Questions about features
|
Questions about cost
|
Future support expectations
|
Questions about ordering
Note that I put this section after the others, hoping you'd read them
before ordering.
|
Miscellaneous questions
Things that any potential homebrewer should read and carefully consider
And last but not least, the sarcasm section...
|
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Q. |
Can I skip reading this FAQ, assuming I know everything already? |
A. |
What you do with your time is your business. I can't force you to do
anything you don't want to do. However, my advice is to read most or
all of this FAQ, if you think you may be interested in aquiring one
or both of these items.
Yes, everyone is busy. Yes, this is a very long FAQ. I know
that. But this is probably also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to obtain
a hand-made multicart for these obscure systems. That ought to make the hassle
worth it?
I wrote this FAQ to protect both of us. I want to minimize the chance for
any misunderstandings. I want you to avoid being upset or disappointed
in the future. There are going to be a number of very significant
differences between this multicart project and any other multicart projects
that have preceded it. There is no way around it.
The primary reasons for any differences between this project and
other people's projects are:
-
There are differences in the manufacturing methods used in this project
compared to the previous multicart projects done by other people. Their
carts were commercially mass-produced; mine are all hand-made.
-
My daily schedule and personal financial picture are prone to many more rapid,
unplanned swings than most other people's, making any long-term planning
very difficult at best. This is because my "day job" is unusual.
(I'm currently a screen actor. Like many in my profession,
I need to seek additional income. That makes this project do-able.
If I had lots of disposable income, I doubt this would be worth doing?)
-
I do not want to make promises I cannot keep. This forces me to
go out of my way to minimize any "forward-looking projections" in an effort
to protect us both. That's just common sense in today's world.
-
Let's face it... these multicarts are being made for retro-gaming systems
that are not very popular, so...
-
The demand for these items is counted in dozens
of people instead of hundreds of people. The idea of using "economy of scale"
to spread production costs out over time, just does not apply here.
It is much more difficult to justify spending time
or money on this project, as it is unlikely it will ever
be repaid. (Paying to have PC boards made up commercially would be
financially irresponsible.)
-
Other systems have many people actively searching for and archiving ROM
images. I have to find them all myself, and archive them all
myself. This radically alters any future support
expectations.
-
Finding and buying "common" carts -- to recycle their plastic
cases -- is always much more difficult and more costly. I can't
help that. (One well-known multicart maker told Ward that this alone
was one of the main reasons he never made a Bally multicart. It is even harder
to find Emerson carts.)
|
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Q. |
Why is a FAQ of this length necessary? |
A. |
The problem with writing a FAQ is that the people that need it the most,
will never bother to read it. I can't help that, but I still want to try
hard to do my half of the communication process well.
Here are a few of the more important, predictable potential problems
with any homebrew gaming project...
-
Poor communication is one of the biggest single problems. Potential
customers get angry or worried when their questions are not being answered.
This is bad in general, but it gets worse quickly if a customer has
given a person their money up front and then Murphy's Law kicks in and
sabotages the project deadlines. This often causes stress on both sides of
the equation, sometimes resulting in the death of the project itself. (Either
people lose all faith in the project's eventual completion or the overwhelmed
homebrewer "quits".) To avoid both of these problems, I wrote a "War and
Peace" length FAQ and I am not taking money up front. By doing this, the
single largest legitimate complaint that remains possible is customer impatience.
I even did my best to deal with that by including a
Timeline text that shows all of my progress,
day-by-day.
-
It is inevitable that any homebrew project done by any one person
will result in one or more people being a "have not" when it comes to
being able to meet the total demand for that handmade item. It has become
crystal clear to many of the homebrew people in retro-gaming circles that
the moment you have a situation where it is impossible to meet every bit
of the potential demand, that people become very angry at you.
-
Even among those people that end up being in the "have" group at some
point, you still have the potential that some people will end up being upset
with you. A good example of this is trying to explain why you are going
to insist that a "one item per customer" rule applies
to your project. A great example is the huge amount of people that insist
that they're your buddy and that therefore your rules
should not apply to them.
-
Some of the best-known and most experienced "repeat homebrewers" believe
that any classic gaming project is doomed from the start if the homebrewer
is looking for positive feedback as a major reward. Most people who do like
it, simply say nothing. Those who have some grievance will often air it publicly.
-
Anyone that is doing a homebrew project is wise to consider NOT SAYING ANYTHING
about it to anyone but a very few of your most trusted friends. (This is
the opinion of some of the most experienced, "repeat homebrewers".)
I was told that things are always far more direct and far less
complicated if you simply TELL NO ONE what you are doing until you are ready
to sell copies. At that point you list the features of your project
and you name your price. People have two choices with that sort of project:
"take it" or "leave it". I was told that was the only way to retain
one's sanity. If you allow people to inject their fantasies into a project
you are making your own life much more difficult! Do the project to please
YOU.
-
Every homebrew project has an implied "here are my personal rules,
take it or leave it" stance built into it, either by assumption
or default. Just because a person does not state their rules, does not
mean there are none. I am stating all of my own rules crystal clear up front,
rather than implying them (or not even giving them thought.) Cynically, I
might say that perhaps doing this simply p*sses people off sooner
rather than later? But if a person wants all of the candy in the candy store,
and they want it yesterday, and they want it for one-hundredth of what that
item would realistically cost if it were sold by a commercial company, then
that person's pissed-off attitude was simply unavoidable from the start.
My thinking is that it is very wise to simply get rid of all such people
early on. You'll enjoy your project much more and be able to concentrate
on those people that truly appreciate what you're doing for them, instead
of wasting resources on ingrates. Many homebrew folks say they are "going
underground"... a strictly "invitation only" type of thing. Frankly,
I don't blame them? Once this project has ended, that's how I plan
to do all of my own future projects.
I want to be able to look back at this self-imposed project, years from
now, and be glad that I did it. Years after the initial sale I want my
multicart customers to think well of me and of the object that I made
for them, instead of being reminded of a hopelessly traumatic
experience. Personally, I do not want to look back at this project and shudder
at the memory of it, like many homebrewers have sadly admitted
doing when their projects were done?
Am I being "too paranoid"? Am I worrying over nothing? Am I simply
"over-analyzing" this entire situation?
The
stinging memory of various problems associated with other people's CGE
2001 homebrew projects remains firmly in my mind. At that time,
every homebrew type person that commented on Usenet said that they
also felt that doing any sort of project to be sold to the
public was
often "not worth it" to them. (And you should have seen the things they
said in e-mail!) Many former homebrew folks have just quietly resigned
their volunteer positions.
A virtual "who's who" of homebrew project veterans expressed the
need for guys like me to know exactly what they wanted to give to others,
and what they hoped to get in return, before they offered anything for
public sale.
Even if that was not the case, common sense still applies. Over
my decades of involvement with "classic gaming" and other
unrelated hobbies, I have seen many projects start out happily
with the best of intentions... and with far too many unstated assumptions
on both sides. I think it is all but inevitable that such
a situation will degrade into a flame war or a bitter feud at some future
point? This generally happens soon after one or both parties finds
out that their primary assumptions were radically incorrect from
the start, and that the other person will not bend from their
conflicting assumption. What both parties hoped to get from the
deal was really incompatible from the start, but it took a long
time for that to become clear. By the time it does become clear,
any damage is already done. Generally, because the buyer thought
they were completely understood all along, they take
no blame whatsoever for having helped to created a mess. In their
minds, the other person "changed their mind" and is 100% to blame.
I want any of my potential customers to know exactly what they can
or cannot expect to get for their money. I also want to spell out
in advance exactly what I am willing to do and what I am
not willing to do in regards to this particular project. Personally,
I also feel it is important to explain why I made all
of these decisions? (Doing so may help other homebrewers to see pitfalls
they had not thought of, when considering a project of their own.)
In short, it makes little sense to me to get into a project of
this magnitude without first giving careful thought to all or most of the
things that will most likely cause future problems. Remember that these
projects are only very marginally "worth it" to begin with, so
why go out of your way to invite any future troubles or miscommunications?
If you're reading this, you're probably not a big part of
the problem. Nevertheless, please help us both to enjoy this
process as much as we can, by keeping your brain actively
engaged at all times during this process and by trying to have
some reasonably humanistic level of empathy and understanding for
we homebrewers. (Thanks.) |
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Q. |
What exactly is a "multicart"? |
A. |
A combination of old and new technology. It allows you to see and play
more than one game program, which is contained on a single cartridge. A multicart
can have a little as two games on it, or many hundreds of games on it.
The most ambitious multicarts will make some attempt to include every game
that was ever made and released for a given system. This may or may not include
any or all of the officially "unreleased" prototypes or early versions of
a game which found their way out of the programming labs of various companies
over the years. It all depends on a number of design decisions the cartridge
designers made when they had their initial multicart design sitting on the
drawing board, and how easy it is to locate and archive "every" last
cartridge made for a given system, along with how much time and
effort the creator is willing to put forth, which is in turn affected
by the size of a given market.
What makes this all possible is the difference between what was once considered
a lot of computer-type ROM memory space, and what the current standards for
"enough" or "a lot" are. Back in the early 1980's most game systems were
designed to take between 2,048 and 16,384 bytes of ROM memory space in their
cartridges. Twenty years later games are sold on CD-ROMs that have roughly
650 million bytes of storage space, and can be mass-produced for pennies.
Memory chips in the half-a-million-bytes range will hold 64 different game
programs of 8,096 bytes or 128 different programs that are 4,096 bytes in
length. A multicart works by loading many programs, back-to-back, within
that large space. If you have a way to have the game system "see" only one
game at a time, a multicart can appear to be any game you want it to be.
