Frank Johnson programmed Inty Donkey Kong (and a load of other games)

[+bhall408]

On 2/20/2024 at 7:42 PM, Gunoz said:

His profile shows - 

 

Programmer

Computer Magic

Jan 1984 - Jan 1985 · 1 yr 1 mo

Developed video games for the Coleco Colecovision.

 

Programmer

Impact Research

Jan 1983 - Jan 1984 · 1 yr 1 mo

Programmed games for the Matell Intelivision and Coleco Colecovision.

Profile is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-thompson-86753a5/

[First Spear]

On 3/19/2024 at 2:14 PM, bhall408 said:

Profile is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-thompson-86753a5/

Not Psycho Stormtrooper.

[decle]

GenXGrownUp has put up a really interesting interview with Gary Kitchen who did the 2600 port of Donkey Kong (the DK discussion starts at 5:42):

 

 

Like Jennell, Gary makes it clear that developers were not asked to shank the ports, there was no Coleco conspiracy.  Instead, the focus was on time to delivery and ROM size.  Specifically, development needed to be complete in May '82 in order for production to be done by September, and the games to be available in the run up to Christmas.  Further, Gary suggests that even if he had a larger ROM, he might not have been able to do much more in the 90 days he had for development.

 

I suspect that, if he was still around, Frank Johnson might empathize with Gary's experience.

 

The importance of ROM space is something that should not be forgotten when comparing DK ports.  On the Colecovision, DK was originally a 24KB game written in Pascal.  This compares with 4K decles (5KB) on the Intellivision and 4KB on the 2600. Therefore, it's not surprising that content was cut on the Inty and 2600 versions. I believe the Coleco version was reworked in assembly later, reducing the size to 16KB with no loss of functionality.  This potentially shows the overhead of using a high level language, that more ROM space might have been traded for a shorter development time on the Colecovision version, and the efficiency improvement that more development time and experience can bring.  So as a really naive comparison, even in it's optimised, 16KB form, Colecovision DK effectively had more than 5KB of ROM space per level, as compared with 2.5KB on the Inty and 2KB on the 2600.

Edited April 25 by decle

[+DZ-Jay]

How long did it take to make the Colecovision DK?

 

Because if it took a lot longer than 90 days, and could afford a ROM larger thank 4 or 5 KB, then it sounds to me a lot like “never mind the budget — make sure ours looks and plays better than the others, whatever it takes!” sort of situation.

 

In that view, the programmers for the other consoles may not have been asked specifically to make crap games, but that sounds like a distinction without difference.

 

    dZ.

[Walter Ives]

On 4/25/2024 at 4:47 AM, decle said:

Like Jennell, Gary makes it clear that developers were not asked to shank the ports, there was no Coleco conspiracy.

Similarly, no one can accuse Mattel of "shanking" its M-Network games. Many even think that the M-Network Lock'n'Chase, Astroblast/Astrosmash and Dark Cavern/Night Stalker cartridges play better than the Intellivision originals.

 

WJI

[Walter Ives]

On 4/25/2024 at 4:47 AM, decle said:

from the video at 5:58] Kitchen: "Let me ask you at that point in time [February 1982] how many people were there [who could program the 2600]. There weren't a lot. Seven, maybe, on the planet. And how many of them were actually not employed by Atari or Activision? It was a pretty small world." Interviewer: "You might have been it." Kitchen: "I might have been it."GenXGrownUp

Yeah, right. Mattel was able to find at least seven more under a single rock: Hal Finney, Bruce Pederson, Jeff Ronne, Brett Stutz, Dave Rolfe, Ken Smith and Larry Zwick; there were undoubtedly a bunch more wandering around in their immediate vicinity. There were slews of others at Apollo, Spectravision, Data Age, Tiger Vision, Parker Brothers, U.S. Games, Telesys and other places, all busy working to create the Christmas 1982 tidal wave of over 100 third-party cartridges that wiped out the industry.

 

WJI

 

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

 

[Walter Ives]

On 4/25/2024 at 4:47 AM, decle said:

[Gary Kitchen, from the video at 13:25] "I will tell you that I read an analyst report the following year of looking back on 1982 Coleco. They put out 550 SKUs that year across their entire product line of everything. That single ROM cartridge that I did was 25% of their revenue in 1982. 25% of their revenue in one cartridge, according to analysts, not me."

