Jesse Lambert (slcsj@cc.usu.edu)
We may have gone over this in this list sometime previously, but I don't
Well, that's my story. Sorry to bore you.
----------------------------------------------------
Eric March (diehl@io.org)
On Fri, 1 Dec 1995, Jesse Lambert wrote:
> How many of us Jaguar-lovers (or others) have our Atari roots with the 8bit
I've gone almost all the way through the Atari line of computers; started
> Although I had had a 2600 at home (I loved Asteroids, Missile Command, and
Gotta agree, the AR series (cut short as it sadly was) was the best RPG
remember. (I've been here since its inception, or within a month or two of
it -- February/March 1994, I believe.)
How many of us Jaguar-lovers (or others) have our Atari roots with the 8bit
computers? I'd appreciate a reply...
Although I had had a 2600 at home (I loved Asteroids, Missile Command, and
Defender in particular, not that I had many other games... Pitfall was great
fun but I never owned it), my Atari days REALLY began on Christmas 1984 when
I got my 1200XL computer. It had a whopping 64K RAM and I loved it.
Currently it has 256K RAM, a USD 1050, an Indus GT, a FAST SX212 modem
(hey.. when you're upgrading from 300 baud, 1200 baud is FAST)... I enjoyed
my (Alpha systems) Parrot II; digitization was nifty. Alternate Reality:
The Dungeon was (and still is) the best RPG (and the best music) around.
(If Stonekeep had more "simulation" qualities I might change that
opinion...) My 1200XL was my main 'puter until April 1995 when I bought
this PC..
Jesse -- your friend! | 486DX2-66
slcsj@cc.usu.edu | Atari Jaguar
http://cc.usu.edu/~slcsj/ | Atari 1200XL 256K ;)
Re: Curiosity
Sat, 2 Dec 1995 16:21:11 -0500
> computers? I'd appreciate a reply...
with a 600, then to a 600XL, 800XL, 65XE, and several 130XEs in various
states of enhancement. Then I went on to the ST line.
> Defender in particular, not that I had many other games... Pitfall was great
> fun but I never owned it), my Atari days REALLY began on Christmas 1984 when
> I got my 1200XL computer. It had a whopping 64K RAM and I loved it.
> Currently it has 256K RAM, a USD 1050, an Indus GT, a FAST SX212 modem
> (hey.. when you're upgrading from 300 baud, 1200 baud is FAST)... I enjoyed
> my (Alpha systems) Parrot II; digitization was nifty. Alternate Reality:
> The Dungeon was (and still is) the best RPG (and the best music) around.
> (If Stonekeep had more "simulation" qualities I might change that
> opinion...) My 1200XL was my main 'puter until April 1995 when I bought
> this PC..
ever to be made; nothing so far has even come close to comparing. I
think I preferred The City to the Dungeon though, simply because it had
those fantastic atmospheric effects that were missing from The Dungeon:
The wind blowing, the rain, the sound of the smithy in the diostance as
you approached one (which were in the Dungeon, too, but lacked that
"realistic" sound) and so on. Ah, The City... I remember many a night
I'd spend walking around at night, in the rain, killing anything I could
find in hgopes of finding one of those "Red and Sweet" potions. (By that
point I had built up my character so much that I was immune to Deadly
Poison, so I didn't have to fear quaffing Red & Sweet potions before
identifying them; if it was Treasure finding, great! Deadly Poison?
BAh... I was immune!) Ah, nostalgia...
Eric March (diehl@io.org)
On Mon, 4 Dec 1995, Ricardo Hernandez Machado wrote:
> You mean, a 400, right? :-)
Actually, I meant 2600; my keyboard's in dire need of new springs.
> He he he.. Gosh, I remember that too! Yes, this is one of the very
> best games....
Indeed. I can't remember the number of times I pondered writing the rest
of the series myself. OF course, I had no iddea how to do that at the
time, but even to this day I still want to write the rest of the series.
I'm still not sure how I'd do it, but I could definitely program most of
it now.
> .. The early mornging turns into early day.....
>
> .. These are just moments in my life
> that I've held out for you to see,
> look at them, look at them
> and tell me if you see the real me....
