Why is this so terrible?

[ChadTower]

I had never seen Hellcade before so I was just poking through it.  I don't understand the problem with this one... what is wrong with it?  Is that a Pong conversion?

[Level42]

Yes ! You can see the spinners on the CP. There should be only pushbuttons.....

Must have been one of the very first games to be converted !!!

[ChadTower]

Yes ! You can see the spinners on the CP. There should be only pushbuttons.....

Must have been one of the very first games to be converted !!!

That's my point... it's not so bad.  At least it's something reasonable for the time and not a tampon dispenser or something. 

[JimmyU]

It wasn't like Computer Space was flying off the shelves either.

[Level42]

I guess it would have been OK if it were an official Atari upgrade kit, but I guess they hadn't thought about that then.

I still don't like it. This is a relic of arcade video games. I played the one that Darthnuno owns and it felt like doing some indecent thing really.....I completely love the design of the cab.  This cab (like any other classic) should be original.

But ok, this conversion was probably done in the 70's, and as such is an interesting thing by itself.

And it's a lot better than the one with Pac Man in it !!!!   

[FrizzleFried]

In order to qualify for the HellCade a cab simply has to be converted from a classic dedicated cab.  Even if it is converted well it's still a candidate for the HellCade.

[ChadTower]

I guess it would have been OK if it were an official Atari upgrade kit, but I guess they hadn't thought about that then.

How do we know it wasn't?  This predates "upgrade kits".  It could easily have been based on instructions from an Atari engineer.

[Level42]

Uhhh....you got me there.

I don't think it was. Wouldn't there have been some documentation or information about it ?

Maybe www.atarigames.com could tell something about this ?

[ChadTower]

I don't think it was. Wouldn't there have been some documentation or information about it ?

Not necessarily.  A lot of stuff used to be done over the phone or via one-off typewritten instructions.  I can't say any it is "official" any more than you can say it isn't, of course, but I do see this conversion as a reasonable one that didn't destroy the original game.  I'm just as glad that the Pong parts are still alive as I am that the Computer Space cab still exists.

[leapinlew]

Oh come on Chad...

It's Computer Space, it's the first arcade game ever and it was converted to something else. Thats kinda sad now, regardless of when it was done.

Kids used to put baseball cards in their spokes at one time and if you look back on it now, it seems like a shame even though they didn't know any better then.

[Xiaou2]

I think this topic is funny as hell.

  Look at this guys site:

http://www.computerspacefan.com/allure.htm


  Hes collected a Computer Space simply because it wasnt in Mame, and because it
was the start of all game history.

 Yet.. on the other hand,  he Butchered a great TRON cabinet with a craptastic Xarcade
control panel  !!!   >.<

 Sorry man,  but Id take the butchering of the Computer Space any day over the Tron
cab.  Tron's cab at least has some cool art to it.  C.Space is just plain fugly as hell. 
He even admits that the gameplay stinks.


 In all that said and done,  the guy who converted his to a Pong probably kept the machine
from a dumpster long long ago.  And probably had much more fun playing pong in the process.

[Fozzy The Bear]

Hes collected a Computer Space simply because it wasnt in Mame

You know that's a very good point...... Why haven't we got it in Mame??? It can't be that complex a piece of hardware that it can't be emulated.

What I do know about it is that it's totally dedicated hardware with nothing that we would now call a rom on the board. But there's no reason why it couldn't be included in Mame as a hardware emulation.

Anybody got any clues about this one?? Is there an emulation of Computer Space out on the web anywhere? even if it was a bit craptastic.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[JimmyU]

Anybody got any clues about this one?? Is there an emulation of Computer Space out on the web anywhere? even if it was a bit craptastic.

Here you go Fozzy:
http://www.computerspacefan.com/NewCompSpaceSim.htm

EDIT: different URL

[TelcoLou]

I think the Computer Space cab looks really cool, actually 

[ahofle]

We need to put a stop to these Computer Space conversions to mindless pong games! 

About the older games like Pong and Computer Space not being in MAME, believe it or not the complexity of simulating those discrete circuits is way higher (and would require way more CPU power) than CPU based games that you find in MAME.  I sure hope they end up there some day.

[MaximRecoil]

Hes collected a Computer Space simply because it wasnt in Mame

You know that's a very good point...... Why haven't we got it in Mame??? It can't be that complex a piece of hardware that it can't be emulated.

What I do know about it is that it's totally dedicated hardware with nothing that we would now call a rom on the board. But there's no reason why it couldn't be included in Mame as a hardware emulation.

