Gettin' Hip with the Atari 7800 Ep. 2 Impossible Mission

[Cousin Vinnie]

EPISODE TWO: Good Deal Games is releasing a beatable version of Impossible Mission... a game that was technically impossible for over 25 years due to a programming bug. Funkmaster V acquired one of these beatable fixes years ago and his wasted youth was finally avenged.. Tonight's challenge... can he defeat "Possible Mission" on his first attempt in years? "Do you believe in the Funk?"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5aALUEUQzI

[DrSidneyZweibel]

uh... this has been available for years. Propane released the fixed rom like 10 years ago.

[toiletunes]

I wouldn't mind getting one someday, depending on price.

[LidLikesIntellivision]

Cool! I knew about the rom but I like to have cartridges and I can't build one.

[Cousin Vinnie]

uh... this has been available for years. Propane released the fixed rom like 10 years ago.

Propane made mine... I've had mine for years... but I couldn't remember how long it was released.... but COMMERCIALLY it's available now.

I'm glad you posted this, though... because I forgot who released it years a ago... he deserves a shout out.

 

Edited October 26, 2017 by Cousin Vinnie

[Shawn]

The original programmer Art Kerwat also released his "official" bug fixed version as well.

[Shawn]

GoodDealGames has it for $39.75

[Trebor]

The original programmer Art Kerwat also released his "official" bug fixed version as well.

 

Hey, Shawn...Was it confirmed that Art ever got around to releasing an "official" fixed version?

 

Art's first mention on the forums about looking at releasing a fix is back on Dec 5, 2008. Another thread started, states successful recompile of source code on Nov 4, 2009; however, still no fix.

 

What appears to be Art's last update in the forums on the matter is from Jul 20, 2015 with "...nothing to report..."

 

Anyhow, for those curious on how Propane13 fixed NTSC Impossible Mission, see this post, reiterated below for convenience:

 

"...

1) The PAL version works, so I did a diff of PAL vs NTSC.

2) There were a lot of diffs that were $00's compared to $FF's.

I attributed these to differing EPROM blank states (some start at $00, some start at $FF)

So, "nonprogrammed" spots I just ignored

3) I went through what was left, and found the items that were color changes and DLL changes.

The DLL's will be slightly longer in PAL, so those diffs were easy to find.

The color changes are easy too-- if there's a list that's like $66, $56, $76, and it suddenly now is $96, $A6, $26, it's likely a color table.

4) After identifying this data, I tool the PAL bin, changed any DLL numbers back to their NTSC versions, and took the NTSC colors.

Once that was completed, I burned a ROM, and it powered up, and surprisingly was finishable.

..."

The NTSC Impossible Mission ROM fix, named "Possible Mission", as well as KevinMos3's various excellent graphic updates that utilize the fixed Impossible Mission ROM, can be obtained within Trebors 7800 ROM PROPack.

Some very interesting tidbits were provided by Arthur in regards to Impossible Mission development and other items. For example, he mentions how after it was discovered that the game was unbeatable, they refused to pay him to fix it, so he didn't.

[Shawn]

 

 

Hey, Shawn...Was it confirmed that Art ever got around to releasing an "official" fixed version?

 

 

Some very interesting tidbits were provided by Arthur in regards to Impossible Mission development and other items. For example, he mentions how after it was discovered that the game was unbeatable, they refused to pay him to fix it, so he didn't.

 

 

I was pretty sure he released it. I know he did work on it for sure. I had correspondence with him for a while and even got him to sign some carts for me when I sent him a dev unit to work with. This was during the time when he was working through the source code he had left for California Games for the 7800 and he was going to try to at least cobble what was left into whatever playable state could come of it. The BMX level was the most complete from what I recall him saying to me. He's not around AA much anymore though.

[Jinks]

I wish we could see the Cailfornia Games 7800!!!!