185 replies to this topic

[Albert]

Flexured said:

I will now answer your claims:

While you "answered" my claims, you mostly talked your way through them without actually providing any meat to your answers. Your answers also demonstrate that you obviously are still unaware that this community has quite a bit of knowledge on this subject, and when someone comes along and tries to pull a fast one they're going to be called on it, especially if they're sloppy in the process. At this point you can pretty much make any claims you want and attempt to refute the evidence, but until you actually come up with some better proof that you have the game you say you do, it's all hot air.

..Al

[Flexured]

Lemmi-

The ROM was never dumped before due to legal reasons.

If the cart was legit, there was a chance of being sued by Infogrames. Especially because they would know I have the only one and Atari's copyrights (which they inherited) had not expired.

Now as the carts legitimacy is fading as information comes in, I no longer hold these reservations. I would still like to get a direct email from Frye or Infogrames waving their rights to a possible lawsuit in the event that some of what may be released may be genuine, but may have to skip this step.

Prototypes have been bought and sold on eBay for quite some time, without any precedent of legal action. But major game companies have vigorously taken legal action against ROM dumpers in the past, most notably Sega and Nintendo of America.

This information was communicated to Alex (site admin) via email, whom I assume Albert is getting his information from. Perhaps he failed to include why I did not dump the ROM at the time because he did not know.

--Jeremy

[Scott Stilphen]

Flexured said:

 

But alas, these posts go nowhere, must... dump... rom...

That's about the only thing you can do now to prove yourself.

[Albert]

Flexured said:

If the cart was legit, there was a chance of being sued by Infogrames.  Especially because they would know I have the only one and Atari's copyrights (which they inherited) had not expired.

I'm sorry, but this has to be one of the lamest excuses I've ever heard someone use to defend not dumping a prototype. Simply dumping the prototype to verify its contents and investigate the code would not bring the wrath of anyone down on your shoulders. If you were truly worried about this, you would let someone dump the cart and examine the binary without them taking a copy.

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Now as the carts legitimacy is fading as information comes in, I no longer hold these reservations.  I would still like to get a direct email from Frye or Infogrames waving their rights to a possible lawsuit in the event that some of what may be released may be genuine, but may have to skip this step.

You will never get such an email, especially from Infogrames, who would be the likely copyright owner. This is just another of your stalling tactics so you don't have to come forward with a prototype you don't have.

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Prototypes have been bought and sold on eBay for quite some time, without any precedent of legal action.  But major game companies have vigorously taken legal action against ROM dumpers in the past, most notably Sega and Nintendo of America.

Please cite some examples where companies have come down on people releasing Atari 2600 prototypes. You can't, because it hasn't happened.

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This information was communicated to Alex (site admin) via email, whom I assume Albert is getting his information from.  Perhaps he failed to include why I did not dump the ROM at the time because he did not know.

Yes, I did know this. However, if you were truly worried about a lawsuit then you wouldn't even be contemplating the sale of this prototype on eBay (or anywhere else) as you do not own the IP rights for this unreleased product. Therefore technically you do not own the rights to sell this incomplete work to someone else. And I know Alex told you this also.

This is just more posturing on your part to delay the release of a prototype you don't have. How about opening up the cart and taking a picture of the board and the EPROM? How about some shots of you playing the game on a television? How about putting that great All-In-Wonder card to work and capturing some pixel-perfect Swordquest Airworld gameplay? How about contacting someone about dumping the prototype if you're so sincere about getting it done?

..Al

[maximebeauvais]

flexured is one of my best friend

I saw the game last year

I have tested the game and Yes it is a real proto

But don't forget I'M ALSO A LIER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



@flexured: just stay away.....enough is enough

[TheRedEye]

Flexured said:

But major game companies have vigorously taken legal action against ROM dumpers in the past, most notably Sega and Nintendo of America.

"Vigorously?" Right. Name one time that Sega, Nintendo, or any company for that matter have taken legal action against someone who dumps ROM images.

