"CYBERPUNKS" Project FAQ Previously Atari 2600 VCS-STARPATH/ARCADIA FAQ last modified 9/6/97 by krishna@primenet.com (Glenn Saunders)
GENERAL QUESTIONS 1.1 Who are Cyberpunks? GENERAL STARPATH SUPERCHARGER QUESTIONS 2.1 What is the Starpath Supercharger? 2.2 Whatever happened to Starpath? 2.3 How can I find a Supercharger today? STARPATH SUPERCHARGER CD (STELLA GETS A NEW BRAIN) QUESTIONS 3.1 What is the background on the hobby Starpath CD project? 3.2 Why was it done? 3.3.1 What was on it? (general) 3.3.2 Starpath Catalog/CD Table of contents (specific) 3.4 How was it done? 3.5 How do I find one? How much? SUPERCHARGER/2600 PROGRAMMING QUESTIONS 4.1 What do I need to begin? 4.2 Is there a mailing list of programmers? 4.3 Are there any URLs with useful information? QUESTIONS REGARDING THE FALLOUT OF THE CD's RELEASE 5.1 Does this mean the Starpath games are public domain? 5.2 Did any magazines write about it? 5.3 Did you ever find a PAL Survival Island? 5.4.1 What are the long-range goals of the mailing list? 5.4.2 The 1st Annual Stella Game Programming Contest! 5.4.3 What's happening on the list right now? What's been completed? 5.5 I heard that a commercial CD was planned? Will it ever come out? QUESTIONS ABOUT THE 2600 DOCUMENTARY "STELLA AT 20" 6.1 Why did you decide to do this project? 6.2 What is the focus, or thesis, of this piece? 6.3 How did you locate all the programmers? 6.4 What is the status on it? 6.5 What form do you want it to ultimately take?
GENERAL QUESTIONS 1.1 Who are Cyberpunks? I have abridged this section of the FAQ because I think it's only of specialized interest. Essentially Cyberpunks is a codename for four people, myself (Glenn Saunders), Russ Perry Jr., Dan Skelton, and Jim Nitchals who engage in telecommuting-style game-related projects part-time over the internet. The Starpath CD was our first completed project, and hopefully not the last. The basic division of labor is: Glenn Saunders (krishna@primenet.com) -Production supervisor -Promotion & Public relations -Video Production -3D modeling/rendering -Distribution (for the Supercharger CD) Russ Perry Jr. (slapdash@execpc.com) -Rights negotiations -Basic business-type stuff, contracts, etc... -General classic-game knowledge-bank Jim Nitchals (jimn8@netcom.com) -Executive Producer ($overhead$) -CD mastering and Supercharger technical issues (on the Supercharger CD) -Apple II/MAC programming Dan Skelton (dskelton@accesscom.net) -Multimedia (scanning, compilation, etc..) -Graphic art and booklet design -Cover art -Playstation programming (via Yaroze) * * = Skills of potential use for Cyberpunks projects, but not used to date. Below you can read the Starpath story, the hobby CD's evolution, it's aftermath, and what lies ahead... ====================================================================== GENERAL STARPATH SUPERCHARGER QUESTIONS 2.1 What is the Starpath Supercharger? This post is from VGR, but I made a few edits. Hope he doesn't mind: The Supercharger was made by Arcadia (who was later forced to change their name to Starpath). It is an extremely long cartridge, longer than a Xonox double-ender. The Supercharger has a blue label on it. The end of the cartridge (the end which doesn't plug into the 2600) is a large handle. Coming out of one side of the cartridge is a cord, ending in a plug which can plug into any cassette player's earphone jack. Basically, then, the Supercharger is a giant cartridge which connects to any cassette player. The games for the Supercharger are not cartridges. They're normal audio cassettes. Needless to say, that allows for a lot more program space. The Supercharger cartridge interface itself has 6K RAM. Games have to run from RAM rather than ROM because the memory has to get written-to every time you load in new games. The result is twelve games which are superior to a lot of other 2600 games. Dragonstomper and Escape From the Mindmaster are two of the best. These two and Survival Island in particular take advantage of the ability to save portions of the Starpath memory and load in new data for new levels. These are known as 'multiloaders'. Since the games can be copied, we put them all on a single CD. For the game list, read section 3.3.2. 