>
>
> Oh, I remember those songs...
Yep. Good ol' AMP, phil's music processor. It was quite good for its time.
Re: Curiosity
Iain Laskey (ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk)
In-Reply-To: <9512041439.AA07021@motprux.pr.paging.mot.com>
> > Gotta agree, the AR series (cut short as it sadly was) was the best
> > RPG ever to be made; nothing so far has even come close to comparing.
> > I think I preferred The City to the Dungeon though, simply because
> > it had those fantastic atmospheric effects that were missing from The
> > Dungeon: The wind blowing, the rain, the sound of the smithy in the
> > distance as you approached one (which were in the Dungeon, too, but
> > lacked that "realistic" sound) and so on. Ah, The City... I remember
> > many a night I'd spend walking around at night, in the rain, killing
> > anything I could find in hopes of finding one of those "Red and
> > Sweet" potions. (By that
>
> He he he.. Gosh, I remember that too! Yes, this is one of the very
> best games....
Did you ever boot off the wrong side of the disk? It gave a big scrolling
message listing how the game was developed, the tools used and what
hardware. Some very nice stuff there was too!
+--------------+------------------------------------------+
|Iain R Laskey |ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk |
+--------------+------------------------------------------+
|Analyst/Programmer Freelance journalist PC/Atari Jaguar |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
TheMage1@aol.com
On Mon, 4 Dec 95, ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk (Iain Laskey), writes:
>Did you ever boot off the wrong side of the disk? It gave a big scrolling
>message listing how the game was developed, the tools used and what
>hardware. Some very nice stuff there was too!
Was this for the 8-bits? I'll have to check it out :)
Wow, this thread is nostalgic. I remember Philip Price's works. I think I've
got all his compositions and a lot (all?) of his music was original works,
too. I know that he had many different "versions" of his AMP. Some versions
varied more than others (especially his AR version) because of the various
applications his music was inserted into, but the most common versions used
the vertical bar things where the colors=voices/channels, the horizontal
positions=notes/frequency, the height/length of bar=volume, and printed
lyrics that "moved" with the music plus some extra special effects. (When I
first heard about the VLM, I wondered if it would've been similar to any of
Price's AMP's). Antic had a couple of versions of an AMP that looked
identical to Price's (including the lyrics feature). And they even named it
the same! Well, sort of; the abbreviations, anyway. The "show-piece" for
Antic's AMP was Journey's "Come Sail Away" and boy did that knock my socks
off. But Antic's AMP was incompatible with Price's stuff. I don't remember
who the programmer was for the Antic version but the nice thing about his
version was it had a music editor to allow you to input your own music and
also included a somewhat buggy converter for AMS files (remember those? the
ones with the piano keyboard playing the music?). Antic's first version AMP
also "played' the lyrics, but they had to be hand coded into the files, until
version 2 came out with the music/lyric editor. I've always wished Price had
released his music/lyric file editors for his AMP's... oh, well.
The Mage
Re: Curiosity
Joe Lau (joelau@panix.com)
Tue, 5 Dec 1995 06:28:56 -0500
On Sat, 2 Dec 1995, Eric March wrote:
> Gotta agree, the AR series (cut short as it sadly was) was the best RPG
> ever to be made; nothing so far has even come close to comparing. I
> think I preferred The City to the Dungeon though, simply because it had
> those fantastic atmospheric effects that were missing from The Dungeon:
> The wind blowing, the rain, the sound of the smithy in the distance as
> you approached one (which were in the Dungeon, too, but lacked that
> "realistic" sound) and so on. Ah, The City... I remember many a night
Now you got me wanting to play AR again. I absolutely adored the game
for the same reason as you do, those incredible atmospheric effects that
draws you into the game. Not very different from AvP effects (in
theory). Can you imagine how much of an improvement AR would be with
present day equipment.
I always hear people mentioning how they wish to play AR again. This
game could be a big hit. Atari should try to get the rights to this game
(along with the remaining modules). I know former amiga owners, sega
owners, psx owners etc. all mention how they would like to play this game
again. If ATC can get exclusive rights to this game, we can expect to
see some defection.
