Caverns Of Mars

[Bill Lange]

Any ideas why the 8-bit classic Caverns Of Mars wasn't ported to the 2600? Seems like this simple scrolling shooter would work well on the 2600. It made so much money for APX and Atari, that I am surprised it was ported.

 

WRL

[Tempest]

It was planned for the never relased Atari Computer Add-on called The Graduate. I have no idea why it wasn't made as a normal cart though.

 

Tempest

[DanBoris]

quote:

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Originally posted by Pitfall Harry:

I believe that the diagonal scrolling in the game was just too much for the poor old 2600's CPU to handle.

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Actually Cavern's of Mars just scrolled vertically not diagonally. I actually brought up this subject on the Stella development list a couple weeks ago. Since the game scrolls vertically you would rarelly end up multiple "objects" on the same horizontal line like you would in a horizontal scroller like Scramble. This would make Cavern's of Mars very well suited to the 2600 hardware.

 

Dan

[Junie]

quote:

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Originally posted by Tempest:

It was planned for the never relased Atari Computer Add-on called The Graduate. I have no idea why it wasn't made as a normal cart though.

 

Tempest

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Was The Graduate ever actually released? Or has anyone found a "proto" one?

 

I have been reading up on somethings from www.atari-history.com and would love to have this thing. Not to mention getting the Disk Drive, Printer, etc. would be nice to

[Tempest]

Nope. All that's been found is a mock-up of the unit. I'd bet there's a prototype of it somewhere though.

 

Tempest

[Stella'sGhost]

Im pretty sure that the 2600 could handle Caverns Of Mars. I loved that game, used to play it on my friends Atari 400 or 800 - who can remember. It was my favorite game for months, maybe years! I was just a little kid then...so sue me. If I knew how to program a 6502 microprocessor ( it is a 6502 right?) why I'd do it myself damn it...! Maybe if I start today I can figure it out in about 10 years.

How about finding out who coded the 8 bit version and we'll raise 1 million spacebucks to pay him to make a 4 bit version?? Or better yet how about we take the 8 bit version and divide it by 2?? Won't that work? If you put in Defender and tilt the TV 90 degrees to the right it kind of plays like Caverns of Mars you know.....

[atari70s]

the 2600 keyboard i have an article about it in my old COMPUTE! mags anyone wnat me to scan it in and all. it has a pic of it dialog and the suggested price of 99.99( to be honest id pay 100.00 for it since it never made it out). but if you all want to see the write up let me know

[Ze_ro]

quote:

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Originally posted by Pitfall Harry:

Atari planned a keyboard add-on called The Graduate. The device was to have its own graphics processor(s) in it which would override the VCS and enable it to support a game like

Caverns of Mars

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How exactly did they plan on doing this? Would you plug the RF adaptor into the Graduate instead? If not, I can't see any way to bypass the TIA at all... you'd still be a slave to it. Though I suppose you could at least have a chip that does a lot of the funky video timing and stuff for you.

 

StellasGhost: Dude, the Atari isn't a 4 bit system! In fact, there are only two 4 bit systems that I'm aware of: the Intel 4004 (The worlds first microprocessor), and the Microvision (A handheld which is actually quite well suited to be a 4-bit system). In general, 4 bits isn't enough to make anything useful though.

 

--Zero

[DEBRO]

quote:

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Originally posted by Dan Boris:

Actually Cavern's of Mars just scrolled vertically not diagonally. I actually brought up this subject on the Stella development list a couple weeks ago. Since the game scrolls vertically you would rarelly end up multiple "objects" on the same horizontal line like you would in a horizontal scroller like Scramble. This would make Cavern's of Mars very well suited to the 2600 hardware.

 

Dan

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I remember seeing that post Dan but never responded. I only answer the Stella list from home and there's not that many times I log in from home.

 

I agree. I think Caverns of Mars would be great for the 2600.

[eric_ruck]

quote:

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Originally posted by StellasGhost:

How about finding out who coded the 8 bit version and we'll raise 1 million spacebucks to pay him to make a 4 bit version??

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Actually if I remember correctly the person who wrote it was a teenager at the time, and Atari paid him a zillion real bucks in royalties. I remember being a preteen drooling over the prospect of writing my own APX game for royalties and the coveted APX Star Award, but I always seemed to be behind in the age/development equipment budget curve.

 

Of course, in the end I did get an APX Star Award trophy, from eBay.

 

EMR

[Scott Stilphen]

The programmer in question is Greg Christensen, who also did Caverns of Mars II, Phobos.

[Bill Lange]

Here is some info on the author from Chris Crawford's website -

 

"Greg Christenson was a high school student when he burst upon the scene. Bright, shy, and quiet, Greg put together just one game: Caverns of Mars for the Atari. It was a simple vertical scrolling game, not too different from Defender. After all, Greg was only a hight school student, new to programming, and using the Atari Assembler/Editor cartridge as his development tool. He really didn't know much about game design per se. He simply started with Defender, made it vertical, and then added interesting bits and pieces until he had a game.

 

But the graphics were fantastic. It used many of the graphics capabilites of the Atari, and the result was impressive. Caverns of Mars sold a zillion copies. Greg earned a ton of money. The press loved him. Here was a high school kid programming a hit game in just eight weeks. Talk about a Cinderella story! Atari game him a $25,000 award for the best game published by the Atari Program Exchange. Everybody wondered excitedly what this wunderkind would acomplish in coming years.

 

But then, a grain of sand, a gust of wind, and Greg Christenson was gone. I don't know what ever became of Greg. He just disappeared from the gaming scene." - From www.erasmatazz.com

 

WRL

[Scott Stilphen]

"...not too different from Defender" !?!

 

Yeah, O.K.

If anything, it's like a vertical Scramble.

[Stella'sGhost]

f you put in Defender and tilt the TV 90 degrees to the right it kind of plays like Caverns of Mars you know.....

 

I meant 90 degrees to the left. I remember hearing about Greg Christenson. Wonder what he's doing now? I also wrote a side scrolling game in Extended basic when I was about 15 in 1983? Using sprites. I combined Caverns of Mars/asteroids/defender all in one! This milestone in programming genious ran on a TI/994a. I ran out of memory at about 15K so it only has like one level because my programming was not efficient in the least. Still...I think I made one copy and gave it to a friend on cassette. What do you think about that eh? Pretty lame I know.

[slapdash]

Take a look at Thrust -- possibly that kernel could be used for a version of Caverns of Mars for the 2600.