2.2 Whatever happened to Starpath? The company was originally called Arcadia until Emerson released their Arcadia 2001; making the change to avoid potential legal troubles. The end of Starpath: apparently some "firm commitments" for sales didn't come through, and they ran out of money. At roughly the same time Epyx lost a lot of staff who formed another company. Since they shared some common investors, the two companies merged in November of 1983. Later Epyx went bankrupt too, but before doing so Atari had gained exclusive usage rights to all Epyx games for Atari systems (hence XEGS Ballblazer, etc..) but the official corpse of Epyx was bought by Bridgestone Multimedia. Bridgestone owns the copyrights of Epyx and retroactively Starpath. Atari still retains exclusive usage rights (in theory) and therefore had to be consulted to avoid litigation. What happened to Sweat? The market was crashing, Starpath didn't have any $$, Eventually inspired Epyx's Summer Games but only a few basic Starpath routines were kept. The mail order games: At the end, Starpath needed to get rid of stock (to pay bills no doubt), so they sold everything to A&B Sales, who got the up-til-then unreleased Swords Of Saros and Survival Island. These never had boxes or "normal" instructions and were shipped in a baggie. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.3 How can I find a Supercharger today? RGVC post by Jay Tilton: >>> Dan Mowczan had some last time I heard, which was a few months ago. Swell guy, and sells them for a good price. Email dano@ic.net <<< ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- STARPATH SUPERCHARGER CD (STELLA GETS A NEW BRAIN) QUESTIONS 3.1 What is the background on the hobby Starpath CD project? Supercharger cassettes are uncommon to rare yet easy to copy, in a state of deterioration after more than a decade, and Arcadia/Starpath has long passed away. So was about about time, in light of what good happened with the Vectrex, to look into a preservation effort by transferring the tapes to an audio-CD. Not only that, but the Supercharger interface can conceivably be used as a development system once the audio encoding scheme is understood, therefore the prospects of new game development and easy internet distribution was too exciting to ignore. There was talk on the net about this, and finally it was decided to organize this project in late 1994. As time went on, I really became more interested in the odds of encouraging further programming of the 2600 so that this project shifted beyond mere preservation to a big experiment to see whether there is any enthusiasm left to push the boundaries of the 2600, since this system is absolutely ideal in the 90's to program and distribute 2600 games. With this system, it is truly possible to develop easy-to-distribute shareware games on the internet just as easily as for other home computers: through traditional binary files. The 2600 has now become an "open" system, as programmable as any [less than 8K] home-computer. Even more "open" than the Astrocade with it's crippled 1800 byte basic implementation w/tape. Multiloads open the possibility for more complex games than are possible in just 6K RAM. Random-Access (CD or via computer) make mega-load (dozens or hundreds of loads) finally practical and less painful to play. Imagine complex RPGs, Lode Runner clones, multi-wave scrollers, and so on. The CD and the resulting mailing list (read on) are all there to encourage programming. Give it a shot. The title for this project??? "STELLA GETS A NEW BRAIN" Named after the internal Atari codename of the 2600 VCS chipset. 3.3.1 What was on it? (general) Every Starpath/Arcadia game released, in PAL and NTSC formats (save Survival Island which only recently resurfaced for PAL) and an NTSC version of the most complete SWEAT! extant. Also, SoundX, a great Asteroids-clone pre-release version of Suicide Mission, and Carol Shaw's unreleased 1978 game POLO are present. This CD acts as a standalone audio-CD, but also has an ISO-9660 data portion readable by a CD-ROM. Included on this data portion are a lot of image files as well as some development software which allows you to talk to the Supercharger to write your own games. A Vectrex portion includes high-quality cleaned-up overlay scans (much better than what you can find on the net) and legal ROM dumps, and more. And don't forget the booklet. It is 4.25x5.5" in size, with an intro from Steve Hales, instructions, reviews, color cover and backcover, and more. The first 100 or so booklets were hand-initialed by Steve Hales. The pressing was limited to 400 units, about 350 of which were sold to consumers, the rest reserved as personal backups by the "Cyberpunks". This CD is not for use with emulators. This is not an emulation! This CD is primarily an audio-CD to replace original Arcadia/ Starpath audio tapes and MUST be used with a genuine Starpath Supercharger cartridge and Atari 2600-compatible console (2600, 2600 jr., most 7800s, and so on). There is a data