I can't believe this is even still being discussed. It's an obvious fake, and we know it. Let it go, and quit egging him on guys. If this goes on long enough, I'm going to have to start listing technical reasons that those screenshots are impossible.

[DanBoris]

Here are a few more observations about the graphics comparsions (not that I really thing we need more)..

- The off colored dots in the man (one green and one black): Assuming the programmer of the game intended to do this they would have had to overlay both of the 2600's player sprites on top of each other to get the two colors on on line. I find it highly unlikely a 2600 programmer would "waste" a sprite for such a minor graphical enhancement.

- The key shapped object: This object is clearly 11 pixels in width where all the other objects (as far as I an see) are 8 or less pixels. This is consistent with the programmer using the players sprites to represent the objects since player sprite are a maximum of 8 pixels wide. To get 11 pixels would require two sprites side by side, again, why waste a sprite for such a minor enhancement.

- It's also interesting that the man is multicolored in Earthworld, and singled colored in Fireworld and Waterworld. It's a little odd that they would go back to the multicolored man for the last game especially since Atari wasn't putting anywhere near as much effort into the later games as the did the earlier.

Dan

[somePUNK]

a-ha figured out *says pointing at Flexured* i knew it was fack all the time.

But serousely i didn't know untill you great peopl started to put it together i thank you all for saving my money

[MrRetroGamer]

somePUNK said:

But serousely i didn't know untill you great peopl started to put it together i thank you all for saving my money

The sad part is that this joker could still put this "item" on EBAY and some other uninformed bidder or bidders who never heard of AtariAge or who never knew about this discussion would swoop in and STILL pay top dollar for a bogus item, thinking it is the real thing. How can you stop that from happening?

[Lemmi]

MrRetroGamer said:

somePUNK said:

But serousely i didn't know untill you great peopl started to put it together i thank you all for saving my money

The sad part is that this joker could still put this "item" on EBAY and some other uninformed bidder or bidders who never heard of AtariAge or who never knew about this discussion would swoop in and STILL pay top dollar for a bogus item, thinking it is the real thing. How can you stop that from happening?

If its on Ebay the people here will find it and then we would inform every bidder about this thread, just like the Bug90 auctions


EDIT- thats if its not found to be a true prototype, the hounds of hell will come down upon thee

[Warren]

I'd pay $1 for it. Just for the whole infamy factor. For all I know, it's an Asteroids cart.
But I'd still pay $1.

[feo]

If you guys give me the IP address and the time of the posting (PST), I can figure out who this person actually is. I work for one of the large telcos and have access to the type of information not that many people can get to. The reason why I have access for this, is to track down people doing illegal activities and other things like severe spamming and virus distribution. Even if he is not one of our customers, ISPs help each other out greatly with this type of thing. Besides, I have good contacts on just about all of them already.
You can send me the info to my private email account (the admins here have it).

[Atari2600Lives]

Flexured_

I have one simple question. with all the fancy capture equipment you have can you please capture a video of the game playing?

How hard can that be? It will alleviate your fears of Infogrames coming down on you (please).

You can do it in about 5 minutes ...post it and shut everybody up...c'mon do it...now if you can't....can you please just go away?

[Flexured]

I have an email from Tod Frye that I believe is 100 percent authentic. The email address is legit and John Hardie was CC'd.

This is what was said.
-----
hello.

this is me. Tod Frye. Really. i mean, check the e-mail address...

that Airworld cart i saw? screenshots look like Earthworld, with some
modifications to the graphics data. this would not be all that hard for a
moderately competent 'hacker' to do. just find the data tables in ROM, and
patch them.

EarthWorld was the first one. it was coded by Dan Hitchens, under my design
direction. based on the Zodiac - 12 rooms, one for each sign, that sort of
stuff.

AirWorld did get started, and i was digging it, but i got asked to port
Xevious to the 2600 after 2 other programmers gave up on it. The Xevious
port had some REALLY cool 2600 tech...

