Jump to content
Have You Played Atari Today?
2600|5200|7800|Lynx|Jaguar|Forums|Store
IGNORED

Which early non-cpu game

sandmountainslim
 Share

Which early game would you like to see ported?  

29 members have voted

  1. 1. Which early game would you like to see ported?

    • Fonz by Sega
      9
    • Heavy Weight Champ by Sega (1976)
      0
    • Flying Fortress by Electra
      2
    • Destruction Derby by Exidy
      7
    • Spiders From Space by Exidy
      2
    • Star Trek by For-Play
      3
    • Wheels by Midway
      0
    • Other
      6
  • Please sign in to vote in this poll.

Recommended Posts

s0c7 Dragonstomper

s0c7

Posted
Posted

I've often wondered about the Trek game. I've never seen one and klov only has a pic of the cab. I'm guessing it is a Space War variant with Trek-style ships a la Star Cruiser (kudos to Ramtek for using the Romulans instead of the Klingons). Anybody have any info on this one?

 

BTW - I think the screenshot from the Fonz flyer is probably about as accurate as the screenshots on some of the old 2600 boxes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sandmountainslim Quadrunner

sandmountainslim

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
They've been working on that one since the Monolith spoke to Stargazer.  Abandoned?

859642[/snapback]

Damn Nukes, you sure know how to burst a fellers bubble :( I wanted that one for Christmas. I suppose that means Fonz will see the light of day before Death Derby :)

Edited by sandmountainslim
Link to comment
Share on other sites
vdub_bobby Quadrunner

vdub_bobby

Posted
Posted
I think Glenn Saunders and Thomas are working on this one as we speak if I'm not mistaken :)

It's Glenn baby, so he decides what is going to happen and when. I am just there to help him a bit.

860102[/snapback]

Glenn asked me to take over the project about two weeks ago. I declined his kind offer since I want to focus on Go Fish! until it is completed (~June 10). After that, if he is still looking for help, I might look into taking over.

 

So don't give up hope just yet :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Thomas Jentzsch Quadrunner

Thomas Jentzsch

Posted
Posted
Glenn asked me to take over the project about two weeks ago.  I declined his kind offer since I want to focus on Go Fish! until it is completed (~June 10).  After that, if he is still looking for help, I might look into taking over. 

 

So don't give up hope just yet :)

That's good news.

 

If you need help with the kernel, please tell me. IIRC it uses "skipDraw" a lot. Maybe by using "switchDraw" we could squeeze some more graphics into it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
vdub_bobby Quadrunner

vdub_bobby

Posted
Posted
Glenn asked me to take over the project about two weeks ago.  I declined his kind offer since I want to focus on Go Fish! until it is completed (~June 10).  After that, if he is still looking for help, I might look into taking over. 

 

So don't give up hope just yet :)

That's good news.

 

If you need help with the kernel, please tell me. IIRC it uses "skipDraw" a lot. Maybe by using "switchDraw" we could squeeze some more graphics into it.

860246[/snapback]

I won't say no to help!

 

-bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 5 months later...
supercat Quadrunner

supercat

Posted
Posted
What's a non-cpu arcade game? Are those what I've heard called electro mechanical games before, or is that a early kind of pinball?

960474[/snapback]

 

In a game like "tank", there are dozens of counters and control circuits, one for each indepentent game element (some display elements may be appear multiple places on the screen in a manner similar to the three biplanes in Combat, using only one set of circuitry, and some game elements may share circuitry, but most stuff is independent).

 

In "tank", there is a six-bit counter that serves no purpose other than to record the player 1 score; there's another six-bit counter that only serves to record the player 2 score. The X and Y positions of the two players and their shots are all controlled by eight separate counters, and each player also has a counter to keep track of how far his shots have flown, an up-down counter to control the tank's direction, a latch to control his shot's direction, a shifter to clock out the tank's shape at the appropriate time, etc.

 

Simply put, this is a LOT of circuitry. Examining it, one will notice that with the exception of the horizontal counters and shifters, most of these circuits only get hit once for every scan line or two, if not once per frame. What a microprocessor does it it allows infrequently-used counters, comparators, or other circuits to be replaced by RAM locations. When one of these "circuits" has to do something, the processor will read the appropriate RAM locations, manipulate them, and store them back.

 

As a very simple example, consider the player 1 score. Normally this would be held in a resettable counter chip. Not the world's most expensive device, but not exactly free either. In a microprocessor-controlled game, however, the score can simply be held in a RAM location as it will only be needed once per frame (it's read out to show the score) except when a tank is destroyed (in which case it will need to be read and written one 'extra' time). The RAM location need not have any circuitry to increment the score; the processor can perform such maths itself.

 

The Atari 2600's "Combat" cartridge is a lot more sophisticated than the arcade "Tank" game, but the 2600 (plus cartridge) cost much less to produce. Not only is a substantial cost savings achieved by combining circuits into a special-purpose chip, but the amount of circuitry itself is greatly reduced.

 

Basically, the TIA chip was designed to implement a game like "Tank", but most of the circuitry whose timing did not need to be precise to the microsecond was eliminated and the responsibilities of that circuitry were given over to the microprocessor. The number of bits of RAM required for the microprocessor to do its job far exceeded the number of bits of counters, latches, etc. that would have been required in a discrete-logic approach, but compared to the other logic, RAM was cheap. To be sure, RAM wouldn't be considered cheap by today's standards, but I would guess that a 128-byte RAM probably cost about as much as 2 bytes' worth of "fancy" counter chips or 10 bytes' worth of basic latches.

 

One of the interesting things about the early days of microprocessors is that the devices were not seen as computers. By 1977, the posibilities that the things could work like computers readily apparent, but with the 2600 the goal (despite the name) wasn't to build a computer, but rather to replace a large amount of discrete logic with a processor, ROM, and RAM. In the early days, game programmers weren't thought of as being "computer programmers", but rather as engineers putting together the building blocks to implement a game. The fact that the building blocks were CPU instructions rather than discrete chips didn't affect how their job was viewed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
AtariAge
Forums
Store
General
Follow AtariAge

Copyright ©1998-2023 AtariAge

×
×
  • Create New...