok, perhaps strategy/role playing/other games that heavily rely on a keyboard instead of only the numeric keypads but I'd think many of those games anyway need even more workspace RAM so publishers would go for other computer formats over the Intellivision ECS.

Edited June 24, 2021 by carlsson

[+intellivotion]

I must be the one and only on this planet who doesn't dislike Number Jumble. Together with Gernot, perhaps.

 

Ok, it's educational but the 4 worlds are very nicely rendered and the game in general has some charm.

IIRC, the ECS isn't necessarily required to play it.

[Tempest]

The ECS only came about because Mattel promised a computer and was getting fined for not having one once the original keyboard component was canceled.  They needed a low cost computer to satisfy the complaint.  That's why it's so stripped down and doesn't really offer much, it was never meant to be anything other than a stopgap solution.  They also needed to get games out on it quickly so they took existing WIP games and shunted them over to the ECS which explains why games like Mind Strike don't really need the ECS and many other games don't actually take advantage of it much.  The keyboard could have had some better applications if they had wanted to explore it, but for various reasons this was not to be.  When some new management took over it was pretty much canceled instantly because they didn't like it which would explain why there were so few games made.

[Zendocon]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

From a technical point of view, what does the ECS add? An extra sound chip, 2K RAM, two extra controllers, ability to plug in various keyboards. Something else that I overlooked without checking?

A BASIC interpreter, and ability to connect two Aquarius peripherals.  Essential for Mr. BASIC Meets Bits & Bytes, not exactly comparable to World Series Major League Baseball as a killer app.

 

1 hour ago, intellivotion said:

I must be the one and only on this planet who doesn't dislike Number Jumble. Together with Gernot, perhaps.

I kind of liked Number Jumble too.  That and The Flintstones' Keyboard Fun.

[carlsson]

True, perhaps attaching a tape recorder to the ECS could be used to load and store game data to some more complex ECS games as well. That might be more valuable than the RAM.

[+DZ-Jay]

3 hours ago, intellivotion said:

I must be the one and only on this planet who doesn't dislike Number Jumble. Together with Gernot, perhaps.

 

Ok, it's educational but the 4 worlds are very nicely rendered and the game in general has some charm.

IIRC, the ECS isn't necessarily required to play it.

I've never played Number Jumble, but I really enjoyed The Electric Company Math Fun when I was a kid.

 

    dZ.

[Intelligentleman]

9 hours ago, carlsson said:

True, perhaps attaching a tape recorder to the ECS could be used to load and store game data to some more complex ECS games as well. That might be more valuable than the RAM.

I wonder if the ECS needs to be able to store the program (coming in from the tape) within the internal ram in order to execute.

 

Is it possible the ECS can execute a program from tape storage, using the 2k ram as a buffer of sorts?

[mr_me]

The ECS Computer Adaptor RAM is only 8-bit and can't be used to execute an Intellivision program.

Edited June 25, 2021 by mr_me

[Intelligentleman]

Does that mean it’s not possible to load a program from a tape in the cassette drive?

[mr_me]

I think someone could create a cartridge with 16-bit ram and program rom that loads and executes an Intellivision program from cassette.

[carlsson]

I didn't expect an executable program loading from tape. I was suggesting save files, actual data that could go into the 2K so you could resume a previous game.

 

Edit: Or possibly extra levels but it would be a little waste of extra RAM to use it for extending games with new levels.

Edited June 25, 2021 by carlsson

[Intelligentleman]

What if there was a standard Intellivision game cartridge containing all the mechanics of a game. BUT, the cartridge also comes with a cassette tape. The cassette tape holds all the level data.

 

So you'd put the cart into the ECS, then the cassette into the drive. You'd type something like CLOAD Level 1 to tell the computer to load the contents of level one into the 2k ram. So each level would need to fit within that space, but with all the core gameplay data housed in the physical cartridge, that might be enough space to do something interesting?

[+Lathe26]

15 hours ago, Intelligentleman said:

I wonder if the ECS needs to be able to store the program (coming in from the tape) within the internal ram in order to execute.

 

Is it possible the ECS can execute a program from tape storage, using the 2k ram as a buffer of sorts?

The 2K RAM could be used for executing ECS BASIC programs as well as 8-bit data but not typical programs since CP1610 machine code is 10-bits wide.  The 2K RAM is only 8-bits wide.

[Zendocon]

19 minutes ago, Intelligentleman said:

What if there was a standard Intellivision game cartridge containing all the mechanics of a game. BUT, the cartridge also comes with a cassette tape. The cassette tape holds all the level data.

 

So you'd put the cart into the ECS, then the cassette into the drive. You'd type something like CLOAD Level 1 to tell the computer to load the contents of level one into the 2k ram. So each level would need to fit within that space, but with all the core gameplay data housed in the physical cartridge, that might be enough space to do something interesting?

I was thinking of something like Sokoban.  So many levels could be included on the cartridge, but additional level packs could be loaded through tape.  There are enough levels out there to justify the use of tapes.

[intvdave]

World Series Baseball has been updated to no longer need the keyboard. I am in the process of trying to make it more of a game instead of simulation. The long pauses between actions and background noise was to annoying for me.

 

I am hoping to have an ECS games bundle available which will include hacked versions of WSBaseball, Scooby, and Mind Strike. Not to exciting for those of you that prefer games on cart.

[JohnPCAE]

On 6/24/2021 at 9:17 AM, intvdave said:

Not yet.

 

I do not think there is much interest in these games. Scooby is an alright game. I think Mind Strike is underrated.

I loved Mind Strike when I first got it. It's a great game.

[intvdave]

2 hours ago, JohnPCAE said:

I loved Mind Strike when I first got it. It's a great game.

 

And even better without needing the keyboard and quicker game play

[+Lathe26]

I just realized that "Scooby-Doo's Maze Chase" without ECS would be "ooby-Doo' Maz ha"

 

 

[Intymike]

At least, Scooby Doo uses the ECS for 6 channel sound.