portion which requires a computer w/CD-ROM to use, but the computer will always only be a cross-compiler and file-server for the actual Atari 2600 hardware. Neat, huh? 3.3.2 Starpath Catalog/CD Table of Contents (specific) Title{Programmers} Notes BoxID# Cat# -------------------------------------------------------- ------ ------- ----- Supercharger {Craig Nelson} + Phaser Patrol {Dennis Caswell} 1 AR-4000 Communist Mutants From Space {Steve Landrum} 2 AR-4101 Fireball {Scott Nelson} 3 AR-4300 Suicide Mission {Steve Hales, Steve Landrum} 4 AR-4102 Escape From The Mindmaster {Dennis Caswell} 1 5 AR-4200 Dragonstomper {STeve Landrum} 2 6 AR-4400 Killer Satellites {Kevin Norman} 7 AR-4103 Rabbit Transit {Brian McGhie} 8 AR-4104 The Official Frogger By Sega {Steve Landrum} 9 AR-4105 Party Mix {Dennis Caswell} 10 AR-4430 Sword Of Saros {Jon Leupp?} 11 AR-4201 Survival Island {Scott Nelson} 3 12 AR-4401 Sweat!: The Decathlon Game {Scott Nelson} 4 N/A N/A (Semi playable prototype included) Notes: 1 - originally named Labyrinth 2 - originally named Excalibur 3 - originally named Jungle (PAL recently discovered and VERIFIED!) 5 - Contains at least 2 loads, at least 2 events. This is the most complete Sweat! in existence. (NTSC only) Bonuses included: All known "preview" demo versions: Commie Mutants Fireball Suicide Mission Mindmaster Dragonstomper Killer Satellites Rabbit Transit Frogger Party Mix * Legally included Polo proto * Dragonstomper beta "Excalibur" * Suicide Mission beta "Meteroids" * + Ed Federmeyer's SoundX utility * * = NTSC only + = closest thing to vector asteroids you'll get on the 2600. TV STANDARDS DEFINED: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --NTSC-- refers to the television standard for north america and Japan: 60hz, fewer scanlines than PAL. Playing a PAL game on an NTSC TV usually results in a hopelessly rolling display. --PAL-- refers to the television standard for Europe and some of Asia: 50hz, more scanlines than NTSC. Playing an NTSC game on a PAL machine results in badly altered colors (many revert to grey). 3.4 How was it done? This whole project was organized on the internet. Calls went out for 'tape donators' and a special hook was put into my email address to collect names onto a list of people interested in the CD once it is done. Eventually I gathered a team of people to help me. Russ Perry handling rights negotiation, Dan Skelton handling CD artwork, Jim Nitchals handling the initial tape remastering. Believe me, it's a long story and I don't even remember the whole thing. 3.5 How do I find one? How much? The CD has been sold out for a long time now. It _was_ sold for only $15 plus shipping. It is sometimes up for auction on RGVC. There were only 350 made. Each has a hand-written serial number in either silver or gold ink.
SUPERCHARGER/2600 PROGRAMMING QUESTIONS 4.1 What do I need to begin? Software was included on the CD for PC and MAC to encode audio from 6502 ML into Starpath audio .WAVs for playback (bin2tape), as well as decode the Starpath audio signal and put it back into 6502 ML. The PC version of Bin2Tape was not properly beta-tested and was DOA but was rereleased by Bill Heineman in a working form on the net. Still, for now, Bob Colbert seems to have the lead in making the better program (see below). These tools, combined with a 6502 cross assembler, can be used to write 2600 games. The Supercharger has 6K RAM onboard which, due to it being more than the 4K ROM limit, and it being RAM, opens up a lot of doors for the 2600 which writing for ROM simply keeps shut. Jim also included some hints on 2600 and Starpath programming to get you started, as well as sourcecode to many of the games. I think any 16-bit or greater machine with at least 8-bit sound should be able to run the software. Bob Colbert (hatchets buried permanently, knock on wood) is currently supporting his own standalone freeware program called "makewav". If you are an Amiga owner like myself, makewav is the only choice for you. If you are a PC owner, you may also want to use makewave over bin2tape. For instance, due to CD pressing concerns, most the .BINs on the data portion of the Supercharger CD are padded to 32K. I don't believe the current version of bin2tape will read these effectively. Makewav will! Makewav has other compatibility enhancements and optional flags as well. Check it out. Both bin2tape and makewav can be used to send preexisting 2 and 4K ROM dumps of commercial cartridges to the supercharger, although I do not endorse this if it is used for piracy. Bob Colbert's Cheetah program can be used in conjunction with this to