Chronogamer

Assuming your chronology is accurate, I believe that would make Baseball the first 2600 game to perform sprite multiplexing via flicker. It's not quite the first game to use flicker, but I believe Indy 500 and Street Racer only used flicker to 'highlight' something (the 'tag' block in the former and the tip of the Number Cruncher cars in the latter).

 

Interesting that vertical multiplexing was used before flicker (in both Street Racer and Air/Sea Battle, though in both of those games the multiplexed objects were at fixed heights on the screen).

Assuming your chronology is accurate, I believe that would make Baseball the first 2600 game to perform sprite multiplexing via flicker.  It's not quite the first game to use flicker, but I believe Indy 500 and Street Racer only used flicker to 'highlight' something (the 'tag' block in the former and the tip of the Number Cruncher cars in the latter).

 

Interesting that vertical multiplexing was used before flicker (in both Street Racer and Air/Sea Battle, though in both of those games the multiplexed objects were at fixed heights on the screen).

 

Accuracy isn't something I have the ability to achieve with too fine a granularity, at least, not for this era. I'm pretty sure my so-called "1978" games came out during that year according to what I've read and the copyrights I've pulled off the manuals and carts. However, I've no earthly clue in what order they came out.

 

You do bring up an interesting point. We haven't come across a lot of flicker so far. I guess Baseball is good evidence that the programmers' toolboxes were getting more varied since the launch titles.

 

Software generations were quicker back then, weren't they? Programmers learnt new tricks for a console and put them in the next project, just like they do now, but the period was shorter. Games took less time so they and the programmers improved more quickly. I'm just speculating.

 

I would enjoy seeing these games with your programmer's eyes. I don't have the knowledge to look at something and say "heeey! look they're using a <insert algorthymic term here> there! Wow!", but I'm glad you point it out as it allows for more appreciation of the cart in the hardware/software context of the time. So, thanks.

I would enjoy seeing these games with your programmer's eyes. I don't have the knowledge to look at something and say "heeey! look they're using a <insert algorthymic term here> there! Wow!", but I'm glad you point it out as it allows for more appreciation of the cart in the hardware/software context of the time. So, thanks.

 

It's only recently that I've come to learn what the 'first batch' of Atari games was. And it's interesting to note that most of the techniques used to make 'good' games were actually discovered quite early on.

 

Many modern techniques require more ROM space than programmers could afford back in those days (2K is pretty tight). Of the general techniques that may be put to practical use in a 2K cart without using undefined opcodes (in 1977, using such opcodes would have been a bad idea even if they were understood) the only two I can think of that didn't appear in some form in 1977 were (1) using color striping to decorate players, and (2) using VDEL to get six different sprite shapes in 'close' configuration.

 

Something like Blackjack may not look like much by modern standards, but it does show six different sprite shapes per line in 'wide' configuration, and also manages to do three independently-colored and -shaped sprites per line (also 'wide').

 

BTW, I wonder what the first game was to show six independently-shaped sprites in close configuration using the VDEL trick. It's possible to get six almost-independently-shaped sprites without using VDEL (two columns of pixels have to match, and there's some freedom as to which two) so it would be possible to do a six-digit score routine without it. Anyone analyze the early Activision games to see what they were up to?

I had to watch a video for this one. Although (thanks to you) I recently decided to learn the basics of Baseball, I don't think I'd have much fun playing it.

 

Still, I appreciate the fact that they managed to put all the players on the screen, as you were discussing above. I'm a programmer, so I'm also interested in this technical stuff (although I have no idea what that VDEL thing is).