Tempest Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 Thanks to the efforts of Alvaro Arroyo we now have the rom for Brad Stewart's Sonar game. Sonar is basically a variation of Battleship where two players have to race to bomb all the ships and score more points than their opponent. The game is mostly complete but has a small display bug that causes the screen to roll briefly when the difficulty switch is set to A and is missing the random ship placement that would have been implemented in the final version (there's only one pattern in the prototype). Other than this, Sonar appears to be complete. This is an early 2K game from 1979, so don't expect too much. You can read my write up here: http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/sonar/sonar.htm Alvaro has graciously released the rom for everyone to enjoy. Sonar.bin 4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 Glad to see this got saved, it seemed like the discovery went under the radar and I was thinking it might fade away. Did he have any other interesting protos? Seemed like he had a few loaner carts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 23, 2023 Author Share Posted March 23, 2023 7 minutes ago, Wickeycolumbus said: Glad to see this got saved, it seemed like the discovery went under the radar and I was thinking it might fade away. Did he have any other interesting protos? Seemed like he had a few loaner carts. He's dumping everything he has. I'll post them when he sends them to me. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Intellivision Master Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 On 3/22/2023 at 10:28 PM, Tempest said: Thanks to the efforts of Alvaro Arroyo we now have the rom for Brad Stewart's Sonar game. Sonar is basically a variation of Battleship where two players have to race to bomb all the ships and score more points than their opponent. The game is mostly complete but has a small display bug that causes the screen to roll briefly when the difficulty switch is set to A and is missing the random ship placement that would have been implemented in the final version (there's only one pattern in the prototype). Other than this, Sonar appears to be complete. This is an early 2K game from 1979, so don't expect too much. This is interesting. Thanks for sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 On 3/22/2023 at 10:28 PM, Tempest said: Thanks to the efforts of Alvaro Arroyo we now have the rom for Brad Stewart's Sonar game. Sonar is basically a variation of Battleship where two players have to race to bomb all the ships and score more points than their opponent. The game is mostly complete but has a small display bug that causes the screen to roll briefly when the difficulty switch is set to A and is missing the random ship placement that would have been implemented in the final version (there's only one pattern in the prototype). Other than this, Sonar appears to be complete. This is an early 2K game from 1979, so don't expect too much. You can read my write up here: http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/sonar/sonar.htm Alvaro has graciously released the rom for everyone to enjoy. Sonar.bin 2 kB · 6 downloads Have you been in touch with Brad Stewart at all? I've corresponded with him by email and I'm happy to check in with him regarding Sonar now that it's turned up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 30, 2023 Author Share Posted March 30, 2023 1 hour ago, ubersaurus said: Have you been in touch with Brad Stewart at all? I've corresponded with him by email and I'm happy to check in with him regarding Sonar now that it's turned up. No I haven't. I'd love to hear anything he could add to this or my page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 3 hours ago, Tempest said: No I haven't. I'd love to hear anything he could add to this or my page. Please do. It's still not 100% certain if he programmed this at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 30, 2023 Author Share Posted March 30, 2023 7 hours ago, Rom Hunter said: It's still not 100% certain if he programmed this at all. Yes that's true. All the evidence fits, but since he never mentioned the actual name of the game in the interview it's possible this is a different game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimefighter Posted March 31, 2023 Share Posted March 31, 2023 Kotaku just posted an article on this game --https://kotaku.com/sonar-atari-2600-battleship-retro-game-brad-stewart-1850283570 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 31, 2023 Author Share Posted March 31, 2023 49 minutes ago, Crimefighter said: Kotaku just posted an article on this game --https://kotaku.com/sonar-atari-2600-battleship-retro-game-brad-stewart-1850283570 Wow! I didn't think this was such big news. I wonder why they picked up on this? Maybe the writer is a member here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted March 31, 2023 Share Posted March 31, 2023 (edited) 5 hours ago, Tempest said: Wow! I didn't think this was such big news. I wonder why they picked up on this? Maybe the writer is a member here? Whoever it was, it needs to be corrected immediately. It's not certain that Stewart wrote this game. He replied Scott Stilphen in late november last year about it: 'I’m afraid it’s been too long ago for me to remember the details about a game that never made it out of the planning stage. It’s possible I wrote some preliminary code that would have looked like the screenshots, but when I watched the video the sound wasn’t familiar at all. If I didn’t do the sound, I probably didn’t do the rest of the prototype. I regret not being able to remember more about my attempt at a Battleship cartridge, but it really didn’t get too far down the road.' So that article is rushed and incorrect IMO. Edited March 31, 2023 by Rom