Mattel Electronics experienced something similar; they made more off their M-Network line in 1982 than they did off the rest of their catalog. (Mattel Electronics ≠ Mattel Toys, so that doesn't include Barbie.)

 

WJI

 

[Walter Ives]

On 4/25/2024 at 4:47 AM, decle said:

So as a really naive comparison, even in it's optimised, 16KB form, Colecovision DK effectively had more than 5KB of ROM space per level, as compared with 2.5KB on the Inty and 2KB on the 2600.

Another fantastic post!

 

A lot of the space in the later 16KB version was undoubtedly used to store graphics. The 4K Intellivision cartridges needed about 1.5K for graphics. As another naïve estimate, each doubling of resolution requires four times the graphics storage, and ColecoVision had four screens, so the cartridge would have needed 12K just for graphics storage. That would leave 4K for game play, which is believable. Graphics storage would be about the same for both the Pascal and assembly language versions. That makes the penalty for using Pascal instead of assembly language 8K, which would be a factor of three for the logic portion of the program. That's quite believable for an 8-bit Pascal.

 

Remember that as ROM sizes increased Mattel used the extra space to improve its graphics and called the resulting improvement "SuperGraphics." The greatest single benefit of SuperGraphics was that it allowed cartridges to include a fancy title screen, which improved the impact of the initial impression.

 

WJI

 

[Walter Ives]

On 4/25/2024 at 6:47 AM, DZ-Jay said:

How long did it take to make the Colecovision DK?

 

Because if it took a lot longer than 90 days, and could afford a ROM larger thank 4 or 5 KB, then it sounds to me a lot like “never mind the budget — make sure ours looks and plays better than the others, whatever it takes!” sort of situation.

Coleco closed the deal for Donkey Kong with Nintendo at end of January-beginning of February and the first ColecoVisions with included Donkey Kongs hit the shelves that August, so it didn't have much more than 90 days to write the ColecoVision version.

 

You're undoubtedly right about the "do whatever it takes," but it was paramount to have volume product on store shelves by September, so it was surely "do whatever it takes, but get it done in 90 days." ColecoVision would have been foolish to not assign multiple people to its flagship product: a graphic artist, a sound designer, a second programmer to take on mechanical tasks like putting up the various backgrounds and a dedicated tester; all that would take a load off the programmer and buy him more implementation time. Of course, Arnie Greenberg may not have been clued-in enough to know how to organize a programming "Tiger Team." (See Frederick Brooks, "The Surgical Team," The Mythical Man-Month (1975), pp. 29-37.)

 

But even a lone still-wet-behind-the-ears undergraduate can complete a reasonably good game in 90 days; witness the fact that Mattel used such students to program its first two rounds of games over their summer vacation: Armor Battle, Backgammon, Basketball, Math Fun, Space Battle, Horse Racing, Skiing, Hockey, Sea Battle, etc. A few years later Ray Kaestner did a great job of porting BurgerTime in about the same amount of time. With Donkey Kong, Coleco had the advantage that it is a LOT faster and easier to port an existing game than it was to create an original one.

 

WJI

 

[Walter Ives]

On 4/25/2024 at 6:47 AM, DZ-Jay said:

Because if it ... could afford a ROM larger thank 4 or 5 KB

Remember that the 2600 used a 6507 microprocessor, a 6502 variant that only brought out 12 bits of the address bus. Cartridges larger than 4K had to implement bank switching, which is hardware complexity you'd like to avoid if you're on a very tight production schedule. Also, you'd want to find a supplier of bank switched ROMs, and I don't know that there was an independent one of those in the first half of 1982. All of the popular Activision cartridges fit in 4K. That was undoubtedly the reason Kitchen was given a 4K budget at the start of the project—there was just no mindset to do otherwise. He didn't come back and ask for more. Had he absolutely needed more, he surely would have gotten it.

 

I doubt that Arnie Greenberg expected the ColecoVision version to be anywhere near 24K when he commissioned the project. But, as I said in a previous post, the space needed to store graphics goes roughly as the square of linear resolution and a 3X penalty on the logic part of the program for using a compiler on an 8-bit processor seems believable. When the programmers told Arnie they needed more memory, he gave it to them, and when that turned out to not be enough he had to give them some more. I'm sure he wasn't happy about it, but what else was he supposed to do? "Do whatever it takes, but get it done in 90 days."

 

WJI

 

[Walter Ives]

On 4/25/2024 at 6:47 AM, DZ-Jay said:

In that view, the programmers for the other consoles may not have been asked specifically to make crap games, but that sounds like a distinction without difference.

