Pitfall Harry

Yeah, sorry about that. I left one vowel out. But you gotta admit, that's one nut buster of a name to spell. His correct name is Ixgobpt Ugzibniac. There. Everybody should be able to get that one now.

This is really a wonderful article that Stan Jr. wrote. And, I agree completely that Private Eye is a great game that is deserving of much more attention than it gets. Be careful not to accidentally read the spoiler solutions if you haven't played/solved the game yet!

Without resorting to a search engine, how many of the following Atari game trivia questions can you answer? 1. Who is Ixgobpt Ugzibnic? 2. Which game would you be playing if you were doing battle with the Automazeons? 3. Where would you likely be headed if you were piloting an F-711 Starwarrior? 4. You can rock out to a few bars from the classic hit, "Louie Louie" when playing which Atari 2600 game? 5. Who is Berthilda the Witch? Please, just post the number you got right. This is all for fun and bragging rights, not for prizes. Don't be the spoiler for those who haven't seen the thread yet. I'll post the answers tomorrow.

That's the funniest thing I've seen in weeks! I'm going to have to play it again now and look harder for that secret yellow door.

Hey, congrats! You'd be surprised how many people around here love Atari too. I like Reactor, sure. I used to operate one back in my Navy days, so games like this one always have a special place in my bone marrow. If you ever get into Atari 8-bit home computers, keep an eye out for SCRAM. It's a full blown reactor plant simulator game, and loads of fun. I highly recommend it.

I'm surprised one of the Atari hardware gurus around here has not yet answered this question for you. Maybe they're all on vacation. I don't pretend to know much from the hardware side of video signal creation in the Atari 2600, but I do know that the machine code within a ROM chip determines whether an Atari game cartridge is PAL or NTSC. Due to the extremely primitive design of Atari 2600 hardware, all Atari 2600 game programmers are forced to include specific machine language instructions in their code which controls the screen refresh rate of their game. The screen refresh rate is deliberated chosen by the game programmer to match the video signal standard of his or her regional target audience (PAL, NTSC, SECAM, or whatever). Those instructions, of course, are disbursed in the silicon sea of 1's and 0's throughout the game cartridge ROM. The only practical way to "convert" an Atari 2600 game cartridge from NTSC to PAL, is to crack open the cartridge case, de-solder the PAL-coded ROM chip from the printed circuit board within, and replace it with an NTSC-coded ROM chip of the same game. I know that's not much help to you, but you did ask for the impossible.

I think there's an old thread around here comparing certain Activision games to arcade games. They may not have the same names, but the games are pretty much the same. Yes, there was. Here is a link: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=145002 Nyuk-nyuk...I got flamed for that one!!! : ] I never thought Activision's Checkers and Bridge were particularly original concepts either.

It could mean you're gripping your joystick too tightly. Just a little nudge from side to side is all it takes to navigate the mazes effectively enough to beat the Swedish Bikini Team.

Yes, the exact same 9 Vdc power supply will work on all Atari 2600 models.

I don't know the answer to this question, but I do have a theory. Hunt & Score was one of the earlier titles for the Atari Video Computer System, released some time in 1978. If you look through old Atari VCS game catalogs, you will see that the 1980 Atari Catalog, Rev. D was their first catalog to show the retitling of Hunt & Score to A Game of Concentration. It is important to note that this same catalog also features the new retitling of Basic Math to Fun With Numbers. Therefore, the first two games that Atari retitled, Basic Math and Hunt & Score, were retitled together in 1980. Here's how I think the decision for retitling came down. Both games in question were poor sellers compared to Atari's other titles. Both games had been on the market for over two years, so the sales evidence painted a clear and disappointing trend. What to do? A marketing meeting at Atari was called to order. In that meeting it was decided their two laggard games might sell better if they were retitled. The name Basic Math, so it was deemed, evoked images of chalkboards and homework and yawning and hair pulling and the digging of trenches into ruled paper with a bulk eraser and the endless gnashing of teeth. But a game called "Fun with Numbers" sounded like maybe it had some sort of element of fun to it. After all, Fun was right there in the title, right? Hunt & Score wasn't quite as bad an original title as was Basic Math. It had an entirely different problem: name recognition. Or, the lack thereof. Most other Atari games at the time had titles that were largely self evident and gave a pretty good indication of what the game inside was like. If the title itself did not convey the game's contents, then the artwork on the box surely did. But Hunt & Score stood out as something of an enigma. Neither the title nor the box art gave meaningful clues as to what the game inside the box was all about. What the game inside was all about, however, was the childrens card game called "Concentration," a card game that every child knew instantly by name, a game that had been played and enjoyed for generations. So, why not just call it what it is? So they did. There was also a very popular TV game show called Concentration, which had aired for decades and still ran in syndication at the time of Hunt & Score's name change. The TV game show was essentially the same game as both the card game and Hunt & Score, but with valuable prizes thrown in. There's a fairly good chance that the name recognition of the TV show played a significant role in Atari's choice of new title for Hunt & Score. But like I said, this is just a theory. I don't really know.

