Bally Alley Astrocast

This podcast covers the Bally Arcade videogame console released in 1978. This system was also called the Astrocade and the Bally Professional Arcade.

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 19 - Astrocade Newbie with Brian (Ballistik Coffee Boy) 03/05/2023

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 18 - BASIC Games - Cross Country Racer and Star Wars 11/04/2022

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 18 - BASIC Games - Cross Country Racer and Star Wars In episode #18 of the Bally Alley Astrocast podcast, the hosts, Chris and Adam, cover two games written in Bally BASIC called "Cross Country Racer" and "Star Wars" by Doug Shaeffer, an amateur Astrocade programmer. These games were archived, along with other programs, by Paul Thacker in February 2022 from an Astrocade collection bought on Ebay by Nate Reeder in January 2022. Paul says, "These seem to me to have been made for personal use rather than with a goal of publication, but there's still some cool stuff in here [...]." Also covered is one piece of feedback and some recent updates to the Bally Alley website." Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico Show Notes We have limited show notes again for this episode. If there's something in the podcast that you want to hear more about and a search on the Internet won't turn it up for you, then contact the . - This is the first of two Bally BASIC games from the early 1980s that is covered in Astrocast #18. - This is the second of two Bally BASIC games from the early 1980s that is covered in Astrocast #18. - The complete tape archive of Doug Shaeffer's Astrocade Tape Collection. - This an ad called "Max Performs Magic" about the Datamax UV-1R ZGRASS Graphics System. It is from page 16 of "Back Stage," December 3, 1982. - This is a three-page printout of "The Bally Shrine" Website from 1999. The Bally Shrine was a website run by Charles Taylor in the mid-to-late 1990s. - This is a Montgomery Ward advertisement for a blow-out sale on many game systems, among them is the Astrocade for $29.99. This ad, from the bottom-right of page 6-A, is from the December 4, 1983 edition of "The Baytown Sun," a newspaper from Texas. - The three-part "CHRDIS" articles describe how to use the Bally Arcade's built-in Character Display routine from within Bally BASIC to create fast graphic displays. First published in the November and December 1982 and February 1983 Arcadian newsletter. Mike Skala says, "I've seen quite a bit of software lately utilizing the Graphic Character Maker, a machine code routine that Arcadian has published in the past year. This allowed us to use a display routine from the on-board ROM and put complex graphics on the screen instantly, rather than a slow series of BOX and LINE commands. The major drawback here was when moving the graphics, erasing and redrawing: it left us with considerable flashing or blinking. If you have been with us for a while, you know that we are continually evolving and improving; the following tutorial is our new generation of screen animation for the Astrocade!" - This is the AstroBASIC software in archived format. Feedback There is some feedback covered in this episode, and we would love to hear your thoughts and comments about this (or any) Astrocast episode or about your history with the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. The best way to contact us is via email at or through via the . Next Episode's Coverage Perhaps "AstroBASIC" will get some coverage in Episode #19. It makes sense, since Astrocast #18 covered two BASIC games. Astrocast #17 was supposed to cover the material in the "AstroBASIC" manual and it was recorded, but it didn't turned out the way I had hoped that it would sound, so the "AstroBASIC" manual overview has been put off until I can cover it with a co-host like Chris, a BASIC programming ninja, or Paul, who has also programmed in BASIC. We will also cover "Outpost 19," an AstroBASIC game by WaveMakers that will fit naturally into an episode that shares its numbering with the game. We also may try to cover a game that was released on cartridge, but that coverage may be bounced to a future episode because "Outpost 19" may be the most involved game written in BASIC on the Astrocade. /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/24911364

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 17 - News, Updates, List All Cartridges 02/12/2021

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 16 - Interview with Andy Guevara of Bit Fiddlers 05/29/2020

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 16 - Interview with Andy Guevara of Bit Fiddlers In episode #16 of the Bally Alley Astrocast, Kevin Bunch interviews Andy Guevara. The interview took place Saturday, May 16, 2020. Andy wrote three programs that were released on cartridge for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. The first cartridge was Machine Language Manager (MLM), released by The Bit Fiddlers in 1982. L&M Software approached Andy due to his machine language skills and a collaboration got underway that produced Ms. Candyman and Sea Devil, which were both released on cartridge in 1983. Andy also wrote some additional software: Chicken and the Goldfish Demo were released on tape, while a few others were released as type-in programs. Mr. Guevara's used an Apple II Plus with a Z80 card which ran the CP/M operating system to write most of his software for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico Machine Language Manager (MLM) Machine Language Manager (MLM) is a 2KB cartridge written by Andy Guevara in 1981 for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. It was released by The Bit Fiddlers in late 1981/early 1982. There is a series of four videos about the MLM. The episodes are called, "Part 1: Overview and Background," "Part 2: How to Use the MLM," "Part 3: Using MLM Example Programs," and "Part 4: Using MLM with the Astrocade MAME Emulation." - This manual explains how to program in machine language using the "MLM" cartridge. There is also plenty of information that explains how to program the Bally Arcade/Astrocade in general. The complete source code listing for the cartridge is included. - Digitally archived Bally Arcade/Astrocade programs that will load with the Machine Language Manager cartridge and the 300-BAUD tape interface. - This is the Z80 assembly source code the for MLM cartridge in ready to assemble format. Sea Devil Sea Devil is a 4K third party game. It was released in 1983 by L&M Software. This cartridge was written by Andy Guevara (of The Bit Fiddlers). You are the guardian of a 21st century undersea farm. Not only is this important to the survival of the people on earth, but the company you work for have risked millions on this venture. Zardos, the evil king of a distant planet, needs this food for himself. He has sent android divers with other sea creatures to steal this food. You must destroy the hoard of poachers as quickly as possible because each bit of food (the white abalone on the bottom) they get will cost you bonus score at the end of the screen. Beware, the poachers are releasing undersea mines to destroy you, avoid them by evasive action. - (1983) Game "manual" (instructions) for Sea Devil by L&M Software. - (1983) Advertisement for Sea Devil. This document contains much more of the game's backstory than is in the manual. - Picture of the Sea Devil cartridge. - Sea Devil was played in the Astrocade High Score Club on AtariAge in July 2016. Ms. Candyman Ms. Candyman is a 4K cartridge released by L&M Software in 1983. It was programmed by Andy Guevara. Ms. Candyman is the sequel to 1983's Candy Man, which was released on tape. This is the description of the game from an advertisement: "Real arcade action with joysticks, 1 or 2 players and 3 levels of difficulty. More than 20 screens, each faster than the one before. Full screen display in exquisite detail. Ms. Candyman must pick up all of the lifesavers as quickly as possible while avoiding contact with the Ghosts & Goblins. During the first half of a screen the Ghosts or Goblins will try to catch you. During the 2nd half of a screen the Ghosts or Goblins will take up protective positions to keep you away from the life savers. Each contact costs Ms. Candyman one life and she will nose-dive head first off the bottom of the play field. A wrecker or ambulance will carry her off." Candy Man is the prequel to Ms. Candyman by L&M Software. It was released on tape. It loads via the Astrovision release of Bally BASIC (usually called "AstroBASIC"). The game was written by Bill Loos and Greg Miller, who make up L&M Software. It's unclear to me how much of this game is written in BASIC, but by the speed of this game, my guess is that it relies heavily on machine language subroutines built into the Bally's 8K on-board system ROM. Andy didn't directly work on Candy Man, but the programmers of the game might have used his machine language routines in the game. - L&M Software's very rare cartridge release for the Astrocade. This game is one of those rare occasions where the rarity of the game does not speak about the quality of gameplay. A great game. - Michael Prosise reviewed Ms. Candyman in his "The Game Player #13" column in the November 29, 1983 of the Arcadian newsletter. - This is a partially commented Z80 disassembly of Ms. Candyman. All of the games graphics were found and most of the code was disassembled, but not commented. Hopefully Andy can provide the printed source code listing so that this game can be completely commented. - Ms. Candyman was played for the Astrocade High Score Club in June 2017 for HSC02, Round 6: Ms. Candyman / The Mummy's Treasure. Chicken Chicken! - The Bit Fiddlers, 1982. It's late... you've got to get your brood home in time to watch "Fowl Play." The only problem... there's six lanes of freeway between you and home. And every day it seems to get worse... CHICKEN! is a one or two player game of skill. It pits each player against six lanes of highway of ever increasing traffic density. The object, of course, is to get your chickens across the road. - This is Richard Degler's disassembly of the Bit Fiddler's "Chicken (The Bit Fiddlers).bin." This game originally loaded via Bally BASIC, AstroBASIC or the "Machine Language Manager." This version of the binary will run as a cartridge. Goldfish Demo Goldfish Demo - Seven goldfish (actually they are neon tetras) swim around a fishtank, a clock runs, and a cat meows every minute. - In January 2008, Lance F. Squire converted the Goldfish Demo to run as a cartridge. Standard Color Generator Standard Color Generator - By Andy Guevara/The Bit Fiddlers. BASIC EXPRESS, THE 3, no. 2 (May/June 1981): 15-16. "Machine Language Manager" Manual (Page 7-4) This video test software generates 8 standard colors used in TV work. It is for use with the Bally Arcade/Astrocade and Bally BASIC or the Machine Language Manager. The "Standard Color Generator" program will display a series of color bars which can be used to set the colors on your TV set. The color bars are displayed from left to right in the following order: Black, White, Yellow, Green, Blue, Magenta, Red and Cyan. This video is broken into several part: Overview of Program, Program Loading and Running (Direct Capture), and Program Loading and Running (Video of TV). This program is useful to help adjust colors on a TV. It's also an excellent example of showing more than the usual two colors on the screen at once from BASIC. The Bit Fiddler's Corner Andy Guevara programmed the "Machine Language Manager" ("MLM") cartridge for the Astrocade as well as writing "The Bit Fiddler's Corner" tutorials to help support the program. The tutorials complement "MLM," but they also have a general focus, so this information can be used without reinterpretation by Bally Arcade/Astrocade assembly language programmers, or those wishing to learn about the machine. - Links to each article in the series as they appeared in the Arcadian. - These tutorials were converted to text by Adam Trionfo on January 13, 2002. This is the complete series in one Rich Text Format document. Andy Guevara - Miscellaneous Links - Kevin Bunch is "chronicling the early history of video games with mini-documentaries focused on a particular game or topic. - Bit Fiddler's programs were created using this Z-80 card, or one similar to it, for the Apple II Plus. - This half-page ad appeared in the January 1983 issue of Electronic Games. "Here's a list of professionals who support your computer with programs, hardware and information to help you enjoy your Astrocade to the maximum!" Each of the 17 companies listed in the ad has contact information, along with a brief summary of what they do. Running this ad was very expensive. Richard Houser, from Astrocade Sourcebook (one of the companies in the ad), has said that everyone in this ad grouped together funds to run it for several issues in Electronic Games magazine. When asked if the ad worked at all, Richard said that it did have noticeable results. A higher-quality version of the just the ad can be read . Feedback There is no feedback covered in this episode,but we would love to hear your thoughts and comments about this (or any) Astrocast episode or about your history with the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. The best way to contact us is via email at or through via the . Next Episode's Coverage Astrocast #16 was supposed to be the first of a sporadic multi-part series that covers some of the material in the "AstroBASIC" manual. That episode was bumped to make room for the interview with Andy Guevara. The "AstroBASIC" manual overview will be in Astrocast #17. /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/14622983

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 15 - User Interview with David Kindred 05/08/2020

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 14 - Arcadian (Oct 1979) and 1979 Newsletter Correspondence 04/27/2020

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 14 - Arcadian (Oct 1979) and 1979 Newsletter Correspondence In episode #14 of the Bally Alley Astrocast, Adam and Paul cover the October 1979 issue of the Arcadian newsletter (vol. 1, #11) along with sixteen letters, postcards, notes and even one telegram that were sent to Bob Fabris, editor of the Arcadian newsletter, in the late 1970s/early 1980s. The two programs in this issue are "Microtrek" by Bill Andrus and "Resequencing" by Ron Schweitzer. This episode also covers many letters to the Arcadian that were sent in the fall of 1979. Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico Arcadian, October 1979 - This is issue #11 of the Arcadian. It is ten pages long. It is covered in detail in Astrocast #14. - These are the sixteen letters, postcards, notes and even one telegram that were sent to Bob Fabris, editor of the Arcadian newsletter, in the late 1970s/early 1980s. These documents are in pdf format and all of them are covered in Astrocast #14. Those that were typed have been OCRed but several of these documents are handwritten, so character recognition was not possible. There is a wealth of information inside of these documents which have been scanned from the Bob Fabris Collection. The names of the documents, along with extremely terse overviews about what is in some the documents, are at archive.org. The only way to really know what is inside of these documents is to dig into them and read them from start to finish. - "Microtrek" is a very small but interesting version of the Star-Trek game. This version was originally shared by the North Carolina TRS-80 User Group. In playing, watch your energy level and remaining time. - This program renumbers a BASIC program by using a tape as output, meaning the program in memory isn't actually changed, only the program on the tape is changed. - Uses few graphics, but has good sound effects. You try to guide your ship through 200 light years to your destination. You may be attacked by enemy ships, run out of fuel, collide with meteors, etc. You're at the controls: warp 1, warp 2, wait for help, fire phaser or evasive actions. It's a long way to go, but a good captain can make it with a little help from friendly alien. Tape 3 (1980) - WaveMakers' take on a Star Trek-type game. This one uses few graphics, but has good sound effects. You try to guide your ship through 200 light years to your destination. You may be attacked by enemy ships, run out of fuel, collide with meteors, etc. You're at the controls: warp 1, warp 2, wait for help, fire phaser or evasive actions. It's a long way to go, but a good captain can make it with a little help from friendly alien. MAGFest 2020. Presentation: "The Arcadians: Exploring the History of Homebrew for the Bally Astrocade" - The Bally Professional Arcade (or Astrocade) was little more than a minor player in the early programmable console space, suffering from hardware shortages, endless software delays, and vaporware expansions. Yet since its 1978 debut, the system’s passionate fanbase has taken matters into their own hands, developing and selling a quirky library of homegrown games unlike that of any other console library. Join Rachel Simone Weil and Kevin Bunch as they dig into this fascinating corner of game history, including a hands-on session in the museum afterward. - Article from KILOBAUD MICROCOMPUTING (November 1979): 142-144. A review of the Bally Arcade console. This review, unlike many reviews for this system, concentrates strongly on Bally BASIC, so much so that it nearly avoids the topic of the cartridge games altogether. There are numerous short examples of Bally BASIC syntax. This article also includes a type-in game called "Battlestar Galactica." This is also one of the few mainstream publications of this system aimed at a general audience. - Article from "Creative Computing," 4, no. 5 (Sept-Oct 1978): 56-59. This article covers the Bally Arcade, not as a game playing console, but as an entry-level computer for use with BASIC. The only way that games are covered at all is using Bally BASIC to create games. There is a sample type-in BASIC program included called "Guess the Number." - Article and source code excerpted from PCC's Reference Book of Personal And Home Computing, Edited by Dwight McCabe. 1977. Pages 58-88. Bally BASIC (and "AstroBASIC") are a superset of the original Palo Alto Tiny BASIC. This version of Li-Chen Wang's Palo Alto Tiny BASIC will run on either the 8080 or Z-80, and only uses 2K of core memory. It contains a number of nice features including command abbreviations and error messages. At the end of the listing is a cross reference table for symbols used in the program and also the object code for the program. For further information on Tiny BASIC languages, see Dr. Dobb's Journal, Volume 1. - "Recently, our Los Angeles Bally Users Group found out that Video Brain went bankrupt, and we were able to get a fantastic price on the basic units and cartridges by buying out the complete stock of a Texas dealer." Fred Cornett, the editor of Cursor, is selling three new, overstock Videobrain computers for $125 each. CURSOR 1, no. 3 (March 1980): 21. Feedback There is no feedback covered in this episode,but we would love to hear your thoughts and comments about this (or any) Astrocast episode or about your history with the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. The best way to contact us is via email at or through via the . Next Episode's Coverage Astrocast #15 will be a user interview with David Kindred. David was a user of the Astrocade in the early 1980s and the system helped to shape his career in programming. /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/14170748

