Godzilla Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Thank you for sharing these with the community, game rogue. To be commended. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 Grrr... I need to take another look but it appears that the Apollo protos have the EPROMs soldered to the board (and they have a metal shield on them). I may need to send them to someone with a cartridge dumper. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 Yep these Apollo protos are definetly soldered to the boards. I'm going to need to send them out to someone with a cartridge dumper. I wonder why they would bother soldering the eprom to the board considering these were some VERY early WIP protos? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Game Rogue Posted March 27, 2006 Author Share Posted March 27, 2006 Now that you have seen the protos, what are your ‘expanded” thoughts on them? Are any of them rare (other than the Apollo ones), previously unseen/unknown versions or valuable? Is any of this stuff going to be posted to the Atariprotos site? Tempest, thanks again for taking a look at the games, and I’ll be getting to the 400/800/XE stuff this weekend. I’ll let you know what I dig up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Game Rogue Posted March 27, 2006 Author Share Posted March 27, 2006 BTW: There were two games I was unable to get working - Beamrider and Robot Tank I think. Did you have any luck with them. Also what does WIP mean? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 BTW: There were two games I was unable to get working - Beamrider and Robot Tank I think. Did you have any luck with them. Also what does WIP mean? WIP means Work In Progress. This means a beta or unfinished version of the game (aka. what I'm looking for). No luck on Robot Tank or Beamrider, but when I dump the EPROM I might be able to get it to work. Sometimes the protos stop working because the board (not the eprom) goes bad. I played with all th games briefly this weekend. These are my initial impressions, we won't know more until I dump the eproms and do a file compare on the .bin file with the released versions. My computer is back up and running, so I can dump them this week. Unknown Apollo Proto (Kyphus?) - Looks to be a mid level WIP. You can wander about the rooms, avoiding the blob and robot, but there's no gameplay implemented yet so there's nothing much to do. Interestingly there's alot of debugging info (hex values) being fed to the score and displays at the top of the screen. They look like position coordinates. Guardian - This is definetly a WIP. The game is permently in two player mode, and the scores say 123456 and 456789. I think there may be some gameplay implemented because the ships appear to be shooting the enemies. I need to dig out my paddles and play around with this one. Squoosh - This version is further along than the previously released version. Unfortunately the game still isn't even close to being playable. You can watch the grape roll around the floor and jump and get hit by the press (you get knocked down into the pit), but that's about it. Someone will have to look at the game code and see if there's more functionality in this one, but I doubt it. Private Eye - Appears to be the final version. Skateboardin - Appears to be the final version. Montezuma's Revenge - Final version Beamrider - More than likely the final version. 99% of Activision protos that look like this are the final versions. Robot Tank - More than likely the final version. 99% of Activision protos that look like this are the final versions. Pigs in Space - Final Krull - Final Galaxian - This is a WIP version, but I'll have to play around with it a little more to know what's different. It's close to the final though. I think the colors or sounds are a bit different. Ms. Pac-Man (PAL) - Final. This is an NTSC proto even though it says PAL on the label. Odd... Solar Fox - Looks like the final, but I need to play around with it more. Pitfall II - Appears to be the final version. Name This Game - Appears to be the final version. Crazy Climber - Appears to be the final version. Frankensteins Monster - Appears to be the final version. Encounter at L-5 - Appears to be the final version. I need to dig out my paddles to play this one. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supercat Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 Yep these Apollo protos are definetly soldered to the boards. I'm going to need to send them out to someone with a cartridge dumper. I wonder why they would bother soldering the eprom to the board considering these were some VERY early WIP protos? Do later versions of these games exist? If not, even though they're early WIP games I would think they may be "souvenirs" from people who left when Apollo was dissolved. For someone leaving a game company in the early 1980's, a playable cartridge would be far more useful than a floppy for a development system that was no longer posessed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Ok some more updates: Skateboardin - Final Name This Game - Final Solar Fox - Differs by 2 bytes. No idea what these do, but it's either a very small bug fix or just 'eprom garbage'. Private Eye - This one actually has a production chip in it. This is actually not all that uncommon with Activision 'prototypes'. More updates soon. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Game Rogue Posted March 30, 2006 Author Share Posted March 30, 2006 Good to hear... any of this worthy of Atariproto listings? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Good to hear... any of this worthy of Atariproto listings? If I don't already have a page for the game, I'll add one. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Ok more analysis: Ms. Pac-Man: Final, but not PAL as stated on the label. Crazy Climber: Final Galaxian: This is a WIP, but it is not from 035-02 (2/4/83). I have another Galaxian proto dated 035-02, but this one is different than that one. One of them has a wrong date. The rest of the protos will have to be sent out for dumping as they are soldered to the boards. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Solar Fox - Differs by 2 bytes. No idea what these do, but it's either a very small bug fix or just 'eprom garbage'. Where and which two bytes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Solar Fox - Differs by 2 bytes. No idea what these do, but it's either a very small bug fix or just 'eprom garbage'. Where and which two bytes? I don't remember. I'll post the rom tonight. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Here's the Solar Fox proto. Only two bytes are different, so don't expect to see anything different. Tempest solarfoxproto.Bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Here's the Solar Fox proto. Only two bytes are different, so don't expect to see anything different. Actually not even those two bytes are different. They are bankswitching hotspot bytes, which result into random values when getting dumped. So the ROM is 100% indentical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxsolo2000 Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Tempest any idea when you might be covering the new snow white and Apollo protos on your site? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Here's the Solar Fox proto. Only two bytes are different, so don't expect to see anything different. Actually not even those two bytes are different. They are bankswitching hotspot bytes, which result into random values when getting dumped. So the ROM is 100% indentical. I thought it might be something like that. Good to know. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Tempest any idea when you might be covering the new snow white and Apollo protos on your site? The Apollo games are being shipped out today to someone I trust who can dump them. The EPROMs are soldered to the boards, which means I can't dump them myself. Snow White will be dumped soon. We found someone out in California who can dump it for us. I'm not sure how long this will take, but I'll let everyone know when it has been dumped. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Any new information on the A8 protos? -- Atari Frog http://www.atarimania.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Any new information on the A8 protos? -- Atari Frog http://www.atarimania.com Not yet, they haven't arrived (might be waiting for me when I get home). Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxsolo2000 Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Tempest any idea when you might be covering the new snow white and Apollo protos on your site? The Apollo games are being shipped out today to someone I trust who can dump them. The EPROMs are soldered to the boards, which means I can't dump them myself. Snow White will be dumped soon. We found someone out in California who can dump it for us. I'm not sure how long this will take, but I'll let everyone know when it has been dumped. Tempest Thanks for the heads up Tempest. Look forward to reading whta you have to say on them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Game Rogue Posted April 23, 2006 Author Share Posted April 23, 2006 Tempest? It is getting near a month since I've heard anything about the status of those unknown protos or for that matter any details on the other protos I sent you. Update please... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 Tempest? It is getting near a month since I've heard anything about the status of those unknown protos or for that matter any details on the other protos I sent you. Update please... I was able to dump all but 5 of them since those were soldered to the boards. I sent those to Albert (who owns the site) to dump, but he had trouble locating his 7800 that is capable of dumping whole cartridges. This weekend he did find it and is going to dump them. Hopefully he'll have them dumped today. Sorry for the delay. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 The delay with the last five protos is entirely in my hands and I apologize for the time it's taken me to dump them. I'll have an update on them shortly. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 Tempest? It is getting near a month since I've heard anything about the status of those unknown protos or for that matter any details on the other protos I sent you. Update please... Unkknown proto's you say!! This should be good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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