Some gamers may put down the quality of several games this early Atari team produced, but consider the small cartridge sizes, short programming time frame expectations and the lack of production tools that are available today? What they created was simply astounding on a piece of 1977 released hardware that was expected to move literally three simple objects at once.
100% agreed! And the fact that these devs had to optimize for every single byte or even bit of RAM and ROM without the comfy tools of today... amazing.
Indeed, creating anything whatsoever on the platform was a challenge: no video RAM (the programmer told the electron beam what to do for the most part), only 128 bytes (yes, BYTES) of RAM in the system, no tools to speak of (besides some graph paper and a calculator!) and huge time pressures. People have to remember that the 2600 was mainly written for specific kinds of games, like Combat. It was only through the foresight of Jay Miner, the video chip designer for the 2600, other Atari 8 bits and the Amiga, that there was just _enough_ flexibility in the system to allow the programmers to push it to the limit. Things like scrolling were not even planned but programmers figured out how to do it (River Raid for the 2600 is one of smoothest scrolling games I have ever seen on any 8 bit platform).
@@JustWasted3HoursHere very true. It's also funny that back in 1982 I thought I was an Atari fan, while my evolution from the Atari 2600 to several 8 bit Atari Computer's to Amiga, actually demonstrated I was actually a Jay Miner fanboy.
Tod Frye talks about why he did what he did with Pac-Man in this excellent documentary on the early days of the 2600 "Stella at 20": ua-cam.com/video/UTDUB_GiTKA/v-deo.html which I highly recommend for anyone who is interested in the nuts and bolts of the inner workings of the machine and the company. And here's Tod admiring a homebrew version of Pac-Man for the 2600 that looks and plays amazingly: ua-cam.com/video/RqezF_Lv05Y/v-deo.html In defense of Frye, homebrewers have unlimited time to work on their projects, but these guys doing this for a living don't have that luxury. That being said, in the interview above Tod does say that he originally planned to write a kernal for variable flicker but decided against it for reasons that are explained in the interview.
I was able to play the first SwordQuest game (EarthWorld), but I stink at the second SwordQuest game (FireWorld). I have never been able to find the third SwordQuest game (WaterWorld).
Some gamers may put down the quality of several games this early Atari team produced, but consider the small cartridge sizes, short programming time frame expectations and the lack of production tools that are available today? What they created was simply astounding on a piece of 1977 released hardware that was expected to move literally three simple objects at once.
100% agreed! And the fact that these devs had to optimize for every single byte or even bit of RAM and ROM without the comfy tools of today... amazing.
@@CascadesHomestead considering that their tools were literally nonexistent at this early stage of game development, it literally boggles me.
Indeed, creating anything whatsoever on the platform was a challenge: no video RAM (the programmer told the electron beam what to do for the most part), only 128 bytes (yes, BYTES) of RAM in the system, no tools to speak of (besides some graph paper and a calculator!) and huge time pressures. People have to remember that the 2600 was mainly written for specific kinds of games, like Combat. It was only through the foresight of Jay Miner, the video chip designer for the 2600, other Atari 8 bits and the Amiga, that there was just _enough_ flexibility in the system to allow the programmers to push it to the limit. Things like scrolling were not even planned but programmers figured out how to do it (River Raid for the 2600 is one of smoothest scrolling games I have ever seen on any 8 bit platform).
@@JustWasted3HoursHere very true. It's also funny that back in 1982 I thought I was an Atari fan, while my evolution from the Atari 2600 to several 8 bit Atari Computer's to Amiga, actually demonstrated I was actually a Jay Miner fanboy.
@@ridiculous_gaming I would love to have met him.
Would it kill Bob to get near the mic XD
Any updates on Airworld?
Howard's mic aint working.
Tod Frye talks about why he did what he did with Pac-Man in this excellent documentary on the early days of the 2600 "Stella at 20": ua-cam.com/video/UTDUB_GiTKA/v-deo.html which I highly recommend for anyone who is interested in the nuts and bolts of the inner workings of the machine and the company.
And here's Tod admiring a homebrew version of Pac-Man for the 2600 that looks and plays amazingly: ua-cam.com/video/RqezF_Lv05Y/v-deo.html In defense of Frye, homebrewers have unlimited time to work on their projects, but these guys doing this for a living don't have that luxury. That being said, in the interview above Tod does say that he originally planned to write a kernal for variable flicker but decided against it for reasons that are explained in the interview.
thanks for sharing!
I was able to play the first SwordQuest game (EarthWorld), but I stink at the second SwordQuest game (FireWorld). I have never been able to find the third SwordQuest game (WaterWorld).
Yeah WaterWorld is very hard to find. Expect to shell out big bucks on Ebay for a complete game... $500 and up :(
@@CascadesHomestead or just play it on an emulator.....😄😄
I would not take credit for that pos pacman on atari