modify games for infinite lives, etc similar to Game Genie. Since some commercial games bang on the Supercharger bank select register, causing crashes, Bob Colbert designed a hardware modification which write-protects the Supercharger RAM and allows most incompatible games to run. Relevant 2600 programming information and support files to be found at this URL: http://www.novia.net/~rcolbert/super.htm#super 4.2 Is there a mailing list of programmers? Yes! Subscribe via stella-request@biglist.com post to stella@biglist.com This is an Atari 2600 programming cooperative and discussion group. Beta-test source code and binaries are often published here. Past archives are available at this URL: http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ There is also a way to subscribe via the above pages. So, if you wanna code, get a Supercharger, get the software, and get onto the stella list. Even if you plan on coding via an emulator a Supercharged 2600 is important to verify the integrity of your games. Many games will run fine on emulators but screw up on authentic 2600s. Even if you intend to distribute via cart it's much more convenient to debug with a Supercharger. No more test-EPROM burns... 4.3 Are there any URLs with useful information? Nick Bensema's site is a great central spoke upon which to visit all the other useful sites or click directly to their relevant information or files. http://www.primenet.com/~nickb/atariprg.htm http://www.primenet.com/~nickb/sctech.txt
QUESTIONS REGARDING THE FALLOUT OF THE CD's RELEASE 5.1 Does this mean the Starpath games are public domain? It took some subtle negotiation to get the permission to produce this CD legally and by the book. This CD does not signal that the games are suddenly public domain or freely distributable, therefore I will frown upon any effort to upload the Starpath games onto web sites (we've had some close-calls, with lots of nasty email exchanges to boot.) Other ROM images, it's really too late to do anything, but the rights of these games have been well established. Despite the commercial CD effort being dead for now, it is in the best interest of the "classic community" to respect these rights to facilitate professional efforts to present classic games in a suitably pleasing deluxe format. (For details of the commercial release read on.) Also the developer software should not be used as a pirating device. This would defeat the purpose of including "DEVELOPER" software. (stepping off the soap-box) 5.2 Did any magazines write about it? The CD was written up in the following periodicals: -Digital Press had a blurb on it -2600 Connection devoted a whole issue to it (which one again??) -Replication News, a CD manufacturer's trade journal, had a piece on it (I have yet to see this one, BTW) -Wired magazine had a collumn on it (February 1997, p. 171) BTW, it also made the rounds through 3d0 and maybe elsewhere in the industry. 5.3 Did you ever find a PAL Survival Island? 6/11/97 I got an e-mail from a guy named Chris Hind who claimed to own an honest-to-goodness PAL version of Survival Island. We were skeptical because we had gotten our hands on one before that was labelled as a PAL version but upon decoding turned out to be byte-identical to the NTSC version (as odd as that sounds). We then assumed that there never was a true PAL version of Survival Island. It turns out that we were wrong. This game must be pretty rare in Europe because despite all the exposure on r.g.v.c. it's taken this long for anyone to come forward with a genuine PAL Survival Island, and it's unfortunate that this game did not make it onto the official CD. But it is fortunate that the Arcadia/Starpath catalog has been properly archived in its entirety down to every single byte of released code, remaining betas and source, and the vast majority of the released printed material (a little more of this has surfaced as well). If you are one of the handful of Supercharger CD owners who use PAL televisions, please email me (krishna@primenet.com) and I'll see about sending you the 3 loads in .BIN form which you can then run makewav or bin2tape on to generate a viable WAV file. I'm not putting these up on an ftp or web server because these games remain copyrighted outside of the domain of the Supercharger CD. That also means you should reserve it for personal use only. If you contacted me in the past and I didn't get it to you, contact me again. Jim finally sent me the .BINs. 5.4.1 What are the long-range goals of the mailing list? A poll conducted a several months ago revealed that about a half dozen people are planning to have