There are two major methods used by multicarts to allow the user to easily
select one game, and ignore all the others. The fanciest -- and also most
costly -- is to wire things up so that you see a menu on the screen, listing
all the programs it holds. You pick a name on the screen, and the computer
or game system then does the technical things necessary to "see" only that
game. The other major way to select games is to include small switches which
the user must flip by themselves, before starting each game. This is somewhat
harder to use, but it reduces complexity and final cost a great deal.
Only a few multicarts use onscreen menus.
Most multicarts made by
either retro-gaming fans or "real companies" use switches; even Sean
Kelly says so, on his multicart web site.
People may ask if there is a standard way to spell the word... "multicart"
or "multi-cart" or some variation? Frankly, I don't know. If there is, I'm
not aware of it? I'm just using what I like best, in any given situation. |
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Q. |
How many multicarts include "everything" ever made for a given system? |
A. |
None to my knowledge. There may be one or two? Even if there is, it is
definitely the exception and not the rule. I am aware of a number that
include "*almost* everything ever made" for that particular system, but in
general they are all missing at least one game ROM image, so they can't literally
be considered to be "100% complete".
-
To see what will or will not be included in my Bally Astrocade or Emerson
Arcadia carts, click here.
-
The most popular of
several Vectrex
multicarts -- Sean Kelly's -- is missing at least one commercially
released game for reasons of technical complexity. It is also missing
a number of recent homebrew games because the author of those games
prefered to release his games himself, on his own carts. It is unlikely those
games will ever show up on Sean's multicart unless the author gives
Sean his permission. For both these reasons this very popular multicart
-- as cool as it is -- is not "complete" and likely never will be.
-
The one Atari 5200
multicart I am aware of -- Sean Kelly's -- is missing
at least one commercially released game, for reasons of
technical complexity. For those same reasons, there are no plans
to add it.
-
A ColecoVision multicart
technically exists -- again by Sean Kelly. (However, this
cart cannot be sold due to copyright enforcement reasons, so you
could actually argue that it is missing *everything*?) The company that
apparently owns the copyrights to many of these games refuses to allow
any competition as they try to sell off their remaining new-old-stock of
single game cartridges, so this is unlikely to change.
-
The multicart made for the
Odyssey2 game system
by John Dondzila may actually be 100% complete. Personally, I tend
to think of it as being about as complete as any gaming multicart is
ever likely to be?
-
Multicarts made for the
Atari 2600 game
system usually only include 128 or 256 total games, leaving out literally
hundreds of other games that were released. Some may include
8, 16, 32 or even fewer games.
-
Bob Colbert came up with a way to modify a
Starpath Supercharger for the
Atari 2600 to allow it to load many more games than it would normally.
After being modified, all 2k and 4k games will work in it. But that still
leaves a very significant amount of games that will not work with this
pseudo-multicart device.
-
Chad Schell made a device called the
Cuttle Cart for the Atari
2600. It allows games to be loaded into it from an external source, so
it serves the purpose of a multicart without actually being one. However,
there are at least three known games that will not work with it, because
those games originally had some extra hardware included in them. In addition,
Chad warns that there may be other games it will not work with, that are
not currently known. He also warns that the device is not made to work with
the Atari 7800.
-
Chad Schell made a device called the
Intellicart which
serves a similar purpose as a multicart, even though it technically
isn't one. This Intellivision device allows programs to be loaded into it,
from an external device such as a CD-ROM drive. As cool as the Intellicart
is, there are three known games that do not work with it, because those
games originally had a type of hardware in them that no other games
for that system had.
-
Multicarts for more-modern game systems (such as the Nintendo NES, etc)
usually include only a small sample of the total amount of games ever
made for a given system. This is largely because as time went on the
memory requirements of games went ever upwards, making it too costly to include
more than a few games. Copyright owners are still actively enforcing their
rights more often, the more modern a system is.
I want to make it crystal clear that I am not (repeat
NOT) trying to say anything negative about the people that make these
other multicarts! I do not consider myself their competitor, and I see
no indication that they consider me to be their competitor either. I am sure
that all of us who do these things for fun agree "the more the merrier"?
I have no problems with anyone that makes any homebrew item(s). I bought
one of Sean Kelly's
new Vectrex multicarts and I think it rocks. I bought one of
Chad Schell's Intellicarts and while
I still have not used it yet, I am sure that it rocks, too. If I
had an Odyssey2 system, I'd run out and buy one of
John Dondzilla's
multicarts. I bought a number of
Randy Crihfield's Atari
2600 homebrew reproduction carts over the years and I think they are
great. One of these days, I'll even get around to modifying one of my Starpath
Superchargers. Et cetera...
The main reason I feel compelled to remind people of the shortcomings
of any other multicarts is because far too many gamers forget they
are NOT complete when they ask me if mine "will be complete". It is
frustratingly like trying to compare apples or oranges to watermelons:
the comparison is hopelessly flawed. Every multicart I am aware of is
missing something, so it is silly to tell me that I "ought to have everything
because other people do".
In my opinion, the real question should be, "What
is actually missing, and are there enough interesting games on this multicart
to make me happy?" And that is simply something that I cannot answer
for anyone but myself. |
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Q. |
What system will these multicarts work on? |
A. |
There are going to be two of these cartridges. This FAQ discusses them
both in detail.
One of these multicarts will work with the so-called "Bally
Astrocade" videogame system. That was never its official name, but
fans of retro-gaming have begun calling it that. It was officially
called the Bally Pro Arcade, the Bally Professional Arcade, the Bally
Home Computer system, and likely many other name variations. You can
see the Bally
FAQ online for a better description of this system, and any
other names it was officially called.
Another cartridge was designed for use with the Emerson Arcadia 2001
system and/or its direct clones. See the
Emerson
FAQ for a list of what systems actually belong in what system
"family", but in general there are a number of systems that are
directly compatible with the U.S.-based Emerson Arcadia 2001. These
include the Canadian Leisure-Vision system, the German Hanimex HMG-2650 or
Schmid TVG-2000 systems, and many others.
These Bally and Emerson carts are the only multicarts that Ward has
any plans to create for sale to the public. If you want to know who else
has made multicarts for any other classic video gaming systems,
you can click here. |
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Q. |
How will I switch from one game to another? |
A. |
Both of Ward's multicarts will use a row of eight small
"DIP switches" to select which game you want to play.
To know what switch settings you need for each game, you simply look that
game up on a printed list. Doing this is really no harder than
using a printed "TV guide" to find a television program that you
want to watch.
Some people believe it is hard to physically "flip" the small DIP switches
used in most multicarts. It is not hard at all, if you are aware of the right
tool for the job. A short length of hollow tubing is all you need.
You hold the tube like a pen or pencil, place one end over a single
DIP switch, and push it. With a bit of practice, you can change
all eight switches in just a few seconds. Press the console's reset button,
and your new game is ready to play. |
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Q. |
Why can't you include on-screen menus to choose the game you want? |
A. |
Some people like the sound or idea of having
this feature, but there is no chance that it will be offerred.
Sorry.
Not having it is the norm, not the exception. (You don't have
to take my word for it, you can take Sean Kelly's word for it.
Read it at
http://home.xnet.com/~skelly/multis.htm.)
In my opinion, reading a printed list and pushing a few buttons to change
games is no different than using a printed "TV guide" channel listing
to watch television? I could argue that it is actually faster and easier
than scrolling through pages and pages of onscreen menu choices?
Adding an on-screen menu to one or both of these multicarts would
take one man literally years of additional effort on a part-time
basis or months of full-time effort. I would not
get paid anything for the huge amount of time it would take
to engineer this single feature, so I am not interested in doing it.
For the same reason, I consider it highly unlikely that
anyone else will ever do it. I certainly
would not hold my breath waiting?
On the Bally system, this feature is technically possible but implausibly
difficult. (See discussions on BallyAlley.)
On the Emerson system, it is simply impossible. Even if a menu could be
programmed for the oddball 2650 CPU that is used in the system, there are
no extra data lines that could be programmed to replace the DIP switches.
The raw parts necessary for a complete DIP switch selection system cost
me approximately $5 per multicart. That is a cost that can easily be
passed on to the customer. The cost of an onscreen menu system would
raise the multicart's price by many $100's. That means no one would
buy it, which in turn means no one will create it. Using DIP switches to
change games beats having no multicart at all, which is what your
choices boil down to.
|
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Q. |
Will you ever make something like the CuttleCart or the IntelliCart? |
A. |
Sorry, no. There is barely enough interest for me
to justify spending time on this project. I simply cannot
justify spending many additional months of development time on
any new hardware projects, no matter how cool they may sound to others. These
multicarts for the Bally and Emerson game systems are very likely to
be the first, last and only major homebrew retro-gaming hardware projects
that Ward makes and sells to the general public.
Chad Schell was asked if he had any interest in doing such a
project for these systems; he said he did not. Sean Kelly had people
bugging him for years to make the multicarts I'm making now, but he
didn't even do those. John Dondzilla has more than enough on his plate
already, so don't count on him doing it. The only other hardware guys
that I can think of, off the top of my head, seem to only be interested in
the more popular gaming systems or they have sworn off ever
selling anything to the gaming public again after having had previous
painful experiences.
