E.R.I.C. cart (Electronic Retail Information Center)

[+Nezgar]

All of the development disks with the source code and compiled usable code for the Atari ERIC laserdisc system (including code for ERIK II, Dragons Lair and Space Ace) have been posted up on the new section under the newly redone Atari 400/800 computer section of the Atari Museum. Still a lot of work in progress on that section, but it'll all be completed in the next 2 weeks:

That's really cool that they used Space Ace and Dragon's Lair for development testing of E.R.I.C. I never knew that. Makes perfect sense to build the base code and test with an existing disc!

 

The OBJ codes on the ATR's are a straight compile from the Atari ASM/ED, as its the telltale 251 bytes per load segment are very apparent when loading with accurate sector timing (blows sector revs every 2 sectors loading) .. of course could be optimized.. Or I guess Atari Macro Assembler, given the .MAC files.

 

the .BAS on ERIK II seems to need a very specific setup... needs a real 850 present, with full SIO in Altirra. The "ericii.dat' file seems to maybe be encoded frame numbers on the laserdisc... I can get it to the point of running in some loop at a black screen, probably awaiting some response from the LD player to get further. I can see the error trap screen depicted in the laserdiscs themselves:

30270 ERR$="     YOU PRESSED        the wrong key     PLEASE TRY AGAIN  "

https://youtu.be/Atww2rjynEQ?t=396

 

:D

 

So much more to look through, enough for me for now...

[Curt Vendel]

My ERIC Laserdisc captures are much cleaner and higher resolution:

 

Eric 1:

 

ERIK II:

[abeckett]

Hi all -

 

@Savetz encouraged me to write the sequel to his BASIC program for Atari ERIC #2. It works! I have put lots of debugging displays. ERIC 2 is not as exciting as ERIC 1 as it has no "attract" screens or advertising - So I have resorted to using DVD/Laserdisc screen displays.

 

Please don't overly judge me on the programming, Or do. Your choice.

 

Anyway, enjoy it! 

 

Hardware requirements -

- Pioner DVD-V8000 (setup as 4800-N-8-2)

- Atari 850

- RS232 Null Modem following ATARI Pinouts as seen here - http://atari.fox-1.nl/atari-400-800-xl-xe/400-800-xl-xe-tools/null-modem-cable-wiring/

- Atari with BASIC

 

ERIC2.TXT

Edited April 11, 2020 by abeckett

[tschak909]

@Curt Vendel you REALLY can tell with ERIK II that they were cutting production costs like a MF. All the extensive demonstrations of peripherals in the first one were replaced with wipe shots XD 

 

-Thom

[abeckett]

1 hour ago, tschak909 said:

@Curt Vendel you REALLY can tell with ERIK II that they were cutting production costs like a MF. All the extensive demonstrations of peripherals in the first one were replaced with wipe shots XD 

 

-Thom

agreed. There were a couple of

items that stood out for me - the lack of taking additional footage, terrible lines, poor editing.

 

Examples of note -

- learning intro - kid says he is learning programming and his favourite is States and Capitals. ??‍♂️
- in same footage, watch the end. The dog is sitting in front of the computer and they cut just before the kid goes to shove the dog out of the way.

- “Home Management, that’s my specialty” says the woman. ?‍♂️ “I can change it as often as I change my mind” says the woman ?‍♂️
- Programming intro (experienced mode) refers to the APX title Hex-a-bug as a programming language, complete with weird hand gesture

 

[tschak909]

yeah the mention of Hex-a-bug really made me tilt my head.

-Thom