New Intellivision Game - Stonix?

[intvgene]

Wandered over to the INTVFunhouse, and there was some news about the release of a new Intellivision game, Stonix. Sure, there's been a demo available for download and all, but it seems like they are going to be selling full carts with overlays, packaging and everything. Here's the main site for more details:

 

Arnauld Chevallier's STONIX

 

Buried in the FAQ, you can find that the projected price is $55 shipped in the U.S. Anyway, it's interesting news nonetheless.

[Brad2600]

That looks kind of fun.

 

So does this mean that INTV homebrews can be done?

[SteveW]

$55? Ouch. I'm still going to buy one, but .... ouch.

 

It's too bad that it's so difficult and costly to create Intellivision cartridges. There's enough interest in Atari 2600 homebrews to warrant the cost of manufacturing PCBs for Atari carts, but the INTV homebrew market just hasn't taken off like that. I'd love to see more Intellivision games.

[Stingray]

$55 seems a little stout for yet another breakout clone. As much as I love the INTV, I think I'm going to have to give this one a pass.

 

-S

[Raijin Z]

I would like it if people would ask around when seeking cover art. I'd gladly do the box art for someone's homebrew for free if it meant one less ugly-ass cover for the homebrew scene.

 

The price is pretty ouch, but at least it doesn't look like a SHITTY Arkanoid clone.

[Jess Ragan]

Funny, when I heard the name I actually thought it was going to be a Sonic the Hedgehog clone. They could make something like that on the Intellivision, right? Right? Hello...?

 

JR

[jsoper]

I'm amazed they can produce homebrews even at that cost. That GI prom standard get's nasty with all the decoding needed. I'm buying one.

[christianscott27]

looks cool to me, too bad they could make a "vaus" controller for the INTV to go with it!

 

the price is high, understandably of course. perhaps after they sell their first batch they'll consider making a bare bones (just a cart) version at a lower price? lets hope this will be the opening number in a new batch of intellivision games.

[Bruce Tomlin]

I haven't looked at it in detail, but basically I've got the idea that what is needed is a 16-bit address latch (sort of like what the 8085 uses, just twice as wide) plus a PAL chip to decode the three bus signals to load the latches, decode the high bits of the address, and enable the EPROM outputs as necessary. And a circuit board which fits into the Intellivision.

 

That totals up to three ~20 pin chips plus a 40-pin 16-bit EPROM. (The 10-bit minimum instruction word makes it simpler to just use a 16-bit chip.) It would be a bit tricky to fit this into a standard Intellvision cartridge (since the EPROM is as long as the cartridge already). Which means that you either have to go surface-mount or come up with a plastics mold for a T-bar or extra long cartridge.

 

I suppose if you used a pair of 4-sided EPROMs you could get everything to just barely fit in a standard cartridge. But that would require at least surface-mounting a pair of sockets.

 

I think it would be interesting to see what this cartridge looks like when released.

[NovaXpress]

Am I the only one who's actually tried out the ROM?

http://knox.ac.free.fr/inty_roms_en.htm

 

That's gonna be a bitch to play with an Intellivision disk. I also see its a 32K game

[SteveW]

I can't get the ROM to work with my Intellivision Lives! game player. I don't understand why the programmer didn't make a ROM that's compatible with the official Intellivision emulator.

 

I've tried loading some of these demos into my Intellicart before, and that didn't work either.

[NovaXpress]

I played the ROM on Nostalgia and it worked just fine. It's a nice little Arkanoid rip-off, but man will it be painful to use with a disc

[SteveW]

His web site says that the game's playable with an Intellicart, but the Mac upload software doesn't seem to recognise the files. I have a few homebrews that i'd like to try, but can't. I really don't want to install Virtual PC 6 onto my Mac just to be able to upload homebrew files to my Intellivision.

[intvgene]

They're taking pre-orders now..

 

Pre-order page

 

And as mentioned in the Intellivision programming group, this is NOT the demo that was released with 3 levels. It contains over 100 levels, a 2 player mode, more bonuses, and more. It will be a limited production run.