Tutorvision Games on Real Hardware

[+Lathe26]

Here are Tutorvision games "Map Mazes" and "Shapes in Space" shown running on real Intellivision hardware.

 

These games are shown on a Super Pro System Intellivision that shipped with a Tutorvision motherboard inside (sometimes called a "Tutor Pro" or "Super Pro Tutorvision"). Later the games are shown running on a Mattel Intellivision, sort of.

 

This particular Tutor Pro has all the Tutorvision upgrades, except the ROM has the original Mattel code ("EXEC") instead of the newer Tutorvision code (called "WBEXEC" or sometimes "REX"). Since the WBEXEC is twice the size of the original code and its first half is just the EXEC code, the games were modified to contain the second half of the WBEXEC code.

 

Here are the modified games:

Map Maze + Half WBEXEC.zip

Shapes in Space + Half WBEXEC.zip

 

https://youtu.be/-AJRZaNZgEE

[Intymike]

Awesome!

[m-crew]

Cool, thanks for sharing..

[freewheel]

Have you tested those frankengames on a regular console? Do they blend?

[+Lathe26]

Have you tested those frankengames on a regular console? Do they blend?

 

Check out the end of the video

[SiLic0ne t0aD]

Cool video, super interesting stuff! I really need to hunt down a Super Tutor Pro

[freewheel]

 

Check out the end of the video

 

I've played "Tackle Fun" - OMG what a great game!

 

So, the extra GROM characters (like the copyright symbol) are actually stored in the WBEXEC. Interesting. I didn't catch onto that from the big doc.

[+Lathe26]

 

I've played "Tackle Fun" - OMG what a great game!

 

So, the extra GROM characters (like the copyright symbol) are actually stored in the WBEXEC. Interesting. I didn't catch onto that from the big doc.

 

Awesome! You are the first person to notice the hidden Easter Egg in the video!

 

Just for that, I will share the first few hours of actual viewership of the video. Only sick minds will see anything besides a mere bargraph...

[+cmart604]

The shocker!

[mr_me]

 

I've played "Tackle Fun" - OMG what a great game!

 

So, the extra GROM characters (like the copyright symbol) are actually stored in the WBEXEC. Interesting. I didn't catch onto that from the big doc.

You can't mess with the grom much without breaking compatibility with old cartridges. So the tutorvision titlescreen characters/data is on the extended exec rom. The old grom has some exec code/data. You can modify the old font style but not the character set. You can even modify the title screen data stored on the grom. I wondered why the sears intellivision didn't have a modified grom rather than a modified exec rom.

 

Edit:. I just noticed these intv/tutorvisions have a different type of cable connector at the controllers. The controllers have that extra plastic at the top. Is that rare on INTV systems?

 

And I guess tutorvision cartridges don't make use of the extra system/scratchpad ram available as they run without crashing on a regular intellivision.

Edited January 16, 2018 by mr_me

[+Lathe26]

Edit:. I just noticed these intv/tutorvisions have a different type of cable connector at the controllers. The controllers have that extra plastic at the top. Is that rare on INTV systems?

It seems uncommon but I'm not sure how rare. I've seen it on some INTV Corp consoles but not all. Someone should make a serial number database to track this sort of thing... :-)

 

And I guess tutorvision cartridges don't make use of the extra system/scratchpad ram available as they run without crashing on a regular intellivision.

In this case, those games didn't use the extra RAM (just got lucky). However, it would be easy to add it into the CFG file for the LTO to enable if the other Tutorvision games need it.

[Kiwi]

Really cool!! I believe the game needed 1KB of GRAM to load the graphics, which is why the graphic is messed up since the address is mirrored twice on the Intellivision(I think). Tutorvision should have the 1KB GRAM it needed.

The maze portion works because the game is running in BG/FG mode. It only have access to 64 cards. In colorstack mode, you have access to a lot cards.

[+intellivotion]

Here are Tutorvision games "Map Mazes" and "Shapes in Space" shown running on real Intellivision hardware.

 

These games are shown on a Super Pro System Intellivision that shipped with a Tutorvision motherboard inside (sometimes called a "Tutor Pro" or "Super Pro Tutorvision"). Later the games are shown running on a Mattel Intellivision, sort of.