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 13 - Cosmic Raiders by Astrocade, Inc. 03/11/2020

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 13 - Cosmic Raiders by Astrocade, Inc. In episode 13 of the Bally Alley Astrocast, Adam and Chris review the Bally Arcade/Astrocade game "Cosmic Raiders," a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up. "Cosmic Raiders" is a game released in 1983 on an 8K cartridge by Astrocade Inc. It is part of the Action/Skills Series and is part #2019. It was written by Bob Ogdon, Scot L. Norris, Julie Malan, and Lisa Natting. "In deep space lies the alien sector Larkin. You are there on a mission to obtain energy sources that have been seized by the evil Larkins. Radar and a superior guidance system help you avoid attacking fighters and Kamikaze ships. The energy stars are near the Larkin command ship: you must retrieve them before you can leave the enemy sector." Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico "Cosmic Raiders" Notes "Cosmic Raiders" Video Overview by Nice and Games (August 26, 2011). - JPG Picture. - JPG Pictures. At least ten prototype cartridges of "Cosmic Raiders" have been found, with the game in various states of production. Most pictures have labels from Action Graphics and there is one from "Arlo Morrill, A.M. Associates, Inc." - JPG Picture. - PDF Document. - Cosmic Raiders Disassembly for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade - Started by Adam Trionfo and completed by Richard Degler (December 25, 2018) - This is a Z80 disassembly of the Cosmic Raiders cartridge. This is the third release of this code. It is now commented and most everything has been disassembled. Richard comments: "Here's "COSMIC RAIDERS 2019.zip" (early VideoCADE #2019 New Year's present) anyway. [...] Check the names of the different fighter patterns - Type-2 and Type-4 might be switched. And notice that the BOMB-Explosion is NOT used for the Bomb! [...] Contains the infamous "LD A,$F0 / OUT ($CC),A" (BASIC equivalant "&(204)=240") which fooled [some few] into believing there was a MYSTIC register hidden in their machine's hardware. Probably just a command to turn off a Printer, UART or Electronic Module in the test bed instead. - PDF. - ARCADIAN 6, no. 3 (Jan. 27, 1984): 23. - Text. "The Game Player" review compilation. This review of "Cosmic Raiders" originally appeared in the "Arcadian" newsletter in the column called "The Game Player." See review #15 in this compilation for the complete review. - This column reviews the Treasure Cove and Cosmic Raiders cartridges for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. These reviews first appeared in NIAGARA B.U.G. BULLETIN, 2, no. 6 (July 27, 1984): 29-30. Next Episode's Coverage Clowns/Brickyard by Astrocade, Inc. - (Cartridge Game) - "Clowns" and "Brickyard" (both on the same cartridge) are the two games that will be reviewed in the next episode. "Clowns" is a color port of the Midway's 1978 B&W arcade game "Clowns." The second game, "Brickyard," is a "Breakout" clone. Outpost 19 by WaveMakers - (BASIC Game) You are stranded on an alien outpost with nobody to help you. While you wait and pray for a rescue party, the only hope you have of surviving is to gather the food parcels that exist in each of the 16 rooms of the outpost. While you're chasing after the food parcels, the alien is chasing after you! His advantage is that he can go through walls, so his path toward you is more of a straight line, while your escape must be around obstacles in the rooms and through doorways provided. Feedback - This is the AtariAge thread from when "Cosmic Raiders" was played in the Bally Arcade/Astrocaded High Score Club in March 2016. The feedback for Astrocast #13 is in this thread. /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/13511927

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 12 - ICBM Attack by Spectre Systems 02/06/2020

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 12 - ICBM Attack by Spectre Systems In episode 12 of the Bally Alley Astrocast, Adam is joined by his good friend, and sometime-co-host, Chris++. Adam and Chris review the Bally Arcade/Astrocade game "ICBM Attack." This is one of the very rare third-party programs that was released on cartridge. This 4Kb game was released in 1982 by Brett Bilbrey, Mike Toth and Marian Nalepa (Spectre Systems). It requires a special controller called the "Spectre Handle" to play the game. Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico "ICBM Attack" Notes ICBM Attack by Spectre Systems - Video overview and how to use a trackball to play the game in the Astrocade emulator included with MAME. - By Adam Trionfo (May 10, 2001) - This article is about the public domain release of two Bally Arcade/Astrocade cartridges by Spectre Systems: "ICBM Attack" and "Treasure Cove." - This area of BallyAlley.com holds documents related to Spectre System's games and products. - Analog controller used with the very rare ICBM Attack cartridge by Spectre. Notice that this plugs into two controller ports. - This is the documentation for the special controller (joystick) used for ICBM Attack. It contains program examples so that the controller can be used from BASIC, plus a letter explaining some problems people have been having regarding the ICBM cartridge. - This is one page of tid-bits of information from Brett Bilbrey. This information was originally included in Russ Perry Jr.'s newsletter Slap Dash. by Brett Bilbrey - June 22, 1982. This is the concept of ICBM Attack as originally envisioned by Brett. This game was eventually released on cartridge. - Twelve pages of handwritten programming notes by Brett Bilbrey about ICBM Attack. In the notes, the game is called "Missile Command." by Paul Thacker and Adam Trionfo - Each ICBM Attack cartridge came with an analog controller that is absolutely required to play the game. In order to play the game using the MESS (or MAME) emulator, it is absolutely essential to setup the emulator correctly. This article explains how to go about doing that so that you can play ICBM Attack perfectly. - Original concept art for ICBM Attack as drawn on graph paper. The art includes the title screen and game screens. - Early version of the game that is loadable with Bally BASIC. - This prototype cartridge loads into an Astrocade with expansion RAM. - A disassembly of ICBM Attack begun November 18, 2011 by Adam Trionfo. i - Mike White's modified version of ICBM Attack. - Three early versions of the cartridge game archived from tapes in Brett Bilbrey's collection. Load with :RUN, not :INPUT. - Two early versions of I.C.B.M. Attack by Spectre Systems. These should be loaded with :RUN. They're not actually playable games at this stage. Astrocade News/Updates - Write 8-bit code, including for the Astrocade, in your browser. Ever wanted to be an old-school game programmer? Learn how classic game hardware worked. Write code and see it run instantly. - David Turner's original posting to the Bally Alley discussion forum on Groups.io. Dave says, "I've made a little progress on the Coin-Op version of Gorf and thought I would make it available. It will assemble with zmac." Dave added comments from the GORF source code written in TERSE. BallyAlley.com hosts the , but (as of Feb. 6, 2020) it doesn't have Dave's newest update yet. - Alan McNeil programmed TERSE, which is short for either "Terse Efficient Recursive Stack Engine" or "Terse Efficient Reentrant Stack Engine." This programming langauge was used at Dave Nutting Associates to program arcade games such as The Adventures of Robby Roto!, GORF and other games from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The TERSE language is based on FORTH. Next Episode's Coverage Cosmic Raiders by Astrocade, Inc. - (Cartridge Game) In deep space lies the alien sector Larkin. You are there on a mission to obtain energy sources that have been seized by the evil Larkins. Radar and a superior guidance system help you avoid attacking fighters and Kamikaze ships. The energy stars are near the Larkin command ship: you must retrieve them before you can leave the enemy sector. Outpost 19 by WaveMakers - (BASIC Game) You are stranded on an alien outpost with nobody to help you. While you wait and pray for a rescue party, the only hope you have of surviving is to gather the food parcels that exist in each of the 16 rooms of the outpost. While you're chasing after the food parcels, the alien is chasing after you! His advantage is that he can go through walls, so his path toward you is more of a straight line, while your escape must be around obstacles in the rooms and through doorways provided. Feedback Sideswipe by WaveMaker - Mike Peace, the author of this Sideswipe, left feedback in January 2020 on this overview of this BASIC game. - December 12, 2019 forum thread by "ubersaurus." /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/13048622

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 11 - Hamurabi by Richard Houser 01/06/2020

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 11 - Hamurabi by Richard Houser In episode 11 of the Bally Alley Astrocast, Adam is joined by his 25-year-old son Dominic. Dominic discusses his memories of growing up with an Astrocade in the house in the late-to-mid-nineties and early 2000s. Adam and Dominic review the Bally BASIC/"AstroBASIC" game Hamurabi. Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico Some Astrocade News/Updates In this short episode, we decided not to cover any updates, as very few were made since our last recording. Introduction Notes - Pictures of Ward Shrake's Astrocade multicart from the early 2000s. - 'Title Display' by Adam Trionfo. This homebrew ROM displays an Astrocade bitmap picture. This example displays an Astrocade Multicart title screen. (Nov. 30, 2003). - This is an mp3 recording of the theme music for the Astrocast, a podcast for the Bally Arcade / Astrocade. Hamurabi Notes King Hamurabi by Richard Houser - "King Hamurabi," a Bally BASIC game appeared in Arcadian 2, no. 4 (Feb. 25, 1980): 32-33 and on the tape "Best of Arcadian - 1980." In this video, Dominic and I play a few games to help listeners of the Astrocast to better conceptualize how the game is played. - Bally BASIC Program (300-Baud) - "AstroBASIC" Program (2000-Baud) - BASIC Program Listing in "Cursor" Newsletter. - BASIC Program Correction in "The BASIC Express" Newsletter. - Two BASIC type-in programs that are sequels/updates for "Hamurabi." - Richard Houser, who wrote the Astrocade version of "Hamurabi, used to sometimes play the Atari ST version of "Civilization" during the Atari User Group meetings in the mid-1990s. This is a video of this first version of the game. - The original program submission letter for "Hamurabi" contains additional material not included anywhere else, including program subroutine breakdown and varaiables used, - The game "Hamurabi" was popular enough in the 1970s/early-1980s that an entire genre formed around it. Here are some games of that genre that you can download from AtariMania. Feedback Sorry, there is no feedback in this episode... /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/12639446

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 10 - Gobblers 12/16/2019

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 10 - Gobblers In episode 10 of the Bally Alley Astrocast, Adam and Chris++ review the modified version of the "AstroBASIC" game Gobblers. They also discuss just a few of the many updates to the BallyAlley.com website since March 2017. Finally, they talk about some of the recent occurrences in the Astrocade community. This is the first full-length episode in over 2 1/2 years; thanks to all those Astrocade fans who kept pestering Adam for another episode. Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico Some Astrocade News/Updates - BallyAlley's YouTube Playlist - Archive.org MOD 2 by Dan Sandin - "MOD 2," a Bally BASIC video art program, that appeared in an article called "Pix-Art" by Frank Dietrich and Zsuzsanna Molnar. This article, which appeared in "Computer Graphics and Art," 1980-1981 Yearbook 5, covers the Bally Arcade as a low-cost solution to create graphics using Bally BASIC and the ZGrass language. It specifically talks about several pieces of art that were written using the two languages. Some of the video art pictures are included in the article, as well as some source code for a few programs. Astrocademo - By Genesis Project. Demo for the Bally Astrocade (1978). Code by Shadow. Music by MCH. - Summary of Missing Feature at MAME Testers - Thread at bannister.org requesting tape support be added to MAME's Astrocade emulation. Bally Arcade / Astrocade Real Hardware Timing Test - This video was created using real Bally Arcade/Astrocade hardware. Two programs are run that use clocks which can be used for timing real Bally Arcade hardware versus emulation. One program, Goldfish Demo, is written in machine language. The other program, Grandfather Clock, is written in BASIC. This video can be used to test how the emulation speed is for Astrocade emulation. Each program is run for three minutes. - The "Bally/Astro Basic" section of the html version of the Astrocade FAQ. - There is an active Astrocade discussion group at Groups.io that has its roots dating back to 2001 at Yahoo Groups. You can browse the over 16,000 messages that were moved from the original Yahoo groups to the Groups.io site in the fall of 2019. In addition, the Groups.io site is now the current place to talk about the Astrocade today. - By Li-Chen Wang. This article is excerpted from PCC's Reference Book of Personal And Home Computing, Edited by Dwight McCabe. 1977. Pages 58-88. Bally BASIC (and "AstroBASIC") are a superset of the original Palo Alto Tiny BASIC. This version of Li-Chen Wang's Palo Alto Tiny BASIC will run on either the 8080 or Z-80, and only uses 2K of core memory. It contains a number of nice features including command abbreviations and error messages. At the end of the listing is a cross reference table for symbols used in the program and also the object code for the program. For further information on Tiny BASIC languages, see Dr. Dobb's Journal, Volume 1. - By Michael Matte - 198x. In the 1980s, Michael Matte, a passionate Astrocade user, used the Z80 source code listing for the 8K ROM, available in the "Nutting Manual," as a basis for his detailed breakdown of Gunfight. Michael created the breakdown "to provide beginner assembly or machine language programmers an inside look at the game Gunfight. The documentation will reveal how on-board subroutines in the System ROM can be used to execute particular tasks. The 'special routines' listing can be used as a reference source for programming demos or games." The archive includes Michael Matte's complete, 42-page breakdown of the Astrocade game Gunfight. This breakdown will be most useful if used with the source code for the Bally's 8K system ROM, which is available in the "Nutting Manual." - By Michael Matte (Circa 1985/1986/2019) - These five in-depth "packages" (documents) were created by Michael C. Matte in 1986. These documents explain how to upgrade a Bally Arcade/Astrocade from the "Consumer Mode," which uses the low-resolution display (160x102 pixels), to "Commercial Mode," which uses the high-resolution mode (320x204 pixels) used in arcade games such as Gorf and Wizard of Wor. There are pictures of Michael's hi-res unit and screenshots here too. - I have added correspondence from 1985 and 1986 between Michael Matte, Don Gladden (who edited volume 6 of the Arcadian) and Bob Fabris. Michael wrote the documentation on how to upgrade the Bally Arcade to hi-res mode. His letters primarily deal with this matter, but he also drops some wonderful tid-bits, such as that he made a BalCheck II for his hi-res unit. He also upgraded the Machine Language Manager cartridge so that it could take advantage of hi-res mode. - By MCM Design/Michael Matte. October 2017. Setscreen 2 is a visual troubleshooting tool that can be used to help diagnose a failed Astrocade motherboard producing a blank TV screen at power-up. - Rachel Weil's (aka "hxlnt") GitHub annotated Z80 assembly source code, binaries, and dev tools for the Bally Astrocade. - By Michael Matte (MCM Design). April 2018. If your original Bally power supply fails, and you have experience in electronics, then these instructions explain how to build a substitute power transformer. - By John Collins. 1982.This adventure-style game has 49 locations with 18 treasures. You can only carry six treasures/items at a time. Each treasure gives additional points. Each move subtracts one point. Try for a score greater than 1,000 points. There are four keywords: IN, UP, DROP and GET. On September 7, 2018, this game was played by Chris++ and Adam Trionfo. A rough, incomplete map of the game was created to help figure-out the game's layout. To answer Paul's 10-year-old question: to enter the house, climb one of the trees in the game (type UP), and then GET the key from the bird's nest. With the key, the player can enter the house by typing IN. Feedback - AtariAge Thread. - The first Bally Home Library Computer Arcade finally shipped and arrived in people's hands in late January 1978. Many of these people who got their units had ordered their system from a three-page JS&A ad that appeared in the September 1977 issue of Scientific American. Happy birthday, Astrocade! The Bally is now 40 years old and we're still fiddling around with it. Good for us! If anyone has any stories to tell about the Astrocade (especially if you got your system in 1978 or for your birthday!), then I'd love to hear your tales! - By Phil Wiswell - From December 1982 GAMES magazine - "Mezmaron" mentions this article in his feeback to the show. Page 38 of the magazine (page two of the article) has the Astrocade system on it. - For any enthusiasts who are going to or live on the east coast, Rachel Simone Weil and [Kevin Bunch] will be running a history panel all about the independent developer/enthusiast scene that cropped around the Astrocade! There is also an on this topic. Gobblers (Mod) by Bob Wiseman and Klaus Doerge The original version of Gobblers is from Arcadian 3, no. 12 (Oct. 05, 1981): 125. The modified version, with updates by Klaus Doerge, is from Arcadian 5, no. 4 (Feb. 18, 1983): 56, 70. "This is a two-player game played on a 10x5 field. The object of the game is to have your Gobbler gobble-up more squares than you opponent. When play begins, use the JX and JY to direct your Gobbler around the screen. Each printed square is worth 1, 2, 3, or 4 points, depending upon how many dots are there. The game ends when the last square is eaten." - "AstroBASIC" 2000-Baud version. - Bally BASIC 300-Baud Version. /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/12410582