completed a mature game in one year's time. Since then I've seen steady progress in at least a few individuals. I am still hopeful that there will indeed be some interesting software by the spring of 1998. Although I was hoping that this software would be distributed as .BINs, most of the programmers are going the route of 4K ROM as the final distribution method so they can get physical carts made. This raised a whole "cart vs. bin" debate on the mailing list. However, at least one person is planning to release a multiload Supercharger game. I hope others follow as the Supercharger environment is much nicer to work with thank the constrained 4K ROM workspace. If enough software is written, a followup Stella CD is a possibility with deluxe manual et. al. 5.4.2 The 1st Annual Stella Programming Contest! ********************************************** **STELLA's 20th BIRTHDAY PROGRAMMING CONTEST** ***********SPONSORED BY CYBERPUNKS************ ********************************************** Ever since the Starpath Supercharger CD was released a year ago I have wanted to sponsor a contest to encourage programming but I had no way to provide a suitable prize. All this changed yesterday when I shot at Nolan Bushnell's home for my documentary. I printed out a special "Happy 20th Birthday to Stella" signature certificate on parchment-style paper which has the following signatures: Nolan Bushnell - Father of videogames, founder of Atari Al Alcorn - co-founder of Atari Ron Milner - designer of the Atari 2600 Joe Decuir - designer of the Atari 2600, 400/800, and Amiga Steve Mayer - designer of the Atari 2600 Larry Wagner - original head of 1st group of programmers who completed Combat and wrote the number-crunching part of Video Chess. Larry Kaplan - Symbolic of the originator of 2600 programming tricks: Air Sea Battle, Bowling, Bridge, Kaboom. This is going to be matted with a photo of the entire group (many more than just the above) blowing out a special cake shaped like a 2600 (with candles as console switches). Only 6 of these certificates exist, 4 reserved for Cyberpunks, one being used as a scanning master to create copies as momentos to the participants of the documentary, and one for this purpose. This would make the ultimate collector's item for the Atari enthusiast. In order to win it, you must write the best Atari 2600 game by April 1st 1998. This gives you 8 months to either complete a game already in progress or write a new one from scratch. The rules are that the game must be freely distributable as .BINs for the Supercharger and secondly, that the game MUST be shared with the list at certain stages so that it is ultimately a collaborative effort. This contest is to encourage people to devote more time and effort to their 2600 coding but only TOGETHER can we get the most out of the unit. Being possessive about our code will only hinder everyone in the long run. What I learned from this documentary is that the best games grew out of a lot of collaboration and a lot of playtesting. That won't mean the author has any less of a reason to take credit for his work, and Cyberpunks will mediate piracy disputes if necessary. There are many factors that will influence the judging in a positive or negative way. Things like originality, gamplay, depth, replay value, complexity of the graphics, art/design/story. Special brownie points for multiload games. I guarantee that under no circumstances will the prize be withheld. May the best coder win. 5.4.3 What's happening on the list right now? What's been completed? Currently there have been a couple decent Tetris clones written, and Piero Cavina is writing an excellent multisprite shooter game called "Oystron". Erik Mooney worked on a Space Invaders clone that used playfield graphics instead of sprites. There is another encouraging game in progress similar to Space Taxi by Greg Troutman. Check out the stella mailing list archives for attached binaries or Nick Bensema's well-organized web site: 5.5 I heard that a commercial CD was planned? Will it ever come out? Negotiations with Bridgestone were complete in principle, but no contract signed. Negotiations with Atari were to be problematic due to the beaurocracy and mismanagement of Atari by JTS. We were attempting to license the ENTIRE Atari catalog including prototypes. With JTS stock falling to record lows, I had hoped for a deal but inside information about how JTS does business has led me to the conclusion that nothing will ever come out of these negotiations. The project is officially dead. QUESTIONS ABOUT THE 2600 VIDEO DOCUMENTARY "STELLA AT 20" 6.1 Why did you decide to do this project? At the time I was producing commercials on a Newtek Video Toaster/Flyer nonlinear editing system and after getting in touch with some ex-2600 programmers via the Starpath CD endeavor, it seemed a logical extension for me to combine my interest in the 2600 with my videography and moonlight making a documentary, since it is the 20th anniversary of the machine. 