Comments from Tom Meeks (November 20, 2001) There are always some good discussions going on at the Astrocade Discussion Group. I've (Adam) taken these postings (416, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 447, 453, 454, 455, 457) and created this compilation-article. ----------------------------------------------------------- PAL Astrocade Prototype(s) ?!? Adam Trionfo I've fielded questions about PAL Astrocades before with "Nope, sorry, there are none." I've never even heard of any PAL machines in development- until today. This email from Tom Meeks asks about PAL Astrocades. Tom wrote: >> I worked with Astrocade at the time they filed for Chapter 11. At that time there were two 'add-under' prototypes that had been created at Dave Nutting associates. I'm wondering if anyone knows where they might have ended up when the company went under? There were also one or two prototypes of PAL versions of the game system... I'd love to know the fate of them also. >> Anyone ever hear of these PAL protos before? The Astrocade was never released overseas, but if prototypes were in developments, then the idea had to have been on someone's mind. I suggested to Tom that he join this discussion group. An ex-Astrocade employee? That's a new one on me; such a person could add some previously" unknown" tid-bits to our discussions. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: PAL Astrocade Prototype(s) ?!? Tom Meeks Happy to join! Toward the end of the life of Astrocade there was a frantic effort to sell the company. Some of the US companies we met with were Marvel Comics, Quaker Oats (Fisher-Price) and Hasbro and we came tantalizingly close to closing deals that would have at least given us the management we needed to have a chance at surviving. However, when all these efforts failed, we began looking at the European market as a possible source of salvation. One of the companies to whom we talked was Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG, in Pforzheim, Germany (ITT Europe). They rightfully demanded a PAL version before they would seriously talk to us. If I remember correctly, we had 2 PAL Astrocade prototypes. It took us quite a while to come up with them because Astrocade did NOT have the original masks for the custom chips... and, in fact, was never able to have access to them. After a great deal of effort we were able to have the original designer 'scratch' the masks to enable a PAL signal. Now, I have NO idea what 'scratching the mask' was except that it appears to have changed a counting register that affected the video timing. Whatever it was, it worked. The PAL signal was absolutely GORGEOUS and as clean as a whistle. I carried them back and forth to Europe for a number demos... so, I know that at least TWO were made. I do NOT know what happened to them after Astrocade closed. I suspect that they ended up back at Dave Nutting. And... speaking of Dave Nutting... He was an absolutely WONDERFUL gentleman. I have nothing but respect for him in so many ways. Whatever problems Astrocade had in those days did NOT originate with either him or his programming staff. First class people. ----------------------------------------------------------- Astrocade "Add-Under" Information Tom Meeks I haven't searched the threads to see if there are any references to the Add- Under that was to turn the bally into a full computer; but, I thought some of you may be interested in the story of it's development. When I bought my first Bally Professional Arcade they were promising an add- under unit that would turn it into a personal computer. That was in 1978 or 1979 while Bally still marketed it. They even showed a prototype of the unit at various shows. It was all smoke and mirrors at that time. Astrocade pursued the dream of the add-under and finally had REAL working prototypes several month before declaring Chapter 11. By the day's standards it was a hot box. The language that was going to be shipped was a version of Dr. Tom DeFanti's ZGRASS that was light years ahead of the Basic commonly used in other systems of the day. It was an animation language patterned after Smalltalk and had the common sense syntax of Bally''s Tiny Basic when it came to creating graphics. It was, and still is, my favorite of all the languages with which I've worked. The first game that I programmed on the add-under was a horse-racing game. We almost lost one of the prototypes when I forgot to take it off an airplane in Wisconsin. Fortunately, the pilot waited at the end of the runway for me to ride out on a baggage truck and pick it up. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Delta since that night. I have the original manuals for ZGRASS and would be glad to put up some sample syntax if people are interested. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: PAL Astrocade Prototype(s) ?!? Glenn Saunders >> Toward the end of the life of Astrocade there was a frantic effort to sell the company. Some of the US companies we met with were Marvel Comics, Quaker Oats (Fisher-Price) and Hasbro and we came tantalizingly close to closing deals that would have at least given us the management we needed to have a chance at surviving. << But what would survival mean? What was the mid to long-term business strategy at Astrovision? What I would have done to start out with would be to recruit grass-roots developers (ala APX) and try to pump out more games, as well as increase distribution and cost-reduce the console. By 1982 or so, the original circa 1977 Astrocade design was pretty inefficient, and certainly not even living up to the full potential of its custom chips. You probably could have redesigned the console to have hires support and backwards compatibility and make it run cooler and more reliably in the process, maybe embed a Votrax speech synthesizer at the same time while you were at it, which would have basically given you equivalent hardware to the Gorf/WoW arcade card-cage on a single board. That design probably would have held up okay against the Colecovision and the C=64. Were there any ideas along those lines? How limited were Astrovision's resources? ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: Astrocade "Add-Under" Information Glenn Saunders >> Astrocade pursued the dream of the add-under and finally had REAL working prototypes several month before declaring Chapter 11. By the day's standards it was a hot box. << If Bally had completed most of the R&D before 1980, what was the long delay in finishing the add-under caused by? ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: PAL Astrocade Prototype(s) ?!? Tom Meeks > But what would survival mean? Aside from the designer of the custom chips, who, in my opinion thwarted our development at every step, the team we had assembled for both software and hardware was unbeatable. As you probably already know, we were rated #1 by Consumer Reports in the very month we filed for Chapter 11. That was particularly remarkable given the fact that we were WAY more expensive than any of the other systems and had fewer titles. > What was the mid to long-term business strategy at Astrovision? To shaft our distributors and sell the company to a large toy maker. The product was great. The management was in continual turmoil... and had long been fractured into two competing camps. Distributors were sent base units and the less popular cartridges while the high demand cartridges were withheld. When they 'failed to meet their numbers' then other distributors from right down the street were brought in. The sales strategy was based purely on the fact that certain parties were to be paid a percentage of every BASE UNIT sold. NOT a healthy formula for a struggling company. All of us that truly loved the product and believed in Tom DeFanti's ZGrass was a wonderful language worked as hard as we could to make the product attractive to another company with a great reputation for fairness to consumers and it's distribution channel. Fisher Price or Hasbro was our choice at the time. We came close with Fisher Price; but, one of our users somehow got wind of the talks and called Fisher-Price to encourage the purchase. As you can imagine, that kind of indiscretion killed the deal. > What I would have done to start out with would be to recruit grass- > roots developers (ala APX) and try to pump out more games, as well > increase distribution and cost-reduce the console. That's actually the WORST of strategies. It was OVERSUPPLY of cartridges and LOWER COSTS OF BASE UNITS that killed the standalone game industry. Here's why. Consumers tended to spend almost the exact amount on cartridges as they had spent on the base unit in order to protect their investment. When the base unit prices starting plummeting so did the ratio of cartridges to bases... so, everyone took a double whammy. Oversupply of titles also took its toll. When a parent had 15 or 20 titles it was easy to pick out the best. When Atari titles reached into the hundreds there was virtually no way for a parent to easily figure out which were the best... so, they postponed the decision. Nintendo revived the game industry by EXACTLY the opposite strategy you proposed. They severely limited both the number of titles and the availability of cartridges... making them "must have" status items among kids. You were somebody special if you actually had a "Mario" cartridge! > By 1982 or so, the original circa 1977 Astrocade design was pretty > inefficient, and certainly not even living up to the full potential > of its custom chips. You probably could have redesigned the > console to have hires support and backwards compatibility and make > it run cooler and more reliably in the process, maybe embed a > Votrax speech synthesizer at the same time while you were at it, > which would have basically given you equivalent hardware to the > Gorf/WoW arcade card-cage on a single board. That design probably > would have held up okay against the Colecovision and the C=64. You have put your finger on some of the problems we had. The case could have been redesigned for a sleeker look... and, I had actually informally commissioned some drawings of potential case designs for our PAL version. We were considering, for instance, a built-in drawing pad. As you probably know, the Datamax UV-1 worked at the full resolution of the custom chips. Memory costs were the big problem with going that route. You have to realize that memory was monstrously expensive in those days and we were limited in the type and configuration we could use. In fact, the whole reason we ran at a lower resolution where we could use the SAME memory for the screen AND programs was the high cost of memory at the time. Then there was the fact that Astrocade could never gain control of the masks for the chips so that our own engineers could move it forward. Had we gotten the add-under out the door in a timely fashion, it could have really wiped out the viability of the Coleco and C-64. Even with the fewer colors per scan line (256 total) our bitmapped technology and the real-time animation capability of Zgrass without PEEKS and POKES should have had a MAJOR impact on the direction of future computing standards. But, unfortunately, it didn't happen. > Were there any ideas along those lines? How limited were > Astrovision's resources? Astrocade never really had deep pockets. That, coupled with the constant petty feuding among the financial principals meant that our only hope was to be acquired by a reputable company. If people like Dave Nutting, Bob Ogdon, Dr. Tom DeFanti, Jamie (Jay) Fenton, John Perkins and Jim McConnell had been working for someone like Fisher-Price or Hasbro, can you just IMAGINE what they would have been able to achieve! In my opinion, NO company has EVER had such a talented bunch of people that worked so well together. As it was, they did remarkable things in the face of almost insurmountable circumstances. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: Astrocade "Add-Under" Information Tom Meeks > If Bally had completed most of the R&D before 1980, what was > the long delay in finishing the add-under caused by? In my opinion it was largely smoke and mirrors by a single designer that kept a stranglehold on the designs and was allowed to do so by a non-technical management team for FAR too long. We finally got it when push came to shove. But, EVERYONE should know that it was NOT Jim McConnell, who was a marvelous engineer, nor Dave Nutting, Bob Ogdon or any of the programming staff at Nutting Associates that was the problem. All these guys were marvelous... as were Dr. DeFanti and John Perkens. The fact that ANY of these machines are still alive and revered are a testament to Jim and all the other's I've praised here. If it hadn't been for Jim's ingenuity, not a single I/O chip would still be working! ----------------------------------------------------------- Giving the 'Shaft' to distributors By Adam Trionfo Tom, when asked about the long-term strategy of the Astrovision, you wrote 'to shaft our distributors and sell the company to a large toy maker.' You don't REALLY mean this do you? I'm sure this is a typo; you mean 'shift' and not 'shaft,' right? Giving a distributor 'the shaft' happens, but I hope it isn't part of a business decision. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: Giving the 'Shaft' to distributors Tom Meeks Adam wrote: >> Tom, when asked about the long-term strategy of the Astrovision, you wrote 'to shaft our distributors and sell the company to a large toy maker.' You don't REALLY mean this do you? >> Unfortunately, "The Shaft" was exactly what I meant. You have to remember that the management of Astrocade was not NEARLY as great as the product. Many of our reps and distributors were treated pretty shabbily. Those of us that really cared about the product pinned our hopes on being purchased by a larger, more professional corporation. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: PAL Astrocade Prototype(s) ?!? Adam Trionfo Tom writes >> All of us that truly loved the product and believed in Tom DeFanti's ZGrass was a wonderful language worked as hard as we could to make the product attractive to another company... >> How come Astrovision and Datamax didn't team up for one product? There is a very sound business reason for this, but, well, what was it? >> The case could have been redesigned for a sleeker look... >> That wouldn't have changed the guts of the Astrocade. Would it, alone, have cut costs? >> We were considering, for instance, a built-in drawing pad. >> A-la the Koala pad? Basically, Scribbling with a new interface? Neat idea, but something like that should be an accessory that plugs into one or two of the joystick ports. Look at the Sega Master System; the pause button is on the console. Rrr. >> As you probably know, the Datamax UV-1 worked at the full resolution of the custom chips. >> ALL versions of it? Do you still have yours? >> Had we gotten the add-under out the door in a timely fashion, it could have really wiped out the viability of the Coleco and C-64. >> What WAS the market for the new and improved Astrocade? The Colecovision was a game console (that could turn into the Adam computer), The C-64 was a home computer. Both of these machines, especially the C-64, would have had advantages over a strictly some-kind-of-Astrocade-with-64K-and-Hi-Res. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: PAL Astrocade Prototype(s) ?!? Tom Meeks The problem was the cost of memory at the time. We were ecstatic when we came out with an 8K game cartridge! The custom chips addressed memory in a way that made it difficult to cut costs. But, knowing BOTH the products that you mentioned I can say that the Astrocade Add-Under would DEFINITELY have been the game programmer's choice had we brought it to market. The ColecoVision was a disaster. The C-64, with it's block-graphics was also very difficult for the average person to program... especially animation. I no longer have a Datamax, having donated it to a High School many years ago when I started programming animation on the Mindset Computer. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: PAL Astrocade Prototype(s) ?!? Tony Miller Tom Wrote: >> Aside from the designer of the custom chips, who, in my opinion thwarted our development at every step, the team we had assembled for both software and hardware was unbeatable. As you probably already know, we were rated #1 by Consumer Reports in the very month we filed for Chapter 11. That was particularly remarkable given the fact that we were WAY more expensive than any of the other systems and had fewer titles. >> Not sure about the relationship here. It sounds like Astrovision was a totally separate group from Nutting (DNA), but DNA/Bally/Midway kept 'the keys to the kingdom'. Correct? And by the 'designer of the custom chips do you mean Jeff Frederiksen? >> As you probably know, the Datamax UV-1 worked at the full resolution of the custom chips. >> Was the UV-1 ever completed? >> Had we gotten the add-under out the door in a timely fashion, it could have really wiped out the viability of the Coleco and C-64. >> When I left DNA in the spring of 1979, there was a completed hardware, PC, and case design for the Add-under, with a working disk drive. Don't know what happened after that (I went to a coin-op competitor). If you know what happened, could you fill me in? >> Even with the fewer colors per scan line (256 total) >> The original Arcade could only do 8 colors/line (2 bits/pixel = 4, plus the left/right color set registers). By 256 total do you mean the entire color palette? Or something different? >> If people like Dave Nutting, Bob Ogdon, Dr. Tom DeFanti, Jamie (Jay) Fenton, John Perkins and Jim McConnell had been working for someone like Fisher-Price or Hasbro, can you just IMAGINE what they would have been able to achieve! >> Were Perkins and McConnell Astrovision employees or were they DNAers who came after I left? Who were the management types at Astrovision? I had heard that Bob Ogden had left DNA to form his own game group doing games for the arcade. Did he become part of Astrovision? Was DeFanti ever part of Astrovision? Did you know Larry Leske? ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: PAL Astrocade Prototype(s) ?!? Tom Meeks Hi Tony! So, you were at DNA? Were you there when Nolan was there? I later worked for him at Axlon (sp?) on a pretty neat project with John Perkins. At any rate, you are right. Astrocade WAS a completely separate company... and DNA DID hold the keys to the kingdom. And, EVERYONE was super-cooperative except one person, for whatever reason. Dave and Bob could NOT have been better... they are the reasons why our games were so good. I have NOTHING but the utmost respect for both of them. Tom had contracts to Astrocade and Dave Nutting. I was a video producer and purchased the UV-1 before going to work for Astrocade. I loved it. If you saw a working prototype in 1979 and we only got one released to us in 1981... I think you can figure out where the bottleneck was. Good to hear from you. ----------------------------------------------------------- Postgame Glenn Saunders Tom Meeks wrote: > That's actually the WORST of strategies. It was OVERSUPPLY of I'm not talking about having 100s of titles out there like there was for the 2600 around the time of the crash, but you've got to admit that there was a serious drought of new games for the Astrocade. First generation titles like Sea Wolf were not going to win over new converts to the platform. There wasn't a lot of cutting-edge stuff being written to showcase the hardware after Astrovision took over. Some obvious deficiencies in the library. I mean, while there was a port of Wizard of Wor, there wasn't a Gorf or Robby Roto to round out ports of arcade machines using the same hardware. ZGrass R&D is all well and good, but in the interim as the system stood as a dedicated games machine there had to be more bread and butter game development. If Astrovision didn't have the resources to feed the game pipeline, then you had to encourage 3rd party developers. After all, it was 3rd party tinkerers with Bally Basic who were really responsible for keeping interest in the platform alive at all in the early 80s. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: Postgame Tom Meeks I can't argue with the fact that we didn't get the good cartridges out into the pipeline in a timely manner. But, it was a marketing deficiency. Bob Ogdon's (DNA) crew did a great job of coming up with new titles with few bugs... and, almost all the new titles that hit the streets sailed through the retail channels. Could there have been more? Sure. But, that isn't what sent us under. The ZGrass development was done on a completely separate path from the cartridge games. Dr. Tom DeFanti's group had that task while Bog Ogdon's team concentrated on cartridges. Robby Roto, BTW, wasn't created until just before we filed for Chapter 11. While in development, it was THE most fun game I have ever played. Unfortunately, the Midway brass force DNA to change it so that it played shorter... and, it absolutely ruined the game. The game released to the field was, to me, only a poor shadow of what it had been in the latter stages of development. If anyone could find THAT code then they would really have something. Third parties, like John Perkins and some others DID create games and were welcomed by us. The problem was having a suitable development system. DNA had created a proprietary system based on the UV-1 box; but, almost all the 3rd party people were hand assembling their code. That's a VERY time consuming process. My contact with our users and 3rd party developers had to be among the highlights of my time at Astrocade. All of them were 1st class and I still have fond memories of all of them. ----------------------------------------------------------- Re: PAL Astrocade Prototype(s) ?!? Tony Miller Tom wrote: >> Hi Tony! So, you were at DNA? Were you there when Nolan was there? >> No, I was there after he left to go on to greater things/ >> If you saw a working prototype in 1979 and we only got one released to us in 1981... I think you can figure out where the bottleneck was. >> I not only saw a working prototype but I was the hardware design engineer on the project. We showed it at the Winter 1979 CES in Vegas, and it was very well received. Jamie (at the time, Jay) and I went out there to help. I did the set-up and support, while Jay did the demos. We met a couple of young lovelies from the RF Modulator manufacturer... but that's another story. Anyway, when I left DNA, I spirited an Add-Under out, along with a Micropolis disk drive we had interfaced to it. Unfortunately, they both disappeared (along with the BPA they sat under) when I moved to San Diego. I would assume the bottleneck you refer to was the gentleman named below (Jeff who?). Am I correct? Was the one released to you in '81 the upper photo in Lance's website? This is the one I worked on. The lower one must have been done by someone else. I know that the original guy assigned the project (Larry Leske) quit to join Zilog, after which I was assigned to get the prototype working and productize it. Many of Larry's nifty audio features disappeared along the way. After I left, Larry came back to work with Tom DeFanti (Larry is the guy who hooked Tom up with DNA. Larry was a student of Tom's at UICC). But I dont' know exactly what happened after that. I'll have to give him a call and nail him down on the whole subject. END OF ARTICLE