Gamma Attack

[Phantom]

Thats a great find, wish i could have that luck!

 

If someone trustworthy has a copy of the orignal unhacked rom in a safe place (dosent need to be avaible to the public - a number of roms are kept like this when the owners were worried like you were.)

 

One thing i would say was if your not incharge of the interlectualy property rights to this title why are you so keen to alter the title to stop other people from doing exactly the same thing as you? I meen essentialy with a new backswitching method this is a hack of the orignal its not the same thing as what you found even if the gameplay is unnafected this is still a derigitive copy. I think this is what people are getting upset about.

 

Now im not so sure this is about preservation of the orignals, its more to protect your potential profit from the sale of somthing you dont realy have a right to be publishing.

 

even if the guys dead, the compnay property rights ect had to go somewhere. I just get a bad feeling that some big city laywer type will come in a but the brakes on this.

 

Thats like me finding a little known film by some dead director and making copies myself because no others are know to exist, just because i found the media and a copy its not like i bought the rights to distribute the product.

 

I suppose you are right.

I suppose its best to keep this for myself and go the route of houdini.

Like I said, this isnt worth the aggravation and no one will sell a copy if the ROM isnt released so kill 2 birds with one stone. I really can see why people dont share even when they do find something. If it is my property, and the release of the ROM is up to me currently and affects the value of MY original, then I would think this were a good solution. I guess no one would make repros if the Rom was released? LOL. Where is this big lawyer? Tell him to piss off for me and I'll see yas when I see yas.

Youve about made this a simple decision as the headache just aint worth all of this.

[+Propane13]

Whoa! Hold on.

 

Screw what people are saying about alterations, etc.

This is NOT the time to be discussing this.

Dammit, why do these things go so quickly and go to crap?

It seems that someone says they have something new, and people go crazy.

Look at Red Sea Crossing's thread. I remember saying a few times "don't let anyone contact the programmer", encouraging people to do it slowly and right, and suddenly everyone started to flood the guy with requests and go nuts.

 

You're a good member of the community, and you have something cool.

It's awesome that you backed it up-- THAT is what's important.

You get a big High-5 from me for that.

 

Whether or not you share, who cares? It's your decision.

I would stop asking people to email you if they want or not-- I'd recommend scrapping that for now.

Let's take a breather and start over with this.

 

For FUN, I'd recommend talking to a few people quietly to figure out how to put it on a cart (i.e. not in this open thread). Get someone to take some video to post; figure out the gameplay.

But, most importantly, BRAG about what you have.

Get people excited. You have something awesome. But, I highly recommend keeping your distance.

If there's enough hype, and a delay to do things right, you're going to find you'll have more orders than you expect. Currently, the scope of orders was limited to people who were curious enough to read this thread in thsi last 2 days-- that's not much. I wouldn't expect much at all. In 3 months, this thread will have been read a LOT more, and if gameplay/instructions were available, the orders will be significantly higher.

 

Once you've got stuff ready (one proto cart), and you've got the game figured out 100%, then, only then, should you decide if you want to release it, and how.

 

I do NOT see ROM altering for bankswitching as a crime; it's a way to get things released. I mean, think about it people! Save Mary is released on 7800 because Supercart boards weren't available. The ROM is hacked to get it to work on alternate hardware, and yet I have a copy-- I personally see it as original. When people find prototypes on weird boards, they may have to do things to get them to work. Most members here probably have a re-release that has already been hacked to get it to work, and they don't even know it. And for what? Well, if you wanted the game to work, it had to be modified. No one's talking about graphics here. In those cases, it's just "getting it to work". I don't see this case any differently.

 

I hate it when the community goes nuts and does something like this incorrectly.

Make it simple-- no more orders, questions, or contests yet-- I'd say, just play with it, enjoy it, back it up (already done, you said), and maybe see if you can get it to work on a single cart (new bankswitching if preferred), and then decide. Get people interested. Until then, forget what anyone says. After all, you have the coolest new find of 2008!

