2600 3D Rubik's Cube Discovered!

[sku_u]

Hi guys,  

 

A few things in this message.  

 

 

1) Rumors & such  

 

As a long time video game collector, I totally understand that you doubt about the existence of this prototype, and I should thank you for doing so because it shows how much interest there is in the 2600 community. So thanks in some way guys.  

 

I think the main reason people were questioning the find is that there was a joker on these boards a few months back claiming to own an original prototype of Swordquest Airworld. He was trying to sell the cart on Ebay and posted some fake screenshots to fuel the fire.

 

I don't think this Rubic's Cube is a fake. From what I've read about you, you are much more in the Atari community than the "Airworld" guy was and have no reason to deceive anyone.

 

I'm sure there's a lot of interest in the game. I think you could easily sell a run of 100 carts through the forums or store here.

 

I'd love to eventually own a copy myself.

[Retro Rogue]

Who is David Winter anyway?  

 

David is a well known and well respected Pong console/coin-op historian and collector based out of France. His site has been up since 1996, so I'm surprised you haven't heard of either one. Do you normally limit your self to Atari/2600 material?

 

If you read his Pong-Story even that is highly suspect :-)

 

Hardly. I've never heard of you before, and your posts on the subject here seem pretty suspect. Sound familiar?

 

He gives credit to Ralph Baer for inventing the video game, when he didn't even build a video game machine until 1966, almost 14 years after Tennis for two.  But because Ralph Baer claims to have thought of the idea in 1951 he is the inventor :-) Silly...

 

There's nothing silly about it if you actually are familiar with video game history. Higginbotham's Tennis for 2 used an oscilliscope for it's display. Video Games are

legally (I say legally, because this was all legally defined in court when Magnavox took several companies to court during the 70's over this) defined as an appartus that displays games using raster video equipment: a television set, a monitor, etc. This is cleraly defined on his site as well. APF (a maker of Pong consoles and the Imagination Machine that was named in the suit) brought in both Higginbotham regarding his Brookhaven display and a german engineer who designed the first computerized display for a radar system during the late 40's to testify on their behalf. I believe APF even went so far as to buy the patent. However, legally it was deemed that while each represented a previous method of computerized control of a display neither were legally entitled to be called a "video game" and therefore did not negate Ralph Baer's patents.

As such, they owed Magnavox et. al. for previous earnings for unlawfully using the patent.

 

Atari had ducked under because they decided to license the patent technology before it went to court. According to Al Alcorn it was a $700,000 license to become the exclusive licensee in June of '76.

 

The problem people have, I believe, is that "video game" has gone way beyond this definition in public use. Much like orginal brand names such as Kleenex and Band-aid have come to be used as a generic term for all similar products.

 

David is a personal friend of mine, and just like Curt and CCC I can say he's a stand up guy. This is not a fake, and from talking to him about it he is having trouble doing a decent dump because " most eproms are 2532 type, and my programmer is buggy and reads them as 2732. So, I need to build a small adaptor."

 

Likewise, he told me to pass on that if there's any reputable 2600 fan/collector in France that is willing to come visit him, he'd be happy to demonstrate it in person.

[Retro Rogue]

Hi guys,  

 

A few things in this message.  

 

 

Doh, looks like while I was writing up that long response David decided to respond himself.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Hi David,

thanks for replying!

 

I also discovered in this discussion that this game displayed more colors than possible ?

No, that was not our intention. We were and still are wondering how they programmed it, because there seems to be no obvious solution. The hardware of the 2600 is very limited and switching the colors 8 times/row is not an easy task at all.

 

After the Airworld fake I automatically asked myself: "Is this possible?". I have thought about that question a bit longer and now it seems possible, but the code with my solution would be very complicated. Therefore (not only) I am very curious about that part of the code.

[MegaManFan]

After the Airworld fake I automatically asked myself: "Is this possible?". I have thought about that question a bit longer and now it seems possible, but the code with my solution would be very complicated. Therefore (not only) I am very curious about that part of the code.

 

And hopefully whatever he learns from that code he'll put in a game.

[Nukey Shay]

-long shot:

Can "sprite mixing" be implemented on the 2600...that is to say where 2 sprites overlap a 3rd color is displayed (via priority)? If that were the case, could you use a combination of sprite duplication, sprite mixing, and background graphics to possibly get eight color changes?

 

Whatever method was used, it's remarkable that a programming trick like that remained hidden!

[raindog]

I'm pretty sure the only way you could do sprite mixing using priority is through "chronocolor".... i.e., 30Hz flicker. Z26 wouldn't reproduce that effect in screenshots.

 

Rob

[Nukey Shay]

So that means that you still need to come up with 4 colors on at least half of the screen, right? You have 2 players, the background pixels, and possibly a mix of those (in some unknown way that would not cause flicker)?