Re: Curiosity
Jesse Lambert (slcsj@cc.usu.edu)
At 06:29 AM 12/5/95 -0500, joelau@panix.com wrote:
> Now you got me wanting to play AR again. I absolutely adored the game
Truly, in a perfect world, AR would be developed, in its entirety (all
----------------------------------------------------
>for the same reason as you do, those incredible atmospheric effects that
>draws you into the game. Not very different from AvP effects (in
>theory). Can you imagine how much of an improvement AR would be with
>present day equipment.
> I always hear people mentioning how they wish to play AR again. This
>game could be a big hit. Atari should try to get the rights to this game
>(along with the remaining modules). I know former amiga owners, sega
>owners, psx owners etc. all mention how they would like to play this game
>again. If ATC can get exclusive rights to this game, we can expect to
>see some defection.
modules), for the Jaguar by competent developers. Philip Price is a
wonderful man (even if he didn't answer my Email) to have created such an
amazing Alternate Reality.
Jesse -- your friend! | 486DX2-66
slcsj@cc.usu.edu | Atari Jaguar
http://cc.usu.edu/~slcsj/ | Atari 1200XL 256K ;)
----------------------------------------------------
Loving everyone is very rewarding! Try it!
----------------------------------------------------
Ricardo Hernandez Machado (ricardoh@pts.mot.com)
> Truly, in a perfect world, AR would be developed, in its entirety (all
> modules), for the Jaguar by competent developers. Philip Price is a
> wonderful man (even if he didn't answer my Email) to have created such an
> amazing Alternate Reality.
Do someone know where is Philip Price right now? Would be
interesting to contact him.
- Raist
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Jesse -- your friend! | 486DX2-66
> slcsj@cc.usu.edu | Atari Jaguar
> http://cc.usu.edu/~slcsj/ | Atari 1200XL 256K ;)
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Loving everyone is very rewarding! Try it!
> ----------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------
|Raist (Ricardo Hernandez Machado) | Scala on the PC, when? |
|CIM Engineer | Real 3D on PC, how much? |
|Motorola Electronica De | ImageF/X on PC, will they? |
|Puerto Rico INC. | :-) ;-) :-b :-b ;-b :-) |
|Opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer |
Iain Laskey (ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk)
In-Reply-To: <9512080912.AA19571@motprux.pr.paging.mot.com>
> Do someone know where is Philip Price right now? Would be
> interesting to contact him.
Dunno but John Harris is still very active in the atari.8bit group on
Usenet. Maybe he knows? There was some fascinating discussion by him a
couple of years back about new ANTIC modes he managed to prise out the
things and clever routines to make the old 8bits jump through some pretty
impressive hoops.
+--------------+------------------------------------------+
|Iain R Laskey |ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk |
+--------------+------------------------------------------+
|Analyst/Programmer Freelance journalist PC/Atari Jaguar |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
Re: Curiosity
Eric March (diehl@io.org)
On Fri, 8 Dec 1995, Ricardo Hernandez Machado wrote:
> Do someone know where is Philip Price right now? Would be
> interesting to contact him.
Florida somewhere, last I heard. Of course, that was years ago, so it
may be out of date.
>
- Raist
Eric March (diehl@io.org)
On Mon, 4 Dec 1995, Joe Lau wrote:
> Now you got me wanting to play AR again. I absolutely adored the game
> for the same reason as you do, those incredible atmospheric effects that
> draws you into the game. Not very different from AvP effects (in
> theory). Can you imagine how much of an improvement AR would be with
> present day equipment.
I dunno. I mean, with effects like Wind, if you were to use samples
(like most games do) it might sound disjointed or out of place. The
amazing thing about AR was that you had the Wind going while other sound
effects merged overtop of it perfectly ... it was just so well done and
fit so well that I don't know if I"d want to see someone attempt to top
(or match) that with modern methods. With a good FM wavetable system, or
some work with a DSP, it might be possible, though ... so long as the
sounds are generated internally, rather then sampled -- that's the key to
seamless sound effects.
I'd really love to remake an AR-type game for the ST or something. I
could do it, but it'd be an epic production, particularly if I wanted to
cram in all the detail Phil put into the original.
