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Schnurrikowski

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Posts posted by Schnurrikowski

    Fairchild Channel F graphics generation

    in Hardware

    Posted · Edited by Knurrikowski

    Hi guys! I am trying to find some reliable information concerned with the graphics screen in Fairchilds Channel F. I am interested in its internal organization and how the actual TV screen is made out of the VRAM content. Is there any literature/website concerned with this particular topic? I have checked viswiki and other sites, but couldn't find anything that really sheds light on it (apart from some VRAM remarks). Best regards, Knurri

    Star Raiders release date

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted

    While browsing my game stuff I found a weird manual for Star Raiders, which states "Cassette" version for the Atari XE Game System. Please find photos of the manual attached. I was not aware there was a cassette version by Atari. The manual explicitly gives loading instructions for XC12, so there is no spelling mistake on the manual. Has anyone ever seen the tape itself and perhaps the box?

    post-42275-0-41376800-1540982224_thumb.jpg

    post-42275-0-09925500-1540982233_thumb.jpg

    • Like 2

    Star Raiders release date

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted · Edited by Knurrikowski

    This is the back of my "Star Raider" cartridge.

    Yes, "Star Raiders" without the 's'.

    First release, note the year below the Atari-logo.

    But as you say, this is most likely the © year, not the production.

    I own 3D-TIC-TAC-TOE and Basketball carts with that kind of back cover. My STAR RAIDER carts (without S) show a regular cover without copyright notice. Strange.

    • Like 1

    Star Raiders release date

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted

     

    First off, Tomzcyk is a great story-teller, no doubt about that. His interview for Randy Kindig's FLOPPY DAYS podcast is just wonderful. But remember two things: 1) It's been pushing 4 decades since these events. Try to remember what you had for breakfast on a particular Thursday 3 months ago and you see how vague and selective human long-term memory really is (I have 17+ years of professional experience with peoples' memories, FWIW). And 2) Tomzcyk is a ridiculously-biased Commodore homer. Anything he comments about non-Commodore stuff, especially given the vagaries of human memory, needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt.

     

     

    Here's a hint about U.S. trademark law and usage: The "Circle R" sympbol ( ® ) is only granted when the U.S. Patent and Trademark offices actually grants the trademark and grants the mark-holder rights to use it in commerce for the intended application(s). By contrast, the "TM" symbol ( ™ ) may be used once the mark is APPLIED FOR and before it's granted. If the trademark application is denied by the USPTO, the ™ symbol must be taken off the product materials and no longer used going forward. Some of the particulars may have changed in the 23 or so years since I studied this in depth, but those are the basics.

     

    No here's some further advice for you: if you haven't already, start listening to the ANTIC interview podcasts with Atari folks. There are some Atari folks who remember well building early-production units and packaging them to meet a deadline in very late summer or early fall '79 to have machines in the boxes and "available" in the warehouses for the 1979 Christmas catalog photoshoots and publication. Of course, once the catalogs were sent out, most or all of those were returned to Sunnyvale and tested, re-built and factory fixes applied for those that needed it, etc.

     

    In other words, it seems pretty clear there was VERY VERY "limited availability" of hardware and a very few titles as of the Christmas season 1979 but widespread availability wasn't until the winter/spring 1980. For instance, the Sears Christmas 1979 catalog shows the 400 and 410 Program Recorder, plus a bare handful of carts and cassettes such as Basketball and Music Composer. Star Raiders is NOT one of them. Neither the 800, 810 nor any additional hardware, and very few additional titles are shown.

     

    So if media reports from CES 1980 say Atari showed off Star Raiders then, that's likely as good a date as any for "introduced." I don't see that this is really all that much in dispute. The *real* question is why, if Doug Neubauer finished the code in the summer of '79 once the hardware configuration was frozen, why wasn't the game "released" for the Christmas '79 catalogs along with the other early stuff? Were there problems getting mast ROMs produced? Were there some last-minute tweaks to the code after that "Jun 79" date but the date never updated? Were there printing problems with the Atari promo and dealer materials?

     

    Find out those answers and we'll know the WHY, which is much more interesting than the WHEN.

    Perhaps I was not clear. If you check the website I have given in my first post you find the following:
    First Use Anywhere Date
    1980-03-05
    First Use In Commerce Date
    1980-03-05

     

    So, no use in 1979.

    Star Raiders release date

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted · Edited by Knurrikowski

    Another find. Tomzcyk writes in his book Home Computer Wars (page 1): "It was November [1979] and we were doing some graphics work for an Atari designer named Bill Hamlin. One day he gave us a new computer and a new game cartridge called Star Raiders and asked us to try them out. We didn't know it, but we had become an unofficial beta-test site. Remember, this was several months before the Atari 800 and Star Raiders were on sale to the public. Even dealers didn't have them yet." To me that sounds like the game was not released before 1980. More opinions?

    Star Raiders release date

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted · Edited by Knurrikowski

    Thanks for your replies!

     

    What makes march very likely to me is that the trademark STAR RAIDERS was first used in the beginning of march 1980 (cf. https://trademarks.justia.com/733/63/star-73363484.html). All boxes and cartridge labels I have seen during my life feature that TM-sign. Noone would release a product with the respective TM on it if the trademark was not granted by the respective authority, right? Also, in an interview with Russ Wetmore he stated that he aquired his personal Star Raiders cartridge in April 1980. The earliest ad featuring Star Raiders I found so far is in the mai issue 1980 of Byte magazine. Just to let you know what I have digged out so far.

    • Like 1
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