 

I ramble.

[Osmeroid]

How amazing is this?

 

Thanks David, hope to see the ROM released - it looks incredible!!!

[+Nathan Strum]

I didn't think it was a hoax for one simple reason - what's the motivation? He's not trying to sell it on eBay. Rather, if he makes carts out of it for sale, that will pretty much prove it's a 2600 game. So it's not like he's just dangling the single proto out there and selling it to some sucker, then disappearing without a trace.

 

Also, it's not some long-rumored, highly-sought-after proto either, it's completely out of the blue. If someone is going to hoax something, they're going to be trying to make money off it, and the most likely way to do that is with something already in the public consciousness (like Airworld).

 

Finally, he wasn't trying to pass off emulator screenshots as video captures. He stated flat-out he was running an emulator, and that's where the shots were from. It would be really interesting though, if he could digitize some video off of a real 2600, so the programmers could take a look at what may be happening with the graphics - any flickering, that sort of thing.

[Christopher Tumber]

If you've been following the technical discussion, my illustration of how the display is done is available here:

 

http://www.capitalSsoftware.com/TheCube.bin

 

 

Obviously not complete but it should illustrate the technique...

 

It's a combination of Playfield and Player graphics, there's a more detailed description posted to the Stella mailing list that I won't reproduce here.

 

Chris...

[Nukey Shay]

My God these boys are quick! Just this afternoon argueing how such a thing is possible and already a viable solution is posted in the Big List.

 

Don't ask me to translate it...way over my head!!

[Rob Mitchell]

Thanks Chris:

 

The Cube shows two faces of a 3x3 tile cube with 7 colors! running in z26.

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Christopher Tumber]

>The Cube shows two faces of a 3x3 tile cube with 7 colors! running in >z26.

 

For what it's worth, each square of the cube can be a different colour (ie 18 different colours)

 

 

Chris...

[Scott Stilphen]

There's nothing silly about it if you actually are familiar with video game history.  Higginbotham's Tennis for 2 used an oscilliscope for it's display.  

 

That's where Baer's reason falls apart. Saying it's not a video game b/c it uses an oscilliscope or vacuum tubes is as inane as saying games w/o a CPU aren't 'real' video games. Besides, before this goes OT any longer, this discussion already happened-

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8993

 

Next...

[Christopher Tumber]

>Video Games are legally (I say legally, because this was all legally >defined in court when Magnavox took several companies to court during >the 70's over this) defined as an appartus that displays games using >raster video equipment:

 

So, the Vectrex is not a video game console?

 

And the following arcade games are not video games either: Battlezone, Tempest, Star Castle, Omega Race, Rip-Off, Asteroids.

 

Yeah, okay, Asteroids is NOT a video game.

 

And neither are any handhelds using LED/LCD displays, which is pretty much all of them.

 

In addition, hooking any conventional console (Pong, Atari 2600 to PSX/Xbox) up to a flat panel display suddenly turns them into non-video games as well!

 

 

Any legal definition determined in the 70's pre-dates these display devices (or things like oscilliscope scrrens just didn't occur to them) and if the claim still held any validity, you can bet Magnovox would expand it to include alternate display methods.

 

A car is still a car whether it's made from steel or plastic.

 

Chris...

[david.winter]

Guys,

 

This topic is about the Rubik's Cube prototype, not those nonsense discussions about what is a video game or what is not a video game.

 

Let me put an end to this VG discussion: you are getting confused with the original and the modern definitions of the term of video game.

 

Back in the 1960s, were computer games. Ralph Baer invented the system what would hook up to a home TV set in order to play games. Because TV sets received video signals, Baer's system had to deliver video signals. Hence why this new invention (as of 1966) was called video game.

 

What you want to tell us is that every game displayed in a screen is a video game. This makes no sense at all. Video game systems need to produce video signals. Therefore, the 1958 Tennis game could not qualify as a video game, but qualified as a computer game.

 

As to what concern LCD, vector and other games that don't deliver video signals and/or don't use them, they are not video games IF we follow the original definiton of the 1960s.

 

However, nowadays, we tend to call "video game" each game that is watched on a screen. This is just a mistake that everybody does.

 

Those Asteroids and Battle Zone games were VECTOR games. Don't confuse.

 

Those GameBoy games are LCD games. Don't confuse.

 

The 1958 game was a COMPUTER game. Don't confuse.

 

Systems that deliver VIDEO signals are VIDEO games.

 

Got it ?

[Nukey Shay]

These days, the term "video games" refers to computer games in general...much like "kleenex" is often used in place of "handkerchief". The fact that only one type transfers video signals is irrelivant.