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 9 - Community Feedback Request in Three Minutes 11/10/2019

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 8 - Blast Droids and Haunted House 03/12/2017

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 8 - Blast Droids and Haunted House In episode 8 of the Bally Alley Astrocast, Paul, Michael and I review the 4K Blast Droids cartridge that Esoterica released in 1983. This game was written by Dan Drescher, and J.P. Curran. We also review the BASIC game Haunted House released by New Image in 1981. Paul and I discuss the contents and programs included in the August and September 1979 issues of the Arcadian newsletter. We also read feedback from Arcadian readers that sent letters and postcards to Bob Fabris concerning the July 1979 survey question that asked if users would purchase a third-party keyboard and RAM upgrade. Lastly, we cover about ten letters that cover general topics that were sent to the Arcadian from late July to September 1979. Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico Feedback Chris and Adam play and compare the cartridge and BASIC versions of Artillery Duel in a video.. - Picture of prototype version of Artillery Duel. - Astrocade videos created by William Culver (aka "ArcadeUSA"). Blast Droids by Esoterica - This disassembly was started November 30, 2016 by Adam Trionfo. Most of the game's graphics have been found, but much of the code has not been disassembled. - The Blast Droids packaging. - The Blast Droids packaging. - This review first appeared in Niagara B.U.G. Bulletin, 1, no. 5 (October 5, 1983): 13. - Esoterica's quality boxes and packaging for their tape releases. - The final round of season one's Astrocade High Score Club ended February 6, 2017. Haunted House by New Image - "AstroBASIC" 2000-Baud version. - These are the program instructions and BASIC listings for New Image's Haunted House. This game is very unusual because it is made up of nine different loads, each of which is a separate BASIC program. - This programs, by John Collins, seems like a fairly complex dungeon-crawler type game. - This game is probably the most RPG-like game on the Astrocade. It is for AstroBASIC only. It takes you to a dark decaying castle in the evil land of Sorom. You've been asked, as the best warrior in the land of Beekum, to retrieve the Crown of Zeus which the Scromites have stolen. The crown, when worn, gives the wearer the awesome ability to cause anything he or she wishes to vanish. Apparently the Scromites have not yet discovered the crown's powers. But as you hid in the forest outside the castle, you saw a troop of orcs from the warring land of Machor slip in through the front gate. They surely know the power of the crown and will have to be dealt with... Arcadian Newsletter - The ninth issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - The tenth issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - A supplemental page to the tenth issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - The four pages of this document were created using the output of a short 10-line, BASIC program. Whoever sent this document to Bob methodically noted down four sets of numbers for each ASCII character. I can't say that I understand the listed decimal number information, but it seems to nicely supplement the August 1979 issue of the Arcadian's music coverage from Robert Hood (American Concert Frequencies) and the second part of Chuck Thomka's music tutorial, The Music Synthesizer. - This is a hand-written type-in program listing for Bally BASIC. Typed instructions are included. This program has not be digitally archived. - This hardware was released by Alternative Engineering. - Three PC shareware titles for DOS released 1987-1991. These games do not run on the Astrocade. These games will run well under Windows when using a program called DOSBox (an emulator, of sorts). The games included are: Aldo's Adventure, Aldo Again, and Aldo's Assault. While these games won't run on the Astrocade, they do give a continued history of what Dave Ibach did (with his son) after he moved on from the Astrocade. The main character in this series of one-screen platform games looks suspiciously like someone named...Mario. Give these games a try-- you'll like 'em. - The Bit Fiddler's Corner is an Astrocade machine language programming tutorial that ran as a series of serialized articles in the Arcadian newsletter in 1983 and 1984. The author, Andy Guevara, programmed the Machine Language Manager cartridge for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. This tutorial complements that cartridge, but has a general focus so this information can be used without reinterpretation by Astrocade assembly programmers, or those wishing to learn about the machine. - A tutorial on creating sound effects for the Astrocade. - This Bally BASIC (300-baud) program was printed on page 74 of the August 1979 issue of the Arcadian. Black Box is a sort of Battleship game where the computer hides some "atoms" in a grid and you have to locate them. Use the diagram for clues. - A 300-baud, Bally BASIC game that was printed in the September 1979 issue of the Arcadian. It's a neat idea for a two player game. Each player has a ship on one side of the screen, and can move up and down and fire at any angle. However, the ships are invisible, so you can only figure out where your opponent is when they fire a shot. - A 12-page tutorial on the Bally BASIC XY command for exceptionally well controlled graphics. - This archive includes the Bally BASIC programs included with the XY Tutorial document. The six programs included are: 3-D Forward Simulation Above A Flat Plane, Cartesian Coordinates To XY Values Routine, Demonstration Program #2, Demonstration Program #2 (with Additions), Demonstration Program #4, and RND XY Value To Perspective Point. Responses to the Arcadian July 1979 Survey These letters relate to the programming keyboard survey on page 55 of the July 1979 issue of Arcadian. As a reminder, the survey questions were: "Assume that the Bally keyboard is available with full capacity (reference page 21). Are you ready to pay $650 for it? "Assume that the Bally keyboard is available with partial capacity (reference page 54). Are you ready to pay $350 for it? "Assume that we develop a keyboard that would have 16K RAM with upgrading capability of 24-plus K RAM, and some form of resident BASIC in 16K ROM, along with some features such as cassette motor control, word processing capability, etc. Are you ready to pay $350 for it? (Assuming that Bally does not produce in the same timeframe.) "A postal card with numbers down the side and yes/no opposite each is all that is necessary, but suggestions are certainly welcome. Also, tell me the model number and serial number of your machine if you haven't done so yet." Letters to the Arcadian - Chuck sent two programs with this letter: Modified Player Piano for Learning Aid on the &16 - &23 Commands and Leaning Aid for "&" Command. It seems that these two programs helped Chuck figure-out the sound capability of the Bally Arcade. He went on to use this information to write the Music Synthesizer tutorials in the July and August 1979 issues of the Arcadian. Chuck describes the printer that he uses to create the BASIC listing forms, "It actually doesn't take too long to create a form on what I use, which is a cross between a computer and a very high-speed line printer. It puts images on paper with laser optics utilizes Xerox xerographics. It's really quite an impressive machine. As an example of what can be done with it, well, if you can envision an 8 1/2" x 11" blank piece of paper and another 8 1/2" x 11" completely black piece of paper, this represents the extremes of the machine. Everything in-between (just about) can be done by this machine. That includes all different font sizes and styles, logos, lines and even signatures! All this with about the resolution of 300 dots to the inch. The speed of this machine is two full pages a second. If you wanted to print with a reduced print style and also have put two sides of data on the same side of the paper, this machine would print at equivalent speed of 36,000 lines per minute! Like I said, a very high-speed line printer!" - A five-page program that is purely Chuck's own concoction. This program uses all but about 150 bytes of memory and is somewhat involved, but is informative as to the workings of all the possible '&' commands. - Submitted to Arcadian on January 5, 1979, but previously unpublished. A single-page modification to an existing Bally program which allows easy and quick changes to '&16' through '&23 commands [the sound ports]. - Chuck Thomka works worked a Xerox, and he mentioned what sounds like a laser printer in his letter. This is an Amazon.com link to Dealers of Lightning, a book published in 2000. The creation of the laser printer is discussed in some detail here. It "is a fascinating journey of intellectual creation. In the 1970s and '80s, Xerox Corporation brought together a brain-trust of engineering geniuses, a group of computer eccentrics dubbed PARC. This brilliant group created several monumental innovations that triggered a technological revolution, including the first personal computer, the laser printer, and the graphical interface (one of the main precursors of the Internet), only to see these breakthroughs rejected by the corporation. Yet, instead of giving up, these determined inventors turned their ideas into empires that radically altered contemporary life and changed the world." - "I wanted to let you know where I am on the Bally expansion. So far, I've added 16K RAM, one serial port, two parallel ports and an ASCII keyboard. These all work very well. What has not worked so well, is some special logic used with the non-mask will direct. With this, I had hoped to use the Bally BASIC unmodified with the keyboard I added. As it is, I can input data from the keyboard under basic control (or machine language), but program entry and editing must still be done through the keypad. I can't get this to work, I guess Bally BASIC (or some other language) could be placed in RAM. A commented listing of Bally BASIC would be invaluable at this point. [...] With that info, we could tailor it a bit and put it in RAM. "At this point, I see the remainder of the expansion to be mainly a software effort, which is where I could use some help. The most important changes, I think, would be to get BASIC program storage out of internal (graphics) memory. This would greatly increase the color capabilities when using BASIC." [Note: Blue Ram BASIC does this, which is why more colors are available to this expanded BASIC.] "Another interesting possibility open by having RAM memory available is the ability to load it with data from any of the game cartridges (which were previously dumped onto a cassette tape) and then switch this memory into the bank normally signed the plug-in cartridge. This is quite easy to do. At this point the Bally would perform exactly as if you had plugged in the game cartridge that the data came from." [The Blue Ram, Viper and Lil' White RAM expansion units all allow for this.] "The end result would be that you could have the entire library of Bally games in a couple of cassette tapes. Bally might not be too wild about this idea, I assure you it would work." "In the meantime, in order to ease programming the Bally, I use another one of the microcomputers I own, which has an ASCII keyboard, to write Bally BASIC programs on and then dump them on tape in a format compatible with the Bally. Doing it off like this has some disadvantages, but it sure beats that key pad." "Haven't done much on it lately, as my Bally was struck by lightning about five weeks ago, and it still not back from the factory." - In the July 1'st letter, Ed says, "The schematics to our Ballys show a 10-pin and a 26-pin port in addition to the IEEE-488 port. My machine did not have 26-pin port as shown in the photo on page 14 of the [Bally PA-1] service. This would still be only a small inconvenience because the pin numbers and functions as shown on the schematic." The second part of the letter (dated July 23) shows how the 10-wire 24-key keypad is arranged. I think that this information is meant to help explain how to wire a 63-key "full size" ASCII keyboard in parallel with the 24-key keypad. - Mr. Dahl suggests that future issues the Arcadian leave room so that a hole punch can be used so that the issues can be stored in a binder. He says, "They are well worth saving." I agree! On July 27, Mr. Dahl received a mimeographed copy of the Hacker's Manual from Bally. He notes that they included a letter that says they do not expect the keyboard expansion to be released this year Robert Dahl notes that he was able to order the Amazing Maze/Tic-Tac-Toe cartridge from Montgomery Ward's catalog. He got the cartridge in just three days. He adds that a fellow, who sells the Arcade and its accessories, tells him that he has a standing order for all arcade items, but gets more promises than anything else from a wholesale distributor in Milwaukee. This man had been trying to get the Amazing Maze cartridge ever since he first heard about it and he had yet to get it. Mr. Dahl figures that Bally's distribution must be out of whack. Mr. Dahl has typed in various versions of Slot Machine. He talks about three that he has used comparing and contrasting differences between them. Mr. Dahl makes a comment that the Checkers game number six had him puzzled. He was expecting a regular checkerboard on the TV screen. He says that, "Right now, it's beginning to soak-in that I should take a checkerboard and number the squares and move the pieces around as the numbers on the screen direct?" [Is this accurate?!?] - Andy Guevara wrote several programs that were published in the Arcadian and Cursor/BASIC Express newsletters. Andy programmed the Machine Language Manager, a 2K cartridge that was released in 1982 by The Bit Fiddlers. He released a few tapes, including Candy Man and Chicken, two games released on tape that were written in mostly machine language. He wrote Ms. Candyman and Sea Devil, both of which are 4K cartridges that were released 1983 by L&M Software. Mr. Guevara also wrote The Bit Fiddler's Corner, an Astrocade machine language programming tutorial that ran as a series of serialized articles in the Arcadian newsletter in 1983 and 1984. Andy just received his first stack of Arcadian newsletters. He has had his Bally arcade for five months and never dreamed that so much information could be further developed. He has dumped the Baseball cartridge, and is pleased to see that other people have made ROM dumps too. Mr. Guevera is looking into expanding his internal memory from 4K to 12K of RAM with a single IC designed by Harris Semiconductor. He goes into detail about how this might work. Andy has come up with a solution for Bob to be able to print programs. He provides details and a schematic on a device that can be used that will use a UART to allow the Bally to print. Although Andy has only had his Bally Professional Arcade model BPA-1100 for five months, the innards have already had to be changed twice. - Richard's interest has been piqued by the announcement of the keyboard project. So much so, that he has already gone out and bought a keyboard for the project. He says, the "glimmer of a future for the Arcade as a computer [...] has prompted [him] to retain his [Arcade] with hopes for the future." Richard notes that while he understands the difficulties that Bally may be having with the FCC, he has noticed that other companies, such as Apple, have made significant progress in the same time period since the Arcade was first announced. Richard is on his second Bally arcade. He had to return his first one to Montgomery Ward as "it tended to self-destruct after being in operation for a while." Mr. Dermody hopes that reviews of the Bally cartridges will be in future issues. There is no local retailer for these items where he lives so his only resort is mail-order. He would like to have some idea of what he is ordering before he places an order. - Guy gives an unqualified "yes" to all the survey questions that Bob asked the previous issue of the Arcadian. Guy says that he wants and needs a keyboard badly. An interesting bit here is that Ken Ballard, the owner of ABC Hobbycraft, has commissioned a professional hardware/software man to develop a 64K keyboard memory expansion to be sold commercially. The unit is still in the planning stages, but [they] hope that it will be ready by December." This seems overly optimistic, since it is nearly August already. I don't recall ever hearing about this from any other source. It is interesting that so many people wanted to build, create or purchase a memory expansion/keyboard for their Bally unit. Guy really enjoyed Chuck Thomka's synthesizer tutorial. He found the two accompanying programs very useful. He does wonder how Bell Telephone feels about the programs, however. He notes that if you add the buttons A-D to the Touch-Tone dialer program (), then you have a semi-efficient Black Box for receiving free telephone calls. The Touch-Tone dialer doesn't work in Guy's local area. He thinks that Indiana Bell has an acoustical filter that prevents Touch-Tone signals from being input to the microphone from the handset. By popular demand, ABC hobby craft is now accepting mail orders for Bally hardware, W&W software, Stocker Software, and Skyrocket Software (Guy's company). Guys makes an observation about the tape quality for software that is being sold through the Arcadian classified ads. It seems that the people distributing their software on tape are using cheap tapes brands which makes loading the tapes difficult. He notes that the Dave Stocker software is also available on micro cassettes. I don't know of any other Bally software that was distributed on these tiny tapes. Guy has been pleasantly surprised by the amount of response he received to the listing of his Fantasy Games #1 package in the Arcadian. Despite the fact that it is a limited program designed only for those persons familiar with fantasy role-playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, the program sold remarkably well! Phenomenally well, in fact, given an audience of relatively few people. Guy will be creating programs under the name Skyrocket Software with his partner Greg Poehlein. They intend to sell software for the Bally, TRS-80 and eventually other systems. He says they won't be turning it out fast, but they will be turning it out good, paralleling Bally's own stated policy of producing fewer top quality cartridges as opposed to Atari's more is better philosophy - This letter is from Jeff Frederiksen, the chief engineer behind designing the Bally Professional Arcade hardware. It seems that this letter was accompanied by some hardware. The letter simply states: "The enclosed assemblies replace the 75361 clock driver, located in the oscillator shield. The failure of the 75361 is that the 6V high time after warm-up drops below 55ns causing the data chip to appear defective. If you do not have this sinking clock syndrome, replacement is not necessary. I hope you find the enclosed hardware description useful." - Jeff is building his own cassette tape interface from the schematics on page 20 of the Arcadian and page 4 of the Bally Hacker's Manual. He has run into a few difficulties and is hoping to get some help. He also wonders if Bob knows if anyone else has created a working interface from the schematics. There's a handwritten note from Bob where he simply writes, "No." I find it interesting that Jeff is actually building his own tape interface. This interface would be of no use without the basic cartridge. At the time, I think, the tape interface was easy enough to get for $50. I wonder if Jeff was trying to save money, or if he was having difficulty finding the necessary hardware to use with Bally BASIC and a tape recorder. - Karen is a programmer who got interested in the Bally when JS&A advertised it in... /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/5162056