There are enough current, active users for the Atari 2600 VCS and/or
Intellivision game systems that a person could realistically count on 100
or so of those devices to be made and sold at $80 - 100 per unit. My educated
guess is that there are only 10 or 20 people that would buy an Astrocade
equivalent RAM cart; maybe 30 at the very most? Using the same break-even
price point, the Astrocade user's final price per unit would then end up
being between three and ten times as expensive as the equivalent Atari
or Intellivison units. In other words, it would have to sell for $300
to $1,000 per unit just to break even. I can't think of one single person
that would pay that amount, let alone many people? "Fewer buyers equals higher
cost". Sorry, there is no way around it.
In the Bally's case, hardware devices such as the "Blue Ram" expansion
box already exist that will perform pretty much the same function that
these RAM carts are designed to do. So why bother to reinvent the
wheel? |
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Q. |
What is the latest news and/or progress? |
A. |
That info can be found at:
multhist.htm |
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Q. |
How much will your multicarts cost? |
A. |
Each individual multicart will cost consumers $100.00 each, plus
shipping costs.
I realize that this may seem like a lot of money to some
people. I'm sorry, but I can't help that. I have already cut out
more bill-able things than I can really afford to. By any
reasonable business standard, all of these multicarts are already
being sold at a rather large loss instead of at a profit.
(See this cost breakdown for more details.)
I really don't want to raise the cost any higher than that, but I reserve
the right to do so if my costs go up. (Try to bulk-buy any of the so-called
"common" carts for either system and you'll quickly see why I would
say that!)
Payment details...
-
As mentioned elsewhere in this FAQ, I have to
insist on payment in full before I can ship anything out.
-
I am not taking money from anyone until pretty late
in the overall process. This protects you from having to pay up front,
and then being forced to wait an unknown amount of time for the item
to be ready. (The two most common problems with homebrew projects
are that situation, and/or not keeping people well informed. I think I'm
doing pretty well on both of those fronts?) It also keeps me from feeling
pressured.
-
PayPal works fine for me, when it gets to be time for payment. That's probably
the easiest method.
-
Postal Money Orders sent by way of mail are also fine, but they have to be
payable in US funds.
-
I kind of doubt anyone will want to pay by Cashier's Check but that's
an option, too.
-
Personal checks I may or may not be able to do, at any given time. Be sure
to tell me early in the process if that's how you prefer to pay, or
risk me having me say I can't currently accept that type of payment. (I also
have to let any check clear the bank before I ship an orders out
-- standard I'net transaction stuff.)
-
Forms of payment that I cannot or will not accept include COD orders, concealed
cash in envelopes, payments made in foreign currency, and probably a whole
list of other things people will ask me to do.
A few examples of the total cost with shipping
...
-
$106.35 total for one multicart, mailed out using the US Post Office's
"Priority Mail" with $100 insurance on the package and "Delivery Confirmation".
(Basically that is an online
package tracking number.)
-
$207.35 total for two multicarts, mailed out using the US Post office's "Priority
Mail" with $200 insurance on the package and "Delivery Confirmation".
-
The examples above assume a 48-state, Continental US mailing address.
All other areas will be higher.
-
Adequate insurance on your package is highly recommended. I will not take
any responsibility for lost packages that the buyer refused to insure.
It's worth the few extra dollars to have the peace of mind.
If the US Post Office is used for shipping, I plan to just charge
for the actual shipping costs. The USPS runs an
online Postal Rate Calculator
on their web site, so you can see what shipping options are available. (My
zip code is 91791 -- West Covina, CA, USA -- if you're trying to
see what First Class shipping would cost. I'd feel more comfortable with
the insured Priority Mail, personally, but I'm trying to be as
flexible as I reasonable can.)
If other carriers are preferred, I can do that but a small additional
fee above the actual mailing expenses may be required. (To
reimburse me for my added time and/or gasoline expenses, when making any
special trips.) |
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Q. |
Will you break down the total cost so I know what I'm paying for? |
A. |
Yes, I'd be glad to. I think it is important to do that for
any number of excellent reasons.
What you ARE paying for:
-
Labor. This accounts for approximately 60% to 75% of your final cost.
-
An estimated four hours of Ward's time will be spent in
the creation of each multicart. Highly skilled techical people -- like
those capable of making their own PC boards -- usually get
far more per hour than this, but Ward figures a wage of $15 to $20 an hour
is a good compromise between his financial needs and his desire to sell
something to others at a price that others will actually pay.
-
Be aware that this is the amount of time that Ward hopes
for at some future point, and not the actual time it took him
to make the first few production copies. They actually took far longer
than that. It will likely continue that way until things on his "one-man
assembly line" are fine-tuned to perfection.
-
To see a list of every little sub-task necessary to make one of
these handmade items, click here. You may
also want to check out
Bob Colbert's
excellent description of what it took to create his "Okie-Dokie" Atari
2600 cart, since he has many nice-looking pictures up, and I don't have
any.
-
Parts. This accounts for approximately 25% to 40% of your final cost,
as follows...
-
one half-a-megabyte "27c040" EPROM memory chip at $8 to $15 each plus shipping
expenses,
-
one so-called "common" game cartridge intended to be recycled as an empty
plastic case, at a cost which varies widely from time to time but will usually
cost $3 to $10 each plus shipping expenses,
-
one raw PC board, plus all of the chemicals used to create a finished
PC board at $7 to $10 each,
-
any necessary support chips (such as 7432 "OR" gates) ranging around
$1 per multicart,
-
eight seperate 4.7k ohm resistors or one
"resistor pack," usually around $1 per multicart,
-
one bank of eight DIP switches, usually sold at $1 to $4 each,
-
any wire and solder needed to assemble everything, at around $1 per multicart,
-
materials to make a custom cartridge label (adhesive inkjet photo paper,
ink) at around $1 per cart,
-
materials to make one printed chart explaining DIP switch settings per game,
and/or a set of printed instuctions for the end user, which varies from $1
on up, depending on complexity and colors usage,
-
...and so on. There may be some incidental things I'm forgetting, but
this is the bulk of the raw parts.
-
Shipping and insurance costs to get
the completed items into your hands.
What you ARE NOT paying for:
-
Game ROM contents. Simply put, I do not own them so
I cannot charge others money for them. That's only fair. To me the
game ROMs are almost an afterthought. I would make a blank copy of a
multicart with zero games on the EPROM chip for the same exact price
as a cart that is loaded full of game ROMs because the parts cost me the
same regardless and it takes me almost the same amount of time either way.
-
Profit. Other than the low hourly wage I insist on charging for, I am not
adding any amount of additional money to the final consumers cost, to account
for "profit". If I were, these carts would both likely be priced three
to five times higher to fall into line with common, usual and customary business
mark-up margins.
-
Ward's years of painstaking research efforts. Among other things, these
wholly unpaid efforts led to the discovery of the Emerson "multiple family"
concept, the unearthing of much of that system's "lost" history, the most
accurate and complete list of games available for that system, lots of details
on the games, etc.
-
Ward's years of painstaking and costly effort spent on ROM image archiving,
which made this project possible in the first place. (Ward archived
two thirds of the existing Emerson software library by himself, with only
the assistance of a few generous collectors who loaned him carts long enough
to archive them.)
-
Any time spent beyond the estimated four hours of labor to create each
cart is at no charge. If something goes wrong in the manufacturing of these
items, which causes me delays, I do not charge you for that time.
-
The time and effort it took to create two original prototype designs. This
took days of unpaid effort.
-
The time and effort it took to test and tweak those early designs, until
a reliable final design was finished and was all debugged. (Add in quite
a few days of additional effort, all of it being unpaid.)
-
The time and effort it took to design the first two PC board layouts.
(Add in more days of unpaid effort.)
-
The time and effort spent revising and improving both board layouts.
(You see the pattern by now...)
-
The time and effort it took to design and create specialized tools for the
purpose of making future ROM-content upgrades easier, and to redesign
the Bally PC board layout to make that possible.
-
The custom-made label artwork for both carts was
designed at no charge.
-
Any printed instructions were designed / typed / edited / etc. at no
charge.
-
The time and effort it takes to constantly locate more cartridges
I can recycle as raw plastic cases. (Finding them is often a pain in
the butt! Be aware that there is almost never a good way to just buy
many carts at once, even on eBay. If you simply manage to find
three or more carts at once, consider that a bulk buy!)
-
The effort of writing this stupid FAQ to protect
myself from abuse that is likely inevitable anyway, when I could just
as easily be paid for each page I wrote if I had decided to write articles
or short stories instead. (And no, it is not very funny to me to have
people whine that this FAQ is really a "novel".)
-
Stress-related medical expenses should really be factored into all this,
but aren't. There is no current charge for hair loss
caused by lazy people asking me to answer questions I've already taken the
time to answer in this FAQ, nor for high blood pressure caused by
inconsiderate people that want to whine, beg, guilt-trip or otherwise
manipulate me into giving them some kind of favored or
special treatment over a stupid toy that 99.99% of the public would think
any of us were nuts for wanting (let alone making) in the first place, etc.
-
I could include more, but if you don't already get the picture, I'm
-- pun intended -- just wasting my time.
|
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Q. |
Can I get a discount? Do I have to pay the full amount all at once? |
A. |
If Ward unexpectedly wins the State lottery, and is therefore able
to retire at a relatively young age, that could happen. But
realistically, since he cannot even afford to buy lottery tickets,
the answer must be a firm "no".
The only way these items will be sold is for the full amount, payable in
advance. Sorry. Please don't make this any harder on either of us than
it has to be, by trying to circumvent these rules and get
special treatment.