> I always hear people mentioning how they wish to play AR again. This
> game could be a big hit. Atari should try to get the rights to this game
> (along with the remaining modules). I know former amiga owners, sega
> owners, psx owners etc. all mention how they would like to play this game
> again. If ATC can get exclusive rights to this game, we can expect to
> see some defection.
Getting the rights would be a problem, I think; Datasoft no longer exist,
the company that bought them out (Batteries Included) no longer exist,
and no one seems to know where to find Philip Price (except that he may
still be in Florida somewhere) But personally, the company that DOES get
those rights and produces faithful -- or daresay BETTER -- versions of
the game, would get MY undying loyalty. :-) (ANd if it's Atari, so much
the better! :-)
Re: Curiosity
Jesse Lambert (slcsj@cc.usu.edu)
At 12:06 PM 12/9/95 -0500, diehl@io.org wrote:
>Getting the rights would be a problem, I think; Datasoft no longer exist,
>the company that bought them out (Batteries Included) no longer exist,
>and no one seems to know where to find Philip Price (except that he may
>still be in Florida somewhere) But personally, the company that DOES get
Oh, btw, Philip Price had a Netcom Email address... I think? I can't remember!
I think that a defunct company no longer controls the rights of the products
it controlled while it was still in business. I'm not sure. Philip Price
probably holds a copyright or two, though....
Re: Curiosity
Iain Laskey (ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk)
In-Reply-To: <9512110508.AA09229@sticky.usu.edu>
> I'm not sure. Philip Price
> probably holds a copyright or two, though....
A memory suddenly surfaces. I remember reading an article about classic
video games and who owns what, a few years back. One game turned out to
be owned by the developers granny who didn't have a clue what it was all
about. It *may* have been AR. It was certainly one of the big greats.
+--------------+------------------------------------------+
|Iain R Laskey |ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk |
+--------------+------------------------------------------+
|Analyst/Programmer Freelance journalist PC/Atari Jaguar |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
Alternate Reality!
ST923277@PIP.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU
Sorry for the off topic post, but it seem like the old timers here can give
me more info than I've been able to find elsewhere.
AR was indeed a great game. Someone mentioned an Amiga or ST version of The
Dungeon. Does that really exist? Where can I find it? (incidentally, the Atari
8bit version had better presentation than the 16-bit versions, especially
sound. About the only thing missing was the guild/spells) Heck, I'd even buy
the 8bit version of the City and Dungeon (maybe with an extra Happy drive) if
anyone is selling. Time to dust off the 1200xl!
Crazy rumor: Remember the locations that were closed in the City (Casino,
House of Ill Repute, Fitness Academy, etc)? I heard that they were accidentally
left out and that a patch was available on CompuServe. Mind you, this info
is recalled from years past (an old issue of Adam Scotts' Adventure newsletter,
I believe) and I never had an 8bit modem, so can any one tell me if there is
any truth to this? I'm not even sure if it was an official patch or some
hack...
In case anyone is serious, I'd gladly pay for anymore installments in the
series. Any brave souls out there?
Halliwell E Sra 436TS/TAC (halliwee@TS436.dyess.af.mil)
On Wed, 6 Dec 1995 14:32:48 -0500, TheMage1@aol.com sez:
> Wow, this thread is nostalgic. I remember Philip Price's works. I think
I've
> got all his compositions and a lot (all?) of his music was original works,
> too. I know that he had many different "versions" of his AMP. Some
versions
Umm... weren't all the songs in Alternate Reality composed by Gary
Gilbertson?
I think he also wrote AMP, though I'm not sure about that.
Clay Halliwell | ATARI XL/XE DO + THE
halliwee@ts436.dyess.af.mil | 8 - B I T S --------
e.halliwell@genie.geis.com | /////////// M A T H
Jag Alternate Reality
On Sat, 9 Dec 1995, Eric March said:
>On Mon, 4 Dec 1995, Joe Lau wrote:
>
>> Now you got me wanting to play AR again. I absolutely adored the game
>> for the same reason as you do, those incredible atmospheric effects that
>> draws you into the game. Not very different from AvP effects (in
>> theory). Can you imagine how much of an improvement AR would be with
>> present day equipment.