 

BTW topics often go off in different tangents (which can sometimes be a good thing, ironically)...don't take it personally. I've heard of a split-topic feature that this board supposedly can handle.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

This topic is about the Rubik's Cube prototype...

Exactly!

 

So if anybody should be still interested, I made my own demo version where I made the diagonals looking a little less blocky.

rubik3d__jtz_.zip

[Nukey Shay]

My God that looks sweet

 

@david.winter

You mentioned the possibility of completing the game program...would you primarily be doing the coding, or someone else?

[Jack-Ass Tramiel]

David, I'm assuming that the cube's sections don't actually move, correct? It's just the colors themselves that shift.

 

This is kind of neat, but I never understood the point of any of these virtual versions of Rubik's Cube, other than for Atari hoping to capitalize on this sensation. A real Cube would cost less than a 2600 cartridge, after all. Perhaps if you could set the colors of the virtual cube to match the ones on a real cube, and then have the program solve the puzzle for you step-by-step. That could be cool.

[Scott Stilphen]

This topic is about the Rubik's Cube prototype, not those nonsense discussions about what is a video game or what is not a video game.

 

What’s nonsense is that some people still cling to that literal definition. It was limited in the 60s; it’s flat-out absurd now.

 

Let me put an end to this VG discussion: you are getting confused with the original and the modern definitions of the term of video game.

 

There’s no confusion because the original definition has been abolished. It was inaccurate, and extremely narrow in its meaning. You can only stand by one, not both..

 

Back in the 1960s, were computer games. Ralph Baer invented the system what would hook up to a home TV set in order to play games. Because TV sets received video signals, Baer's system had to deliver video signals. Hence why this new invention (as of 1966) was called video game.

 

Right, but that’s only a technical definition of the term “video game” and it’s origin, and not the definition commonly adopted by the rest of the world since. To say something is “video” only because it uses a raster CRT was acceptable in the 60s b/c (a) oscilloscopes (or vector CRTs) could only be found in science labs and (b) LCDs didn’t exist AFAIK.

 

What you want to tell us is that every game displayed in a screen is a video game. This makes no sense at all. Video game systems need to produce video signals. Therefore, the 1958 Tennis game could not qualify as a video game, but qualified as a computer game.

 

Complete b.s. Both vector and raster-based games use a CRT to display a video image. The semantics of how that’s technically done is irrelevant.

 

As to what concern LCD, vector and other games that don't deliver video signals and/or don't use them, they are not video games IF we follow the original definiton of the 1960s.

 

We’re NOT following the 60s definition - nobody is!

 

However, nowadays, we tend to call "video game" each game that is watched on a screen. This is just a mistake that everybody does.

 

It’s NOT a mistake – the definition has changed, or rather, it’s been corrected.

 

Those Asteroids and Battle Zone games were VECTOR games. Don't confuse.

 

Vector-based video game. You can play Asteroids on the original arcade hardware (with a vector monitor) or on a PC via MAME (with a raster CRT or a laptop with an LCD screen). The program itself isn’t changed at all- it’s the exact same code running on different hardware.

 

Those GameBoy games are LCD games. Don't confuse.

 

LCD-based video game. Nobody is going to start calling Gameboy games ‘LCD games’. MAME Pac-Man on a laptop is still a video game.

 

The 1958 game was a COMPUTER game. Don't confuse.

 

Again, vector-based video game.

 

Systems that deliver VIDEO signals are VIDEO games.

 

Um, they ALL deliver a “video” signal. Video games can use a number of devices for display – CRT (raster and vector), LCD (hand-helds, plasma screens). The only gray area IMO would be LED-based (dot matrix) displays, since the resolution is limited. But all of these devices are simply a matrix of lights, which vary in their number (“resolution”) and the means by which they’re controlled.

 

The 60s definition was wrong. It was corrected at least 20 years ago. Now 40 years later, it’s never been more hopelessly outdated and out of place. It needs to be left in the 60s. Baer did NOT invent video games; he invented a system to display video games on a raster-based CRT.

 

Got it ?

[Nukey Shay]

That reminds me...AtariAge could use a BattleZone forum

[Happy_Dude]

That reminds me...AtariAge could use a BattleZone forum

No, No, No, No, No!!!!!

(well mabye)

[Happy_Dude]

Guys,

 

This topic is about the Rubik's Cube prototype, not those nonsense discussions about what is a video game or what is not a video game.

If so why did you proceed to argue the Video game definition point?

wouldn't it be better to turn the discussion towards the Proto instead

of some B.S 60's legal mumbo-jumbo?

 

If it's at all possible I'd like to see a video of this proto in action

either captured from the 2600 itself or an AVI file from an emulator

just a thought