Omegamatrix Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 This is as close as I can come up with right now, anybody got a U.S. games proto? If anyone does, I WONDER who the most likely person would be? AtariProtos had some US Games protos, but no pictures of the circuit boards. I took apart a US Game cart cause it felt heavy in my hand. Turns out it was just a heavy shell. Mine looks like yours Cpuwiz except mine only has break outs on two sides, so it must have come from a bottom corner of the sheet. Yours makes it seems that the were at least six in a sheet as it has break outs on three sides. Anyway also found a 3F Tigevision cart I took apart to dump. That thing is so convuluted. I'm not sure why they even put the shied on. It actually is a blob style and you can just make out the bottom half of the blob circle on the left side under the shield. The Coleco I had for a while. Sorry Shawn I'm saving that one for myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Also just noticed the OAK logo on the back of the US games circuit board. From what I recall OAK was a large company making a lot of circuit boards for different industries. While I don't think and OAK circuit board necessarily means anything in particular to proof/no proof of which company Air Raid comes from, it seems that they consistently used a very light green color in their boards. I never have talked to any Mexician collectors like Jahfish, but I still am a firm believer Air Raid comes from where it is being found, in the lower states or Mexico. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Anyway also found a 3F Tigevision cart I took apart to dump. That thing is so convuluted. I'm not sure why they even put the shied on. It actually is a blob style and you can just make out the bottom half of the blob circle on the left side under the shield. The shields are to protect other equipment from R/F interference, not to protect the chips underneith. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 LOL, I am beginning to think you need a jacket like the one below, nobody in their right mind would waste the amount of cash that is needed to create a plastic mold like this for a prank. Bring that with you to the next SC3 meet and we can get a picture of you putting it on him. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Air Raid shares a lot of code with some Space Jockey variants (e.g. UFO). But the addresses are all different, which means the game is no hack, but it was compiled based on modified code. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hhwolfman Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Air Raid shares a lot of code with some Space Jockey variants (e.g. UFO). But the addresses are all different, which means the game is no hack, but it was compiled based on modified code. I believe, Jerry G, Got his copy in the 80's. HHW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 The Coleco I had for a while. Sorry Shawn I'm saving that one for myself. Thats it, Jeff your cut off, no more sex for you. Looks like R is gonna be doing double duty for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Homer this is a very nice theory you have but I hope you are not paranoid! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninermaniac Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Air Raid shares a lot of code with some Space Jockey variants (e.g. UFO). But the addresses are all different, which means the game is no hack, but it was compiled based on modified code. Cool. Thanks for the clarification. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninermaniac Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 The Coleco I had for a while. Is their a special significance for the Coleco board? I have one myself that was out from a Zaxxon cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahfish Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Also just noticed the OAK logo on the back of the US games circuit board. From what I recall OAK was a large company making a lot of circuit boards for different industries. While I don't think and OAK circuit board necessarily means anything in particular to proof/no proof of which company Air Raid comes from, it seems that they consistently used a very light green color in their boards. I never have talked to any Mexician collectors like Jahfish, but I still am a firm believer Air Raid comes from where it is being found, in the lower states or Mexico. i also don't believe it is a hoax .... the naming is still unclear and it pretty much reminds of the funvision label style and there is also a lot of similarities to brasilian carts .... but someone tried to program a game based on the space jockey code and put in quite a lot of effort ... this is undeniable ... then again i don't believe it was a run of only 10 or 20 carts .... pepsi invaders was a collectable item from the start and there is only 17 of them to be "alive" .... so there has surely been as much air raids out there if not more .... my guess is that the shells were manufacted as a test version in low numbers and used by someone else for that game .... rather than having that case specially produced just for the game ... i think they were either done in asia/taiwan or brasil ... the two countries where most of the cart shells - specially the more exotic ones - came from ... the OAK boards were probably available worldwide ... having OAK companies in USA doesn't mean they were produced there, maybe just distributed like in many other countries. same for the hitachi EPROMS (does anyone know whereelse those have been used in atari carts? and when they started producing them?) ... boards and circuits were mainly produced in asia for unbeatable prices ... "manufactured in USA" often just means that the last part of the work (screwing parts together) was done in USA (or whereever else) ... in our case: soldering the eprom and sticking together a cart shell ... the origin of the game? there could be so many ... a US programmer tired of the low payment that tried to start his own business .... a prototype games that got into the worng hands (like donald duck that appeared on brasilian multicarts) .... a taiwanese hack for one of the many pirate companies ... but i have trouble to buy the story of a small unknown company called menavision that never surfaced anywhere and was able to produce their own blue cart shells in usa ... the location? it could be that some game store owner brought back a few pirates from a trip from asia ... just like my thai carts have turned up out of nowhere and so far have never been seen again until today ... i even went to thailand last year and have been looking for atari games in malls, video game stores and thrift shops with no resulst .... the only interesting point might be the rumor that Jerry G got/bought the game in the eighties ... which probably is just another myth ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 The Coleco I had for a while. Is their a special significance for the Coleco board? I have one myself that was out from a Zaxxon cart. It's just an 8k eprom board. They are harder to come by and make great for use with coleco games if