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 7 - Dog Patch and O-Jello 02/01/2017

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 7 - Dog Patch and O-Jello In episode 7 of the Bally Alley Astrocast Chris and I review the Dog Patch cartridge, the 1980 Astrocade port of the 1978 B&W Dog Patch arcade game. Due to scheduling conflicts, Paul and Michael could not record for this episode, so Chris is co-hosting the show with Adam. Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico Dog Patch by Bally - Bally version - Astrocade version - A complete disassembly of the Astrocade cartridge Dogpatch. Originally worked on by Adam Trionfo in 2003 and left in an incomplete state. In 2008 Richard Degler took the source-code and finished the disassembly. - The Dog Patch packaging that was used by Bally Mfg. Corp in 1980. - The Dog Patch packaging that was used by Astrovision, Inc. - Ad in "More Games... More Fun... and More to Come..." 1982 Astrocade 32-page game catalog. O-Jello by Clyde Perkins - Bally BASIC 300-Baud version. - "AstroBASIC" 2000-Baud version. - The Bally BASIC listing from the March 24, 1980 issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - These are the O-Jello rules that Clyde Perkins placed before and after the Bally BASIC. Also included in a summary of how the program works. Clyde sent this tape to Bob Fabris of the Arcadian newsletter (for printing the BASIC listing) and to Steve Wilson in Cleveland, Ohio (for review of the game). The rules credit Peter Maggs article in Byte for inspiration of the game []. End-Show Music - The song Chopsticks is taken from WaveMakers' Music Keyboard, a BASIC program that allows the user to create 2-voice music using an on-screen piano keyboard. The music could then be exported to tape and then used in your own program. Music Keyboard was released on in December 1982 on Tape 17. It was also released on WaveMakers' tape 19 and Astro-Bugs Club Tape #1 (without the chopsticks music that is played on the title screen). It was later reprinted in the Arcadian. /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/5043253

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 6 - ARCADIAN Newsletter (June and July 1979) 11/22/2016

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 6 - ARCADIAN Newsletter (June and July 1979) Episode 6 of the Bally Alley Astrocast covers The Incredible Wizard, the port of the arcade game Wizard of Wor. Paul and I are joined by our new co-host Michael Di Salvo. Paul and I cover the Arcadian newsletter issues 7 and 8 (June and July 1979). Paul and I discuss six letters to the Arcadian, dating from the Spring and Summer of 1979. The next Astrocast podcast (episode 7) will feature holiday feedback in the December episode. If you have any holiday stories to share, then please send this feedback that you'd like to see included in episode 7 by December 16'th. I can't wait to hear your tales! Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico Introduction/News - This "AstroBASIC" program, by Brett Bilbrey and George Moses, allows the user to create three voice music on the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. This program was printed in the "AstroBASIC" manual on page 70. This program can be used on real Astrocade hardware to create new music. I encourage people to make music on the Astrocade using this software and then to send it in for inclusion on the Astrocast. I'd love to see music submissions start to pour into the show! - This is a tutorial by George Moses from the "AstroBASIC" manual. It explains how to use the Three Voice Music Program (above). Michael's History with the Astrocade - This was the dealer's display cabinet, intended for small shops and large department stores. Made by the Santa Cruz Wire and Mfg. Co., this kiosk stood over five feet tall and resembled a coin-op cabinet. It came wired for 110 volts for use with the Astrocade and a TV (not included with the unit). There was a cartridge selector inside for up to ten game cartridges to be demonstrated (with a time limit); a "10 key" switch selected which cartridge was played. - This TV commercial features the Astrocade, Odyssey 2, Atari, Colecovision, Arcadian 2001, Intellivision and Vectrex. - This half-page ad appeared in the January 1983 issue of Electronic Games. It lists "the professionals who support your computer with programs, hardware and information to help you enjoy your Astrocade to the maximum! Contact any of them for details." Each of the companies listed has contact information, along with a brief summary of what they do. Running this ad was very expensive. Richard Houser, from Astrocade Sourcebook (one of the companies in the ad), has said that everyone in this ad grouped together funds to run it for several issues in Electronic Games magazine. When asked if the ad worked at all, Richard said that it did have noticeable results. - A gameplay YouTube video uploaded by "ArcadeUSA" on September 21, 2013. WaveMakers' Castle of Horror is the one tape game that Michael Di Salvo bought in the 1980s. He thinks he heard of it from the ad that was run in Electronic Games. - Michael used the Cablevision Swap 'N Shop channel from his cable provider to sell his Atari 2600 in the early 1980s so that he could buy a Colecovison. This is an example of that channel for those (like me) who have never heard of this before. This is a five minute segment of a community access channel called 'Swap 'N Shop' from back in 1984. It is provided by Cablevision TV service in Downers Grove, IL. The Incredible Wizard - If you bought this game in 1982, this is what you would have brought home. - This is a high-quality picture of The Incredible Wizard cartridge. - This thirty-second TV commercial from 1982 features several prominent game for the Astrocade, including The Incredible Wizard, and several games that were never released. - This advertisement is from the 34-page Astrocade, Inc. 1982 game catalog. This is a color catalog of the cartridges available for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. Check out the ads for the unreleased cartridges: Bowling, Creative Crayon, Conan the Barbarian, Music Maker, and Soccer! - A "Let's Play" YouTube video uploaded by "ArcadeUSA" on September 29, 2013. - Round 4 of the Astrocade High Score Club (March/April 2016) featured The Incredible Wizard as the main game. - The instruction manual in pdf format. - I used the Astrocade emulation in MAME to take screenshots of the twenty unique dungeons that I've come across in "The Incredible Wizard." The dungeons that the player reaches on each stage seem to be randomly selected. Therefore, there are probably more dungeons that I'm not aware of yet. I reached these later levels using save states in MAME while searching for more dungeons. Check out all the level variety that I've seen so far in, as the Wizard calls his collection of dungeons in the arcade game, the "Caverns of Wor." - This is a gameplay video of Wizard of Wor in action. This appears to be the MAME version of the game. Use this video to compare the Astrocade home port of the game against the original arcade version. - This is a review by Joe Santulli of The Incredible Wizard for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. This review first appeared in the January/February 1996 issue of the Digital Press #28 newsletter. - Here is a second review of the "Wizard." This review is called Astrocade's 'The Incredible Wizard' for Astrocade by Danny Goodman and was published in Radio Electronics, April 1983: 14, 20. This review is in pdf format. You can read the review in text format . - Here is an in-depth strategy guide for the The Incredible Wizard. This is from an article called Conquering: The Incredible Wizard from Videogaming Illustrated, Dec. 1982: 24-26. You can read the article in text format - This video review was uploaded to YouTube by Nice and Game on August 19, 2010. - This is a disassembly of the Wizard of Wor clone for the Astrocade called The Incredible Wizard. This disassembly was begun in November 2011 and has been worked on in fits and starts over the last few years. There is plenty of work that needs to be done, but this is a healthy beginning. - June 1982 press release announcing The Incredible Wizard. - According to an Astrocade press release from June 1982, this was the world's first video game to be projected on a giant screen (25' x 35') at a baseball game. Other than knowing that this is a White Sox game played in Chicago in the Summer of 1982, I don't know who took this picture. This picture is from the Digital Press CD released in 1997. Thanks to Digital Press for allowing this picture to appear on Bally Alley. - This is a press release from June 6, 1982. Astrocade, Inc. held a special three-day Incredible Wizard video game contest at the June 1982 Summer CES. Arcadian Newsletters - The seventh issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - The eighth issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - Carly Kocurek examines the factors and incidents that contributed to the widespread view of video gaming as an enclave for young men and boys. Coin-Operated Americans holds valuable lessons for contemporary culture as we struggle to address pervasive sexism in the domain of video games—and in the digital working world beyond. - The main Astrocade High Score Club game is not a cartridge-based game this round. Instead, it is an arcade game that uses the "Astrocade chipset." The Adventures of Robby Roto! is the main game for Round 12 of the Astrocade High Score Club. The BASIC bonus game is a Q*Bert clone called Q-B2B by WaveMakers. - These keyboards, from 1979, were often hacked with the 300-BAUD interface to create a keyboard that could be used with Bally BASIC. From the datasheet: "The JE610 ASCII Encoded keyboard kit can be interfaced into most any computer system. The keyboard assembly requires 5V @150mA and -12V @ 10mA for operation. Interface wiring can be made with either a 16-pin DIP jumper plug or an 18-pin (.156 spacing) edge connector." - This is the "AstroBASIC" (2000-baud) version of Bangman by Ernie Sams that appeared in Arcadian 1, no. 7 (Jun 15, 1979): 47-49. Bangman is a take-off on the classic Hangman word spelling game. It has two novel features - letters being entered are hidden from view of the opposing player - and the penalty for losing is not a hanging... One person keys in a word to ten letters; another tries to guess it with no more than nine wrong guesses using the knob and trigger. - This is a gameplay video of Bangman by Ernie Sams for Bally Arcade/Astrocade. This BASIC program appeared in the June 1979 issue of the Arcadian. - ABC Hobbycraft used to sell Astrocades in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were a hub of Bally Arcade/Astrocade activity. The company still exists today in Evansville, IN, although now these specialize in trains, plastic models, scale models and accessories. - This program is by Aquila and Richard Houser appear in Arcadian 1, no. 8 (Jul. 20, 1979): 58,60-61. aMAZEd in SPACE is a rocketship-thru-the-maze challenge with a number of levels of difficulty. Maneuver spaceship thru maze without crashing into walls. Direction is controlled by joystick 1. Path size, maze height, maze width and degree of difficulty, are selected by keyboard input. Score is based on these inputs and time taken to complete maze. It takes quite awhile to complete maze interior, so start small. - aMAZEd in SPACE is a BASIC game by Aquila and Richard Houser for Bally Arcade/Astrocade (Arcadian, July 1979). - Nine Programming and Graph sheets specifically for use with the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. Many of these were created by Spectre Systems in 1982. The different sheets are BASIC Programmer's Sheet, Z-80 Programmer's Sheet, Screen Map (Type 1, Character Number CX, CY Value), Screen Map (Type 2, FC/BC Color Map), Screen Map (Type 3, Right/Left Color Map), Screen Map (Type 4, Totally Blank, Screen Map (Type 5, Blank, No Map Key), Screen Map (Type 6, Blank Character Graph Paper), and Screen Map (Type 7, Character Graph Paper, With Color Key). - Slot Machine was written for Bally BASIC by Ernie Sams. This program was originally published in Arcadian 1, no. 8 (Jul. 20, 1979): 59. A correction was published in Arcadian 1, no. 9 (Aug. 18, 1979): 69. - A gameplay video of Slot Machine by Ernie Sams. This video shows a full game being played. - The Music Synthesizer by Chuck Thomka. "The synthesizer circuit, which is contained wholly within the 40 pin custom I/O chip, is a very versatile circuit which contains counters and amplifiers to give the programmer tremendous control of the three voice output along with a tremolo, vibrato, and even a noise generator. The output frequency range is very accurately adjustable from less than 14 hertz to ultrasonic frequencies. The upper limit may be set by the capacity of your TV sound system." This tutorial original was made up of two parts: The Music Synthesizer [Part 1], Arcadian, 1, no. 8 (July 1979): 62-66. and The Music Synthesizer, Part 2, Arcadian, 1, no. 9 (August 1979): 71-73. This text version of the tutorial is missing four parts as they appeared in the Arcadian newsletter. The missing parts are: 1) Sound Graph - A Bally BASIC program that allows access to the sound ports and makes a simple graph of the results. Arcadian, 1, no. 8 (July 1979): 65. 2) Touch Tone Simulate - A Bally BASIC program that can be used to dial phone numbers. Arcadian, 1, no. 8 (July 1979): 65. 3) The Sound Synthesizer as Perceived by Chuck Thomka - A visual overview of the sound ports. Brett Bilbrey has said that this has some errors, but he can't remember what they are. ARCADIAN, 1, no. 8 (July 1979): 66. and 4) Frequency Table - A table of all the sound generating keys, their &(17) values, the resultant frequencies, and any special notes about them. ARCADIAN, 1, no. 9 (August 1979): 73. The two tutorials have been extracted from the two different issues of the Arcadian newsletter and combined into one text document. - Sound Graph b Chuck Thomka from Arcadian, 1, no. 8 (July 1979): 65. This utility is part of the "The Music Synthesizer" tutorial by Chuck Thomka. In order to understand what "Sound Graph" is doing, the user must read the tutorial or at least have previous knowledge of the sound ports. With this knowledge, then you may be able to make some noises, but you won't be able to understand why they work or really what is happening. "Sound Graph" is an early BASIC program that allows direct access to the sound ports. The user can try making different sounds by changing the ports with an interface that uses hand controller #1.. - Touch Tone Simulate by Chuck Thomka from Arcadian, 1, no. 8 (July 1979): 65. and modification from Arcadian, 2, no. 10 (Sept 1980): 90. This utility allows the user to type in a phone number, and then dial it by placing a phone near the TV speaker and then pressing PRINT. The Bally Arcade will automatically dial the phone number. Make sure that when you use the program that your TV's volume is set to a high enough level so that your telephone can "hear" the TV. - A very technical phone discussion between Bob Fabris and Chuck Thomka about circuit frequencies. This was probably recorded on January 2, 1982. This recording (in FLAC format) is 15:29 long. - Memory Display by Chuck Thomka from Arcadian, 1, no. 8 (July 1979): 67. This is a machine language utility for BASIC. This program displays input memory locations in both Hexadecimal format (with hex pairs in reverse order) and Bally BASIC decimal format. This is a nice memory dump program that displays the decimal and hexadecimal location numbers (address) and data. It will do whole blocks of dumps by giving a starting and ending address. It will increment the address by the entered amount if you only want to check every 1000'th location, for example. Use negative numbers to check the upper memory: -32767D = $8001 to -1D = $FFFF. - Square Root by David Stocker from Arcadian 1, no. 8 (Jul. 20, 1979): 67. The Arcadian does not have any comments or instructions for this program. Although the name implies that the program calculates a square root in BASIC, it would be impossible to know that while running the program as it gives no indication of what the program is asking for at the INPUT prompt. Only a look through the code would give a hint of that information. - Distance Between Two Points by David Stocker from Arcadian 1, no. 8 (Jul. 20, 1979): 67. The Arcadian has no comments about this program, though from the title it can be surmised that this eighteen-line calculates the distance between two points. - Bally Chess Board by John Collins was originally offered for sale for $6.00 in 1979 (as Chess), then later printed in the Arcadian newsletter in the October 1984 issue on page 120. - Bally Chess Board by John Collins was originally offered for sale for $6.00 in 1979 (as Chess), then later printed in the Arcadian newsletter in the October 1984 issue on page 120. - BATNUM for the Bally Arcade by Ron Schwenk was originally printed in Creative Computing. It has not been archived from tape and is only available as a type-in BASIC listing. - Mastermind for the Bally Arcade by Ron Schwenk has not been archived from tape and is only available as a type-in BASIC listing. - Scott Walldinger advertised ten programs for sale in Arcadian 1, no. 8 (Jul. 20, 1979): 68. The ten programs are Connect Four, Craps 2, Horse Race, Robot War, Sea Battle, Slot Machine, Star Wars, Star Ship, Star Trek, and Tic-Tac-Toe. None of these programs have been archived from tape; they are only available as a type-in BASIC listings. - A link on Amazon.com to A Guided Tour of Computer Programming in BASIC by Thomas A. Dwyer and M.S. Kaufmann. A book recommended by Arcadian subscribers. - A link on Amazon.com to 57 Practical Programs and Games in BASIC by Ken Tracton. A book recommended by Arcadian subscribers. - A link on Archive.org to 24 Tested Ready-To-Run Game Programs in BASIC by Ken Tracton. Programmers who submitted program to the Arcadian used this book for inspiration. - A link on Amazon.com to BASIC Computer Games: Microcomputer Edition, edited by David H. Ahl. Programmers who submitted program to the Arcadian used this book for inspiration. - A link on Archive.org to The BASIC Cookbook by Ken Tracton. Programmers who submitted program to the Arcadian used this book for inspiration. Classic Letters Ron gives early comments on a few cartridges: "Football is very good. They even have music with Vibrato! It sure sounds good. I quickly ran out of them, but should have more in a week. Maze/Tic-Tac-Toe is ok, but mainly for kids. I think that Star Battle is their poorest videocade and don't care for it at all." The add-under never made it out the door. It had issues from the start. Ron already has a criticism, "In the expansion unit it looks like they are increasing the amount of ROM but decreasing the RAM. And increasing the price!" Not only does the increase cost of the unit upset Ron, but he is confused by what's on offer. He hopes that Bob can clarify the statement, "To get 80 characters per line, does 'optional TV printer' mean a video monitor?" Ron has written a Mastermind game. This is mentioned in passing by Bob in the March 1979 Arcadian on page 31. There is an ad for Ron's Mastermind in the July 1979 Arcadian on page 68. The program was never printed in the Arcadian, but there is printed BASIC listing of the program available in the Bob Fabris Collection. Copies of two other games are also available: BatNum and One Check. Ron includes a one-page listing of the Bally items that he carries through his company Schwenk Enterprises. Among these items are the Bally Arcade systems. At the time the list price was $329.95 for a system with four controllers. Ron sells them for a cash price of $289.53 (or 296.95 for credit card purchasers). After looking over Ron's 11-cartridge listing, I noticed that the list price for 2K cartridges is $19.95 and the 4K cartridges sell for $24.95. Ron sells the carts for slightly cheaper than retail: his cash price is about $18 for 2K carts and $23 for 4K cartridges. Mr. Martin has some programming questions for Bob Fabris. Along with this letter, I found handwritten notes that Mr. Fabris prepared to answer the questions that he was asked. Mr. Martin says that his Checkers game, by John Collins, cheats. This game was printed in the May 1979 issue of Arcadian. As usually occurred, there were errors in the original listing. The June 1979 issue of Arcadian printed some corrections. Hopefully these got Mr. Martin fixed-up. Over the years, John Collins revisited his Checkers program, eventually making two major updates to it (calling them, quite originally, Checkers II and Checkers III). Mr. Martin asks how he can convert Star Trek and Wumpus written for other computers that have READ and DATA statements. The Bally doesn't support these commands, and he wonders how he can work around this limitation of Bally BASIC. All of the information in this letter is pretty typical for much of the correspondence that is written to the Arcadian. It's this letter's last paragraph that made me choose to include it in this podcast. Mr. Martin says, "You are doing one hellofa job. I have learned more about computers than I thought I ever would. Thanks." I'm not sure if this is an accurate summary of Mr. Martin, but I picture him as somebody who purchased his Bally Arcade to play games in much the same way that someone may have bought an Atari VCS in 1979. Then he stumbled into the Arcadian newsletter, bought Bally BASIC and was delving into his game system after realizing it could do much more than he originally thought possible. Guy recently received Scott Waldinger's version of the Star Trek program that he ordered. Scott must have ordered this from the classified ad in the May 1979 Arcadian on page 46. The instructions and the BASIC listing are available here: Guy hasn't had time to type in the listing yet, but it looked to him like Scott Waldinger found a unique way around the Bally's lack of substantial memory and multi-dimensional arrays. That's one of the neat details about the Bally system. People who owned it had to find... /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/4853820

