Ed Fries

Everything in the picture is a bi-fold, but I also have the sleeve type for some of them. In general these have an "EA Classics" sticker on them so I assume the sleeves are from the re-release for the classic series, but there are some exceptions. For example I have a "One on One" that is new in shrink wrap sleeve type but doesn't have the classics sticker and in the picture above you can see the "Cut & Paste" has the classics sticker but is the folding variety. BTW I also have a catalog from EA that lists an educational title from Childware (like D-Bug and Word Flyer) for the Atari called "The Lost Lion". I assume this was never produced but if so I guess it would be a holy grail to find for a collector of these.

It took me about a year to put together this (what I think is) complete collection of gatefold Atari 8-bit "EA Flats". There are 23 in all. Atarimania lists 22 between games and utilities but seems to forget about "Cut & Paste". Some sites claim "Mind Mirror" exists for the Atari but after talking to some experts I believe they are mistaken. Only a few are MIB. I guess that's the next challenge for me...

Sorry, I don't know anything more about this. I never saw one of the programming stations when I worked for Romox. I was in college in New Mexico and only spoke with them over the phone.

The short answer is no. I didn't write any other games until a few years ago when I did Halo 2600. The longer answer... I was in High School and working in a pizza place when I was contacted by Romox. They had seen a game I had written for fun called "Froggie" and wanted to publish it. The fact that they even found me was kind of amazing because the program just said "By Eddy Fries" so how they found me up in Seattle I have no idea. They were worried we would be sued if we released it as is so they asked me to change the cars into jousting knights and make a few other changes and that's what became "Princess and Frog". I continued to work for them over the next few years as I entered college. During that time I made "Anteater" and "Sea Chase" and started a game called "Nitro" before Romox fell apart and I had to get a real job to pay for college.

More info here: http://www.timmcguinness.us/1982-1985/romox_games/romox_games_intro.htm

This seems to be a legitimate one. It has the listed game on it and it works.

Found a nice addition to my Romox collection on ebay the other day. Now if I can just find that CIB Spark Bugs I'd be a happy man...

This is looking amazing. Please keep working on it!

Notepad, SVN, make, dasm, Stella.

Nah, I didn't out bid anyone. It was a buy it now. I think I just happened to stumble on it first. (eBay Auction -- Item Number: 180738969885). This seems to be a better link for the complete packing list than the one given above: http://www.atariage...._1#entry2104038 I did manage to pickup a complete gatefold Combat 01 for $8 at a local game store today and I have the correct set of paddles to toss in the box. Finding those cardboard holders for the CX10 joysticks and paddles seems like a hopeless quest though...

I got lucky and picked up a heavy sixer (see attached pictures) in original box for $55 on ebay the other day. The machine is beautiful. It looks brand new with just a little bit of the orange missing from the frame around the switches. It has the original cardboard liner from inside the box, one original cx-10 controller, and a gray power supply in its box. It also came with an owners manual, and registration card. My question is what else do I need to add to make this completely original? I need another cx10 and a set of early paddle controllers (the ones with the atari symbol instead of the word "paddle") right? Wasn't combat also included? If so, did it come in a gatefold box or was it loose? Obviously it would be the one text ### label version right? Was there other documentation (like the catalog shown in the attached picture?) or anything else in the box? I'd like to restore it to be as complete as possible. Thanks in advance, -EdF

You should sell these on ImageKind like Ben Fry: http://www.imagekind.com/GalleryProfile.aspx?GID=3b76f798-e4ca-450c-990a-f9881d704eaf&P=1

I don't really remember all the details but... The code is for turning on and off the missles. The stack must be pointed at ENAM1 and it looks like I wanted it pointed back at ENAM1 again after I was done but I didn't want to destroy the value in the X register.

Indentation is (more or less) consistent if you view it in the editor it was created in. Which is... wait for it... Notepad.exe! -EdF

Hi Guys, I thought I'd celebrate the one year anniversary of the release of Halo 2600 at the Classic Gaming Expo by making the source code available. It's not particularly cleaned up or well documented but I put it here, as is, with the hopes that it will help some future 2600 homebrew programmers, just as I was helped by others who posted their code. Please let me know if you have any questions and thanks to everyone for their kind words about this project over the last year. -Ed Fries halo2600.zip

It's a fancy word you can easily do without. All he is trying to say is that the registers aren't all equal. Some operations require certain registers. For example you can only do math with the A register. If you want to set the stack pointer you have to use the X register (TXS instruction. There is no TYS or TAS.) Etc. There are many examples. I like to use this: 6502 opcodes to figure out what I can and can't do.

Maybe you could compare it to nouns and verbs? The operator is the verb (for example load, store, shift) and the operand is the noun (the A register, the number 5, the memory location 17). Together they make a sentence. The only thing that's weird is on the 6502 (not some other assembly languages) the opcode actually defines both an operator and an operand. So, for example LDA #3 means Load 3 into the A register. Both 3 and A register are technically operands. -EdF

Great job "Babz"!

Your Christmas wishes have been answered. I just posted the .bin(s) in the main Halo 2600 thread. Ho ho ho. -EdF

Sorry for the delay. Attached are the Halo 2600 PAL .bin files. Special thanks to Cybergoth aka Manuel for doing the conversion. Enjoy... -EdF haloPAL50.bin haloPAL60.bin

That's actually a pretty good idea! By keeping player 0 always centered (or nearly centered) you can be more flexible with the times you set its graphics and colors. I wonder how I'd prevent the player from moving to the sides when it reaches the horizontal edges of the level though... Invisible wall? =) I guess I am suggesting that you keep Sonic in the middle of the screen (horizontally, he can jump up and down vertically) and just scroll the terrain past him. You have some awesome sprites. My advice is to get something simple working now and then build from it. -EdF

I've got a little demo with 8-way scrolling working using just the technique he mentions (p0 is the player and it remains relatively stationary in the center of the screen - only moves up and down), P1 and the missiles are used for everything else. Probably won't use the playfield at all for the same reasons he mentions: I want smooth scrolling left and right. It's still early but it certainly seems to be possible. -EdF

Someone asked me to post pictures of the individual carts. Here they are (sorry they are big...): -EdF

So would that be this line of the table? 74 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 -14 -15 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 ** I assumed the table was in color cycles, not cpu cycles. Looks like you're trying to only move player 1 at this point, which I think is the trees. I assumed that was just a normal duplicated sprite, but are you hitting HMP1 there to have more control over the tree horizontal positions? -Dave yes, cpu cycles. I do early HMOVEs to avoid getting the ugly black line on the left side of the screen that you get with a normal HMOVE, (this is for repositioning Player 1, it gets used 3 times on each screen) but I have to use a different HMXX table (the one you give above) and I have to set all the other HMXX registers (HMP0, HMM0, HMM1, and HMBL to 0x80) or those objects will move when I issue the HMOVE command. I'm enjoying watching your progress. You've done a lot in just a few days. Can't wait to see what you come up with for a game. -EdF

I suspect your problem is being caused by not handling the cycle 74 HMOVE correctly. You know the HMXX registers are interpreted differently in that case right? (I think someone referred you to the table to use in an earlier post.) Hope this helps, -EdF