Ward's job (screen acting) leaves a lot to be desired as far as finances
go. Since Ward has no desire to be homeless, he has to either make a fair
hourly wage while doing this project or not do it at all. At some point in
a worst-case scenario he is far better off just to abandon this project
and to seek a paying part-time job, instead.
Ward's asking price has already been reduced more than considerably.
Ward cannot and will not reduce his asking price
further. These items are being sold at a large
loss already by any reasonable business standard.
|
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Q. |
Can I trade you something to get one of your multicarts? |
A. |
Not really. I would not hold my breath waiting for that to happen,
if I were you.
The bottomline is that it costs me real money out of my pocket to buy the
raw parts, to be able to make each one of these multicarts. As a struggling
actor I don't have the luxury of the levels of financial security most
people take for granted. My disposable income has already been disposed of.
Any trade would therefore involve me giving up money that I need
to pay my monthly bills with, in exchange for something that I
could easily live without. Since I have no intention of being the
homeless person that owns the most cool old videogame stuff, I am
afraid that any and all non-money multicart transactions are out of the question.
Sorry! I don't have a choice, so neither do you.
Another thing to consider is the incredibly low
demand of these items. Even if I had a "real job" and a "normal" amount
of disposable income, trades would still be hard on me. If I was selling
hundreds of these items at full price an occasional trade might be much more
feasible? But with demand as low as it is, each one must be sold at my
already unrealistically low "break-even" cost or
I'm really just wasting my time in making the handmade item.
Sorry, guys. We all live in a world ruled by capitolistism and these
old game systems aren't exactly hot sellers.
The only exception to my "no trade" policy might
be trading me existing cartridges that I can use to make other
multicarts with. Even this will only be an "iffy," occasion
thing because someone else might have beaten you to it. (With the demand
for these items being as low as it is, even four or five carts at a
time is almost a "bulk buy".)
Bally carts are cheap and easy to obtain in brand new condition, but
with one important caveat. In a pinch, I can easily and cheaply get
all of the Bally carts I could ever use. (In fact, I already have plenty
in stock.) The catch is that these newly-molded, never-used cart cases were
based on a third-party design. And most third-parties did not bother to include
a nice, flat area on the bottom of the case where you can stick a printed
label. If a person is dying to have one of my custom-made bottom labels,
I have to find an original Bally cart case. If the person does not care about
not having a bottom label, I can use any case that's available. I prefer
to use the original Bally cases myself, for no better reason than being able
to give everyone one of my silly, cyborg-inspired bottom labels. By the same
token, by the sometimes hard-to-fathom rules of many hardcore collectors,
any cart that goes out the door differently than the rest is
often considered to be more "special" than the others -- sort of
an ultra limited edition. Personally, I'd rather include both labels, which
means I may have to look around for the Bally cart cases.
Emerson carts are usually harder to obtain, but I often have to
turn people's trade offers down. There are quite a few "common"
carts that cannot be used for this project. They come in two sizes;
tall ones at 3 5/8" by 5 7/8" inches or short ones at 3 5/8" square.
I can't reuse any of the carts that have the shorter, square-looking cases.
Emerson carts I cannot use |
Emerson carts I can use |
3-D Bowling
3-D Soccer
Alien Invaders
Baseball
Brain Quiz
Breakaway
Capture
Missile War
Ocean Battle
Soccer
Space Mission
Star Chess |
American Football
Astro Invader
Cat Trax
Crazy Gobbler
Escape
Grand Slam Tennis
Hobo
Jump Bug
Jungler
Pleiades
R2D Tank
Red Clash |
Robot Killer
Route 16
Space Attack
Space Raiders
Space Squadron
Space Vultures
Spiders
Super Gobbler
Tanks A Lot
The End
Turtles |
Some of these are more
rare and
valuable than others to your fellow collectors.
You may be better off auctioning some carts than trading them to
me? I prefer to
buy my raw / reusable carts very cheaply. From my point of view,
an ideal cart
for me to obtain for this project involves a fairly "common" cart in
"loose" (no
box or instructions included) condition. The plastic parts of the cartridge
have
to be in perfect shape, but the label condition does not matter at all. The
game
inside the cart does not even have to work, since I am just going to take
it out
of the case and discard it anyway. I prefer to get the later, long-style
carts that
do not have a movable, spring-loaded plastic covering over the area
that plugs
into the cartridge slot. (I have to cut more internal stuff out of
those cases to
make room for all the new parts inside.) The solid, no-flap versions are
better. |
|
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Q. |
Will you sell a kit that I can assemble, so I can save money? |
A. |
No. It wouldn't save you any money, and it would make my own
life far more difficult for no good reason.
A kit only would only make sense if I were having my PC boards made up by
an outside company in batches of hundreds of finished units, as others have
done with their own multicart projects. But that is not the case here
as I have mentioned. Each PC board must be made entirely
by hand, by me, at a cost to me of multiple hours of my life. I have to charge
for those hours. Those labor hours are the bulk of what
each consumer is paying for.
Since I have to make every PC board myself, I would save no significant time
and effort by doing 90% plus of that work myself, and then handing the last
part of an hour or so of soldering work off to a customer? I would be adding
tons of reliability hassles into the mix as well, since I have no control
over a customer's ability to actually assemble it successfully. (Like it
or not, most people can't do this work well, even with good instructions.
I know this for a fact because I once worked as a lab assistant at a local
college, helping teach "hands-on" electronics.)
These are handmade items. There is no realistic way to have any hands but
my own creating these items. Sorry. |
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Q. |
Can you take some of the games off your multicarts and sell them
cheaper? |
A. |
Sorry, no. Costs are already down as low as they
can reasonably go. Even if I left out the single EPROM chip entirely,
your cost could only drop by ten percent total . You are not paying
for the contents of the memory chip in the first place, so changing what
is or is not recorded on it will not affect your final cost. (In theory I
would sell a blank EPROM chip for the same cost as a fully programmed
one, except for my time to erase and program it.) |
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Q. |
Will you teach me how to make my own multicart? |
A. |
Sorry, but I'm afraid you will just have to struggle through it yourself,
like the rest of us had to. That type of training essentially entails a few
semesters of college-level course work in electronics, if you were starting
from scratch. Even if you had a head start on the learning curve, it is weeks
of time that I can't spare from my life.
If you are willing to take a self-paced course of sorts, you can read the
archived messages on
BallyAlley.
Message #115 was posted by me, some months ago. It gives web links to
useful "how to" information. If you really want to "do it yourself," and
you think you may have enough of the background information / experience
/ skills to do something like this project, then that linked information
should be all you need? (Good luck!) |
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Q. |
What about copyright infringement? |
A. |
I'm not going to be coy about this... technically, many game ROM images
are often unauthorized copies of works that were created by other people.
Distributing copies of the digital information that makes up a computer program
most likely violates some part of Title 17 of the U.S. laws regarding copyright
ownership and control.
But I think it is important to look beyond the letter of the law, to both
its intent and the intent of those involved.
I tend to agree with the intent of copyright law. I try to comply
with it as much as circumstances reasonably allow. Bottomline, if some
person or company can rightfully claim ownership in these intellectual
properties, and they tell me that they object to the free distribution of
their particular property, I will readily comply with their stated desire
to stop any futher distribution of that property. (My e-mail address is at
the top of this document.)
My take on things is that most of the authors I've spoken to over the
years honestly do not mind what I am doing. In fact, a number of them made
supportive comments towards my efforts. Some have
even publicly said that due to the obscurity of this subject
matter, and the lack of organized preservation efforts done when these
systems were actively on the market, that they would not have copies of their
own games if it were not for the efforts of myself and people like me. (For
instance, Jeff Minter's web site made that claim about VIC-20 games.) A refrain
I've often heard from these authors is that, "I'm not making any money off
of this, so I don't mind non-profit use."
The fact is this is not being done on anything like a commercial scale. Total
hand-assembly rules that out, as far as actual multicarts go. As far as game
ROM images and Internet-based distribution go, this stuff is hard to even
give away for free. (I'm not kidding, either!) Only those with a deep
interest in old computers seem to care at all.
People like me may not officially be recognized as a non-profit archival
/ research institution, but I believe the shoe still fits. There
is no profit being sought for the many hundreds of hours I have put into my
efforts over the course of seven years. In fact, I paid to do all
this out of my own pocket, without expecting to break even.
If I were just interested in copying games, I would not have spent years
of my life getting to this point. I am in this hobby because I like
old computers and old video game systems. I respect the efforts of the people
that made them and the sub-culture that surrounds them. I see myself
as a preservationist and historian more than anything else. This is a tiny
little niche, but it is one I believe is as legitimate as any other form
of scholarly research. I intentionally chose game systems that virtually
no one else cared about, and directed my archiving efforts there.
One problem is that video game copyrights are almost never owned by the author
of the actual game. Quoting Jeff Vavasour from a
1998
Usenet posting: "One thing is for sure: copyrights always go somewhere.
They don't just disappear even if the originating company did. Though, there
is the possibility of complication through ongoing licences. For example,
Frogger was created by Gremlin for Sega, but it is currently owned by Konami,
yet Hasbro has exclusive console and computer licence through Parker Brothers'
licence which never expired."
This is definitely the case with the so-called Bally Astrocade game
machine. No one is 100% sure who owns the rights to the game system's
software library. However, one important precedent was set many years ago.