 

-John

[Dino]

Oh for gods sake 99.9 percent of you wouldn't be any the wiser if it was switched to a diffent banking method. So ya the formating isn't gonna be changed, or is it? or isn't it? You will never know one way or the other cause for all any of you know it could very well be the native format no matter what is actually going down, for which, none of that is any of your business anyhow.

 

Exactly, only 2 people would ever need to know its been altered

 

If the game is released on cart, it could still be the actual, original binary.

 

If a binary is released publicly, I could change it to an obscure bankswitching scheme so it would be difficult to make repros. It would play exactly the same as the original, and would work on emus, Kroko, CC1 and CC2.

 

What's to stop Hozer from buying one of Ant's carts and dumping it himself

 

Ant, don't get too worked up about this. My recommendation is that you get as many pre-orders as you can, thus capturing most of the market, and after you send out the games, list more on Ebay with BINs and then place the cart in the AA store. In 3 months when you've saturated the market, release the original BIN. So what if Hozer sells a couple of repros too, you'll have gotten 99.9% of the market share anyway.

[Phantom]

Silly me thought it would be better to get everyone "involved" so to speak and have fun with it, with thinking ahead to label contests and such but I certainly wouldnt want to do anything Illegal. A previous thread should have taught me that... and now lawyers mentioned and yada yada yada, I have a headache. Allowing the community to have input and discuss it openly shouldnt be this tiresome. To say "take me off a list" just because I asked for more info on something or to makes speeches about lawyers just wasnt my idea of discussing this and sharing the possible creation of this with the people that would like to have it. I dont see Lawyers running after people for repros of other such rare games and I doubt many of this game ever existed being the apparent smallness of the company and this being its only ever release and the rush job it appears to be. So I need permission from a dead guy or a creator that doesnt exist or if he does, he never took credit for its creation while other repros are sold daily? I think this is not worth the all trouble.

[Omegamatrix]

Ant, don't get too worked up about this. My recommendation is that you get as many pre-orders as you can, thus capturing most of the market, and after you send out the games, list more on Ebay with BINs and then place the cart in the AA store. In 3 months when you've saturated the market, release the original BIN. So what if Hozer sells a couple of repros too, you'll have gotten 99.9% of the market share anyway.

Exactly what you should do Ant. It kills the most birds with one stone. I'm just finishing those instructions and will pm you a file in a couple of minutes.

[Mirage]

Unlikely any lawyers are going to get involved. I agree with a couple others that this is just getting way ahead... slow down, relax, enjoy for now, decide later. Above all, don't get stressed about this. It's supposed to be fun. Life is stressful enough in other ways without getting stressed about an Atari game.

 

Enjoy. Be happy that you're so lucky. No problems!

[Tom_Explodes]

Yeah, man, ignore the people babbling on like a bunch of halfwits. Just enjoy it. Again, ignore the minority who are clearly not very bright. Most of us are just happy for you and happy that you wanted to involve us so we could share in your excellent find!

[Omegamatrix]

Phantom, please empty your inbox.

[slapdash]

Here is what Slapdash says.

 

Hey, that's me!

 

The Gamma Attack ad ran ONCE, in EG, and it was in the fine print for another Gammation product (I think a "rapid-fire" adaptor). I was afraid to order it, thinking it looked a little fly-by-night. But I should have! Actually, it's quite possible I wouldn't have had the money anyway...

 

The ad someone posted (thank you!) is the one I remember; I believe the next month they ran the same ad, only a line of fine print was added about the game. Like $14.99 for just the game, or $24.99 for both, something like that. Anyone have the next issue handy?

[Spirantho]

To be honest, I think this is all a little crazy.

 

For one thing, Phantom saying he "certainly wouldnt want to do anything Illegal" is a bit daft given that the whole prospect of selling this game at all is utterly illegal as it's software piracy - making money of someone else's game. Sure, no-one's going to chase him, but he's still selling intellectual property that's not his to sell.

 

Secondly, the whole idea of changing the binary so it uses a strange bankswitching scheme is pointless because anyone with any knowledge of Atari machine code could change it straight back again. Plus the integrity of the code has been compromised - it's not a pure copy any more, hence is worth much less to a true collector (like, for instance, me).