you want a more authentic style to your homemade games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 (edited) and there is also a lot of similarities to brasilian carts .... Do you really think so, Jah? This type of T-handle is not seen in Brazil (the only Brazilian T-handles are the completely different Tron / Digivision ones) and only very few Brazilian carts carry a label without a company name or game title. Also, very few (if any) Brazilian companies released only one title. And not one Brazilian company actually put that much effort in creating a game from 'scratch'. In fact: there's not much Brazilian about the Air Raid cart. Edited November 7, 2008 by Rom Hunter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sylabyss Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Well i know Gerry G had Air Raid in the early 90's . That's when i started buying up mint and boxed carts by the truckload literally .If you look in the catalog page in pic it sais Items in italics are unconfirmed. So im pretty sure he had 1 copy or maybe even 2 at the time. But he would never sell any rares back then believe me i tried. Funny thing i just remembered, i was trying to buy out a mega load of games from a company in Texas that had a huge stock of old games . I was arguing with the guy about prices and called him a week later and the whole warehouse got destroyed by a tornado . I remember him telling me there were carts all over town most of it was destroyed. Anyone remember the name of the dealer or company ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sylabyss Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Errrr .... Jerry G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahfish Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 and there is also a lot of similarities to brasilian carts .... Do you really think so, Jah? This type of T-handle is not seen in Brazil (the only Brazilian T-handles are the completely different Tron / Digivision ones) and only very few Brazilian carts carry a label without a company name or game title. Also, very few (if any) Brazilian companies released only one title. And not one Brazilian company actually put that much effort in creating a game from 'scratch'. In fact: there's not much Brazilian about the Air Raid cart. i think of brasil as well simply because of the huge ammount of different cart shell that exist there ... so there must have been quite a big cartridge shell industry ... so i could imagine this was a test run that was stopped again. maybe they only did a few hundred shells and didn't like the color, or the handling of the cart ... and it was very common to use eproms in brasil, as the video rental would often burn their own games ... this is why we have all the same fron labels and just different game names on the top label on a lot of carts ... correct me if i am wrong, but - all those brasil carts being PAL-M - didn't they have to be rewritten to work properly and to be PAL-M? i suppose that there has been quite a few gifted programmers in brasil as well ... so it might be probable that that is where the game came from ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 (edited) correct me if i am wrong, but - all those brasil carts being PAL-M - didn't they have to be rewritten to work properly and to be PAL-M? i suppose that there has been quite a few gifted programmers in brasil as well ...Gifted programmers from Brazil? I don't think so. AFAIK all brazilian carts are NTSC. Edited November 8, 2008 by Rom Hunter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 (edited) Hmm. http://www.atarimania.com/zoom_frame.php?T...amp;NUM_IMAGE=3 http://www.atarimania.com/zoom_frame.php?T...amp;NUM_IMAGE=2 Edited November 8, 2008 by Rom Hunter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Brazil uses PAL colors for their color pallete and a NTSC scanline count. So the colors would be "off" if the cart was from down, and be worse of a fit then the US. Fish, all off the Brazilian collectors that have commentedin the past have said this cart is not Brazilian, and they have never seen it. I believe them. These are being found in the US and Mexico only, and Mexico can produce alot of stuff cheaply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Rom see if you can find one with the exact finger print of the circuit board. It can't just be close, we're looking for the same circuit board another company use. The chips that are on the boards the 74LS04's are just hex inverters. They are just bought in bulk for the cheapest price. Hitatchi is not uncommon, either is Texas Instraments, Fairchild Semiconductor, Motorola, etc... Companies often switched brands if they could get one cheaper over the other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahfish Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Hmm. http://www.atarimania.com/zoom_frame.php?T...amp;NUM_IMAGE=3 http://www.atarimania.com/zoom_frame.php?T...amp;NUM_IMAGE=2 interesting .... that second one is a playaround cart? that's another interesting theory .... i could very well imagine that playaround/mystique could be the creator of Air Raid as well ... all their games were just hacks ... run by a huge porn company in the background with tons of cash, the surely had the cash to produce their own shells ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahfish Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Fish, all off the Brazilian collectors that have commentedin the past have said this cart is not Brazilian, and they have never seen it. I believe them. These are being found in the US and Mexico only, and Mexico can produce alot of stuff cheaply. i'm not pretenting that it must have been like that ... i'm just laying out my thoughts so it's easier to connect the dots once we gather more information together ... the mexican collectors that i know all just mentioned that they heard of the game but never heard any rumors about the game being from mexico ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahfish Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Gifted programmers from Brazil? I don't think so. a lot of interesting hardware has been eclusively produced in brasil ... from clones to remakes of the supercharger & gameline module ... why shouldn't there be any good programmers down there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Because they did not program one single VCS game themselves, except for MegaBoy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted November 8, 2008 Share Posted November 8, 2008 Brazil uses PAL colors for their color pallete and a NTSC scanline count. So the colors would be "off" if the cart was from down, and be worse of a fit then the US. Fish, all off the Brazilian collectors that have commentedin the past have said this cart is not Brazilian, and they have never seen it. I believe them. These are being found in the US and Mexico only, and Mexico can produce alot of stuff cheaply. Since there seems to be a bit of confusion. The PAL-M 2600s modify the colors from NTSC to PAL-M. The carts are just standard NTSC. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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