Bally Alley Astrocast 005 - ARCADIAN Newsletter (March and May 1979) 10/12/2016

Bally Alley Astrocast 005 - ARCADIAN Newsletter (March and May 1979) Episode 5 of the Bally Alley Astrocast doesn't cover a game this episode. Chris has left as a co-host, so the review of The Incredible Wizard has been pushed to episode 6. Paul and I cover the Arcadian newsletter issues 5 and 6 (March and May 1979). We cover a bit of feedback too. Paul and I discuss eleven letters to the Arcadian, dating mostly from the Spring of 1979. Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website - By Chris Federico Introduction/News - MAME Bug Report and fix (July 2016). - Video. Bally BASIC Demo, by Bally Mfg. Corp. - Functional Series - 8K cart - 1978. This cartridge has a small (about 6") chain attached to the top-front. This cartridge was made in limited quantities and only distributed to dealers, as was also done with the Dealer Demo cartridge. The first 4K is a "crippled" version of Bally BASIC that doesn't have access to the keypad or hand controllers- except #3: all the inputs are disabled. The remaining 4K of the cartridge is a program written in BASIC. - Video. Bally Dealer Demo. Bally Mfg. Corp. Functional Series. #6001. 4K cart. 1978. This cartridge was not sold to the general public and was only produced in limited quantities. The only public sales began in 1983 and came from ABC Hobbycraft (who acquired Astrocade's remaining inventory). The cartridge runs about two minutes and features the "built in" software of the Bally console. Written by Dick Ainsworth. - A partial Z80 disassembly of 280 Zzzap / Dodgem. This game was released by Bally Mfg. Corp. in 1978. It was programmed by Jay Fenton. - A partial Z80 disassembly of Cosmic Raiders. This 8K game, part of the Action/Skills Series released in 1983 by Astrocade Inc., is part #2019. Written by Bob Ogden, Scot L. Norris, Julie Malan, and Lisa Natting. - This music is used as a segue between segments. - These five in-depth "packages" (documents) were created by Michael C. Matte in 1986. These documents explain how to upgrade a Bally Arcade/Astrocade from the "Consumer Mode," which uses the low-resolution display (160x102 pixels), to "Commercial Mode," which uses the high-resolution mode (320x204 pixels) used in arcade games such as Gorf and Wizard of Wor. - Ken Lill's September 12, 2016 formal announcement of the new RAM expansion that he is working on that will be Blue Ram compatible. - This music, created in BASIC, is used as a segue between segments. - Randy Kindig's vintage computing podcast for all types of retrocomputers. - The online presence of the classic Atari 2600 newsletter 2600 Connection, originally edited by Tim Duarte, that began publishing in 1990. - Most-Recent round of the Astrocade High Score Club. - A map for use with WaveMaker's game Outpost 19. - This music, written by by Mike Peace for the WaveMakers' BASIC game MazeMaker II, is used as a segue between segments. This music sounds very similar to the theme for the movie Bladerunner. - The archive includes three versions of the graph paper: a jpg, a TIFF image (with layers), and a TIFF (with no layers, "flattened"). To make the best use of the TIFF files requires a graphics editor (such as Photoshop or GIMP) that can deal with layered TIFF files. - The Mega EverDrive v2 is a flashcart, which loads the ROMs in the console itself. The handling of the flashcart is very simple. - A homebrew game that attempts to recreate the classic Atari800/C64/Spectrum game Bruce Lee for the Master System. Collect the lamps and fight Green Yamo and the Ninja! - This is an attempt to credit those people who programmed the four programs built into the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. These programs include: Calculator (Jeff Fredricksen), Checkmate (Lou, or possibly correctly spelled "Low," Harp), Gunfight (Alan McNeil), Scribbling (Jay Fenton), and miscellaneous code (Ken Freund). - By Chris Federico. The incredible Berzerk sequel is even better on the ColecoVision than in the arcade. Calm down! We wouldn't make such a claim without offering some great arguments, would we? - By Adam Trionfo. - Video overview and review by "Keith's Arcade." - Thanks to the kind generosity of Jamie Fenton, the original ROM images for Robby Roto have been made available for free, non-commercial use. - David Turner started the Z80 disassembly of the arcade game Wizard of Wor in 2002. Arcadian Newsletters - The fifth issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - The sixth issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - This was the supplement written by Jay Fenton in 1979 that went along with the Bally BASIC manual. It's full of all sorts of goodies, most of which found their way into the AstroBASIC Manual... but not everything. - By Brett Bilbrey and Joe Borello. Bally BASIC, 300-baud program. First program printed in the Arcadian (Arcadian 1, no. 5 (Mar. 23, 1979): 35,38.) "One Player, Hand Controller. The computer shows you a pattern that you have to repeat, using joystick controls." - By Brett Bilbrey and Joe Borello. This 2000-Baud version of Simon has been converted by Mike White to run under "AstroBASIC". First program printed in the Arcadian (Arcadian 1, no. 5 (Mar. 23, 1979): 35,38.) "One Player, Hand Controller. The computer shows you a pattern that you have to repeat, using joystick controls." - By J. Cousins. Arcadian 1, no. 5 (Mar. 23, 1979): 36. Clock is a 31-line Bally BASIC digital clock program that accepts hours, minutes and seconds. There is some error checking to make sure that the input data is accurate. It seems that FOR loops are used for the timing of the clock, so this program may not be that accurate. - By Ernie Sams. Arcadian 1, no. 5 (Mar. 23, 1979): 36. This program concerts a hex number to decimal using Bally BASIC. - HD Movie trailer for this 2013 videogame documentary. - Digitally archived Bally BASIC programs by Bob Weber. - By Guy McLimore, Jr. April 10, 1979. Hand-written BASIC listing from an unpublished Arcadian submission. This program draws a simple Bally Arcade unit. - By Esoterica Ltd. Fox & Hounds is a classic new version of an old game. It's you with 4 pieces against the computer with only one! Move 'checkers style' to prevent the computer from intruding your territory. We guarantee that you will not beat the computer twice in a row. - Page 3 of these worksheets seems to have been created (or inspired) by Chuck Thomka. This worksheet helps a BASIC user use the CX and CY valuables. - By Ernie Sams. Arcadian 1, no. 6 (May. 4, 1979): 44. Random Art is a quick little moving box program. - By Glenn Pogue. Arcadian 1, no. 6 (May. 4, 1979): 45. "A further step along the way was taken by Glenn Pogue, who modified the "Game Over" routine of [Arcadian 1, no. 4 (Feb. 19, 1979): 25], making it print the word Arcadian in 2x normal letter size. I have not been able to totally duplicate this feat, I think it lies in the small differences in ROM locations that have previously been noted." - Eight programs written by David Stocker in 1979: Building Blox, Cheese Boxes, Color Match, Memory Match, Random, Rock/Paper/Scissors, Siren, and Slot Machine. - Fifteen programs written by David Stocker in 1979. This set includes the following video art programs: Building Blox, Color Box, Color War, Color Wheel, Electric Doily, Laser Duel, Perspective Box, Random Box, Random Line, Reverse Box, Rubber Band, Scroll Three, Scroll Two, Spiral, and Video Wallpaper. Classic Letters - February 3, 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from Tom Woods. The explanation of the "Onboard Calculator" in the March 1979 issue of Arcadian seems to be based on this letter. Bob seems to have expanded on the letter (by writing an example program). - February 14, 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from George Hale. George Hale has used an ohmmeter to trace-out the 50-pin connector on the back of the unit. He has included an illustration of it. He's not sure he's 100% right, but he can see that every pin of the Z80 is present on the 50-pin connector. The Bally PA-1 Service Manual doesn't explicitly give this 50-pin information in an easy-to-read illustrated format (as George created), but the Bally Arcade's schematic does provide the necessary information for the information to be extrapolated. Also, the "third page" of this letter was written later. It is one-page letter to Charles Vollmer, Bally's National Service Manual. George explains that his letter to Bob crossed in the mail with his receiving the Bally Service Manual. He notes that most of the information he figured out is correct, although he numbered his 50-pin connector in reverse order from the one provided in the Service Manual. - February 26, 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from Boyd Perlson. Boyd, who seems to be an accountant, has developed a system on the Bally for keeping track of his chargeable time for each office client. He would like to know how he can make printouts of this, rather than copying the information off of the TV screen. This is just another example of the Bally system being used in situations that I wouldn't have ever expected! - March 30, 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from James Wilkinson. This letter talks about the experience that James had running GAME OVER from the February 1979 issue. He had to substitute line 50, which originally had X=3164, with X=3159. This discrepancy is caused by differences between versions of the Bally Arcade's 8K ROM. Craig Anderson (of Hoover Anderson Research & Design) eventually covers this problem in detail (nearly four years later!) in the January 1983 issue of the Arcadian in an article called Sneak Up and Bite Ya Department. He did this because "AstroBASIC" programs that he would write would work on some versions of the Bally Arcade and not on others. - This is a January 1983 article by Craig Anderson from the Arcadian which discusses the differences between different 8K on-board ROMs in the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. - April 10, 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from Brett Bilbrey. Brett sends corrections for a typing mistake that he made in SIMON (printed in the March 1979 issue). Many people had called Brett directly to find out how to fix the program. Brett had NO idea how they got his phone number, but he figured that it must mean that they're very interested, and he thinks that's good. He expects "many letters" to be coming (to, possibly?, Bob) about this SIMON mistake. Some of the issues that people had were not understanding common computer notation, such as that the asterisk means to use the "times" key, the difference between "O" and "0," and the "not equal" sign. He wants people to write to him, NOT call, as that "ties up" the phone line for his family. Brett tried transferring programs over the phone using his Bally unit, but he doesn't go into details about how he does it. Brett put up flyers in the Computer Center (at, I suppose, the University of Michigan?) to form a Bally user group. The first meeting will be May 12, 1979. This is probably the user group that became the Michigan BUGs (Bally User Group) and eventually called the Michigan AstroBUGS. Brett has included two programs: a SIN subroutine and OTHELLO. He says, "No mistakes, I hope!" Othello was never published in the Arcadian, but it was published fourteen months later in the June 1980 issue of the Cursor newsletter. - April 14, 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from Brett Bilbrey. Brett sends another correction for SIMON. He makes an odd-sounding, but understandable, statement when he says, "Many people have called in response to these errors. I am now writing to these people to help them with other questions and problems. So, if there had not been the mistakes, I would never have contact all these other Bally users in this area." "Also," Brett says, "many of these people now know of the user's meeting coming up May 12 at the Computer Center. The attendance is expected to be about 50 users." Brett notes that the April issue of BYTE, on page 193, has news called "Magnavox Files Suit on Microprocessor Video Game Patents." Included among the manufacturers they have filed suit against is Bally. As a follow-up to this 1979 news, I came across an 11-page Activision Case Reading by Ralph Baer, called "VIDEOGAME HISTORY: A little matter of record keeping." I am not sure when this was written, but it seems to be possibly from the late-90s or early-2000s. Mr. Baer states: "Let's examine the numerous stories floating around about the various videogame patent infringement lawsuits that were carried on by Magnavox and Sanders Associates, the owners of the seminal Baer patents and of the Baer, Rusch and Harrison patents. Those lawsuits started in the mid-seventies and ran all the way through the 1990's, the last of them for past infringement only, since the patents had long since lapsed. Bally, Seeburg, Mattel, Activision, Nintendo, Data East, Taito and others fought lengthy legal battles against the Magnavox/Sanders team in an effort to avoid having to pay license fees. They lost every one of those lawsuits, both in the initial actions in various Federal District Courts and finally, ignominiously, in the Court of Appeals. Then they had to pay up!" Brett also says, "One of the Arcadians [by which he means a subscriber to the Arcadian newsletter] who called, mentioned an article in a recent STOCK (I don't know the name) which states that Bally will be cutting funding to their home arcade program. This is said to be because of their casino opening in Atlantic City." I checked, and Bally's hotel/casino opened on December 29, 1979. Brett closes his letter with, "I am sorry for the mistakes in SIMON, and hope it did not cause too much trouble! But many users have learned something about debugging and a little about BASIC (sort of a learning experience). I will try to prevent further bugs from happening." - By Ralph H. Baer - April 12, 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from John Collins. John says, "Many of the stores in our area have not been able to be resupplied with the Bally Arcades and have not been able to get the new tapes [cartridges], even after two months wait." This delay is so bad, in fact, that John asks, "Do you know whether they are still manufacturing the basic unit?" John is working on a version of HANGMAN, BOWLING and a special spelling routine. He'll furnish a copy when the bugs are worked out. Bob was having trouble with John's CHECKERS program (which was eventually printed in the May 1979 issue of the Arcadian), but John didn't know of any glitches. He hoped that Bob might be able to provide what the game board looked like and what level the game was playing when a bug occurred. John explains that the number printed on the screen tells the user that the computer is "still working." The number also provides the "type of decision or level the computer was at when it made its move." John describes in detail what the computer is doing as each number is printed on the screen. John dictated this hand-written letter to his wife, which I found rather surprising. He ends his letter with, "My wife's arm is tired, so I must close now." I found that pretty