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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER APRIL 1994
THINGS THAT HAVE COME AND GONE
AND SOME THAT NEVER WERE
Part 1
Trivia collected by
Bill Gaskill
March 1994
Since that fateful Friday in October 1983, when the TI-99 Community was
shocked by Texas Instruments' announced decision to abandon the Home
Computer market, a host of people, peripherals, programs, publications,
and other products (just a tiny bit of alliteration there, folks) for
the 99/4A computer have appeared. Some are still here, some only passed
before our eyes in a brief but bright attempt at life in the TI world,
while others turned out to be promises which would never be fulfilled.
Regardless of which catagory they fall under or into, all of them left
their mark on the TI Community in some way. Herewith, are some that I
remember.
-MG GAMES: Back in the days when Home Computer Magazine was still being
published, and when I was still trying to accumulate all of the back
issues to 99er Magazine, I remember reading a review of a Craig Miller
game entitled Pharoah's Tomb. I was tempted to buy the program based
upon the strength of the review, even at the $20 price tag it commanded
back then. But I never have been much of a game player on computers so
I didn't make the purchase. Then, out comes the Disk and Cassette
Special Edition to the Winter 1988 Triton catalog, and in it I find all
the Craig Miller games on one disk (Triton #BHGY) for a paltry $19.95.
I couldn't pass it up. The MG games disk proved to be an excellent
value. Unfortunately, Triton offered the MG Games in only this
catalog, and then it disappeared. The games were still offered
individually, but at a combined cost of about $70.
Most 99ers know who Craig Miller is and they will acknowledge the
contributions he has made to the TI Community since the early '80s. But
not everyone knows what an imaginative and skillful game programmer he
was. You would have to sit down with this marvelous collection of
computer games to see for yourself.
MG Games came as a single diskette with a small flyer tucked into the
sleeve that told how to load the games. There were no printed docs
because each game allows you to view the rules on screen. The disk
version that I bought contains six programs:
Battle Over Titan
Pharoah's Tomb
Casino Blackjack
Blackbeard's Treasure
Alphabet Soup
Crazy Fun House
I am going to tell you a little about each game but first I will tell
you that Pharoah's Tomb and Crazy Fun House are my favorites. The
reason is the level of difficulty that they offer. All of the games are
incredibly attractive in their use of colors, sounds and sprites. The
Alphabet Soup game, which is designed for younger computer users,
probably in the 5-9 year old bracket, even supports speech. But my two
favorites have such an added level of challenge, along with all of the
other appealing attributes, that they win first prize in my book.
BATTLE OVER TITAN is a maze game of sorts where you attempt to move a
drone across space without getting "zapped" by the bad guys. It works
with the arrow keys or a joystick. The drone sometimes moves incredibly
slow and the bad guys' phaser seems to have an uncanny knack for
knowing where you are. I found the game to be well done, but the basic
concept behind it was not as exciting as some of the others.
PHAROAH'S TOMB is simply incredible! Like Battle Over Titan it is also
somewhat of a maze type game where you send your team of treasure
hunters in to the tomb to grab the treasure and then get out. The trick
is to not fall into any of the "invisible" trap doors and to not get
caught by the ghosts that can appear. The game operates with the
keyboard or joysticks, either of which is equally responsive. The
colors used on this game are especially appealing.
When Pharoah's Tomb is first loaded you wait through an initialization
period where wave after wave of ghosts (in the form of sprites) are
thrown across the screen. Awesome and scary are two good adjectives to
describe the sight. When playing the game you can unwittingly get
blocked into the tomb by walls that are suddenly built up around you,
but each member of your team has an air chisel to hack his way out. In
a delightful teasing finale to the game you can display the location of
all of the trap doors just before the game ends. There are a ton. It's
no give away to show them to you though, since you couldn't possibly
remember where they are next time you play.
Even though Pharoah's Tomb is written, like all of the games on the
disk, in Extended Basic, it rivals any assembly-coded counterpart in
fun, innovative programming and challenge. It alone is worth the price
of the disk.
CASINO BLACKJACK is a neat game that offers multiple ways to play
Blackjack along with allowing you to play against 1, 2 or 4 decks of
cards. It even has a play and teach mode where you can learn the
mechanics of the game while having fun playing at it. As the name
suggests, Casino Blackjack is the game of 21, pitting you against the
dealer. The sound of cards being shuffled is bafflingly real and the
graphic depictions of the cards excellent to outstanding. If you like
to play this game, then you have found it for the TI. It is as good as
two such games I've seen written for the IBM-type of computer and
better than a couple of others.
BLACKBEARD'S TREASURE is by far the most spectacular as far as
graphics. The opening screen shows a 3-D view of you and your divers on
a boat waiting to dive so that you can retrieve sunken treasure. The
screen is a cut-away view that shows the water, the ocean floor and
everything on it. The problems you have to deal with are the
shark-infested waters and the giant crabs on the ocean floor. Here
again, Craig has made excellent use of sprites to provide constant but
variable speed motions from the threatening sharks and crabs.
