Bally Alley Presents: Wavemakers's History and Overview From Mike Peace By Adam Trionfo In early August 2001 I exchanged email with Mike Peace, the programmer behind the popular Astrocade cassette-release-only company, Wavemakers. I've collected and compiled the essentials of these emails into this interview- style article. I sent this compilation to Mike to make sure that the sequence of events is correct and to assure that there are no omissions; he found no errors. Adam: Briefly, I have questions for you along the lines of the history of Wavemakers. I also am curious about where the rights to your software stands. I have contacted George Moses, Brett Bilbrey, and Don Gladden; each of them has made their programs public domain or freely distributable. Bob Fabris has also allowed me to post his newsletter on Bally Alley and on the possible future CD-ROM. Mike: I own the rights to the programs that I wrote for [the] Bally, so that gives me the control over how they can be used. Basically, they ain't making me any money anymore. I don't know if you have any copies of the games at this point, cuz I really don't know who you are or anything about you or what your plans are. I would be glad to consider any ideas that you have in mind. I find it amazing that you are interested in resurrecting the ole Bally\Astrocade. Sounds interesting. Adam: [I explain to Mike about Bally Alley and give him some links to look through to find out more about the idea of releasing the games. I ask Mike more about his company.] Mike: I started out with the Bally Basic cartridge (the original 300 baud model) and taught myself to program on it. I got fairly good very quickly and offered Fred Cornet of Cursor some program listings for his newsletters. At one point Fred suggested that I begin selling my programs and that he would place ads in his newsletter for me at no charge. It grew from there into a 20 game tape catalog with bonus games on each tape. I could fax you a copy of our 18 tape catalog if you like. I seem to have lost or disposed of much of our literature over the years since going out of business. WaveMakers had become a full time business supporting a 5 employee office and was still gearing up for continued growth when Astrocade pulled the plug on all of us going into Chapter 11. We had just received a 6 million dollar order from Wards for our entire line of games and were wondering how we were going to be able to fill it. Needless to say, we ended up with a big loss when Wards canceled the order waiting to see what Astrocade's next move would be. I still have the "2nd generation Master Tapes" used in production but I can't say what condition they are in. I'm not sure what your plans are to get the programming from tape onto a PC. Each of the tapes contained a copy code that would prevent copying the program once loaded into the Astrocade from being saved to a new tape. Sorry 'bout that. I thought it was quite ingenious at the time. Adam: [What about your] relationship with Bally (since your programs are in the BASIC manual I figure that there must be one)... Mike: George Moses helped set the type on the second [Astro BASIC] user manual and he was responsible for having my code listings included in the book. Have you actually played any of the WaveMaker games? My favorites were "Castle of Horror" and "Gate Escape." Selected Articles: Cornett, Fred. "Pack Rat [review]," CURSOR 3, no. 2 (May/June 1981): 23. Carson, Dave. "Gate Escape, The [review]," ARCADIAN 5, no. 12 (October 1983): 178 ----. "Collision Course [review]," ARCADIAN 6, no. 3 (January 1984): 28 ----. "Output 19 [review]," ARCADIAN 6, no. 11/12 (October 1984): 118-119 ----. "Who's Who Interview - Wavemakers," ARCADIAN 5, no. 1 (November 1982): 5 Peace, Mike. "Brick 'n the Wall," ARCADIAN, 4, no. 8 (June 1982): 77. ----. "Chicago Loop," CURSOR 1, no. 3 (March 1980): 21. ----. "Invasion Force," CURSOR, 3, no. 3 (July/August 1981): 28. ----. "Line Resequence," CURSOR, 2, no. 5 (January/February 1981): 89. ----. "Mazemaker," CURSOR 1, no. 6 (July 1980): 46. ----. "Music Keyboard for 2 Voice Music," ARCADIAN, 5, no. 4 (February 1983): 63. ----. "Music Keyboard, Correction," ARCADIAN, 5, no. 5 (March 1983): 77. ----. "New Two Voice Music," ARCADIAN, 5, no. 3 (January 1983): 53. ----. "Sound Effects!!!," CURSOR, 3, no. 3 (July/August 1981): 34. ----. "Sound Port Study," CURSOR, 3, no. 1 (April 1981): 11. Prosise, Michael. "Dungeons of Dracula [review]," ARCADIAN 5, no. 2 (December 1982): 38. ----. "Gate Escape, The [review]," ARCADIAN 5, no. 11 (September 1983): 165. Selected Advertisements: Wavemakers. "Castle of Horror," ARCADIAN 4, no. 5 (March 1982): 50. ----. "Castle of Horror," ARCADIAN 4, no. 12 (October 1982): 120. ----. "Lookout for the Bull!," CURSOR 3, no. 3 (July/August): 36. ----. "Lookout for the Bull!," ARCADIAN 4, no. 4 (January 1982): 41. ----. "Monkey Jump," ARCADIAN 4, no. 8 (November 1982): 84. -- February 1, 2002