amusing. - April 21, 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from Mary Stanke. After reading Joe Sugarman's SUCCESS FORCES, I recognized Mary's name right away. Joe originally hired her as a secretary, and over the years she continued to move up in the company, eventually coming, it seems, his right hand man (woman?). This short letter informs Bob Fabris that JS&A can not provide him their "list of owners of the Bally, as JS&A has a policy wherein [they] do not divulge this type of information to anyone, nor would [Bob's] material be of interest to [JS&A] since [they] have discontinued offering the Bally Home Library Computer." So, now we know. By April, for certain, JS&A had given-up 100% on Bally! - April 23, 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from David Stocker. David submits two of his tapes to Bob Fabris. These tapes contain a total of 23 programs. It seems that David took some of the programs from the Bally BASIC manual, changed them up a bit (or a lot-- I don't know) and sold them on tape and as program listings. David would like Bob to inform the "Arcadians" about his programs, which he sells as two sets for two different prices. If you buy one set, then the cost is $8 (or $4 if you return the tape). If you buy both sets, then the cost is $10 (or $6 if you return the tape). This returning of the tapes seems like it would have really complicated matters and been extremely labor intensive. There are three pages of hand-written instructions for some of the programs. Both sets of David Stocker BASIC programs were added to BallyAlley.com on March 13, 2015. Since these were available on tape-- they are some of the earliest third-party programs available on tape for a game console. Mr. Stocker even beat Activision to the punch, so it's too bad this stuff isn't up to say, "Pitfall" quality. The instructions for these two tapes provide the hand-written BASIC listings for each program. This was common even in the early days of the "Arcadian" newsletter. Mr. Stocker's script is quite small (or maybe it was reduced), plus the quality of the original paperwork was also difficult to make out, which makes these programs quite hard to read. The first tape is called "Set I - Games and Fun." It contains eight programs. The second tape is called "Set II - Video Art." It contains fifteen video art programs. - April or May 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from John Perkins. The Bally Astrocade only has 4K of RAM. This may seem like a plenty of RAM when compared to, say, the Atari 2600 (which only has 128 bytes of RAM), but 4,080 bytes of this 4096 total bytes of RAM is all dedicated to screen RAM. This makes up the entirety of the Astrocade's 102x160 bitmap screen (the remaining 16 bytes of RAM is called the scratch pad). Things begin to get really confusing when you consider that the BASIC cartridge doesn't contain any of its RAM, and yet it somehow (almost magically) it provides the BASIC programmer with 1.8K of RAM to program the system. How is this done? John Perkins wrote a hand-written letter to Bob Fabris which provides some of these answers. This letter is the background and research for which the tutorial in the May 1979 Arcadian called "Screen Operations" by Mr. Perkins is based. The tutorial, as printed, condenses the information that John provided to Bob. The tutorial also excludes a short example program that John wrote that shows how to display four colors on-screen at once. The letter explains how the BASIC program is hidden on the screen in plain sight by taking advantage of some of the Bally Arcade's Left-Right Color Boundary. In the early 2000s, I had a phone conversation with Mike White. I remembered that he said this article explained the details correctly, but that is was a bit muddled with some of its information. I couldn't remember exactly what Mike meant by this, so I emailed him back in February and he provided me with a full explanation. Mike says, "John Perkins declares the program to be "stored in the even bits" with the picture using the odd ones. This is "computer geek" thinking and not what an algebra teacher would say! In algebra the digits are numbered 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8! While in computers it's 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7! Now, turned around to their natural format they become; 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 and 7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 respectively! Therefore, hex 55 (01010101 binary) is EVEN and hex AA (10101010 binary) is odd in a computer ONLY! If you did this on a math test you would flunk out, and may be sent to the principal's office!" - September 1979 letter to Bob Fabris from Doug Marker. Doug is a "computer specialist working on IBM compatible machines." It's notable that since this letter was written in 1979, Doug must have been working on IBM compatible mainframe computers, as the IBM personal computer wasn't released until August 12, 1981. Doug started his career as a hardware engineer, advanced to a software engineer and eventually became a Systems Engineer for IBM. This type of in-depth... /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/4740384

Bally Alley Astrocast 004 - Sea Devil and The Pits 08/14/2016

Bally Alley Astrocast 004 - Sea Devil and The Pits Episode 4 of the Bally Alley Astrocast covers the Bally Arcade/Astrocade cartridge game Sea Devil and the BASIC type-in game (published in the Arcadian newsletter) The Pits. Chris and I discuss, as always, what we've been up to lately. Paul and I cover the Arcadian newsletter issues 3 and 4 (January and February 1979). We cover a bit of feedback too (we could always use more though-- so keep it coming to us). Paul and I discuss seven letters to the Arcadian, dating from late 1978 and early 1979. The show ends with a short tune called Golden Slippers played from a type-in program called Player Piano from the Bally BASIC manual Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website Introduction - Astrocade High Score Club, Round 10: Sea Devil / The Pits (July/August 2016). Includes a screenshot of The Pits. Cartridge Review - Sea Devil - (1983) Game "manual" (instructions) for Sea Devil by L&M Software. - (1983) Advertisement for Sea Devil. This document contains much more of the game's backstory than is in the manual. - Picture of the Sea Devil cartridge. - YouTube video of Sea Devil gameplay by "Highretrogamelord" BASIC Game Review - The Pits - This WAV version of Rex Goulding's The Pits can be played using the "AstroBASIC" cartridge. This game appeared in - March 25, 2011 post on Bally Alley Yahoo group (message #10456). ArcadianNewsletters - The third issue of the Arcadian newsletter. . - The fourth issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - By Richard Degler (October 2010) - Purchase Joe Sugarman's 1980 book from Amazon.com. - Joe Sugarman's 2014 eBook on Amazon.com. - By Paul Law. "Division with Decimals is just in from Paul Law who says he modified a BYTE 2/79 program. N indicates the length of the decimal portion." This 300-Baud Bally BASIC program can be loaded into BASIC using the 300-Baud tape interface. - By Tom Wood. "This routine will print "GAME OVER" depending on which version of the Bally Arcade that the user has." This 300-Baud Bally BASIC program can be loaded into BASIC using the 300-Baud tape interface code. - By Tom Wood. This pdf document was excerpted from the Arcadian. This is the program's explanation, the BASIC loader, the Z80 machine language source - By Tom DeFanti, Jay Fenton, and Nola Donato. This article was printed in Computer Graphics, 12, no. 3, (August 1978): 33-37. Abstract: "Home computer users are just now discovering computer graphics. Modest extensions to BASIC allow plotting but not much more. The Bally Home Library Computer, however, has hardware to aid implementation of video games. Custom integrated circuits working on a 160X102 pixel (2 bits per pixel) color television screen allow certain forms of animation in real time. To give this power to the user, BASIC Zgrass has been designed and implemented. It is an extension of BASIC that allows parallel processes, picture objects that move, scale and group together as well as several drawing modes. There are also software controls of a three-voice music synthesizer, interactive input devices, a film camera and an IEEE bus interface. We will concentrate mainly on the language design for making it all easy to learn and use." - By Jay Fenton. This was the 1979 supplement written by Jay Fenton that went along with the Bally BASIC manual. It's full of all sorts of goodies, most of which found their way into the "AstroBASIC" manual... but not everything. - By Graham M Wideman and Mark J Czerwinski. Electronics Today, November 1978. Paul and I refer to this article as "Bally Arcade: Game or Computer," but that's only the title on the cover of the magazine. This article covers the Bally Arcade. Although the page numbers are not consecutive in this scan, the article is complete (full page advertisements were removed). The article is notable because it assumes a basic level of technical knowledge and includes photographs of the internals. - This 'catalog,' from June 1978, was put together by Bally to promote the Bally Professional Arcade to salespeople. This is a full-color 'catalog' that is a large download (9MB). It is 8 1/2" x 11" and is sixteen pages long. I love the 1970's style art! - Color picture of the unreleased "programming keyboard." The Bally Arcade system sits on top of this "add-under." Classic Letters - Brett was a mainstay of the early issues of Arcadian and Cursor. He went on to write two Astrocade cartridges (ICBM Attack and Treasure Cove), contribute to the "AstroBASIC" manual and work for Action Graphics (as well as contribute to the Bally community in many other ways). Later, Brett worked for Apple. This eight-page letter shows a hardcore user's enthusiasm for the Bally Arcade. - By Brett Bilbrey (and/or friends). Brett did not 'write' the Star Trek game. He either typed it in from the book 101 BASIC Games or one of his friends that Brett started Spectre Systems with did it. This 300-Baud Bally BASIC program can be loaded into BASIC using the 300-Baud tape interface code. - Instructions for the above program. - Many articles dedicated to Life. While none of these articles/programs are specific to the Bally Arcade/Astrocade, the manual for Life by Jay Fenton does directly lift quite a bit of material from that issue of the magazine. - The Newman Computer store suggests potential Bally Arcade purchasers buy the Interact Model One instead. (oldcomputers.net) - Joe Sugarman, the president of JS&A, claims that the company "had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising to obtain our sales." That's a lot of money, which makes it hard to believe this claim. However, in the early 70s, when JS&A began, full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal cost about ten-grand (says Joe in his 1980 book, Success Forces), so perhaps this high-dollar advertising figure is possible. - Glenn says that if a user complains about the unit's name change, then Bally will send a "tag" to those users who request one that says "The Bally Computer System." This letter has a list of release dates (month and day) for Bally games, including some that were never released at all (including Checkers, Desert Fox, Astrology and Drag Race/Desert Fox - Each time the Bally system's name was changed, the dust cover reflected the new name. - Lance Squire does an excellent job explaining the different labels on the dust covers of the Bally units. He also gives an approximate rarity level for each label. - Guy is a Bally Arcade dealer for ABC Hobbycraft. Guy has popped up on the Bally Alley Yahoo group from time to time. In this letter, Guy says that he gets more information from the Arcadian newsletter than he can get from Bally-- and he's a dealer! He mentions several programs he's working on. He suggests that Bally should make a second, more detailed (I presume) version of the Bally BASIC manual for "the really rabid Arcade freak." In a way, Jay Fenton's Hacker's Manual was this second "book," but it was only about twenty pages long and probably wasn't widely available. - By Guy McLimore. 1979. There is an advertisement for this program in Arcadian 1, no. 7 (Jun 15, 1979): 54. A fantasy game package for advanced players is available for those who enjoy the Dragon/Dungeon type of operation. The package includes: Dungeon Grafix I and II, Fantasy People and Multidie. - By Guy McLimore. From Arcadian 2, no. 1 (Nov. 29, 1979): 3., "Logo shown at the head of page one is based on an idea by Guy McLimore, and embellished by myself. If you'd like to see it in action (literally) and in living color, the program is included." - Jim canceled his order with JS&A after waiting for long time and then he got an Arcade unit right away from another dealer (yes, even at the end of 1978, JS&A wasn't getting enough units from Bally to fill orders). He's having issues with his unit (it sounds like overheating). He notes that you can have commands executed directly from tape rather than being loaded as a program line. This is one advantage of Bally BASIC over "AstroBASIC." Jim talks about wanting to create an elaborate alarm system using his Bally Arcade. - Joe talks about his general experiences using the Bally to program in BASIC. Joe's son, Greg, wrote Bally Trek, which is based on Erik Mueller's Star Trek for MINOL - Tiny BASIC. - By Greg White. 1979. Unpublished Arcadian submission. Bally Trek is based on Erik Mueller's Star Trek for MINOL - Tiny BASIC. Bally Trek follows a popular style of game program from the 1970s era. Other examples on the Bally Arcade/Astrocade include Space Chase by WaveMakers and Star Trek/Starship Command by Esoterica. This 300-Baud Bally BASIC program can be loaded into BASIC using the 300-Baud tape interface code. - John requests Executive Software by Tom Wood because he is trying to write an assembler for the Bally Arcade. This is very early in the Bally Arcade's history to be working on something like this. There is no evidence that this assembler was created, but General Video Assembler (which required a RAM expansion) was eventually written and released on tape in 1982 by Dave Ibach and Steve Walters (General Video). Dave used this assembler to write his centipede-inspired, cartridge game, Sneaky Snake. John talks about safe places for assembly code in Bally BASIC (he uses the editor/buffer). He recommends some articles/books for Tiny BASIC information. - By General Video. The General Video Assembler is made-up of four programs which include: General Video Assembler Collector, General Video Assembler Pass I, General Video Assembler Pass II, and General Video Assembler Text Editor. Also included are sample programs (both as assembler code and in their final assembled form), Flying Witch Sample, Logo Sample. This 2000-Baud "tape" runs from "AstroBASIC and it requires extra RAM. - By General Video. Written by Dave Ibach. Documentation for a Z80 assembler that runs on the RAM-expanded Bally Arcade. End-Show Music - Tune for Player Piano form the Bally BASIC owner's manual. /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/4591157

