33 replies to this topic

[Albert]

Thanks to the efforts of Atari Archivist Ken Van Mersbergen (who recently uncovered Sinistar for the Atari 8-bit computers), another previously unknown Atari 2600 prototype has now surfaced. Ken's latest find is the game Boggle, which was programmed by David Crane while he was at Atari. In Boggle, which is based on the popular word game of the same name, you must form as many words as possible from a random 4x4 grid of letters. The 2600 version of the game is for two players only, and each player can form a maximum of eight words (likely due to memory constraints of the 2600). You can download Boggle here and read a more thorough review of the game over at AtariProtos.com.

[Shawn Sr.]

Seems like a neat little game. Too bad about the lack of a Computer Challanger, that woulds have been fun.

[Zach]

Cool. We haven't had a new 2600 prototype turn up in a while.

[Nathan Strum]

Nice font. Otherwise, it's got the same problem as Hangman - you can do the same thing better with a piece of paper and a pencil.

[sku_u]

I haven't had a chance to try this one out, but I noticed it's for the joystick. Wouldn't this one have been much better suited to a keypad and overlay? I love seeing these games surface. Many thanks to Ken for his diligent work.

[supercat]

Oddly, I just had the idea to program a Boggle-style game on a RAM-expanded 2600, but couldn't figure out where to find a good word list. I know some good techniques for word-list compression, but don't know a good source of lists.

[sku_u]

supercat, on Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:10 PM, said:

Oddly, I just had the idea to program a Boggle-style game on a RAM-expanded 2600, but couldn't figure out where to find a good word list.  I know some good techniques for word-list compression, but don't know a good source of lists.

What about experimenting with a find a word generator? That's where you supply a topic and word list and the program randomly generates a puzzle for you. Some have suggestion word lists. There are many of those floating around out there. If you wanted to program something like that, LMK what the word constraints are and I can help you generate some good word lists. Lord knows I've put together enough as enrichment tools for my students.

[Jacob Rose]

supercat, on Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:10 PM, said:

Oddly, I just had the idea to program a Boggle-style game on a RAM-expanded 2600, but couldn't figure out where to find a good word list.  I know some good techniques for word-list compression, but don't know a good source of lists.

http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/

dict.org has some links if you want definitions, too.

[Tempest]

The prototype has 4 variations, but I can't see any difference between them. If anyone has more information on the variations let me know.

Tempest

[moycon]

One of my favorite games as a kid.
Will be interesting to see how it translates to the Atari 2600.

[bcombee]

There's a Boggle-like game already in the form of Glib: http://www.atariage....wareLabelID=213. It was done by the Scrabble people and also requires two players, since there wasn't room for a computer opponent or word list.

[supercat]

Jacob Rose, on Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:59 PM, said:

http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/

Thanks. I think their "20-level" word list looks like a good compromise. Using a simple packing scheme, a list of 7675 words of up to 8 characters fits in just over 16K. Implementing a version of Boggle with a computer that would tell you how many words existed would be an interesting challenge on the 2600. I would expect that an unexpanded 2600 could probably manage to count the available words within three minutes while showing the board on screen, though keeping track of the words the player had entered might be a problem (they'd probably take at least two bytes each, and a player should be able to enter more than 64 words). Adding an AtariVox or EEPROM expander might make the game feasible in an otherwise-unexpanded 2600, however (using an F4-banked 32K cart).

[Propane13]

Hey everyone,

1) Is there a good story as to how this was found?
2) How was it found out that David Crane programmed it?

-John

[Tempest]

Propane13, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:38 AM, said:

Hey everyone,

1) Is there a good story as to how this was found?
2) How was it found out that David Crane programmed it?

-John

1. Ken will have to answer that
2. His name was found in the code

Tempest

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Tempest, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:39 PM, said:

2.  His name was found in the code

Wow! Any chance of releasing the code?

BTW: The ROM is only 2K, not 4K.

