Unfinished 1980's protos bieng completed by 2006 Homebrewers?

[mos6507]

Here's what I feel like would be the ultimate prototype finishing challenge:

 

Complete or remake the 2600 port of Tempest.

 

I'm wondering if the game could have been done on the Supercharger. Their knock-off of Asteroids was so good they had to change the concept to keep from getting sued. Suicide Mission was impressively vector-like. I'd love to see a multi-load version of Tempest done in the same style and with a few more boards to play stored on the cassette. Anything would be better than the prototype Tempest's 'underpants' shaped playfield.

 

But I think Tempest requires too much math to do realistically on the VCS.

 

It's a worse situation than Star Wars: TAG. The shapes just don't lend themselves to being drawn using the kinds of tricks that Bob Smith employed there.

 

So yes, I think you would have to go monochrome and use a full RAM-based bitmap of some sort.

 

The Chimera cartridge should enable a recognizable Tempest on the 2600 using a mode like this or the narrower one in Stellasketch, by getting the coprocessor involved in updating the display.