Bally Alley Astrocast 003 - Crazy Climber and Missile Defense 07/26/2016

Bally Alley Astrocast 003 - Crazy Climber and Missile Defense Episode 3 of the Bally Alley Astrocast covers the cartridge game Crazy Climber and the BASIC game (released on tape) Missile Defense. Chris and I discuss what we've been up to lately. Arcadian newsletter issues 1 and 2 (November and December 1978) are covered in detail. We discuss a bit of feedback. Chris, Paul and I go discuss the very first ad for the Bally Home Library computer (from September 1977). I read from a few letters that JS&A (the mail order company that originally sold the Bally Home Library Computer) sent to customers. The show ends with a one-minute rendition of the Happy Days theme song. Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website Introduction - Barcade (Facebook Page) - Local Albuquerque Videogame store (Facebook Page) - Bally Midway arcade game from 1981 that uses the Astrocade chipset (The International Arcade Museum) - Video Review (YouTube) - Arcade Flyer (Front) - Arcade Flyer (Back) , by Stephen A. Edwards (January 2005) - 7-11 Slurpee Cup - Tom Meeks, the product manager for Astrocade, Inc., comments about, among other topics, Robby Roto (November 26, 2001) - A short explanation of why Astrovision changed its name to Astrocade. Astro Bits. Electronic Games, 1.1 (Aug. 1982): 11. Print.) - These five in-depth "packages" (documents) were created by Michael C. Matte in 1986. These documents explain how to upgrade a Bally Arcade/Astrocade from the "Consumer Mode," which uses the low-resolution display (160x102 pixels), to "Commercial Mode," which uses the high-resolution mode (320x204 pixels) used in arcade games such as Gorf and Wizard of Wor. - Pictures of an Astrocade motherboard that was modified by John Perkins in the early 1980s so that it could access Hi-Res mode. - This arcade game uses the Astrocade chipset. - This archive includes five schematics for the Seawolf II arcade game released in 1978. - Comments and replies left in the AtariAge forums. on Bally Alley.com - General information about the ZGRASS hardware system and programming language. - by Neesa Sweet. Larry Cuba and Tom Defanti had both worked with ZGRASS for the unreleased Bally Add-Under. ZGRASS was based on the earlier GRASS programming language. GRASS was used to create animation for the original 1977 "Star War" movie. The Very Best of Fantastic Films: The Magazine of Imaginative Media. Special Edition #22, February 1981. Cartridge Review - Crazy Climber - (2011 Bally Arcade/Astrocade) Game Manual (1980 Arcade Game) - Nihon Bussan Co. Ltd. (The International Arcade Museum) - Pictures of the Crazy Climber cartridge, "box," and manual. - This is the complete source code for the homebrew version of Crazy Climber, released by Riff Raff Games in 2011. This game was programmed by Michael Garber. - Video review by Nice and Games. - Pictures of the cartridge, "box," and manual for War, Michael Garber's first Astrocade homebrew game. - Michael Garber's first game, Beyond Dark Castle, was published in 1989 by Activision on the Commodore 64. (Lemon64.com) - Michael Garber wrote the Turbo-Grafx-16 CD-ROM game, The Addams Family, released in 1991. - Video reviews for many classic systems, including several videos for the Astrocade. Tape Review - Missile Defense - New Image JS&A's First Ad for the Ballly Home Library Computer - The very first ad for the Bally Arcade / Astrocade (at the time, called the Home Library Computer). This B&W ad was printed in the September 1977 issue of Scientific American. - The very first ad for the Bally Arcade / Astrocade (at the time, called the Home Library Computer). This color ad was printed JS&A's first catalog. - A digital copy of the Scientific American magazine can be purchased directly from Scientific American's website. - All issues of Scientific American from 1845-1909 can be download for free. - Book, published in 1980, by Joe Sugarman, the president of the JS&A group. This ad appeared in Popular Mechanics in October 1980. - Purchase Joe Sugarman's book from Amazon.com. - Professional Home Model version of Bally Pinball (Popular Science, May 1977) - Video of the Professional Home Model version of Bally Pinball. - Wikipedia's article on IBM's 5100 computer that was introduced in 1975 and cost about $9,000. In JS&A's ad for the Bally Home Library computer, they favorably compare it against this earlier system. - Bally Check (AKA as BalCheck) plugs into the 50-pin connector at the back of the Bally Arcade / Astrocade and is used to test the units for defects. Released by Richard Belton. - Source code for the Bally Check diagnostic hardware. - BalCheck Support Circuitry, BalCheck information and BalCheck Instruction Manual (with source-code). - Wrote the Bally BASIC user manual, programmed the Bally BASIC Program Sampler tape (which contained eight programs) and the Speed Math / Bingo Math cartridge. - A compilation of posting that Dick Ainsworth made to the Bally Alley Yahoo group in 2002. - Dick Ainsworth, Personal Page. Arcadian Newsletter - The first issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - The second issue of the Arcadian newsletter. - In the Arcadian segment, a "Toy Organ Keyboard" is mentioned. I remembered this previously unpublished article form the Bob Fabris Collection. It contains suggestions, ideas and methods on how to hook up a music keyboard to a Bally Arcade/Astrocade. Includes a machine language 3-voice music program. - An add-on for the Blue Ram unit that allowed the addition of a modem and printer. The Blue Ram Utility was used to control the modem. - A two-player chess game written in Bally BASIC. Published in Cursor 2, no. 4 (November 1980): 74-75. - "The Bally BASIC audio cassette interface was originally designed to have a third 1/8" jack into which a printer could be plugged." The Bally BASIC Hacker's Guide by Jay Fenton, published in about 1979, gives the required details on how to modify the interface for use with a printer. The finished modification provides a TTL level RS232 standard ASCII at 300 baud. - Basic instructions and schematic on how to hook up a Jameco 610 keyboard to the Bally tape interface (Arcadian 2, no. 8 (Jun. 23, 1980): 69.) - These are directions on how to assemble the Blue Ram Keyboard. - This article is by Al Rathmell. It was submitted to the Arcadian newsletter on September 15, 1982. - This is a CP/M compatible resident Disk Operating System written in 1980. This code is designed to interface into the Cromemco software system and is provided with an autoload feature that will load track zero, sector zero of Drive A starting at RAM location 0080. Control will then be passed to the just loaded code at location 0080. The code uses a 5501 as a COM. controller and a 1771 Flex Disk controller. It will support four 5 1/4", or two 5 1/4" and one 9", or two 9" disk drives. - Article by George Moses and program (probably by George Moses and Brett Bilbrey) from the "AstroBASIC" manual. - This tutorial, from January 1979, provides a machine language subroutine usable to BASIC users so that they can print "GAME OVER" in large letters on the screen using a subroutine that is built into the Bally's 8K System ROM. - Article by Tom DeFanti, Jay Fenton, and Nola Donato. Published in Computer Graphics, 12, no. 3, (August 1978): 33-37. - Various documentation on ZGRASS, including the user's manuals. - Originally called Executive Software Description and submitted to the Arcadian by Tom Wood on October 7, 1978. This was later republished by the Cursor newsletter without credit being given to Tom Wood. This booklet explains what the On-Board ROM routines do that are built into the Bally Arcade/Astrocade 8K ROM. This manual is used as a reference for BASIC programmers so that they can save a few bytes when programming and also take advantage of the faster routines that machine language offers. - An introduction to Astrocade machine language programming in Bally BASIC. Although the manual doesn't credit Brett Bilbrey, he gave all this information in 1980 to Fred Cornett of the "Cursor Group." - This catalog contains these 13 cartridges, including some that were not released. Classic Letters from JS&A National Sales Group - From William Mitchell; JS&A National Sales Group; Marketing Director. "Enclosed you will find your Bally Home Library Computer." JS&A urges their customers to order the add-on soon to receive free items such as a modem and diagnostic cartridge. - From William Mitchell. "We trust you have your Bally Home Library Computer and have found it quite satisfactory." JS&A asks their customers if they want to wait for the Bally add-on module. - From William Mitchell. "As you are well aware, there has been a delay in the shipment of your Bally unit. The delays have been caused by almost every problem imaginable and have lasted almost one year now." End-Show Music - This is the theme music for the "Happy Days" television show. Peggy Gladden converted this song to "AstroBASIC" and the program was included on the Michigan Astro Bugs Tape 2. - This is the theme music for the "Happy Days" television show. This is an mp3 recording of Peggy Gladden's "AstroBASIC" program. - This tape contained a compilation of programs for "AstroBASIC." - Eight AstroBASIC programs by various authors. This is the complete tape working as intended; you choose a game from the menu and it will load automatically. /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/4542300

Bally Alley Astrocast 002 - Red Baron/Panzer Attack and Castle of Horror 07/01/2016

Bally Alley Astrocast 002 - Red Baron/Panzer Attack and Castle of Horror Episode 2 of the Bally Alley Astrocast covers the cartridge game Red Baron/Panzer Attack and the BASIC game (released on tape) Castle of Horror. Issues 3-5 (from June to October 1978) of the Arcadians newsletter are covered in detail. We also discuss: news, feedback, a few classic letters to the Arcadian from Ernie Sams (who discusses JS&A, the company that originally sold the Astrocade) and Richard Belton (who covers the Maryland User Group). Finally, there is an interview with Ward Shrake, who created multicarts for several systems, including one for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. Recurring Links - Bally Arcade / Astrocade Website Cartridge Review - Red Baron/Panzer Attack - Astrocade Version (1976 Arcade Game) - Fun Games Inc. (The International Arcade Museum) (1974 Arcade Game) - Midway Manufacturing Co. (The International Arcade Museum) (1974 Arcade Game) - Midway Manufacturing Co. (Video on YouTube) (1974 Arcade Game) - Key Games (The International Arcade Museum) (1974 Arcade Game) - Key Games (Video on YouTube) - Play this Astrocade game online at Archive.org - Rickey designed Red Baron/Panzer Attack at Dave Nutting Associates (April 2005) Tape Review - Castle of Horror - WaveMakers - "The Game Player" by Michael Prosise (October 7, 1982) - Video by ArcadeUSA on YouTube - Mike Peace, the programmer of Castle of Horror, answers some questions about himself and his company, WaveMakers (August 2001) - This game was played in May/June 2016. The high score for Castle of Horror was 2,100 points. News by Lance F. Squire by Nathan Altice - An online reference for Bally Astrocade developers - Bally Alley Yahoo Group Message by Nathan Altice (June 15, 2016) - AtariAge Astrocade Subforum - Tomohiro Nishikado (Wikipedia) Feedback - Feedback with a reply (in the AtariAge forums) Arcadians Newsletter - June 23, 1978 - September 1, 1978 - October 10, 1978 - Bally Alley Yahoo Group Message by Adam Trionfo (June 2, 2016) - Kilobaud Computing, September 1978, Page 120. by Karl Zinn "Creative Computing," 4, no. 5 (Sept-Oct 1978): 56-59. by Jay Fenton. - Article from Newman Computer Exchange (NCE) Catalog (October 1978) (1978) (1978) Classic Letters (October 28, 2016) , the Group Marketing Director of JS&A National Sales Group (March 15, 2016) (September 1, 1975) - 16-Page Pamphlet by JS&A from about 1977 or 78. (1978) (July 7, 1981) - Digitally Archived AstroBASIC Program (1981) - Includes Ernie Sams' Bingo program - Announcement (Arcadian, March 1980) (Arcadian, May 1980) Maryland User Group Posting - Bally Alley Yahoo Group Message by Adam Trionfo (July 3, 2014) (May 29, 1979) - Maryland User Group Newsletter, May 30, 1979 - by George Hale (1979) - BASIC Listing - George Hale (1979) - Bally BASIC Program (300-Baud Format) - Ron Schwenk BASIC Listing - Ron Schwenk BASIC Listing (Solitaire Checker Game) - Ron Schwenk BASIC Listing - Various documentation for the BalCheck hardware that was distributed by Richard Belton - The Z80 source code for the BalCheck 2K ROM (April 29, 1980) Ward Shrake Interview - VIC-20 Cartridge Rarity & Gameplay list - Website - Pictures of Ward Shrake's multicart for the Bally Arcade - Covers the "Bally Astrocade" and "Emerson Arcadia 2001" multi-carts End-Show Music (July/August 2001) - By George Moses - Astrocade Audio (mp3) /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/4486542