There were about 15 million 2600 consoles in service by the end of 1982. Donkey Kong was a very hot title, and Coleco was expecting to net at least $10 per cartridge, and that was after paying Nintendo its $2. Coleco both expected to and did make more money off of the 2600 version of Donkey Kong than it made off the whole ColecoVision line. The value of the Donkey Kong title was expected to decay rather rapidly with time. Coleco was very much counting on the 2600 version of Donkey Kong to succeed.

 

WJI

 

[Walter Ives]

3 minutes ago, Walter Ives said:

There were about 15 million 2600 consoles in service by the end of 1982. Donkey Kong was a very hot title, and Coleco was expecting to net at least $10 per cartridge,

The marketing types controlling the industry were generally clueless. Atari's management had similar expectations for its ET cartridge, which it expected would be an absolute blockbuster based on its name alone. When they commissioned Howard Warshaw to write the game in five weeks to make the same Christmas season, they surely didn't ask him specifically to make a crap game that would trigger the video game crash. But he absolutely delivered.

 

WJI

[+DZ-Jay]

23 hours ago, Walter Ives said:

There were about 15 million 2600 consoles in service by the end of 1982. Donkey Kong was a very hot title, and Coleco was expecting to net at least $10 per cartridge, and that was after paying Nintendo its $2. Coleco both expected to and did make more money off of the 2600 version of Donkey Kong than it made off the whole ColecoVision line. The value of the Donkey Kong title was expected to decay rather rapidly with time. Coleco was very much counting on the 2600 version of Donkey Kong to succeed.

 

WJI

 

 

23 hours ago, Walter Ives said:

 

The marketing types controlling the industry were generally clueless. Atari's management had similar expectations for its ET cartridge, which it expected would be an absolute blockbuster based on its name alone. When they commissioned Howard Warshaw to write the game in five weeks to make the same Christmas season, they surely didn't ask him specifically to make a crap game that would trigger the video game crash. But he absolutely delivered.

 

WJI

All fair points.  I guess that is sort of my point:  it is not that programmers of those other Atari VCS (what is this 2600 thing you speak of?) or Intellivision games made intentionally bad games -- they performed brilliantly and phenomenally under the circumstances and constraints.

 

It is, however, a matter of management prioritizing the deliverables differently, and perhaps more aggressively, on their flagship product rather than on other platforms.

 

In other words, Howard Warshaw did an absolutely impressive job with ET within the time constraints he was given, but the five weeks timeline was a conscious decision made by someone in the management chain.

 

I see the same in the ColecoVision vs. Intellivision Donkey Kong comparisons:  those who suggest that the programmers who made the non-ColecoVision version were told to intentionally make an inferior game, they are wrong and boneheaded.  However, certain decisions were made with regards to resources that directly resulted in an inferior product -- and additionally, I submit that such same decisions were made differently when applied to their own flagship product.

 

It may not have been intentional in the evil corporate mastermind sort of way, but it also was not just random or completely accidental.

 

      dZ.

[ColecoFan1981]

Didn't Frank also program the canceled Intellivision release of Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's Castle (Coleco no. 2485, 1983)?

 

~Ben

Edited June 8 by ColecoFan1981

[Rod]

17 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

what is this 2600 thing you speak of?

 

An Atari VCS suffering an identity crisis.

 

[+DZ-Jay]

5 hours ago, Rod said:

 

An Atari VCS suffering an identity crisis.

 

Yes, I know, but that rebranding came out all the way in 1982 -- sort of late in the game to change the contemporary popular culture, with the console having already being in the mainstream consciousness for 3 or 4 years.

 

Mr. Ives has a tendency of correcting anachronistic terms, so I was being a little cheeky.  

 

    dZ.

[Rod]

 

13 hours ago, Rod said:

An Atari VCS suffering an identity crisis.

8 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

Yes, I know, [] I was being a little cheeky.  

I got that. So was I. I mean, first the emphasis on the new name without actually dropping the old, and then both Pac-Man AND Combat included for free? In the very same box? A clear case of schizophrenic marketing. Very Californian.

 

(Not funny?)

 

8 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

[] so I was being a little cheeky.

You do do that from time to time. Makes reading your posts fun. 😉

And deserving of a response.

 

 

But all right, now that you've got me going:

8 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

Mr. Ives has a tendency of correcting anachronistic terms, so I was being a little cheeky.