6.2 What is the focus, or thesis, of this piece? It is a birthday party for Stella, and a coming-together of many famous figures in Atari past where they discuss their groundbreaking work in front of the video camera. Call it "Stella: Anthology" if you like. I call it "Stella at 20: An Atari 2600 Retrospective". The thesis is similar to an IEEE article from 1983 which states that the 2600 survived well beyond anyone's expectations due to its amazing flexibility, which was exploited by some very creative programmers. In addition, the piece will focus on the changes in the industry from the perspective of those who helped to create it. Along the way we will learn the genesis of the machine and the games that made it famous and kept it alive for 14 years. As for style, I'd like it to be visually exciting, not just simple talking heads. Lots of animations, sound effects and music, screenshots of the games, pan and scan on old photos (Ken Burns effect), and so on. The focus has shifted somewhat, away from individual interviews and more towards a pure roundtable, casual chat approach. This has resulted in much more candid, looser conversations which, though harder to edit, are more of what I'm looking for, since more of the personality of each person comes through this way. 6.3 How did you locate all the programmers? Mostly word of mouth via email. It was a domino effect as people knew people, or at least knew people who might know people. And getting them located was only half the battle, I also had to get them to commit to attending. This became easier and easier as people slowly committed (the power of peer pressure) until even Nolan Bushnell decided to participate. 6.4 What is the status on it? Current status 9-6-97 It's an exhausting project, and is turning out to be more expensive than I thought it would be. We shot BetaSP throughout to maintain broadcast quality. It's all coming together, and like I said, even Nolan Bushnell himself decided to participate by hosting an historic event on August 23rd! See for yourself! Figures already interviewed: 8/9 at Netobjects Conf. Room in Redwood City, CA -------------------------------------------------- John Harris Jawbreaker 400/800/2600 Steve Defrisco Secret Quest, Motorodeo, Klax Doug Neubauer Star Raiders 400/800, Solaris, Radar Lock, S. Football 8/16 at Pacific Athletic Club in Redwood City, CA --------------------------------------------------- Al Miller Surround, Starmaster, Robot Tank, Tennis, Basketball David Crane Canyon Bomber, Basketball, Pitfall I/II, Dragster, etc.. Bob Smith Dragonfire, Riddle of the Sphinx, Star Wars:TAC Rob Fulop Missile Command, Demon Attack, Night Driver Dennis Koble Atlantis Rick Maurer Space Invaders Tod Frye Pac Man, Save Mary Jim Huether Sky Diver, Steeplechase 8/23 at Nolan Bushnell's estate in Woodside, CA ---------------------------------------------- Nolan Bushnell Pong, Founder of Atari Al Alcorn Pong, Co-founder of Atari Steve Mayer 2600 engineer Ron Milner 2600 engineer Joe Decuir 2600/400/800/Amiga engineer Larry Wagner Combat, Video Chess Larry Kaplan Air Sea Battle, Bridge, Kaboom Al Miller (re-interviewed) David Crane (re-interviewed) Carol Shaw 3-D Tic Tac Toe, Checkers (Atari), Polo, River Raid TBA/makeup list: Steve Hales Steve Landrum Craig Nelson Scott Nelson Dennis Caswell Bill Aspromonte Warren Robinett (if flown from NC to CA) Howard Scott Warshaw Carla Meninsky Maybes: John Van Rhyzen (sould contact via Dan Kitchen) Alex Leavens Steve Wiota I'd also like to track down the authors of these games but have no names: California Games Winter Games Summer Games Fatal Run Road Runner Taz Gravitar Battlezone Berzerk Asteroids Pac Man Jr. Millipede Names of the authors of 3rd party titles other than Activision is also very hard to come by. 6.5 What form do you want it to ultimately take? I will try to frantically edit something together by the end of the year. Potential end product could be cable broadcast, PBS broadcast, and/or direct video sales. Broadcast version will be either 1 hour (PBS), 1 hour minus commercial breaks (cable) and the home version will likely be expanded to 2 hours, or two tapes with one devoted exclusively to the genesis of the console itself. -fin