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 1: Gunfight and Checkmate 06/17/2016

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 0 - Introduction 06/03/2016

Bally Alley Astrocast: Episode 0 - Introduction The show's two hosts discuss what will be covered in future episodes of the Bally Alley Astrocast. Recurring links: Episode Links: Arcade Games Based on the Astrocade Chipset Full Bally Alley Astrocast - Episode 0 Transcription Adam: Hi, everybody. My name's Adam Trionfo, otherwise known as BallyAlley on the AtariAge forums. And I'm here with... Chris: Chris, otherwise known as "Chris." Adam: And you're listening to the zero-ith episode of Bally Alley Astrocast. See, I barely know the name of it yet. Chris: I think me and Adam believe that we thought up the name Astrocast ourselves, and we came to find out that there had already been one, it just hadn't been started. And I guess it was Rick and Willy (I think it was only those two). Adam: Yup. Chris: And, it kinda sat there for a year. Hopefully they will be contributing to Adam's podcast here. Adam: I don't think of this as "Adam's podcast." (And I just used finger-quotes, sorry about that.) This is our podcast. Chris and I are recording this right now. Also, Paul Thacker, who is a regular of the Bally Alley Yahoo group (which we can talk about at a later time). We're hopefully going to do this together at some point. I wanna sound natural as possible for this podcast. So, I'm trying to not read anything off a piece of paper. I don't like the sound of my voice, and the fact that I'm letting you hear it means that I love you guys. Chris: It's a great level of trust he's exhibiting, you guys. Plus, I would immediately take his script away from him if he had one because... Adam: Oh, thanks, Chris! Chris: Yeah. Extemporaneous is more fun to do, and I think it's more fun to listen to. Adam: So, in saying that, we do have some notes we wanna talk about. For this episode we wanna basically go over what we want to cover. Which is what people seem to do in these episodes. Saying, "Hey, there's gonna to be an episode of a podcast called 'this'." And, that's what we're doing here. So, here's what we're going in our podcast number zero. Chris: It was always funny to me, like oxymoron, like: episode number zero. Adam: Right. Right. Chris: Let's go negative one. Let's be rebels. Adam: You may or may not know what a Bally Arcade, or an Astrocade, is. It was a console that was developed in about 1977. It was released in 1977, but the first units were not actually shipped, for various reasons, until January 1978. And very few people got them. They were first released by catalog-only, by a company called JS&A. Those systems had overheating problems. Most of them were returned-- or many of them were returned. JS&A only sold approximately 5,000 units (so it says on the Internet). I don't know where that number is quoted from. I've never been able to find the source. Bally eventually started selling them through Montgomery Ward. Now, Bally also had something called the Zgrass that it wanted to release. This was going to be expanding the unit into a full-fledged computer. This never was released. The Bally system itself did not come with BASIC, but it was available nearly from the start. Many people used it. A newsletter formed around it called the ARCADIAN. The system has 4K of RAM and it does not use sprites, but it could move object just as well as the Atari [VCS] and other systems of its time period. It could show 256 separate colors and through tricks and machine language, it could show all of them on the screen at once, but not normally in a game. Although there are a few screens that did it (but not actively during a game). The system is fun to play... if you can find one that works. If you don't already have one, you're going to discover (if you go searching for one) they're not inexpensive. They're becoming pricey on the Internet because of the overheating problems they had, since the beginning (with the data chip), you will find that if you own [should have said buy] one now, you're getting a unit that "has not been tested," which means, of course, it is broken. If you find one on the Internet that says, "Not tested," please, do not buy it. Just let it stay there and let someone else buy it. And, when they get it and it doesn't work, if they're surprised then they did not read the "Bally/Astrocade FAQ." We'll go into much greater depth about this system in the next episode. I just wanted to let you know that's the system we'll be talking about. It has a 24-key number pad. It has a controller that is-- is it unique? Well, I think it's unique. Chris. Um-hum. Adam: It has a paddle built into the top knob. It's a knob-- it's called. And it has a joystick-- an eight-directional joystick. It's built like a gun controller-style pistol. It's called a "pistol grip." It's sorta shaped like one, if you picture a classic arcade-style gun, and then just cut off the barrel. That's basically what you have. Something that was originally mentioned, and I think Bally might have called it that for two years, are Videocades. Videocades are the cartridges. These were actually also referred to as cassettes. These are not tapes. These are about the size of a tape, but they are ROM cartridges. In the beginning they held 2K and later on they held 4K for Bally. Astrovision, or Astrocade, Inc., later released some 8K games in about 1982. Those were usually considered the best games on the system because they had more ROM to spare and to put more features into the games. Now, BASIC was available from about the third or the fourth month after the system was released to the public. It was originally called BALLY BASIC. It did not come with a tape interface, but one was available for it. BALLY BASIC cost approximately $50. The tape interface, which could allow the user to record at 300-baud... which is pretty slow. To fill the 1.8K of RAM, which is available to BASIC, would take about four minutes to load a complete program. Better than retyping it every time, isn't it? But, it's not a great speed. Later on, the system (when it was rereleased), it actually came with BASIC. It was still called BALLY BASIC, but today to differentiate it from the original BASIC cartridge, most people call it ASTROCADE BASIC or AstroBASIC. The reason for this is the later BASIC has a tape interface built into the cartridge itself. This can record and playback information at 2000-baud, which is an odd number because it's not a multiple of 300. Because when 300-baud tapes were speeded up by a newer format later, they were 1800-baud. Tapes were available, which meant the user community was able to grow because they could share programs. It was sometimes a problem for them because I could record a program on my tape drive and I could send it to you in the mail. And you'd say, "It's not loading. It's not loading!" Well, you'd sometimes have to adjust your read and write heads to match it. Imagine having to do that today? To having to... uh, I wouldn't want to think about doing it. So, even if you can believe it, with that kind of an issue, with users having to adjust their tape systems in order to load programs sometimes, there were commercially released tapes. These have been archived and are available and you can download them from BallyAlley.com. Chris: So, the play and record head on anybody's tape recorder... there was the possibility that it had to be adjusted to play a tape his buddy had sent him because he had a tape recorder with differently aligned play and record heads in it-- I mean, that's something else! Adam: Now, the recorders that were normally used were called shoebox recorders. These were recommended. If you tried to record to a home stereo, maybe Chris can understand this better and tell me more about it in a later episode, but you really couldn't record to one and then get that information back. I'm not sure why. But, the lower quality that was available from the low-end tapes that were less expensive were actually better. Just like there were better audio tapes available, which you should not have used for data because... because, I don't know why! So, ideal podcast length. In my mind I see about an hour, or an hour and a half. While I listen to many podcasts, among them Intellivisionaries (and others) that are not short. And, as has been discussed on the Intellivisionaries, there's a pause button. So, if somehow we do end up at five hours, please understand that there is a pause button. If we end up less, you don't need to use the pause button. Isn't that great? Technology... right? Chris: Well, a very good idea that you had was obviously to conduct interviews with some, I guess, what, Bally game writers, people who are really knowledgeable about it. Adam: Well, there's quite a few people I'd like to interview. If we can find people from the 70s and the 80s, and even now, there's some people who have written some modern games-- at least written some programs for the system. Chris: It would help if they're still around. Yeah. Adam: Something that's interesting, that I wanna use, is that there's actually recorded interviews that we have from the early 80s and late 70s of phone conversations that Bob Fabris did (from the ARCADIAN publisher). There was a newsletter called the ARCADIAN and it published for seven years (from 1978 to 1984 or 85, depending on how you view things a bit). He recorded some conversations with some of the more prominent people of the time. Chris: That's cool! Adam: We've made WAV files of those or FLAC files and they're available for download (or many of them are already) from BallyAlley. But, it might be interesting to take out snippets from some of those and put them in the show. I hadn't thought of that before, but that's why we're going over this. Chris: Yeah. Absolutely. Adam: Right. Chris: That's really cool. We say Bally Astrocade, like we say Atari 2600, but it was never actually called the Astrocade when Bally owned it. Adam: Not when Bally owned it; no. But after it was resold they had the right to use the name Bally for one year. Chris: Oh. Adam: And Astrovision did do that. So, for a short time, for one year, it was known as the Bally Astrocade. And it actually was called that. Chris: Oh. Okay. Adam: But, somehow that name has stuck. And that is what the name is called. And many people think it was called that from the beginning. It was originally released under a few different names, which we'll get into at a later date. I think of it... I like to think of it as the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. Chris: Yeah. Adam: It depends on how you look at it. Sometimes I go with either. Sometimes I go with both. Sometimes I call it the Bally Library Computer. It just on how I'm feeling at the time. So, we also don't plan to pre-write episodes. You might have noticed that by now. We do have a list that we're going by, and we do wanna use notes, but reading from a script is not what I wanna do. I don't want to sound dry and humorless. I like to have Chris here making fun of me-- well, maybe not making fun of me, but, you know, Chris here... helping me along to give me moral support. And I enjoy that I'll be doing this with him, and hopefully Paul as well. Chris: It is strange for you and I to sit around talking about old videogames. Adam: Oh... isn't it! Isn't it though! Chris: [Laughing] Some of the sections that Adam has come up with are really interesting. They sound like a lot of fun. And what's cool is that they are necessarily unique to a podcast about the Bally console. For instance, we were talking about the ARCADIAN newsletter. There's going to be a segment-- it will probably be every episode because there is a LOT of source material. This segment will delve into ARCADIAN notes and letters that did not make it into the published newsletter. It's kind of a time capsule. In some ways it will be fascinating even for people who don't know a lot about the Bally Astrocade because what you're getting is correspondence from the 70s and 80s, before anybody really knew what was gonna happen with the 8-bit era, you know? Adam: There's material in the archives. All of this material is from Bob Fabris. He was the editor or the ARCADIAN. Two people, Paul Thacker and I, we bought that collection from an individual who had bought it in the early 2000s directly from Bob. It was never broken up, so it's all together in about eight boxes-- large boxes-- all in different folders. Bob Fabris kept a really, really detailed collection and in great order. He kept it in that shape from 1978 until, what?, about 2001 or 2002 when he sold it. Chris: Wow. Adam: So the fact that it survived and then someone else bought it and didn't want to break it up and sell it is pretty amazing to me. We were able to pool our funds together, Paul and I, and purchase it. All of it has been scanned. Not all of it is available. Oh, and by the way, BallyAlley, in case there are some listeners who don't know... BallyAlley is a website that I put together. It's mostly from the archives of the ARACADIAN. But, there's a lot, a LOT, of interesting material there. If you're interested in the Bally Arcade, you should check it out. It's BallyAlley.com. Chris: Adam is being kinda modest. He's done a lot of work on this. You're gonna find archived materials that will make your eyeballs pop out of your head. Adam: [Laughing] Chris: You know, he's... Adam: If you saw Chris, then you'd know that's true. Chris: Yes. Absolutely. I'm recording blind. You know, he's very picky about high quality scans (as high as possible only). He's vey meticulous about it. And I definitely recommend that you guys visit BallyAlley period com. I know it's a lost battle; humor me. They're not dots. All right... anyway. Adam: All right. Cartridge reviews. The Bally Arcade... it has a lot of perks, one of them is not it's huge library of games. I take that back. It has a huge library of games. Many of them, as some people may not even know who are listening to this, were released on tapes. But the vast majority of games, that people would think of as the console games, are cartridges. The Bally could "see" 8K at once. It didn't have to bankswitch or anything like that in order to do that. There was never a bankswitching cartridge that was released for the Bally. At least at that time. Since the library is so small, I'm not sure if we're planning to cover a game per episode, or since we plan to cover all of the games (and there are certainly less than fifty, if you include prototypes) and some of them are not games. Some of them were... BIORHYTHM, so that you could know when it would be a good time to get it on with your wife to have a baby. You know... [laughing] So, if that's what you wanna talk about and listen to... write us and say, "That's sounds great. I want you to tell me when I can get my wife pregnant." [laughing] The other day my wife was taking a look at a game I was playing for a competing console, the Atari 8-bit game system. Chris: I thought you were gonna say the Arcadia. Adam: No, not the Arcadia. I was playing a SUPER BREAKOUT clone. She took a look at it and didn't know what it was. I said, "You know, it's a BREAKOUT clone." She's like, "I don't know what that is." I said, "No. Look at the game for a minute. It looks like BREAKOUT." And she still didn't get it. And I said, "Okay, so you're gonna have a ball that bounces off a paddle and it's gonna hit the bricks up above." And she goes, "I've never seen this before." And I said, "Okay. You've heard of PONG, right?" She's like, "Well, yes I've heard of PONG." I said, "It's that." Chris: [Laughing] It's that... except better. Between you and all of the people you're in contact with from the Bally era, and people like Paul. People who actually wrote games back then... Adam: Um-hum. Chris: Information about how the console works and its languages and stuff... is that pretty-much taken care of, or are there more mysteries to be solved. Adam: There's some mysteries. The neat thing about this system was that even in the ARCADIAN, in the early issues, you could get access, for like $30, to the photocopies that were used at Nutting Associates. These are the people who actually designed the Bally system for Bally. They did arcade games-- we'll go more into that in another episode. This information was available to subscribers... almost from the get-go. So, if you wanted to have a source listing of the 8K ROM, you could get it. Of course, it came with a "Do Not Replicate" on every single page, but... it was... you were allowed to get it. You could purchase it. It was freely available and it was encouraged for users to use this information to learn about the system. Chris: The reason I ask is that I'm wondering what the next step is. Whenever I think of this console... do people refer to it as a console or a computer, by and large? Adam: A game system in my eyes. I mean, it's a console. People don't think of it as a computer. No. Chris: I'll start over. Whenever I think about this system, what usually comes to mind is the fact that it is unexploited. And that is perhaps the, not quite an elephant in the room, but that is the only real disappointment about the Astrocade is that there are these amazing, vivid, brilliant, games. I mean, the arcade conversations on the Astrocade are, for all intents and purposes, arcade perfect. This was a superior machine. And yet, players were teased with a handful of astonishing games and then that was it. So, "what could have been," comes to mind for me a lot. And the phrase tragically untapped. What I'm wondering is why nobody has brought up the initiative of making new games. The last two were arcade conversations. They were not original, but they are, of course, phenomenal. I mean, two of the best titles, you know are WAR (which is a conversion of WORLORDS) and, of course, CRAZY CLIMBER. You were in charge of all the packaging and EPROM burning for those. I'm not saying... Adam: Partially. Partially. For all of one of them I was, but the other one was handled by a man name Ken Lill. I did... I came up with the package design and stuff like that, and made a lot to make it happen. But, I didn't program the games. No. Chris: Right. But I mean, somebody else did the coding, but didn't you have all the cartridge shells. And you were burning... Adam: I made sure it all happened. Chris: Okay. Adam: Yeah. I mean, I didn't do all the work though. Chris: Okay. Adam: It helped that I was there. Put it that way. Chris: We're talking about CRAZY CLIMBER, mainly, right? Because you helped with WAR as well.... /episode/index/show/ballyalleyastrocast/id/4417278

Bally Arcade / Astrocast Podcast Coming Soon! 10/22/2015

Bally Alley Astrocast

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