When Astrovision was nearing the end of its commercial life, at least one
fan of the system was given official permission to make non-profit copies
of the various software properties, for other fans of the system. This person
did not have the technical capabilities to do it himself, so he in turn asked
Michael White of Ohio to do the technical things necessary. Adam Trionfo
is actively seeking the current copyright owners of various games for the
Bally Astrocade system. He has already been successful in a few cases,
to track down third-party authors and obtain their permission for non-profit
use of their intellectual properties. These efforts are continuing --
within the limits of our meager resources -- and we plan to continue seeking
out these people, and asking for their kind permission. So far, everyone
originally involved with the making or marketing of these items was happy
to see our efforts.
The Emerson Arcadia 2001 system and its library is a complete mess, in terms
of copyrights. Despite years of efforts on multiple hobbyist's parts, we
seem no closer to finding the actual copyright owners. Even if we knew them
personally, and could readily ask them for their permission,
we suspect that many questions would remain. This is because many of
the games were actually unauthorized copies of other people's properties
(as I've gone to great lengths to document in places like the
FAQ for this game
system and in the "Digital Press
Collectors Guide" version six.) I'm proceeding anyway, mainly on the
basis of historical preservation. This system above all the others I've
worked with over the last seven years or so, is most in danger of remaining
a cloudy mystery. It above all has the potential to show future generations
a snapshot of an era, both legally and technologically. |
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Q. |
Is there any alternate way I can see and/or play these games? |
A. |
Yes. There are a number of ways you can aquire and play these games.
My multicart is just one method among many. It is up to the individual to
decide which method suits their own situation, values and personality best.
Software emulation is the most obvious method. Many ROM images are
available on the web. So are software emulators, such as
MESS. That gives a reasonable preview of a game to see if it is worth all
the fuss or the hype you have heard about it, over the years? Sometimes,
there are very good reasons why a rare game is hard to find? It may stink!
Alternately, you may find that you really like some game that others dismiss
without a thought?
For the Bally Astrocade, at least one person has a service he offers, where
he can solder up a reproduction of a cartridge and put it into an official
case, for a small fee. If you just want one or two favorite Bally games in
"real" form, see Mike White. (Be aware he is not available on the Internet.
His snail mail is: 4585 County Line #2, Wakeman, OH 44889. His
catalog
of services is available on Adam Trionfo's
BallyAlley web
site.)
Please note that throughout this FAQ (and in person) I am doing just
about the softest sell imaginable on these multicarts. Why? Is this because
I believe they are not worth having? Is it a vast international conspiracy?
No, not hardly. I just want the decision to buy one or not to buy one
to be made on an very individual basis, with minimal stress all around. I
want the experience to be pleasant for both of us. In part that is "just
me". But it also tends to
protect
me from irrational accusations later on, if and when some unhappy "have
not" decides to whine. |
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Q. |
What kind of warranty are you going to offer on these carts? |
A. |
Your primary protection is my pride in my workmanship and my desire to
do right by those that do right by me.
Second, this FAQ is intended to be a tool to provide ample
protection both for myself and for my potential customers. Ask yourself
this: if I took this level of effort to think
potential problems through and to document them here, how much more
time and effort did I spend making sure these carts would work reliably and
well?
Beyond that, here is the rough shape of the warrantee terms I'm offering:
-
Sixty days of coverage. (I may decide to extend that to ninety
days, at my sole discretion.) Most other "homebrew" or hobbyist hardware
type folks only offer thirty days -- if they even have an expressed
warrantee -- so I feel I am being pretty generous? There is
a well-known "bathtub curve" in the electronics industry. It
implies that, statistically speaking, most of the failures of any given product
will take place either right away or many years later, with a long
and useful life in between. That is why most electronics places are so eager
to sell you an extended warranty -- it is a very good bet that they'll
never have to honor it.
-
The warrantee will cover only defects in parts and workmanship; pretty
standard stuff. It will not cover any form of abuse, either intentional or
accidental. What constitutes "abuse" is going to be left up
to me to decide, and me alone. However, I do take
great pride in my work. I plan to be both as honest and fair as
a person reasonably can be when making the final decision as to what
is or is not considered to be abuse. I have been working with
electronics for years and have a degree in Electronics. I do know the
difference.
-
After the warrantee period expires any required repairs will be done at
an hourly wage to be worked out between myself and the owner. (I do
not expect that repair rate to dip lower than $15 or $20 per hour.)
-
Any warrantee applies only to the original owner, and not to any person they
happen to re-sell the item to. This is a warrantee standard virtually
everywhere you look. However, it should also help to reduce the odds
of someone buying one from me and then reselling it later
on eBay or elsewhere? (Even before I shipped a single multicart
out, I had one angry person tell me they'd just "source a
multicart elsewhere" if I refused to sell him one. Keep in
mind that I plan to individually number each
cart, inside and out so it isn't going to be possible to trick me regarding
who-owns-what cart, later on?)
-
This cart is being sold on an "AS IS" basis with regards to its ROM
contents. (As discussed elsewhere in this FAQ.) I make
no expressed or implied promise of any kind for continued support in terms
of trying to find new ROM images to upgrade these carts with. (Whatever is
on it when you buy yours, is all that I am ever promising will be put on
it.) I've also made it very clear that these
items will not be sold indefinitely.
-
Failure to read this document when I ask you to is beyond my control.
I will not be held accountable for misunderstandings or incorrect assumptions
made by potential customers, due to their failure to read it!
-
I reserve the right to do more than this warrantee, if I am
able to and I am feeling particularly generous.
|
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Q. |
Will these multicarts be "collectable" in any way? |
A. |
I am treating these items like hand-numbered artist's prints. Since these
carts are all going to be individually hand-made, this just seems natural.
(How much value this is actually going to add, I honestly have
no idea?)
I plan to individually number them all, both on the PC board itself (inside
the cart), as well as on the outer label. I'm currently allowing people
to pick a favorite number instead of arbitrarily assigning them one.
I am keeping a list of my own, in-house, to keep track of what numbers go
with what customers, and which are unassigned.
I may or may not decide to include a "Certificate of Authenticity" of some
kind with each cart sold. I may just sign the instruction sheet
instead? (For my own purposes, my list and the numbering shows who owns what.)
I do not plan to artificially limit the number
of multicarts that I make. (Meaning I can't easily say "cart #XX
of YY total"?) Nevertheless, they'd still each be unique and
numbered as well as being hand-made. And I must assume the overall
amount would be relatively low in
number, since not too many people
seem willing to pay for such an "expensive" and obscure item
when they can just play the same games for free via software emulation.
You have to realize that I personally see myself as an artist first, perhaps
a fan of gaming history second, a game-player third, and a collector
of rare items somewhere way down on that list? If it wasn't for the
artist in me I probably would not bother to number these things in the
first place? I prefer to play my games, not collect them. |
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Q. |
What other cool features do these carts have? |
A. |
Most people have told me that if these carts work, they'll be happy enough.
(That's obviously important!) But beyond that, I designed in a few pretty
cool but perhaps non-obvious features to both of these carts...
-
I went out of my way to choose an ergodynamic and visually appealing
place to stick the DIP switches. This cost me quite a bit of extra work but
I think the result was worth it. For instance, the easiest thing
I could have done when I initially designed the Emerson cart was to just
have the DIP switches stick out of a hole in the back of the unit. (Ugh!)
Doing that would have saved me from having to design a second small PC
board just to mount them at the top of the unit and running a special
cable up to that second board, not to mention making a set of plastic
internal braces to hold it all up there. But with the DIP switches mounted
at the top of the cart, they are very easy to see, reach and flip.
Most importantly, you don't have to take the cart out of the slot to change
anything. You would have to do that every time, if they were in the back.
-
Emerson actually made cartridges for their system in two
different sizes. I had a choice of using either the short-style carts
or the long-style carts, when I made my initial design decisions about the
project. If I really wanted to I could have made everything fit into the
smaller cart size. Part of the reason I chose the larger of the two case
styles was simply to have more room to make a better looking set of
front and back cartridge labels. The smaller size would have had enough room
to put a decent picture of some kind on it, but as soon as you
insert it into the game machine, half of it is covered up. The way
I designed the Emerson's front label, the important parts of the label
still show after insertion.
-
The Bally cart are so tiny in overall size that it is a wonder I got all
the stuff in it that I did!? But beyond that, I think it was a shame
that the area available for a cartridge label was only a few square inches.
I did not want to waste any more of that area than I had to. The problem
with that is, the DIP switches also had to stick upwards through
that part of the cart. There was simply no other place for them to go,
and still have the cart itself actually still fit into the Bally's cartridge
slot. So I did what I could to minimize the visual damage the DIPs
would do to the label area by rotating it all sideways by 90%. By doing
that, I managed to save most of the label area for an actual label with only
a "missing stripe" on the right side of the cart.
-
The Bally carts use memory very efficiently; better than any other
fan-made multicarts I'm aware of. To fit in as many games as I did, I had
to come up with a way that would allow me to mingle ROM images that were
all different sizes without wasting any memory at all. (Sean Kelly's multicarts
just throw big memory chips at that problem -- and he is the first to admit
it so don't think I'm "picking on him".) Every byte can be used to store
something with the method I came up with. And it didn't really raise costs
any, either.
-
The Emerson library is not anywhere near as large as the Bally's, so
I didn't have to crunch memory as much to make everything fit inside.
Even using Sean Kelly's time-tested but less efficient "just throw more memory
at it" method of storing and accessing programs, I still have enough left-over
memory space for the forseeable future. If there ever comes a time when all
of the storage space is used up and we find we still need more room,
I should be able to just retro-fit in my fancier method of memory use at
minimal cost. I won't have to throw out any of the existing parts
inside, and I won't have to add many costly new ones. (Not to pick
on Sean again, but he had to replace his whole PC board to upgrade early
Vectrex carts.)
