Major Havoc?

[Stun Runner 87]

First of all, this is by no means a peddlers post.

I understand how some of you feel about that sort of thing, LoL.

 

I was just wondering if Major Havoc was possible for the Atari 7800?

Or is the games vector graphics and 3d effect too complex for the 7800???

 

Just wondering because this was an Atari brand arcade game that was kind of impressive and fun for being an early 1980s game.

If i were guessing, i would think a port of this game could be possible gameplay wise because the game has a pretty simple concept. Shoot alien ships, then run through maze, find item, run out before timer runs out, then blast off, shoot more aliens and same thing over and over with slight changes per level.............IT REMINDS ME OF BEZERK ONLY it has much more variety in gameplay.. Maybe like Frenzy on steroids, Lol...at least the way the guy runs around the maze...Maybe its a bad comparrison.

 

Sorry to bug you guys, but this is a game that i had forgot about and it just kind of popped back into my head. I liked the game in the arcade when i was a kid...Ive never seen the game ported to any home game console and i wonder why. Maybe the Vectex had a port of it but i dont know.

 

I know that the controls wouldnt be the same for the 7800 do to the arcade spinner control to control running speed, but the Atari Museum disc for the playstaion 2 emulated the controls just fine with a regular pad or stick control option with button.....So the 7800 controls would be similar i guess if ever ported.

 

Would make a great 7800 game if anyone ever decided to do so.

I wish i knew how to program. Major Havoc could be worth a try. Maybe 1 of you already thought about it before.

 

Okay, have a nice day.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Stun Runner 87

[Stun Runner 87]

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbq1LE9MJc0

Edited October 7, 2013 by Stun Runner 87

[8th lutz]

The Atari 7800 is able to do vector games based on what Bob was able to Space Duel and Asteroids Deluxe.

 

The major issue would be the ram of the 7800 without the expansion module. I am saying that because I thought I recalled Bob needing the Atari 7800 XM to do Battlezone because of the Atari 7800 doesn't have enough ram.

Edited October 7, 2013 by 8th lutz

[Stun Runner 87]

Thanks..........would be cool on the XM..........Maybe someday........just maybe.

[Jinks]

Thats what I am excited to see as well is the games that use the xm ram to see what it can do!!

Edited October 8, 2013 by Jinks

[catsfolly]

After Jeff Minter did Tempest 2000 for The Jaguar, Atari Corp was trying to interest Jeff in other old games that he could do enhanced versions of. One game they discussed was "Major Havoc". Because Mame and emulation weren't so powerful back then, Sam Tramiel brought Jeff to Atari Games headquarters to give Jeff a chance to play a real Major Havoc arcade game that they had there. I met them and showed them where the arcade game was - this was my total involvement in the project.

 

I don't know what happened after that, but Atari never released a "Major Havoc 2000"...

 

[Lynxpro]

After Jeff Minter did Tempest 2000 for The Jaguar, Atari Corp was trying to interest Jeff in other old games that he could do enhanced versions of. One game they discussed was "Major Havoc". Because Mame and emulation weren't so powerful back then, Sam Tramiel brought Jeff to Atari Games headquarters to give Jeff a chance to play a real Major Havoc arcade game that they had there. I met them and showed them where the arcade game was - this was my total involvement in the project.

 

I don't know what happened after that, but Atari never released a "Major Havoc 2000"...

 

 

They brought Jeff out to the Shareholder's Meeting prior to the Tempest 2K release as well. Everyone there was very appreciative of his coding skills after watching the demo!

[rockman_x_2002]

What I'm wondering is, if you had a port of Major Havoc on the 7800, would it necessarily have to use vector graphics to get the game done?

 

After all, we have Asteroids on the 7800, which is a fine port of the game, and it uses raster graphics. Back when the 7800 was being sold and games made for it by Atari, had it been decided to make a home port, my guess is that the decision would have likely been made to do Major Havoc using traditional raster graphics. You would've had to sacrifice the scaling and pseudo-3D effects, naturally, but you could still have some rather nice visuals, and the game would have still largely played like the arcade version.

[Jaynz]

I believe that both Asteroids Deluxe and Space Duel 'fake' the vector graphics with raster images. One of the reasons that Tempest never seems to get done is that all those vectors SCALE (unlike the two games I just mentioned) meaning you would either need a true vector driver written (which would be difficult to store in the 7800's ram) or 'fake it' with a LOT of raster images to make up for it.

[PacManPlus]

Bingo.

 

This is also the reason I haven't been back to Battlezone. Yet. I have a line drawing routine but it's very slow. I have some examples from other users here on how to speed it up, but I haven't tried them yet.

 

Bob

[gorfcadet]

It makes me dream of a 7800 version of Star Wars Arcade.

[Jaynz]

Bob > If you can find them, look for some of the old "Game Programming Gems" books. A couple of them had some insanely fast line-drawing algorithms in them making use of bitwise math rather than division. (Sadly I don't remember the specifics of them anymore, it's been too long). That's about the only way you can get a vector-engine going on the 7800, I think.

[SoundGammon]

I use to upgrade Merit poker & keno machines with new programs and it would involve upgrading the ram chip from a 6116 16K to a 6264 64K. Had to move a jumper on the board to connect a pin for access. I always thought it would work with the 7800 too!

6116.pdf

[Blue Azure]

This may help new programmers get started: http://www.aiwisdom.com/resource_gpg1.html

 

There has been some line-draw discussion here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/211628-fast-line-drawing/