 

Thirdly, the value of the cart isn't going to be affected too much by releasing the ROM for free, simply because people always want the original. Not a hacked version. Not a copy. But the only original version known. You can have 10,000 copies floating around but if there's only one original it's still going to be worth a packet.

 

In my eyes - as an Atari collector who's a hobbyist not trying to make a profit - I say release the ROM for free and keep the cart if you want bragging rights; if not then sell it to the highest bidder for a small fortune. But profiteering from someone else's work isn't right even if it took a century to find the cart, it's still someone else's work you're selling. By all means sell your own carts with a label contest if you like but it shouldn't be for profit. Enjoy the hobby and stop worrying about the money so much, as it's the money that's making it all complicated.

 

That's my 5 cents (inflation - 2c doesn't cut it any more!)

[+batari]

Secondly, the whole idea of changing the binary so it uses a strange bankswitching scheme is pointless because anyone with any knowledge of Atari machine code could change it straight back again.

Not "anyone with any knowledge" but "someone with a lot of knowledge and no ethics." Who do you know that fits this description?

Plus the integrity of the code has been compromised

It would not be "compromised" one iota.

- it's not a pure copy any more, hence is worth much less to a true collector (like, for instance, me).

There would be no possible test you could conduct that could distinguish this from the real thing, unless you dumped the cart and looked at the code. I don't see what the big deal is, I mean a repro is on a new board, using new chips, a new label and recycled cases, but you're worried because the binary, that you will never see, is different inside but will play exactly the same as the original, and by exactly, I mean EXACTLY, again there is no possible way to tell. None.

 

But honestly, I was not expecting this sort of reaction from collectors.

Edited January 31, 2008 by batari

[wogihao]

Ok, lets look at this another way. all the previous found protos rares that have gone sour (red sea crossing is probably the best example) it comes down to the money. If the perceived high value atached to a potential sale of the item in question was not there then we would have a rom avalible for all of these.

 

it was the greed of the owner that stoped these titles comming into the public domain for them to be apreciated.

 

Now i apreicate that your all worried that a dishonest person might do exactly the same thing that you are intending to do (sell a copy of a cartridge that they have no right to and derive a profit from that sale).

 

To present the argument that your doing it for the good of the comunity is wrong you are seeking to make a profit out of someone elses work, this no matter how you cut it is wrong.

 

if you were to release the cart at cost price, this is slightly less of a moral issue and the argument that it was in the public intrest might hold more water.

 

but if it was truly a public intrest thing/good of the comunity whatever why not just release the rom, let others make there own cart if they realy want to but the minuite that you start reporduceing carts that you dont own the rights to leaves you vunerable to litagation.

 

We all know how easly people are to go the legal route especialy if they think theres a $$$ in there.

 

for myself if someone started produceing copys of my programs (highly unlikely but hey) and makeing a profit off my work then i would be pissed even if it was 25 years later. its the principle of the thing.

 

Would it not be better if you wanted to make a profit from the manafacture of the cart to seek out who actualy owns the rights to the title and purchace a option from them? this was done by amstrad and they got some sweet deals but also the orignal programers got paid for what they did as well.

 

If its comercialy unviable legaly then why produce the carts in the first place? why not release the rom enjoy the fact that you own a very rare cart that has little chance to depreciate due to the fact that true colectors will want the bona fide cart and not a repro/hack.

[+batari]

for myself if someone started produceing copys of my programs (highly unlikely but hey) and makeing a profit off my work then i would be pissed even if it was 25 years later. its the principle of the thing.

If you read the whole thread you'd know that the programmer is dead. I don't think he cares

[wogihao]

I did read the whole thread - He may well be dead, however somebody has the rights to his work be it a company or the benifactors of his estate.

Edited January 31, 2008 by wogihao

[Phantom]

For one thing, Phantom saying he "certainly wouldnt want to do anything Illegal" is a bit daft given that the whole prospect of selling this game at all is utterly illegal as it's software piracy - making money of someone else's game. Sure, no-one's going to chase him, but he's still selling intellectual property that's not his to sell.