 

This particular Tutor Pro has all the Tutorvision upgrades, except the ROM has the original Mattel code ("EXEC") instead of the newer Tutorvision code (called "WBEXEC" or sometimes "REX"). Since the WBEXEC is twice the size of the original code and its first half is just the EXEC code, the games were modified to contain the second half of the WBEXEC code.

 

Here are the modified games:

Map Maze + Half WBEXEC.zip

Shapes in Space + Half WBEXEC.zip

 

https://youtu.be/-AJRZaNZgEE

... what's "Cmart & Rev's Tackle Fun"?

 

btw, amazing! Thanks for sharing

[+Lathe26]

... what's "Cmart & Rev's Tackle Fun"?

 

It's educational!

 

[scalpel]

Magnifique ! Bravo !!!!

[Swami]

Tried this on MAME Intellivision and I just get black screen.

Nostalgia and jzintv: just goes back to GUI after a quick green screen with unfamiliar lettering

[mr_me]

Jzintv is the only one that emulates a tutorvision/intv1988. Try adding a -G2 switch; that turns on the extra gram. I don't know if you can manually turn on other intv1988 features; jzintv does it automatically when you give it a tutorvision exec.

 

Edit: Jzintv does run these rom files without the -G2 switch, some graphics are messed up.

Edited February 8, 2019 by mr_me

[Swami]

Jzintv is the only one that emulates a tutorvision/intv1988. Try adding a -G2 switch; that turns on the extra gram. I don't know if you can manually turn on other intv1988 features; jzintv does it automatically when you give it a tutorvision exec.

 

Edit: Jzintv does run these rom files without the -G2 switch, some graphics are messed up.

At the end of the video, he shows the tutorvision games running on an intellivision 1 with some garbled graphics here and there, so my theory was it should run mostly playable on any accurate intellivision emulator. Not sure, but one thing with MAME is it seems to like ROMs more than bins.

[mr_me]

Jzintv is likely the most accurate intellivision emulator; it behaves similarly as what's seen at the end of the video. It's also been updated to emulate tutorvision. Nostalgia is not very accurate. Mame could have bugs interpreting cfg files. It shouldn't be an issue since rom files and cfg files have similar data. Maybe it's the way the cfg file is formatted.

Edited February 8, 2019 by mr_me

[Swami]

Here's what I'm getting with jzintv for Map Maze + Half WBEXEC.bin

 

 

 

[mr_me]

It runs with old and new jzintv. It even runs with jzintv4droid. Are you using the standard mattel exec? Do you have ecs on?

Edited February 10, 2019 by mr_me

[Swami]

It runs with old and new jzintv. It even runs with jzintv4droid. Are you using the standard mattel exec? Do you have ecs on?

 

Yes, standard mattel exec. That was with ECS off, with ECS on, I get the same thing except black screen.

[mr_me]

I should have said ecs should be off. The tutorvision exec clashes with the ecs rom and therefore incompatible. Otherwise, it should work. Try it with no command switches.

Edited February 10, 2019 by mr_me

[Swami]

I should have said ecs should be off. The tutorvision exec clashes with the ecs rom and therefore incompatible. Otherwise, it should work. Try it with no command switches.

I managed to get the garbled version of tutorvision roms working in jzintv from some info you left in this post:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/267940-jztinv-cant-write-startbat/?p=3809509

 

that the exec and grom files off the internet may be imperfect, so I copied them from my Intellivision Lives CD and now it works. Those CDs game in handier than I expected.

 

It also fixed my problem with not getting Christmas Carol homebrew rom to work. Thanks for the help!

 

They did not make the tutorvision games run in MAME intellivision, though.

[Swami]

I should have said ecs should be off. The tutorvision exec clashes with the ecs rom and therefore incompatible. Otherwise, it should work. Try it with no command switches.

 

Would it be possible to give me quick rundown of how to get jzintv to act like a tutorvision?

As far as I can tell there are not discrete wbexec.bin and wbgrom.bin files around, just something from nanochess called "dumper.rom" that is supposed to load them from an LTO cart to the intellivision something or other, so, not sure how to use that with jzintv.