Hey, thanks! I'm not really "back," though, I just haven't been posting as much as I thought. I have an Air Raid update that may be of interest. I stumbled across "The Air Raid Registry" post in the Rarity Guide forum today. The name Terry Rutt leaped out at me right away. I could not recall his name before. But Terry is definitely the guy I was in email contact with for over a year, the guy who said to me that he had found Air Raid with its box in a thrift store in the early 1990's. How his name turned up on this registry I do not know. But if whoever it was who put Terry's name on that registry knows how to get in contact with Mr. Rutt, I do believe he is the best lead this hobby has of tracking down the elusive Air Raid box. Also, for the record, Rick Weis indeed got his Air Raid cart from me.

If I go two days in a row without playing Strawberry Shortcake I get a bad case of the chicken shakes.

Try playing Asteroids left-handed (or right-handed if you are a lefty). You can also try playing as you look at the game screen in a mirror. Close one eye. Have a friend come over and seal all the windows and doors and then release 200 sewer rats and 12 ravenous alley cats into the room and light off a brick of firecrackers at the moment you start your next game. Difficulty switches are only the beginning.

The game is full of bats.

I never claimed I had a "friend" who owned a boxed copy of Air Raid. What I did say is that I knew of another collector who claimed to have found Air Raid with its box. I never met him, personally. I found out about this other collector (sorry, I have since forgotten his name) very shortly after I found a copy of Air Raid myself, which was in 2000 or thereabouts. At that time there was precious little information available about the mysterious, powder blue T-handled cartridge. All I really knew about Air Raid then was that it was listed as a "10" on the VGR rarity list (out of 10), which was the bible for cartridge rarities in those days. I was naturally curious about what the box and the instruction manual looked like. So, I scoured the internet in search of anything I might uncover about Air Raid. That search eventually led me to an old user net post from a collector who claimed he found Air Raid years before I did. He identified himself by name and he left his e-mail address in that post, so I sent him an e-mail in hopes of finding out whether he knew anything more about Air Raid. He wrote me back to tell me he had found his copy of Air Raid when he was living in California. He had since moved to Chicago. He also mentioned in that e-mail that when he found Air Raid he also found it with its original box, and that his find is the only reason why anyone ever knew that the title of the game is indeed Air Raid. The name of the game (according to him) is printed on the box. He also took the time to brag about having been a really huge, huge Atari collector back in his active period, and that he had found more rare Atari games than most people see in a lifetime. I begged him for a scan of the box. He promised he would make a scan and send it to me, just as soon as he located the game. But the catch was this: In the intervening years that followed his amazing find, he had since gotten a really good job and had moved and he didn't have the time or inclination to actively collect old video games anymore. He said his Air Raid was in storage in his garage or somewhere -- he wasn't sure where -- but he would look for it and send me a scan when he located it. I sent him e-mail reminders periodically for over a year, but he never came through and I finally gave up and stopped e-mailing him about it. His story seemed plausible to me, but I'm sure it seems less plausible to you since you're getting it second hand. Oh, well. Yes, I am known for elaborate contests. It is also true that I possess some knowledge of programming for the Atari 2600. What does that prove, beyond the obvious fact that I am an Atari 2600 enthusiast? If you ever took the time to read through my posts (or asked anyone who knows me), I am also known for being a champion of uncovering heretofore unknown information about video games. Many of the instruction manual scans that appear on this website are courtesy of my efforts. This, in part, explains why I was so driven to obtain a scan of the Air Raid box. I wanted to share that scan with the collecting world. I still do. It is patently unthinkable that I should ever launch a deceitful campaign involving video games, or about anything else for that matter. Collectors had found copies of Air Raid years before I ever did. And they've been found since. I don't believe its existence is owed to a spurious EEPROM genius with time on his hands. 15 years have come and gone. If Air Raid was born of an elaborate hoax, its progenitor would have come forward long ago to have claimed his infamy.

It's not as much fun as making a list of all the words you can form with the letters E and T, but it's close.

I remember getting a perfect score on this game. I always ran left to right, so I'm sure it can be done. There's little doubt that it's easier to run right to left, though.