 

It's only an issue for certain people.

Some people can sell whatever they want and no one blinks an eye.

Are you that naive to think there wont be repros if this was dumped to the pubic?

Thats ok. Its over. I suggest you all go find another thread to waste your time in because this isnt worth any of the BS that its causing and AFAIC, it's a non-issue. Sorry to those who sincerely wanted to play this but there is just no way I am releasing this for others to make money off of. Enough already. Forget it exists.

[Phantom]

Secondly, the whole idea of changing the binary so it uses a strange bankswitching scheme is pointless because anyone with any knowledge of Atari machine code could change it straight back again. Plus the integrity of the code has been compromised - it's not a pure copy any more, hence is worth much less to a true collector (like, for instance, me).

 

Worth much less? Why? Because you cant reproduce the original?

hence is worth much less to a true collector

How much is a REPRO worth to a "True Collector"?

I didnt know you were a TRUE one? Thats cool. Can I join that club someday?

Oh I think I just have, because no one will ever play this but me now.

I hope that makes me a "true collector" now. Thanks for the tips!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Wow, I can't believe that I missed this thread for 6(!) days.

 

Congratulations to your find, Phantom.

[Eckhard Stolberg]

If a binary is released publicly, I could change it to an obscure bankswitching scheme so it would be difficult to make repros. It would play exactly the same as the original, and would work on emus, Kroko, CC1 and CC2.

If by obscure you mean UA Ltd. bankswitching, then the CC1 doesn't support it.

 

But before people get even more angry about the ROM altering issue: does Gamma Attack use any bankswitching at all? It's the only game from a small company and was created before the crash. So it's more than likely that the game is only 4K big, which means that there wouldn't be any bankswitching code to change anyway.

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[Spirantho]

Plus the integrity of the code has been compromised

It would not be "compromised" one iota.

- it's not a pure copy any more, hence is worth much less to a true collector (like, for instance, me).

There would be no possible test you could conduct that could distinguish this from the real thing, unless you dumped the cart and looked at the code. I don't see what the big deal is, I mean a repro is on a new board, using new chips, a new label and recycled cases, but you're worried because the binary, that you will never see, is different inside but will play exactly the same as the original, and by exactly, I mean EXACTLY, again there is no possible way to tell. None.

 

But honestly, I was not expecting this sort of reaction from collectors.

 

Of course it would be compromised - it's not the original code any more!

 

To certain people - myself included - a copy should be just that. Not a re-interpretation, or a twiddled with version, or anything like that, but an exact copy. In other words it needs to be as close as possible to the original, because we're not just looking at it from a gameplay perspective but from a historical perspective too. I like the fact that if I make a copy of an uber-rare game that it is a copy, to the finest detail, warts and all.

 

Personally I'm disappointed that once again the Almighty Dollar has won over in place of people's enjoyment of a hobby.

 

It seems like the Atari scene is becoming a victim of its own success... people see a proto or a rare game and they see $$$ rather than the pride of being able to release the ROM to other enthusiasts, to help the community.

It's a shame.

[Phantom]

Personally I'm disappointed that once again the Almighty Dollar has won over in place of people's enjoyment of a hobby.

 

It seems like the Atari scene is becoming a victim of its own success... people see a proto or a rare game and they see $$$ rather than the pride of being able to release the ROM to other enthusiasts, to help the community.

It's a shame.

 

And the question is put to you again. Do you REALLY think repros wouldnt popup and others would profit from this if it were released? I cant tell if you want a repro or not anymore but save your speech. You condemned it and have only yourself and others like you to blame. I am under NO obligation to just dole it out for others to make a profit from it. It will stay safe. With a "true collector". It will be put to good use. There was only one copy so I guess, there should be only one owner and youve made that incredibly clear to me. Any copy would be illegal, even a ROM dump and you cant have it both ways and you cant be on both sides of the issue. Save your speeches and go find your own rare game. This is over. Now go find something better to do.

Edited January 31, 2008 by Phantom

[Phantom]

Wow, I can't believe that I missed this thread for 6(!) days.

 

Congratulations to your find, Phantom.

