Re: Armor Attack - more questions

On Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:36:26 -0500, "Kristopher Sandrick" <300zx@one.net> wrote:

>> I can't remember enough morse code to tell if the two are the same.
>> The first letter is 'C'; had I thought about it, I would have listened for
>> the rest of "inematronics", but didn't think of it at the time.
>> The (morse) code is very short, so it's probably not all of the letters.
>
>It all goes by far too fast for me, personally, as any/all of the Morse code
>training I did in my Navy days was with flashing light drills. =]
>
>Still, I'd be very curious about any variances in the Morse between the
>versions. According to the designer, it's not saying "cinematronics" at
>all. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Tim Skelly
>(http://coinop.vintagegaming.com/interviews/skelinterview.html) on the Morse
>code:
>
>"At the time I was finishing the game, the (US) government decreed that
>every male of draft age had to register, even though there was no draft in
>effect. This pissed me off (old draft resistor), especially since my buddy
>Scott Boden was someone who had to sign up. I wanted to use morse code
>sounds in Armor Attack, and I knew morse, (old boy scout) so that's real
>morse code in the game beeping out "dontregister." I was also assuaging my
>own conscience, since I had heard that Atari had sold Battle Zone to the
>Army."

Now that is making sense, since I was *sure* it was the prototype ROMs I was
playing for my friend's, friend, over the phone.

My guess is for the prototype they simply used "Cinematronics", and before the
release Tim & Scott changed it to "dontregister".

One thing I seem to remember is that the morse code repeats from where it left
off, not necessarily at the beginning each time. So it might not always start
with the "C" or "D" depending upon what's really there...

-Zonn
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Received on Thu Mar 29 13:46:02 2001