-
Most people will never notice -- and likely won't care -- but I did
do a fairly decent job of making the innards of the carts "pretty".
I even used lots of bright colors for my jumper wires and ribbon cables.
-
The holes I had to cut in the plastic cart cases all fit pretty closely and
look pretty good. I imagine you could probably tell most people that
the carts came that way from the factory and they'd believe you? I used my
scale model building tools and skills and just took my time in hand-fitting
each cart together.
|
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Q. |
Are there any known problems with either of these carts? |
A. |
I am not expecting anything major to go wrong, but I'm a firm believer
in the "All-mighty Power of Murphy and his Laws". I'll keep a close eye on
quality issues and do the best I can to make a very pleasing
product. (I think you can probably see from this FAQ that I believe
it is only fair to tell people the bad along with the good?)
One nice side advantage of building things like this in small batches, rather
than mass-producing them all at once, is that things improve slightly with
each new batch of carts. Some positive changes have already taken place.
The known or expected problems at this point:
-
Some games are hard to figure out without any
instructions. Better written instructions are in the works.
-
The Bally cart originally had a number of bad or questionable ROM dumps.
Those were corrected in early December of 2001. (Only three
"bad" copies had gone out. They're being upgraded under my warrantee.)
-
Some programs for the Bally system need additional hardware or a RAM
upgrade to run properly, and a few of the Bally programs are simply
unfinished prototypes. These may appear to be faulty programs at first.
I'll do what I can to document which games need additional hardware or
ROM, in the instructions.
-
There are no known bad dumps of any Emerson games, but "Golf" does not work.
(Explained elsewhere.)
-
One problem I can't really do much about is that the Emerson carts sometimes
are pretty picky as to how they are inserted into the machine. This
is -- believe it or not -- pretty "normal" behavior for this machine. (You
don't have to take my word for it: check with any of the few hardcore Emerson
collectors. They'll tell you it is true. Before I took over the Emerson
section of the "Digital Press Collectors Guide" version six, the previous
author of that section had even made published comments along the lines that
getting the games to start up properly, was in his opinion sometimes
more fun than playing the actual games!)
-
I am trying to make my carts be very neat and
professional looking, not like primitive hacks. I painted the DIP
switches where they stick out of the plastic cart cases. That paint looks
like it may chip and wear?
|
Return to top of page.
Q. |
How many do you plan to sell? Will there be limits, per customer? |
A. |
The total amount sold will be whatever it ends up being. I do not
plan to set an arbitrary cut-off point. Whenever new orders stop coming in,
or I lose all interest in making more of these items, that will be the cut-off
number.
The hobby's recent history has shown me that no homebrew hardware person
is likely to be able to meet the full demand that
dozens or even hundreds of people can put on their time. One
hundred handmade carts is about the most that any single homebrew
person has ever made, as far as I can tell? Many homebrew projects have
been artificially limited to numbers of twenty-to-fifty
total. Fifty multicarts each, times two carts, does equal
100 total?
I honestly have no idea what final numbers these things will be made in,
and I'm not going to try to predict it more fully than that. I am certainly
not going to commit myself to make "X amount" of carts; I'm done when
I'm done.
In fairness to myself, to collectors and to original authors, I plan
to limit purchases to "one each per person". Fair warning: If you buy one
and then re-sell it, planning to replace it later, you most likely
will NOT get another! |
Return to top of page.
Q. |
How long do you plan to keep making these items? |
A. |
I plan to keep making these items for as long as I feel that it
is at least marginally worth my time and effort to continue to do
so. That is an entirely subjective assessment, so there is no definite length
of time that I plan to invest in this particular project. When I begin to
feel that the bad has begun to outweigh the good, I will cease to make
these items. In other words, I've often suspected
this was a bad idea from the start, but I tried it anyway.
I have no current plans to quit at a certain date or other arbitrary
event. However, sooner or later, "everything changes
and everything ends". I am being realistic about that concept and
you should be, too.
One thing that will most certainly hasten the end of my motivation
to keep working on these items will be seeing someone buy one of these items
from me at a barely-breaking-even price point, and then turning around and
selling it at an exorbitant profit to some other individual.
(I don't try to sell these things on eBay myself,
and I don't want anyone else to either. I guarantee that I will not
look kindly upon such things, so please don't do them!)
I reserve the right to cease production of these items at any time, for any
reason, at my own sole discretion. It is my life to do with as
I please. (If I stop production because someone ticked me off, you will be
named publicly.)
I also reserve the right to start up production again at any time, even
many years from now, after having ceased production of these items.
If I do so, I also reserve the right to apply new or different rules to this
later generation of carts. (For instance, to stop hand-numbering
the carts.)
Please consider carefully that I am the one-and-only person involved in this
particular project. I realize that I cannot honestly promise
that I will still be interested in this subject matter,
years from now? Once I find that I have lost the last
shred of interest in this project (or in Classic Gaming) ,
I do not plan to force myself to "stick around" and "keep
working". There would be no point in that? I only have
one life and so much free time. |
Return to top of page.
Q. |
How are you going to handle orders, or expression of interest? |
A. |
The process of ordering a multicart may seem complicated. I am running
things this way simply because I have to. This is a one-person project. There
are many very real limits on my time and my resources. In addition,
there are various other circumstances that are simply
beyond my control. I do prefer simplicity, but my life is complicated
As I've mentioned elsewhere, obtaining one of these items is probably going
to be a once-in-a-lifetime event. That doesn't mean it is as important as
finding the cure to cancer, or World Peace. Not by a long-shot! But it does
mean that if you're seriously interesting in obtaining one of these
items, that it should be worth a few minor hassles.
This is a multi-step process. Everyone begins at the beginning and will go
step-by-step through the same process.
-
Phase one begins when you
E-mail
me and tell me that you may be interested in purchasing one of these
multicarts. Be sure to specify what you want; one of the Bally carts, one
Emerson cart, or one of each.
-
Wait for my e-mail reply. I will tell you specifically that you are
now on my non-binding waiting lists. If you do not hear from me in a day
or two, feel free to e-mail me again, but I'm usually pretty quick to respond.
-
Phase two begins at this point; you are now officially listed on my
in-house waiting lists. Once you are on the waiting list, be aware that it
is just that: a list of people that are waiting for their turn. Everyone
waits.
-
Be aware that I am processing orders in small batches, instead of
all at once. I feel this is the only good way for me to run this project,
given the circumstances. (I am only one man and these are
hand-made.)
-
If you wish to, you can pass the time by checking out the nearly-daily updates
that I post publicly in my online Timeline
text. This text exists to keep interested parties informed as to my daily
progress. It saves me from having to make eight million updates in private
e-mail, and prevents you from being uninformed.
-
If you are still looking for something to do while you wait, you could always
read the rest of this FAQ.
-
Phase three begins whenever I feel that I am nearing the end
of making the current small batch of carts, and I am almost ready to
begin working on the next batch, after that. There is no set time period
for when this will be. The time will vary according to various unpredictable
factors. To attempt be fair to all involved, I will attempt to give fair
warning in my Timeline text that
I am almost ready to begin taking firm orders. If you're paying attention
to these daily progress reports, you'll know what is coming next
before others will.
-
Phase four begins when I feel I am to a safe spot in the
current order's completion cycle; nearing its end. I will then
write one short, bulk e-mail to everyone on my waiting list. The bulk
e-mail will ask everyone the same simple question: who has the
money to pay for their cartridge(s) right now, and/or still wants
one?
-
The first few people to respond, saying they definitely will have the
money to pay me by a stated date, are the next few customers
whose status will be upgraded from "waiting list" to "on order" status.
I will reply to all e-mails they come in. If you are one of the people
selected for the next batch, you'll be told right away.
-
This results in having the waiting list split into two smaller parts; those
who are still waiting and those who will be a part of the next small batch
of carts that will be made. So far, doing things this way has worked
well? I should warn you that my past experience shows that some people
reply in less than one hour's time, while others take two weeks to respond.
I am not in a financial position that wil allow me to wait. Sorry.
-
Once I have enough people for the next batch, I will send out an e-mail to
all of those who still waiting, telling them that the list is now closed
for the time being. If a person is not sure they still want to
order one, they can choose to just keep waiting, while they decide.
That's fine. If they no longer want one, just send me an e-mail and
I will take you off of the list of people that will be contacted, the next
time around.
-
Phase five (and higher) involves only those people whose order
status was upgraded during phase four. Everyone else stays in a "holding
pattern," as it were, until their personal order status is upgraded.
Sorry.
-
The people that have moved upwards to a firm "on order" status will
be given the opportunity to pick the cartridge number
they want, from a list of all remaining cartridge numbers. (Some people
prefer a favorite number, and choose that instead of the next number in the
series.) To avoid unnecessary headaches and grief, I do NOT offer this
to anyone until they have made a firm "I have the money right now"
commitment to buy AND I have told them that they are included in the
short list of people that will "go next". This is fair.
-
The order will most likely take days or weeks to fill. To watch my daily
progress, see the Timeline text. I listed
all of the necessary steps that each order will take, in that text.
That gives you something useful to compare to, to give you a much better
idea of how much longer it will be, based on the progress to date. Note that
I am categorizing time periods by "batch number" to give a better overview
of just that period. Some batches will take longer than others. I plan
to send out e-mail updates every two weeks, just in case a few people
either prefer that or are blissfully unaware that
I've taken the time to do daily online updates.
-
Phase six involves the actual purchase arrangements.