Hunter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 31, 2023 Author Share Posted March 31, 2023 Ok I updated my page to indicate that Brad may or may not have been the programmer for this game. It would seem that he either started this game and someone else picked it up after he abandoned it or it's a completely unrelated game that just happens to hail from the same time period as Battleship and share the same theme. A third possibility is that Brad just doesn't remember continuing to work on it. As odd as that sounds I've run into that with other programmers who will remember things after being shown more pictures and evidence. Memories get fuzzy after 45 years. I would find it odd if Brad didn't have a hand in this game somehow. It would be extremely odd that two different Battleship style games were going on at the same time, especially since Atari was trying to get more titles out the door at that time to bulk up the library. 5 hours ago, Rom Hunter said: So that article is rushed and incorrect IMO. More like my theory on the programmer may not be 100% correct. The article seems to be based on my page so if there's any inaccuracies that's on me. While I try and research things to the best of my abilities, I get things wrong from time to time. As hard as it may be to believe, I'm not perfect. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lostdragon Posted March 31, 2023 Share Posted March 31, 2023 33 minutes ago, Tempest said: Ok I updated my page to indicate that Brad may or may not have been the programmer for this game. It would seem that he either started this game and someone else picked it up after he abandoned it or it's a completely unrelated game that just happens to hail from the same time period as Battleship and share the same theme. A third possibility is that Brad just doesn't remember continuing to work on it. As odd as that sounds I've run into that with other programmers who will remember things after being shown more pictures and evidence. Memories get fuzzy after 45 years. I would find it odd if Brad didn't have a hand in this game somehow. It would be extremely odd that two different Battleship style games were going on at the same time, especially since Atari was trying to get more titles out the door at that time to bulk up the library. More like my theory on the programmer may not be 100% correct. The article seems to be based on my page so if there's any inaccuracies that's on me. While I try and research things to the best of my abilities, I get things wrong from time to time. As hard as it may be to believe, I'm not perfect. It's been my experience as well, when talking to people from the industry, you show them documents showcasing they worked on a title, say 30+years ago and they honestly have no recollection. They worked on so many projects during those years, memories are extremely hazy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 31, 2023 Author Share Posted March 31, 2023 8 minutes ago, Lostdragon said: It's been my experience as well, when talking to people from the industry, you show them documents showcasing they worked on a title, say 30+years ago and they honestly have no recollection. They worked on so many projects during those years, memories are extremely hazy. I ran into this when talking to Gary Shannon about Aquaventure, Mind Maze, and Miss Piggy's Wedding. When I first spoke with him he said that he only did some preliminary code on Aquaventure and someone else must have finished it (much like Brad is saying). After asking him more and more questions he started remembering more and more and eventually we got the whole story (he wrote the whole thing and even thought it had been released!). Originally he didn't remember working on Miss Piggy until I showed him an article about the game with his picture, then he remember tons of details. I'm not saying that this is going to be the case with Sonar and Brad, but it's certainly a possibility. Truth be told I'd be hard pressed to remember all the programs I've worked on at my company over the 20+ years I've been there. We really can't expect everyone to remember programs from 40+ years ago especially since most of them have worked at many many different companies over the years. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 31, 2023 Share Posted March 31, 2023 I cannot even remember some of my Atari 2600 projects from the last 20 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhd Posted March 31, 2023 Share Posted March 31, 2023 2 hours ago, Tempest said: Truth be told I'd be hard pressed to remember all the programs I've worked on at my company over the 20+ years I've been there. We really can't expect everyone to remember programs from 40+ years ago especially since most of them have worked at many many different companies over the years. I am not a programmer, but I have kept a personal journal for almost 40 years. This source includes copies of the monthly reports that I had to submit to management at my former job summarizing what I had accomplished. There are some major projects listed that I have utterly no recollection of having worked on. This is especially the case for things that were never finished. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted March 31, 2023 Share Posted March 31, 2023 18 hours ago, Tempest said: Wow! I didn't think this was such big news. I wonder why they picked up on this? Maybe the writer is a member here? Probably because Frank Cifaldi gave it a signal boost on Twitter the other day! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 31, 2023 Author Share Posted March 31, 2023 3 minutes ago, ubersaurus said: Probably because Frank Cifaldi gave it a signal boost on Twitter the other day! Oh he did? Neat! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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