>
>I dunno. I mean, with effects like Wind, if you were to use samples
>(like most games do) it might sound disjointed or out of place. The
>amazing thing about AR was that you had the Wind going while other sound
>effects merged overtop of it perfectly ... it was just so well done and
You've obviously never played Alien vs. Predator.
>Getting the rights would be a problem, I think; Datasoft no longer exist,
>the company that bought them out (Batteries Included) no longer exist,
>and no one seems to know where to find Philip Price (except that he may
>still be in Florida somewhere) But personally, the company that DOES get
Hey, guess what *else* was waiting for me in my mailbox this morning...
>Date: Sun, 10 Dec 1995 05:08:01 GMT
>From: nltd@grove.iup.edu
>Subject: Philip Price
>To: Atari8@netcom.com
>
>I got hold of Philip Price and he said he is going to start up the creation
>of games again. He also told me about some other projects he was doing in
>3d boards for the PC. Sounds good. He is a really nice guy. He really
>appreciates all of the feedback that he gets from AR and he replies pretty
>quickly. If you would like to Email him, his new address is:
>
>paradise@surf.com
>
>Give him a buzz sometime and let him know that we still support him. Who
>knows, he may make something even better than AR in the future. Talk
>to everyone later.
>
>Cliff Friedel
>NLTD@grove.iup.edu
--
Clay Halliwell | ATARI XL/XE DO + THE
halliwee@ts436.dyess.af.mil | 8 - B I T S --------
e.halliwell@genie.geis.com | /////////// M A T H
Re: Jag Alternate Reality
Eric March (diehl@io.org)
On Mon, 11 Dec 1995, Halliwell E Sra 436TS/TAC wrote:
>
> You've obviously never played Alien vs Predator.
Oh, I've played it alright ... and indeed the sound is incredible. BUT
it is still digital, and while this provided realism, there's only so
much one can do with samples before they start sounding unrealistic. I
write MODs and am intimately familiar with their shortcomings. But
generally my point was the fact that, since all the sound of the original
AR was chip-sound, it could be manipulated and tweaked without any loss
of quality -- such as it was ibn those daysd. When you pitch-bend a
sample, it can get sounding pretty bad if you get extreme enough. You
can counter that with by sampling several octaves worth of the same
sound, but then you're taking up more room. Some good FM generated sound
I think might provide for more dynamic range of sound without eating up
gobs of space.
> Hey, guess what *else* was waiting for me in my mailbox this morning...
[Note about phil snipped]
Good God, the legend is alive! Hallejula!! :-) Great to hear he's
getting back into the software scene ... wonder what the chances are of
seeing AR resurrected -- and completed -- are? Oh, I drool at the thought.
Re: Alternate Reality: Negotiating...
Jesse Lambert (slcsj@cc.usu.edu)
I know that I and many of you are AR fans, so I thought this would
interest you:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg on Thu, 15 Feb 1996 10:13:58 GMT,
paradise@netcom.com (Philip Price) wrote:
>Well, well :). Actually the city was never meant to be alone. I used to
>think it was Datasoft that caused the city and dungeon to be split in
>two, but as more of my neurons refresh themselves about the design and
>programming I did way back in 1984, it was the people we were dealing
>right before them. They wanted something out now. So I split the first
>part of AR into two games. The first gives a person a taste of AR and the
>rest expand evermore into the alternate reality. Dungeon was supposed to
>come out shortly thereafter. Sadly, when Datasoft got a hold of it they
>needed me to advise their people converting the city and they held off on
>publishing the city while slowing down my completion of the dungeon. The
>original dungeon had 3-d traps and pits, localized sounds, etc. That one
>disappeared after I left to work on the stealth bomber(After I saw that
>Datasoft would never pay me or Gary a dime). Years later
>Datasoft employees completed an abbreviated verion of the dungeon. All of
>Datasoft's time (which we had no control over)
>was subtracted from our(Paradise Programming's) share of the royalties(
>as per a small section of the contract gave them the right)
>leaving us(You guessed it) 0. Not a very fair exchange. The contract we
>signed with Datasoft returned all rights to us after they stopped
>selling it or ten years whichever occured first. They never had rights
>to the rest of the series(Arena,Palace,Wilderness,Revelation or
>Destiny). There is a lot more to the story, some of
>which a fan has posted at http:://www.ksk.sala.se/~sp93rob/dungeon
>The game was the first with original music, movie like intro(full intro
>was only on the original Atari ), 3-d texture mapping etc. Not bad for a
>1.8 mhz 48k computer. I never liked the IBM-PC city conversion(Can't turn
>off the sound and it only used the pc-speaker)..