Thanks Tommy

[Albert]

And the question is put to you again. Do you REALLY think repros wouldnt popup and others would profit from this if it were released? I cant tell if you want a repro or not anymore but save your speech. You condemned it and have only yourself and others like you to blame. I am under NO obligation to just dole it out for others to make a profit from it. It will stay safe. With a "true collector". It will be put to good use. There was only one copy so I guess, there should be only one owner and youve made that incredibly clear to me. This has nothing to do with the almighty dollar, it has everthing to do with others profiting from it and any copy would be illegal, even a ROM dump and you cant have it both ways and you cant be on both sides of the issue. Save your speeches and go find your own rare game. This is over. Now go find something better to do.

I'm sorry to see that you've decided to go this route. What you have is obviously a unique game and the only one known to exist at this time. That you are going to hold it hostage from the classic gaming community because you are afraid of a few reproductions being made is unfortunate, and in my opinion, greedy and selfish. One of the reasons we founded AtariAge was to freely make available games like this. We've released many unique prototypes over the years, and when we've made reproductions of games (such as the UA prototypes) we released the binaries simultaneously if they weren't already available. Yes, some people may make copies of the game. Who cares? What you're doing is going completely against the grain of this website and the classic gaming community.

 

In my opinion your best course of action would be to arrange for a run of reproductions to be made. People here will buy them from you and you can sell a fair number of them that way (especially if you take care with the production and do a nice job with the label and manual, and sell them for a fair price). You can then release the game binary so everyone can enjoy it. Would you rather be remembered as one of those individuals who hoards a rare, one-of-a-kind find like this or someone who shares with the community? You can't let yourself be held hostage by the few bad apples out there.

 

..Al

[homerwannabee]

Personally I'm disappointed that once again the Almighty Dollar has won over in place of people's enjoyment of a hobby.

 

It seems like the Atari scene is becoming a victim of its own success... people see a proto or a rare game and they see $$$ rather than the pride of being able to release the ROM to other enthusiasts, to help the community.

It's a shame.

 

And the question is put to you again. Do you REALLY think repros wouldnt popup and others would profit from this if it were released? I cant tell if you want a repro or not anymore but save your speech. You condemned it and have only yourself and others like you to blame. I am under NO obligation to just dole it out for others to make a profit from it. It will stay safe. With a "true collector". It will be put to good use. There was only one copy so I guess, there should be only one owner and youve made that incredibly clear to me. Any copy would be illegal, even a ROM dump and you cant have it both ways and you cant be on both sides of the issue. Save your speeches and go find your own rare game. This is over. Now go find something better to do.

Remember this year 2012. This is a very important year for one reason. This is the year the copyright protection on this game runs out. If a copyright is not renewed the first 29 years than it becomes public domain.

[+Psionic]

Remember this year 2012. This is a very important year for one reason. This is the year the copyright protection on this game runs out. If a copyright is not renewed the first 29 years than it becomes public domain.

Huh? It's public domain already. It was likely never copyrighted in the first place. Either way, the company is long defunct and the person who we think programmed it is dead.

[Spirantho]

To be honest I couldn't care less about the legal copyright status.

 

All I care about is one simple theory:

 

Making money off someone else's work is wrong.

 

That's all there is to it. Don't care if the person is dead or alive or has recently taken a teaching post in Australia.

 

And withholding a ROM just because somebody with less morals may make a few bucks off it is at best hypocritical (given that's precisely what you want to do yourself).

 

It's times like this that I really appreciate the good, honest, selfless work that people like Albert have put into this website (and I'm not just saying that to try and jump the queue for the holday cart )

 

I just hope and pray next time a rare cart comes along it appears in the hands of a true collector, not someone who cares more about the money than the hobby.

 

That's what makes a true collector, someone who collects because of the enjoyment of collecting, rather than the resale value. At least in my book. If I ever find such a rare cart I'd dump it immediately for the good of the community, if people want to lower themselves to selling repros thats their problem, they won't make much anyway if the ROM is freely available.

 

Maybe I'm strange, I'm just glad I'm not the only one who feels like that.