Anybody got any clues about this one?? Is there an emulation of Computer Space out on the web anywhere? even if it was a bit craptastic.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

It is the same reason Pong isn't in MAME. To properly emulate all that discrete circuitry, you would need a really fast PC (faster than what is available). Plus I believe that writing the software itself is quite a challenge, but I'm not a programmer. There was a long thread about the problems with emulating Pong on this forum somewhere. In fact, there have been lots of discussions about it here and on other arcade or MAME-related forums.

[Fozzy The Bear]

Here you go Fozzy:
http://www.computerspacefan.com/NewCompSpaceSim.htm

That's great!! Thanks!!  At least I can add it into the cab a launched PC game.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Orclord]

http://adamulation.blogspot.com/

[Xiaou2]

I want a Monaco GP simulator!    whahhh

[Level42]

To properly emulate all that discrete circuitry, you would need a really fast PC (faster than what is available).

I find that very hard to believe. It's just a bunch of discrete IC's. Kind of like "modules". I'm not saying it's easy to make, but a normal PC would be very much capable to do this.

[MaximRecoil]

To properly emulate all that discrete circuitry, you would need a really fast PC (faster than what is available).

I find that very hard to believe. It's just a bunch of discrete IC's. Kind of like "modules". I'm not saying it's easy to make, but a normal PC would be very much capable to do this.

You're wrong according to everyone who knows anything about it who has ever discussed it.

Edit: Read this thread - http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=39867.0

Bad news..... I just tried it and it runs at about 3 fps on my Athlon Xp 2600. 

It makes the slower mame games seem fast in comparison.

[Level42]

Just ran the Pong emulation that Orclord pointed to on my Mac, using Vmware Fusion to run it under Win XP.....
So I guess I'm stupid and all that have discussed this before are wise.....

The hardest part is probably that current day programmers have a problem grasping the fact of not having a microprocessor doing all the work. You have to understand electronics hardware, and probably a lot of tricks that the developers then used.

[FrizzleFried]

That Pong emulator is emulating the GAME,  not the hardware (as MAME does).

There is a difference (believe it or not).

EDIT: After checking out the site,  I may be wrong.

[Level42]

No it's not. Read.

From the site:

The project I am currently working on is a discrete logic simulator, for old arcade games without a CPU. It works by simulating each logic chip on the board individually. It's been done before, but I wanted to see if the simulation speed couldn't be improved a bit. How much faster? I don't know yet... initial tests look promising, but there's still a long way to go.

[Level42]

Oh and something else that modern day programmers will have some problem with:
They need to control every single line of a CRT gun. Are there still programmers around that know what CRT's are ?

They have to understand the timings of the horizontal and vertical blanking etc. etc. etc.

It would be a good exercise for them to write an Atari 2600 game.

But that has a processor, discrete games are a step (or should I say a giant leap) back.....

That is also why this is called simulating, and not emulating. You cannot emulate discrete hardware.

[Turnarcades]

Isn't this for the similar reasons Asteroids cannot be purely emulated?

[protokatie]

It would be a good exercise for them to write an Atari 2600 game.

yeah, no kidding. The atari 2600 didnt so much as have a GFX processor, but rather relied on Hblank interrupts, and timing interrupts for the program to tell the thing what color to pump out as the beam was going across the screen. If memory serves (and it ofter doesnt) the only real free CPU time the Atari 2600 had for doing anything other than updating the screen was during the Vblanc period (getting controller info, updating game logic, etc)

[danny_galaga]

To properly emulate all that discrete circuitry, you would need a really fast PC (faster than what is available).

I find that very hard to believe. It's just a bunch of discrete IC's. Kind of like "modules". I'm not saying it's easy to make, but a normal PC would be very much capable to do this.

yeah, i posted about the link orclord mentioned before. but things dont stay on the first page very long in 'main'...


http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=76336.msg793772#msg793772

[danny_galaga]

Isn't this for the similar reasons Asteroids cannot be purely emulated?

no. asteroids only probs (if any. didnt know there were any) is that is was for a vector monitor, and everything we use now is raster. so only a handful of people like fredster actually get to see it in all its vector glory.

oh, and as chad said that computer space was done back in the day. the bar owner has computer space and its not making much money. but pong is making buckets. what do you do? you didnt buy it because it is a piece of history

now if someone did that to a computer space NOW....

[Fozzy The Bear]

Wasn't there some talk a while ago about somebody manufacturing replica computer space cabinets??  I know I'd buy one if the price was sensible. I guess it wouldn't be but it'd be nice to know if anybody heard anything on the grapevine about that.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[SavannahLion]

You know... I'm estimating that Tickle Rebound runs at about 2.4fps on my 2GHz laptop....

That post was done back in 2005. My laptop is running a Duo. Quad+ cores are here. Then you got motherboard designs leveraging multiple CPU's. According to Tickles description, the code simulating the discrete circuits are modular. Anybody else see where I'm going with this?