When an individual customer's hand-made and
individually-numbered multicart is completed and has been tested
-- or is very near that point -- I will send out an individual
e-mail. It will ask that person to send me payment in
full including all shipping costs. (There may be some overlap
in these steps to accomodate payment methods that take longer than
others.)
-
When that person's payment arrives, I will say so by e-mail so they don't
worry about its arrival.
-
When their form of payment actually clears my bank, I will mail out their
hand-made and hand-numbered item(s). As soon as it
is actually in the mails, I will e-mail them again, so they know it
is on its way.
-
I would prefer to hear from the customer when the item arrives
so I don't worry about its arrival, but of course that is up to the
individual. I don't have any real control over that, but most people usually
do it.
-
Phase seven involves watching for any technical problems that might
arise during the warranty period. Any problems that
arise will be dealt with accordingly. Any known problems
will be listed in this FAQ.
-
Phase eight is really just a return to "phase three" to start
on another small batch of carts. This will take place when all
of the customers in this current batch have been taken care of.
After that, when I start on the next batch depends on my personal
commitments, which I have no way of predicting in advance.
A few important points regarding this ordering process:
-
Note that I am NOT accepting payment until nearly all of the steps of the
process are complete. (Phase six.) This is admittedly for my own peace of
mind so I don't feel overly pressured, but it also obviously protects you.
My reason for doing things this way are simple; I have a deep respect
for "Murphy's Law". Many homebrew projects don't work out as planned.
Set-backs are inevitable in any new project, really. The only intelligent
way to handle this reality, in my opinion, is to hope for the best but plan
for the worst.
-
One of the main reasons I am doing all of this, in the precise way that I
am doing it, is that it gives me the freedom to pace myself well. By only
taking a few confirmed orders at any one time, and by leaving most other
people on a waiting list, I can quickly slow down the pace
of new orders, or stop taking any future orders entirely.
I feel this is simply a wise precaution, given the
totally unpredictable nature of my current day-to-day
work and play schedules? I can't predict my future more than
a few days in advance, so I'd be monumentally foolish to simply
take everyone's money up front and to simply hope for the best!? Doing
things this way gives both of us the most logical set of inevitable
compromises, and seems fair to all parties.
-
I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, for any
reason whatsoever. This includes but is not limited to
the concept that I've dealt with someone before, and I consider past
experiences with them to have been unpleasant or unnecessarily complicated.
My reasoning is simple... it is my life, to do with as I please. This
project is only marginally "worth it" to me from a
financial standpoint. That said, I simply have no desire to waste my
time interacting with people that want to be
mean or rude to others, or are otherwise unpleasant.
-
I reserve the right to handle orders in whatever sequence makes sense
to me at the time, given many unpredictable variables. For
instance, I may take people "out of order" on the waiting
list. My intent here is not to be sneaky or play favorites, but to simply
leave myself room to operate as efficiently as possible. My decision to do
this will help potential customers as well as myself. For example, a
number of people want a multicart but currently have no system to play
it on, so waiting awhile makes sense for them. Or a person may
want one, but they do not have the full purchase price at that particular
moment, and they may have to wait while saving money to purchase
one. Or they told me thay have the money any time I request it. Etc.
-
I will NOT automatically assume a person wants to buy something from
me. Nor do I wish to "cold call" or otherwise pester people into buying
something that they have expressed only vague interest in. To play it safe,
I decided when this project began that if you did not specifically express
written interest in buying one of these specific multicarts -- since their
first public appearance in August 2001 at CGE -- then you are NOT considered
to be on my non-binding list of people that may want one of these
items. If you do not start the process at the beginning, you're never
going to reach the end, and actually get one of these items.
-
I no longer read anything that is posted to any Usenet newsgroup, including
"rec.games.video.classic". If you expressed interest in a purchase in any
Usenet newsgroup, then everyone but me knows about it.
What I hope to gain from this is a win-win situation for both parties.
A relaxed, non-obsessive, non-stressful plan will keep me happy and motivated
over the long term. Using this method, only a few people can become
angry with me at once, if Murphy's Law suddenly comes into play and
my schedule prevents me from working on this project much. (For instance,
if I have to get a new "day job" and my free-time availability suddenly
changes.) |
Return to top of page.
Q. |
After I have ordered one of these carts, how will I know when mine will
be ready? |
A. |
My best advice is for you to read this FAQ first, and then to "pay attention"
to any e-mails that I send you.
It is hard to know what is under- or over-communicating, on a per-person
basis? Some people seem to prefer almost daily progress reports. Others are
in "don't bug me till you're finished and ready to ship" mode. I have no
personal problem with either preference, but please realize that this does
create very real difficulties on my end.
The best compromise I have worked out so far is to send out brief e-mail
updates at roughly two-week intervals, while putting most of the daily,
minute-by-minute stuff online in my timeline text. (See
ordering info for details.)
If you are impatient and/or just want to watch the daily,
step-by-step progress of this project, click
here to check out my project timeline text. It should have more than
enough detail to satisfy any cravings for continual updates.
I don't want to "Spam" people with constant e-mail updates they
do not want, hence my having made this FAQ and the timeline. My intent was
to allow people to satisy their needs for an update at their own personal
pace.
However, many people do not bother to read either one, despite having
been e-mailed the link to it more than once. That puts me in a very
difficult position as well. Some of these people may decide I am not
communicating at all, if I do not send out regular e-mail updates? In
fact, I have already run into that problem more than once.
At first, I probably sent out too much info by e-mail. I began
to feel like I was probably spamming some people. I then started
the timeline text online. I sent out an e-mail or two that told people
about it. I included the web link. A few weeks went by. Judging
by the new silence, I thought people liked this new method. Then a few
people began to send me semi-angry requests for progress reports, as
if I had just disappeared entirely. It was obvious they had not read or saved
my earlier e-mails or they would not have been waiting for any more
e-mail updates. I was then forced to inform them the problem was
really their own, for not having paid enough attention in the past.
Not wanting to embarrass anyone, I sent out one last bulk e-mail,
re-explaining where to look for updates. More time passed. Then I got
an e-mail reply to that bulk e-mail. Yes, it asked me for an update.
You just can't win?!
Bottomline, I am certainly doing my part to communicate well. Good
communication is a two-way street. I will not take any responsibility for
the consequences of your own faulty assumptions, if you refused to do your
part.
I say this because I honestly anticipate that some people will totally
ignore my written ordering procedures and then get
angry at me, when that creates problems for them. The scenario I dread the
most is that someone will blissfully assume that they are one of my
next customers, when in fact they are not even on my waiting lists.
This is not outside the realm of possibility. A number of people have
already (badly) assumed that I would have just automatically included them
in the list of interested parties, even though they never told me
specifically that they were interested. They were often surprised and
perhaps hurt when they wrote to ask me how much longer it would
be to get their particular cart, and I was forced to tell them
they were never even on the waiting list to get one. (Simply
put, I cannot read minds. I don't know other people's
financial situations. I do not wish to apply any pressure to sell these
things. I've decided you have to come to me and express interest. That
protects everyone.)
Fair warning: If I have not told you in writing that you are on my waiting
list for one cart or both, that means you are NOT on my list of interested
parties. Period. Nothing will happen until you have begun the
ordering process. The list is not binding, so if you
think you MIGHT be seriously interested, it behooves you to be on my lists. |
Return to top of page.
Q. |
What games will be included? Will it be "everything"? |
A. |
The reality is that no multicart is likely to ever be totally
"complete". As soon as one person finds an official one-of-a-kind
proto, or someone creates a new homebrew game, every multicart for that system
suddenly becomes "incomplete" overnight. (See these
notes on the subject, so I don't have to beat that dead horse again.)
I plan to include as much as will fit onto the half-a-megabyte
EPROM memory chip inside each cart, up to every thing that I have ROM
image access to. (Obviously, if no one I know has a ROM image of "random
cart X" then I cannot include it.) If the memory chip's space fills up over
time, there won't be room left for new stuff, but there seems to be
plenty of left-over room at this point to meet the expected level
of new finds. (See also upgrades.)
Let me tell you a story before you read the software lists below....
"There once was a great video game programmer. Everyone that played any
of his early games all agreed that he was obviously born to be a Programming
God. After many years of working for large software companies, this programmer
went off on his own to make the game he had long dreamed about. It would
be the game even he would love to play.
He poured his whole life into this game for many months. He kept its development
and his progress a closely guarded secret. Only a handful of the man's most
trusted friends were ever allowed to see it. To keep his overall secret he
never showed more than a few parts of this game to anyone. Even then, those
that saw it could not help but tell others what a great game it was going
to be when it was finally finished. One day long after he had first begun
working on it, he put the final touches on the game. Even by his high standards,
it was now good enough to show to the world. He just couldn't wait to show
it off!
Sadly, on the day that he was scheduled to have the only known copy duplicated
for mass production, he was killed while crossing a street. Nobody knows
for sure whether the trash truck that hit him actually ran a red light, or
if he was just day-dreaming and stepped out into the street. Paramedics
pronounced the man dead not long after arriving on the scene. They did
find the one copy he had on him at the time, but it was destroyed beyond
any recovery. No one knows for sure if any other copies exist or are playable.
At the funeral his best friend spoke. He referred to the game but admitted
that he wasn't sure what its real name was going to be. Before that,
nobody had ever thought to ask. At some later point, someone else referred
to it as 'the trash truck game'. The name stuck." |
There is only one problem with that story... it is fiction. There is no truth
to any of it. I made up every word.
Why would I do this? Simply to illustrate an important point. You
should not allow yourself to become overly obsessed with finding
and/or obtaining something, no matter how good it sounds or who told you
about it.