>--
> Philip Price
> paradise@netcom.com
---------------------------------------------------
Jesse, your friend! | 486DX2-66
slcsj@cc.usu.edu | Atari Jaguar
http://cc.usu.edu/~slcsj/ | Atari 1200XL 256K ;)
Re: Alternate Reality: Negotiating...
aturco@netcom.com
Jesse,
Thanks for another great forward. I had been wondering what had happened to
Mr. Price, it's nice to see that he is still around - and on the net too!
Art
aturco@netcom.com
Re: Alternate Reality: Negotiating...
Mike St. Clair (mstclair@iglou.com)
Mon, 19 Feb 1996 00:48:32 -0500
On Sat, 17 Feb 1996, Jesse Lambert wrote:
> I know that I and many of you are AR fans, so I thought this would
> interest you:
FYI, the game "The Tail of Beta Lyrae" was a Scramble-like game for the
>From mstclair@iglou.comSun Feb 18 23:42:02 1996
Alright, this is all I'm going to flood your box with for a while. I
In article
--
***Mike St. Clair***mstclair@iglou.com***irc:SaintMick***
I grabbed an echo of a Philip Price posting a while back, lost it, and
found it again. Here it is for everyone's (hopeful) enjoyment.
Supposedly, the charismatic Mr. Price may be getting back into the
gaming industry. Let us hope so.
Atari 8-bits. It was a better arcade game than 90% of the games *in* the
arcade, including Scramble. The animation was excellent, the music
*astounding* (for the hardware involved). When I thought I had an
appreciation for the game and its primary creator, I found this post and
realized I had only discovered the tip of the iceberg...
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 09:51:31 -0500 (EST)
From: "Mike St. Clair"
To: Scott Legrand
Subject: Philip Price
wasn't sure if you haunt c.s.a.8bit. Thought you might enjoy.
-------------------
Subject: Re: Game:"The tail of beta larae"
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 04:19:45 GMT
Sender: paradise@netcom7.netcom.com
William Howald
>I bought this many years ago and never could get it to work on any
>machine. It will load the musical intro, then go on to the select
>screen, the into a demo, but the screen then flashes/no sound then crash!
>It never has any disk errors...HELP! I want to play this game!
>(It looks a lot like a scramble clone)
>
>Aaron Howald
I believe you need to hold down the option key(i.e. make sure there are
no cartridges in the machine(including basic which is in ROM on some
machines if you don't hold down option). If the game thinks there is
something fishy going on it will ignore the joystick and no music will play
on the main screen(I believe). It is like scramble, but nothing is fixed
in place, it uses probabilities and rhythm instead. Also if you have a virgin
disk and leave it unwrite protected it will slowly evolve and new
objects
will appear after you have had it for a while(But only a fixed number of
them[didn't use GAs then]). I wrote it on an Atari 400 with a cassette
drive (no floppy, no hard disk) with little information available on the
Atari guts. I used an assembler on cassette, and had to spend a few hours
saving my work each time I wanted to test anything. I also created a unique
musical language that Gary Gilbertson used to compose the music. All in all
I was very happy with it when I wrote it in 1982-1983. I lived in a plywood
shack on a bed livid green with mold, no running water[showered down at the
local outdoor showers at a beach], got power to run the Atari from my
shackmate's jeep[you need one to get out in the country were that shack was]
Best to all,
Philip Price (Creator of a number of multiplayer noncommercial
mainframe computer games in the 1970's,
Creator of The Tail of Beta Lyrae,
Creator of Alternate Reality Series
)
Philip Price
paradise@netcom.com