AirWorld was based on the I Ching. As far as i got, it was never fully
playable. But i was psyched to be doing it. One flew around in a (sort of)
first person flying scenario with 64 hexagrams on the horizon, dodging some
stuff in the air, and picking some other stuff. When you picked up a certain
token, you entered the 'in hexagram' phase, where you locked on a hexagram
of your choice on the horizon, and it zoomed up to fill the screen, where
you played one of 64 simple games (the 64 simple games never got finished,
to ambitious).

So, what the heck. Those screen shots were almost defintitely from a
modified EarthWorld.

There is no AirWorld. I would be really surprised if it were even possible
to find the code for the initial AirWorld prototypes. But if anyone ever
does find them, let me know- maybe they are near my 2600 BallBlazers
prototype - 2600 BallBlazers was the coolest 2600 tech i ever did, and i
have lost my only listing of the code

thanks,
tod frye

-----

It's definitely 100 percent a hack-job fake. So, I'll stop wasting everyone's time here and get to the business of dumping it. I have a few questions though. Is the code compiled on the chip itself? Or is it compiled on the console? Can we see the source right off the chip? What language is it written in? If it is compiled and on the chip, can it be decompiled?

[Atari2600Lives]

BTW-

Everyone should just about stop pointing out all the problems with the fake proto. This is only serving as a class on how to dupe us next time under an assumed name......I can see it now...... Pitfall 3 finally found!

[Atari2600Lives]

Dump it tomorrow. Post the video tonight or shut up and leave already!

Flexure give me an answer on why you can not capture 2 minutes of video of the game in action?

Answer this one simple question.....please!

[Albert]

Flexured said:

It's definitely 100 percent a hack-job fake.  So, I'll stop wasting everyone's time here and get to the business of dumping it.  I have a few questions though.  Is the code compiled on the chip itself? Or is it compiled on the console?  Can we see the source right off the chip?  What language is it written in?  If it is compiled and on the chip, can it be decompiled?

Okay, so we now have a second message from Tod where he states his opinion this is a fake. This still does not change my assertion that you don't even have a game to dump at all. Instead of asking tons of questions to slow this process down, why don't you just respond to one of the many people who have written you offering to dump the game?

..Al

[moycon]

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This still does not change my assertion that you don't even have a game to dump at all

I agree with Al. I'm seriously doubing this is even a hack. The green "hand" did it for me. I don't think there is a chip, I don't think there's any code to decompile, I think all Jeremy has is a few moc screen shots that he made himself and the only way to remedy this way of thinking is too dump it ASAP, or at the very least show a couple pics of you playing the game... It would take less time to do this then it would for you to respond to this thread Jeremy.

Jeremy continues to attempt to talk his way out of this, now going as far to admit it's a fake.... I'm guessing he has some more admitting to do. Talk is cheap, Just give the people what they want Jeremy or give it up.

[CrazyImpmon]

[quote=Flexured]I will now answer your claims:

[quote=MrRetroGamer]
The sad part is that this joker could still put this "item" on EBAY and some other uninformed bidder or bidders who never heard of AtariAge or who never knew about this discussion would swoop in and STILL pay top dollar for a bogus item, thinking it is the real thing. How can you stop that from happening? [/quote]

If that person tries to auction the proto, one of us could make several posts with link to this thread in public areas including RGVC and RGVA groups. The seller would be lucky if he has 2 clueless bidders on his game. Personally I wouldn't pay a dollar for it unless it can be verified for real (ROM dump, video clip of game in action, etc)

[jahfish]

come now ... it's over .... the only truth that could be left, is that you might have been fucked by someone else ....

but don't try to fuck with us !!!!!

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[oesii]

jahfish said:

come now ... it's over ....  the only truth that could be left, is that you might have been fucked by someone else ....

but don't try to fuck with us !!!!!

   

Yeah, unless flux can post a simple picture of him playing the game, lets move on and discuss a 2600 Ballblazer proto, like Tod Frye mentioned. My favorite game on the 5200 and 7800!