If a game came up to me and bit me in the ass, there would be no question left in my mind that is a bad game. But to each his own.

The game cartridges made by Atari, Sears, and by others were shaped as perfect rectangular prisms. Their convenient geometry allowed you to easily set the game carts up in elaborate patterns that ran the length of a room and then topple them over like dominoes.

Like I said, once you log 300 kills or so, the Red Baron gets really stingy about dropping the treats. I saw them falling maybe once every 5 to 10 minutes. The Baron dutifully drops all 8 different treats in the same sequence, and I had just missed catching the final treat (the ice cream cone) that I needed. So, to get another shot at the ice cream cone I would have had to wait for the Baron to give up all 8 treats again, and that would have taken at least another hour of gameplay. Most people assume because the Red Baron is so easy to gun down for about 200 or 300 kills that it will always be that way. Not so. Right at the point where he gets stingy with the treats he also gets faster and executes evasive and attack maneuvers with noticeably greater frequency. He also spends more time way up in the clouds where you can't gun him down, further slowing your progress. Otherwise, I would surely have played 10 minutes more to see if 16 lives was possible. Ben P.S. Still in the same place. Swing by any time, Rick. The invitation is always open.

Are there any Snoopy & the Red Baron experts here? I played my Atari VCS last night, trying to discover what the limit might be on how many Snoopy lives it is possible to earn in the game. The game starts you off with 4 lives, and you earn an extra life each time Snoopy catches three complete sets of all eight different tasty treats jettisoned by the dastardly Red Baron. After playing the same game for 3 hours straight, I managed to accumulate 15 lives. Five hours into it, I was still stuck at 15 lives. The Baron gets downright stingy about tossing treats once you have logged 300 kills or so. I gave up at the 5 hour mark, a single treat-catch away from earning my 16th life, if indeed earning 16 lives is even possible. Does anyone know what the lives limit for this game is, or has anyone earned more than 15? BTW, my final score before I decided to kill the power switch was this: 122,230 points 516 kills 23 of 24 treats collected towards earning a (possible?) 16th life Shot down only once 15 lives left Ben

I don't mean to brag or anything, but I have a fairly large collection of Atari 2600 cartridge games and I've turned over every last one of them at one time or another. I have to say this, though. The label sides are much more interesting. Ben

Your instincts serve you well. It can't be done. A "Perfect" score on Pitfall II, Maze 2 is not possible. Why? Because it is impossible to get to the gold brick that rests on the same horizontal platform as the Rope Charmer (a couple of screens to the right of him) without incurring penalty points for the fall that must be taken to land there. Study the map, and you'll see this is so. Ben

I seem to recall something about a contest by an AtariaAge regular that featured hidden pictures, puzzles and clues, too. I wonder whatever happened to that dude. Ben

You will never, never, never know the answer to your seemingly simple question, I'm sorry to say. What makes a game "unique" depends utterly on whom you ask. I don't mean to make that sound flip, but it is so true. One collector may argue there is no reason to collect Sears' Cannon Man, because Atari's Human Cannonball houses the identical game code. Another collector will argue the games are unique because they were produced by different companies. Yet another collector will claim neither the companies who produce games nor the game code itsef is relavent, and what really distinguishes unique games is the label affixed to the cartridge. You, yourself, were forced to qualify your question. "Not counting, pirates, or PAL or..." Didja notice that? As soon as you begin to qualify the question, you stir the coals of debate that will rage among collectors untill the end of time. Why not count PAL? And why not count homebrews? And, exactly how many unique games are on a multicart like Xonox double-enders or Atari's 32-in-1 Game cartridge, or on Starpath's multi-tape game (games?) Party Mix? How do you count them, exactly? Who is THE Authority? Nobody is the authority. Nobody. Ask 100 collectors, be they novice or be they Atari Web Masters, and you will get 100 different answers. After playing videogames, what classic collectors like to do most is to argue about what should and shouldn't be counted, and about what, exaclty, words like "exactly" and "unique" mean. Okay, maybe I shouldn't say Nobody is the authority. Eventually, somebody will be. For now, don't stress too much about exactly how many different games there are. Collect the games that you like, play the games that you like, and leave arguing to those who enjoy arguing more than collecting and playing video games. Then, as your experience with collecting continues to grow you will eventually develop -- I would hope -- your own opinions about what is "unique" and what makes games different enough to motivate you to collect the differences you come to appreciate. And when that time comes, it is then that you will have found there really is an Authority after all. He will be you. Have fun, and I wish you all the luck in the world on your quest. Ben