Ives was discussing ColecoVision, which was introduced in 1982, so in this particular instance his reference happens to not be anachronistic. Point to Ives. 😀 (Heh-heh.)

 

Edited June 9 by Rod

[+DZ-Jay]

23 minutes ago, Rod said: got that. So was I. I mean, first the emphasis on the new name without actually dropping the old, and then both Pac-Man AND Combat included for free? In the very same box? A clear case of schizophrenic marketing. Very Californian.

 

 

I got that. So was I. I mean, first the emphasis on the new name without actually dropping the old, and then both Pac-Man AND Combat included for free? In the very same box? A clear case of schizophrenic marketing. Very Californian.

 

(Not funny?)

 

 

Sorry, missed that detail.  It is hilarious that they would include both names and both games in the same box. 😁

 

23 minutes ago, Rod said:

You do do that from time to time. Makes reading your posts fun. 😉

And deserving of a response.

Thank you! Thank you!  I'll be here all week.  Don't forget to tip your waiter!

 

23 minutes ago, Rod said:

But all right, now that you've got me going:

Ives was discussing ColecoVision, which was introduced in 1982, so in this particular instance his reference happens to not be anachronistic. Point to Ives. 😀 (Heh-heh.)

 

Well ... it may not have been anachronistic technically, but I wonder who called it that on that very first year when the new moniker appeared -- I mean, apart from the marketing department and the sycophantic media.  (Mr. Ives, beware:  I'll fight tooth and nail to keep that point!!!). 😆

 

    dZ.

[Rod]

1 hour ago, DZ-Jay said:

I wonder who called it that on that very first year when the new moniker appeared

VideoConcepts for one (December 10-11, 1981):

    https://books.google.com/books?id=kLRQAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA7&dq="atari+2600"&article_id=3873,3209087&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidyYiptc-GAxWrHkQIHTo-DHYQ6AF6BAgIEAI#v=onepage&q="atari 2600"&f=false

 

and Team Electronics (Jun 4, 1982)

    https://books.google.com/books?id=nINfAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA36&dq="atari+2600"&article_id=4501,1750361&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi94M-Sts-GAxWoMEQIHTaLDrs4ChDoAXoECAcQAg#v=onepage&q="atari 2600"&f=false

 

and Lens and Shutter in the wild northlands of Vancouver (September 10, 1981, page B 5, lower right):

    https://books.google.com/books?id=o6FlAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA25&dq="atari+2600"&article_id=5278,4590863&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHo4iPt8-GAxUAEEQIHRBqB3YQ6AF6BAgJEAI#v=onepage&q="atari 2600"&f=false

 

and even Bridger's Discount, across the pond in Glasgow (November 25, 1981, page 12, lower left corner under TV games)

    https://books.google.com/books?id=-u5AAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA7&dq="atari+2600"&article_id=2110,4191852&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHo4iPt8-GAxUAEEQIHRBqB3YQ6AF6BAgLEAI#v=onepage&q="atari 2600"&f=false

 

and ...

 

 

1 hour ago, DZ-Jay said:

(Mr. Ives, beware:  I'll fight tooth and nail to keep that point!!!)

I'd like a ringside seat, please.

 

[I attached this image so they don't boot us over to that neighborhood on the other side of the tracks.]

I

Edited June 9 by Rod

[+DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, Rod said:

VideoConcepts for one (December 10-11, 1981):

    https://books.google.com/books?id=kLRQAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA7&dq="atari+2600"&article_id=3873,3209087&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidyYiptc-GAxWrHkQIHTo-DHYQ6AF6BAgIEAI#v=onepage&q="atari 2600"&f=false

 

and Team Electronics (Jun 4, 1982)

    https://books.google.com/books?id=nINfAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA36&dq="atari+2600"&article_id=4501,1750361&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi94M-Sts-GAxWoMEQIHTaLDrs4ChDoAXoECAcQAg#v=onepage&q="atari 2600"&f=false

 

and Lens and Shutter in the wild northlands of Vancouver (September 10, 1981, page B 5, lower right):

    https://books.google.com/books?id=o6FlAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA25&dq="atari+2600"&article_id=5278,4590863&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHo4iPt8-GAxUAEEQIHRBqB3YQ6AF6BAgJEAI#v=onepage&q="atari 2600"&f=false

 

and even Bridger's Discount, across the pond in Glasgow (November 25, 1981, page 12, lower left corner under TV games)

    https://books.google.com/books?id=-u5AAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA7&dq="atari+2600"&article_id=2110,4191852&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHo4iPt8-GAxUAEEQIHRBqB3YQ6AF6BAgLEAI#v=onepage&q="atari 2600"&f=false

 

and ...