The game operates with the arrow keys and lets you alter the movement
of the diver up and down and left or right. You have total if not
precisely responsive control over the diver. The lack of precise
control is a bit of deliberate programming on Miller's part to make the
diving effort more realistic. If you were actually diving you wouldn't
be able to make abrupt stops or changes in direction. Blackbeard's
Treasure doesn't let you get away with that either. It does however let
you make diagonal ascents and descents and provides you with more than
enough response to the keypresses to avoid trouble (if you're good
enough). It's an excellent game that is targeted I think toward the
9-12 year old game player.
ALPHABET SOUP was a real surprise. It is as much an educational program
as it is an entertaining game. I laughed at my own inability to gobble
up the letters of the alphabet that I found myself chasing around the
screen. Alphabet Soup is a Pac-Man type game that uses the joysticks
and has an option for the speech synthesizer if you wish to use it. The
program is written for the 5-9 year old player and it challenges the
player to eat the letters A-Z with a cracker that, like Pac-Man, never
stops moving his jaws. How Craig got so many different movements on the
screen at the same time is a marvel, and in Extended Basic. This game
is sure to be a winner with your little ones.
THE CRAZY FUN HOUSE is really a Pac-Man like game in that your goal is
to gobble up a maze full of dots without getting "wasted" by the
ghosts. The threats involve only one ghost at times or as many as
seven. I found the single ghost to be the most troublesome, because he
chases you from "hell to breakfast" as the saying goes. But if that's
not bad enough, sometimes the maze becomes invisible and you stumble
around blindly trying to get away from the creep.
While the description I just gave might seem to depict a basic Pac-Man
challenge, it is not. The game is so well done in its use of colors,
sounds and extremely responsive movements that it exceeds the appeal of
the famous Atari character. It is simply a great game that will
frustrate you at times, anger you at others and give you hours of
enjoyment along the way.
-TRITON PRODUCTS COMPANY CATALOGS: Although Triton might have been
around as a TI-99/4A vendor prior to the 1st quarter of 1984, I had
never heard of them, nor had I ever seen any of their advertisements.
But when Texas Instruments chose them to be the "fulfillment house" for
any and all lingering obligations left over from the Home Computer
business, they became a real and visible factor in our quest for
hardware and software products.
I've used the Triton catalogs as a major source of information for my
Collecting Cartridges manuscript and continue to refer to them today
for descriptions, release dates, retail pricing and other bits of
information of an historical nature. Unlike any other vendor catalog
except those produced by Tenex, the Triton catalogs were dated, used
color photos in most cases, and contained excellent descriptions of the
products being offered.
While I am sure I don't own all of the catalogs printed, I do have:
^^^^^- Spring 1984,
^^^^^- Fall 1984,
^^^^^- Spring 1985,
^^^^^- Fall 1986,
^^^^^- Fall 1986 Christmas Edition,
^^^^^- Spring 1987,
^^^^^- Fall 1987,
^^^^^- Spring 1988,
^^^^^- Summer 1988 Disk and Cassette Software Edition,
^^^^^- Fall 1988,
^^^^^- Fall 1988 Christmas Edition,
^^^^^- Winter 1988 Disk and Cassette Software Edition,
^^^^^- Spring 1989 (educational cartridges on front cover),
^^^^^- Spring 1989 (baseball diamond on front cover),
^^^^^- Summer 1989 Disk and Cassette Software Edition,
^^^^^- Fall 1989,
^^^^^- Fall 1989 Christmas Edition.
In several instances, the Triton Catalogs are the most complete
reference I've found for some of the really obscure products created
for us over the years. For example, try finding much information on
Magic Memory or the TI Workshop programs.
As most of us recall, Triton was purchased by Activision in 1990, which
put an end to the Triton Products Catalogs. Although Terry Miller still
carries on the tradition with the TM Direct Marketing catalogs, it's
just not the same. I spent a lot of money with Triton over the years
and a large part was due to the catalogs they produced. They not only
listed what I wanted, but they also helped me to make an informed
decision on whether a particular product met my needs.
THINGS THAT NEVER WERE:
-TI PILOT: Mention of this educational programming language first
appeared in the March 15, 1982 IUG Price List, and in the TI Home
Computer Program Library brochures produced during the first quarter
1982. But as we know, it was never to appear in the flesh, despite its
"later in 1982" release date. TI PILOT required memory expansion, the
p-Code card and disk controller to run. Fortunately for us, the late
Thomas Weithofer provided the TI Community with a version of the PILOT
language that Texas Instruments never did. (BB&P editor's note: The TI
PILOT software is available on Lima software library disk 669A. We
have a copy of the TI PILOT docs, redone from a "preliminary" TI
original which we can loan to members. C.G.)
-The VIDEOFLEX and FRAME GRABBER cards for the Geneve from Millers
Comunications in Seattle, Washington. They were announced as being
"under development" in December 1987, and were even reported as being
shown at a TI Faire in Dallas in 1988, but if they are available yet,
it's a well kept secret. Anyone actually have one? If so, please let me
now and I will write a retraction.
.PL 1