[CincYnoTi]

CrazyImpmon said:

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6) After you declare you're not going to make any further posts here, a "co-worker" of yours, with the same IP address, signs up with a new account and posts two messages supporting you. But he naturally neglects to acknowledge the fact that he knows you or is a co-worker. He also lists his location as San Jose, CA, where you are in Houston. Only when I revealed that you two are posting from the same IP address do you "admit" he's a co-worker (oops!)  

I didn't admit to anything, questions were posted pointing out that he and I were logging in from the same IP. We have over 100,000 computers worldwide that use the same internet gateway running IP masquerading. The whole of our company uses a private subnet for internal traffic. He answered some questions when I was putting the environment together, and when people began to attack the way in which the images were taken, I asked him to post, because I stated I wasn't going to anymore and had more technical information than I did anyway in that realm. So, seeing how everyone was, once again, attacking a non collector on this board, I asked him to post as a friend.

AFAIK you can't use the same IP when your computers are 2000 miles apart. It's usually much cheaper to get a second ISP and separate network in 2 different areas than to run a 2,000 mile long private network cable.

wow, that was a quick self-lesson in quoting embedded quotes...

i know this is off-topic, but i believe same IP 1000s miles apart is how our company had set up its network. we had offices on the west coast, detroit, minneapolis, with the main office in cincinnati. our internet connection was in cincinnati with a firewall which gave out a single IP for everything behind the firewall. all the remote offices connected to the main office via a T1 connection. so anytime there was a power outage or any problem with the ISP in cincinnati, all the remote offices lost there connection to the internet. it was actually worse than that, since the west coast was connected through the minneapolis connection first.

[Jeffy Arensmeyer]

Atari2600Lives said:

...serving as a class on how to dupe us next time under an assumed name...

I've got to agree with A2L, but there does have to be some form of open air discussion in order to reveal/confirm the proto. It's a double-edged sword that we have to deal with.

In this very thread, some of the background info about the proto has been given...

Scott Stilphen said:

...For more info, see my Airworld page at:http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/9260/awr.html

That could have been easily assimilated into the Tod Frye e-mail.

Unfortunately, all of the older AA posts were blown away in the forum change over some months back. There have, however, been others posing questions about the proto.

Albert, since you have access to the IP Info, could you please check the IP address of Cannuck? It's just an idea.

There's not been much talk about the Airworld proto since the new forums came on-line. Were any of the records retrievable from the old forums? Definitely worth checking, if possible.

If you go here, you can see that www.dragonsword.com is registered in Houston, Texas, and has been online since 2000. Nothing suspicious there.

The graphics, on the other hand, are as fake as Pamela Anderson's jubblies. I'm still trying to track down the color fade used on the opening screen horse. It's around. It just needs to be found.

We'll never see the ROM, so there's no need to even get excited about that. The legal issues are flimsy at best. The same IP address situation is possibly and very probable. But even if you allow heavy leniency on all other issues, the fact still remains that the graphics are faked...period:!:

I'm actually eager to wait 1½-2 years and see how much more refined this guy can get his story when he tries this again. Especially since the Doom-Fake link has been posted, this guy will eventually get it close to perfect. Then it's just a matter of who will get the dud proto.

ò¿ó                   
 

[Albert]

Jeffy Arensmeyer said:

There's not been much talk about the Airworld proto since the new forums came on-line.  Were any of the records retrievable from the old forums?  Definitely worth checking, if possible.

All the messages from the old (UBB) forum were imported when we switched software. If you cannot find old references to AirWorld by searching, then there probably was very little talk of it on the old forums. Now, if you're talking about the old 2600 Nexus forum before AtariAge, you're correct, none of those messages were imported. But that was over a year and a half ago.

..Al

[broncoman]

all i can say if albert says it's a fake then it must be because im new to all this all i know is that airworld was 20% complete thats all if it even exhisted