 

 

I wonder why store catalogues would have the new model name retconned by the company ... I'm sure that caused every family in the world who owned one already for the past few years to automatically start calling it that.

 

1 hour ago, Rod said:

I'd like a ringside seat, please.

 

[I attached this image so they don't boot us over to that neighborhood on the other side of the tracks.]

I

 

LOL!

 

[Rod]

7 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

I'm sure that caused every family in the world who owned one already for the past few years to automatically start calling it that.

No, that required TV advertising:

 

And just to keep the thread on topic, imagine how much better Kong would look if Coleco had contracted with Mattel to have their artists design him:

 

Edited June 10 by Rod

[ColecoFan1981]

15 minutes ago, Rod said:

No, that required TV advertising:

 

And just to keep the thread on topic, imagine how much better Kong would look if Coleco had contracted with Mattel to have their artists design him:

 

Mattel managed to finish two ColecoVision games -- Burgertime and Bump 'n Jump -- to be released under the M-Network brand, but Mattel decided to pull out of the video game business in late 1983, so Coleco published these two on their own.

 

~Ben

[+DZ-Jay]

3 hours ago, Rod said:

No, that required TV advertising:

 

 

I'm still not giving in.  😁

 

I didn't know anyone back then who called it a "2600."  I only started hearing that term during the post-Nintendo retro-game movement that came later, when people's recollections had been corrupted by the later advertising:  For someone looking into the past for information, it is easier to find the term "2600" since the time span of its usage is longer from 1982 to today than from 1977 to 1982.

 

Anyhoo ...

 

3 hours ago, Rod said:

And just to keep the thread on topic, imagine how much better Kong would look if Coleco had contracted with Mattel to have their artists design him:

 

Yeah.  And not only Kong -- what about the lame-o looking Mario in pastel colours?

 

    dZ.

[Rod]

11 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

I didn't know anyone back then who called it a "2600."

Back then I didn't even know it was called a "VCS"--to us kids it was just an "Atari." The model identification didn't become relevant until Atari introduced its Advanced Video Computer System in late 1981 (although it wouldn't ship for a year). I mean, its Advanced Video Entertainment System. I mean its 5200 Advanced Video Entertainment System. I mean its 5200 Supersystem. Oy.

 

11 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

I'm still not giving in.  😁

You're right that Ives makes an effort to be precise and its fun to catch him in a boo-boo. HOWEVER, here he was speaking from a game vendor's perspective, and starting mid-1982 (when Coleco began shipping the Donkey Kong cartridge being discussed here) third party suppliers could no longer just tell the public "it runs on the Atari." They couldn't very well rely on kids to understand that games for the "Atari Video Computer System" wouldn't run on the "Atari Advanced Video Computer System/Advanced Video Entertainment System" either. The distinction between the 2600 and the 5200 was becoming important. Give in now?

 

 

Edited June 10 by Rod

[ColecoFan1981]

34 minutes ago, Rod said:

Back then I didn't even know it was called a "VCS"--to us kids it was just an "Atari." The model identification didn't become relevant until Atari introduced its Advanced Video Computer System in late 1981 (although it wouldn't ship for a year). I mean, its Advanced Video Entertainment System. I mean its 5200 Advanced Video Entertainment System. I mean its 5200 Supersystem. Oy.

 

You're right that Ives makes an effort to be precise and its fun to catch him in a boo-boo. HOWEVER, here he was speaking from a game vendor's perspective, and starting mid-1982 (when Coleco began shipping the Donkey Kong cartridge being discussed here) third party suppliers could no longer just tell the public "it runs on the Atari." They couldn't very well rely on kids to understand that games for the "Atari Video Computer System" wouldn't run on the "Atari Advanced Video Computer System/Advanced Video Entertainment System" either. The distinction between the 2600 and the 5200 was becoming important. Give in now?

 

 

Some fans affectionately called the system the "2600" from the system's catalog number, CX-2600, but that was not its official name until after the 5200 Super System (same internals as the 400 and 800 computers) came out in October 1982, and thus changed the look of the former Video Computer System to match (fans called the new-look system "Darth Vader" because of its all-black casing).

 

~Ben

Edited June 10 by ColecoFan1981