RE: Aliens / Videotopia

Sounds really cool Clay ! I can't wait, a Multi Game Tempest.

Yesterday my wife and I went to Waterloo IA, to visit the Videotopia
exhibit. I must say that I was very impressed with the setup and
display
of all the games. I was able to meet with and discuss video game
related
ideas with Jeff Anderson as he showed me around. I got the chance to
see the operation of some of the test equipment that is discussed on
this
list, PAT9000 & a Fluke 9???? (had a flip down keyboard and could
simulate a CPU via a pod, I would like to learn more about this unit)
Jeff was really great and friendly and I enjoyed playing some rare and
unique games that otherwise would not be available if it was not for
this
exhibit. I highly recommend a visit to Videotopia if you have the means

to do so.

Todd Miller, MCSE LAN Analyst
Ron Weber and Associates
103 E. State Street, Mason City, IA 50401
(515)423-4293/(515)423-4594 FAX
http://www.telethinking.com

        -----Original Message-----
        From: Clay Cowgill [SMTP:ClayC@diamondmm.com]
        Sent: Thursday, March 18, 1999 11:00 AM
        To: 'vectorlist@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu'
        Subject: Aliens - update...

        Well, good news!

        I managed to sneak into the computer room and work with the
Aliens
        boards a bit last night (we've had company all week so
hacker-time has
        been limited).

        Long story short-- both sets of Aliens ROMs work, and are
different!
        They also appear to run on stock Tempest hardware. (Yay! :-)

        I've dubbed the sets "Aliens Proto 4" and "Aliens Proto 5" based
on the
        board serial numbers.

        Aliens Proto 4 appears to be the earlier set. It's smaller by
2K, and
        has a lot of unused space in the ROMs. It also appears to have
been
        related to Lunar Lander somehow 'cause it appears there's chunks
of
        Lunar Lander source code in the ROMs. Go figure. Gameplay is
        definately "Tempest", but seems REALLY hard. That could just be
the
        fact that the shooter doesn't auto-fire - one bullet per press
on the
        button! The game appears to be in some kind of early
beta-state-- there
        is no title screen, enemy movement is slightly different
(faster?), and
        all enemies but the red flippers "sparkle" instead of having
solid
        colors. Explosions are also multi-colored, and the player
"death"
        animation is completely different. I haven't tried it on a
machine with
        sound capabilities yet, so I can't comment on that yet. Oh,
yeah-- "NEW
        SUPERZAPPER" instead of "SUPERZAPPER RECHARGE". High-score
table
        doesn't seem to be functional either.

        Aliens Proto 5 looks much closer to the released game. It does
however
        have one obvious and cool difference-- the title screen proudly
        proclaims "VORTEX by Atari" in a cool-looking font. ;-) (Same
sort of
        "zoom in" effect that the Tempest title screen does, but the
"trails"
         from the letters stay on screen for a while.) Once again,
gameplay
        seems close to final Temest, but possibly a little harder. It
may also
        allow more player bullets on the screen at once-- although that
could
        have just been my perception after playing with Proto 4 for a
while.
        Auto-fire works, and all the rest of the game functions seem
        more-or-less the same as Tempest. There's definately
differences
        though, but until I do a side-by-side compare they're tough to
describe.

        Anyway, this is just entirely too interesting (to me at least
;-) to
        pass up, so I'm putting together a multigame for all this stuff.
It's
        not going to be super-fancy, but should serve its purpose-- a
software
        based menu system allows selection of Aliens Proto 4, Aliens
Proto 5,
        Tempest rev 1, Tempest rev 2, Tempest rev 3, and Tempest Tubes
(if OK
        with author). There will be three jumpers on the board that
allow
        selection of any game (or the menu) to be the default "power-up"
mode of
        the cabinet. The menu will still be call-able from a dedicated
        menu-button.

        -Clay
Received on Thu Mar 18 13:26:48 1999