[Tempest]

Thomas Jentzsch, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 12:21 PM, said:

Tempest, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:39 PM, said:

2.  His name was found in the code

Wow! Any chance of releasing the code?

BTW: The ROM is only 2K, not 4K.

Oops... right you are! I'll change that tonight.

Tempest

[Dutchman2000]

I found the source code on one of several 8-inch disks I got which came from Atari. There might be more finds in the weeks to come...

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Dutchman2000, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:48 PM, said:

There might be more finds in the weeks to come...

[deathtrappomegranate]

Thomas Jentzsch, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:35 PM, said:

Dutchman2000, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:48 PM, said:

There might be more finds in the weeks to come...

What he said

[Zach]

I've read just about all of Atariprotos.com, and I don't recall a 2600 prototype ever being found by its source code. Is this the first time?

Edited by Zach, Wed Aug 31, 2005 6:26 PM.

[safestuff]

Propane13, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:38 AM, said:

Hey everyone,

1) Is there a good story as to how this was found?
2) How was it found out that David Crane programmed it?

-John

Not a very interesting story- I found this file in a bunch of data that I got from Atari, when they closed the Milpitas facility in 2003. The data was on some misc 8 inch floppy disks that I bought. Most of the stuff on the disks was just drivel: Parts lists, Vax programs and stuff that was not Atari specific. There were a few 2600 sources in pile. I have sent all the 2600 data I have located so far, to Ken for resurection. Hopefully, I will find more as I parse through the 100,000's of files I have restored.

Scott
www.atarigames.com

[mos6507]

Zach, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:24 PM, said:

I've read just about all of Atariprotos.com, and I don't recall a 2600 prototype ever being found by its source code. Is this the first time?

The Starpath protos were found on Apple ][ floppies, which were in the process of deteriorating and not easy for Jim Nitchals to save.

Meteroids on the Stella CD is a great Asteroids clone. (The game was changed because they were afraid of getting sued by Atari.) I'm really happy that was saved. The physics are different from Suicide Mission. It plays like a different game. There were also 2 different versions of Sweat but only 1 was put on the CD. That was in my email attachments back when I was on an Amiga so I lost it when I wiped my old hard drive. It must still be with Jim's old computer equipment somewhere.

[mos6507]

safestuff, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:51 PM, said:

Not a very interesting story- I found this file in a bunch of data that I got from Atari, when they closed the Milpitas facility in 2003.  The data was on some misc 8 inch floppy disks that I bought.  Most of the stuff on the disks was just drivel:  Parts lists, Vax programs and stuff that was not Atari specific.  There were a few 2600 sources in pile.  I have sent all the 2600 data I have located so far, to Ken for resurection.  Hopefully, I will find more as I parse through the 100,000's of files I have restored. 

Check out the label on one of the innermost folders!!

Did you get that???

[Tempest]

mos6507, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:41 PM, said:

  There were also 2 different versions of Sweat but only 1 was put on the CD.  That was in my email attachments back when I was on an Amiga so I lost it when I wiped my old hard drive.  It must still be with Jim's old computer equipment somewhere.

I found two differnt Sweat roms on the net long ago. One ws the normal sprint demo with the select an event screen, but the other was a discus/shotput demo. Are you saying there's another version out there?

http://www.atariprot...sweat/sweat.htm

Tempest

[mos6507]

Tempest, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:09 PM, said:

I found two differnt Sweat roms on the net long ago.  One ws the normal sprint demo with the select an event screen, but the other was a discus/shotput demo.  Are you saying there's another version out there?
Tempest

Those two I think are the two that were released on the Stella CD.

There is a different version that is more glitchy that I remember evaluating much earlier. It was so glitchy that we decided not to include it, but I think it has a different look and feel.

I think that's the bottom screenshot in this artwork from the CD. Note that the grandstand looks different and it's 2-players.

Russ brought this to my attention a little while ago and I was not able to find the old BIN.

BTW, I think one of these versions actually worked with paddles. I think that's why the programmer said it had Party Mix code in it.

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