What I just did was to intentionally deceive you. That was admittedly
rotten. Shame on me... et cetera. My point is that many well-meaning
people do much the same thing with the best of intentions, every
day. Other than the actual intent of a person, I don't see much of a
significant difference? A false statement is still a false statement.
Over the years I have done a lot of historical research related
to obscure gaming systems. I have tracked down and archived dozens of
rare games for those same systems. I think I know something about seperating
fiction and truth on this particular subject? And the sad reality is
that until you actually have something in your hot little hands, you
never know for sure whether it exists or not, or if it is anything like
past descriptions have portrayed it.
One quick example: I had one former-programmer-turned-software-exec swear
up and down that he had a copy of one of his earliest, rarest games... as a
cartridge. Months of looking took place; a literally global search for this
mythical cart. Guess what? Despite his having repeatedly denied
that the game was sold as a cassette instead, that turned out to be
exactly what had happened. Our suspicions were right, and he had been
wrong, all along. Oh well. Stuff happens. People make simple, honest mistakes
every day. We're all human. Humans are all fallible.
About halfway through my archival effort on the Commodore VIC-20 computer
cartridge software library, I substantially revised my evolving methods to
give this growing realization the full respect it deserved. I had to.
I quit treating every name on everyone else's prior software "want lists"
as if it was just out there, somewhere, waiting to be found.
I started from scratch. Everything on those want lists was
officially downgraded to being exactly what it was; just a name
written down on a list. I asked people I trusted to tell me what they had
in their own collections at that very moment. Those names, and only
those names, were moved up one reliability notch: from "rumored" to actually
"confirmed". Many of those names languished in one of those two categories
for years. Eventually, many moved up to "archived". And some are still
names, with no one able to say who had "said so".
Some we thought were surely vaporware, we eventually ended up getting
our hands on. Others we would have sworn were just dying to leap out
at us and announce their presence, still have not been found. I learned
that you can only speculate and hope for the best. You have no real control
over what will or will not show up in time.
If you ever find yourself stressing out over your own searches
remember the "Trash Truck" game. Then go dust off your collection, plug in
some old favorites and remind yourself why you got into this hobby in the
first place!
Bally Astrocade programs
(Version 1.3) |
Emerson Arcadia 2001 programs
(Version 1.1) |
-
280 Zzzap, Dodgem
-
Amazing Maze, Tic-Tac-Toe
-
Artillery Duel (cartridge version)
-
Artillery Duel (original BASIC type-in version)
-
Astro Battle
-
Backgammon
-
Bally Pinball
-
Baseball, Handball, Hockey, Tennis
-
Biorythm
-
Blackjack, Acey Deucy, Poker
-
Blast Droids
-
Bowling
-
Brickyard, Clowns
-
Candyman
-
Checkers (BASIC)
-
Chicken
-
Collision Course (BASIC)
-
Coloring Book
-
Conan (Never finished)
-
Connect Four (BASIC)
-
Cosmic Raider
-
Demo: Bally BASIC
-
Demo: Bally Pro Arcade
-
Dogpatch
-
Flying Ace (BASIC)
-
Football
-
Galactic Invasion
-
Galaxian
-
Gate Escape (BASIC)
-
Gold Digger (BASIC)
-
Grand Prix, Demolition Derby
-
Great American Jigsaw (BASIC)
-
ICBM Attack (uses standard Bally controller.)
-
ICBM Attack (requires a custom-made controller to work, but works
OK if you have one.)
-
Incredible Wizard, The
-
Letter Match, Spell 'n Score, Crosswords
-
Life (by R. Diegler, not the J. Fenton version.)
-
Mazeman (Has no sound but this is normal. The original author wrote it to
help keep kids quiet.)
-
Monkey Jump (BASIC)
-
Ms. Candyman
-
Muncher (three versions including "no die".)
-
Music Maker (This runs, but the original had an added tape I/O port
like the AstroBASIC cart. Without it you just can't load or save anything.)
-
O-Jello (BASIC)
-
Old Bent Nose (BASIC)
-
Outpost 19 (BASIC)
-
Pac-Man (One of three "Muncher" variants.)
-
Pirates Chase
-
Putt-Putt golf (BASIC)
-
QB-2B (BASIC)
-
Quadra (seven programs in BASIC. It requires at least a Blue
Ram to run. "Snoop camera" also needs and NEC printer and a printer interface
to use all of its features.)
-
Red Baron, Panzer Attack
-
Road Toad
-
Sea Devil
-
Seawolf, Missile
-
Simon (BASIC, two versions)
-
Sneaky Snake
-
Soccer
-
Solar Conqueror
-
Songs (A selection of songs by George Moses.)
-
Space Fortress
-
Space Invaders
-
Speed Math, Bingo Math
-
Star Battle
-
Super Slope (BASIC)
-
Tests (user-written hardware testing program)
-
Treasure Cove
-
Video Storybook (Runs, but is very hard to understand without instructions
or an overlay)
-
Wack-a-mole (BASIC)
-
Yahtzee (BASIC, two versions)
-
Yesterday (It just plays the song of that name.)
Programming languages and utilities:
-
BASIC (Astrocade version, 2000 baud)
-
BASIC (Bally version, 300 baud)
-
BASIC (Vipersoft version. Will not run without additional RAM; 12k minimum,
32k maximum.)
-
Blue Ram BASIC (requires additional RAM from $6000-6fff)
-
Blue Ram Utility (requires RAM and an 8154)
-
MLM ("Machine Language Manager")
Notes:
-
There are still ten "empty 8k holes" left at this point that can be filled
with anything new we find.
-
Some programs will not run on any Bally without additional hardware
or RAM. This is normal. If you do have the additional hardware or RAM
needed, these programs should all work fine.
-
Games that say they require Blue Ram BASIC (BRB) fall into the "added hardware"
category.
-
Some programs are in AstroBASIC (AB). You can play these hybrid "used to
be tapes" carts with the multicart; just switch the multicart over to AstroBASIC
when the program ask you to.
|
-
3-D Bowling
-
3-D Soccer
-
Alien Invaders
-
American Football
-
Astro Invader
-
Auto Race
-
Baseball
-
Basketball
-
Brain Quiz
-
Breakaway
-
Capture
-
Cat Trax
-
Combat
-
Crazy Climber
-
Crazy Gobbler
-
Escape
-
Funky Fish
-
Golf
-
Grand Prix de Monaco
-
Grand Slam Tennis
-
Hobo
-
Horse Racing
-
Jump Bug
-
Jungler
-
Missile War
-
Ocean Battle
-
Panzerspiel
-
Pleiades
-
R2D Tank
-
Red Clash
-
Robot Killer
-
Route 16
-
Soccer
-
Space Attack
-
Space Mission
-
Space Raiders
-
Space Squadron
-
Space Vultures
-
Spiders
-
Star Chess
-
Super Gobbler
-
Tanks A Lot
-
The End
-
Turtles
Notes:
-
There are nineteen "empty 8k holes" left at this point, for any new programs
we find.
-
If those fill up, I can retro-fit in the fancier memory organization scheme
of the Bally cart to use space that is being wasted now.
-
Many of the games above have never been officially released for
the "Emerson" system. This collection is actually far more complete
than any "real" collection of carts could be, as it includes various
MPT-03 or Palladium games that will play just fine when used on an Emerson
system. To have a playable collection of this size without this multicart,
you would have to own three different game systems. (See the
Emerson Arcadia 2001
FAQ on Ward's web site for an explanation of these cartridge or
system families.)
-
To see more info on these carts, see either my Emerson section in the
"Digital Press Collectors Guide" version six, or my online cart software
lists on my Emerson web site.
-
"Golf" does not work. It came from an MPT-03 cart unlike any we have ever
seen. (I am sure that the cartridge ROM image dump was good as
I desoldered the two 4k chips from the PC board and read them in directly,
instead of using an adapter device.) This unique cart had two bank-select
lines that no other MPT-03 cart has ever had. To top it off,
we've never seen the actual system it runs on to trace where they go. Long
story short, this game does not work properly now, and it will never do so
until someone actually rewrites the code of the program to make it work.
That isn't likely? I would not hold my breath waiting for it.
|
If you want any additional information be aware that I keep
up-to-date,
public lists of what ROM images are or are not available to me
at any given
time. These lists include any games rumored to exist, as well as any that
have
been confirmed to exist but that have not been archived to our
knowledge.
In this way, you can also see what games are "missing" from the multicart.
The Emerson's have/want list (of ROM images) is at this address:
2001want.txt
Ward maintains a web site about the Emerson system.
Also, Adam Trionfo runs a Bally discussion group at this address:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ballyalley |
|
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Q. |
Can these carts be upgraded later, to put more games on them when new
ROM images are available? |
A. |
Yes. I went out of my way to make both carts' ROM contents upgradable.
Both carts have room left over; see the ROM image lists
for notes on how many "blank spaces" are still left.
Your multicart would have to be mailed to Ward, who would perform the
upgrade and mail the cart back to you. (This is the "standard way" they
get upgraded; Sean Kelly and other hardware guys use this same procedure.)
The cost for an upgrade is not set in stone yet, but I don't plan to
charge for much more than recouping my actual costs, mostly for my actual
time spent and for return postage. As long as no physical modifications
or new parts are necessary, I don't plan to charge more than $10 to
$20 for the addition of new ROMs onto either multicart.
Because I knew I would be doing these upgrades or updates sooner or
later, the Emerson cart's custom label artwork was designed so that
they are not damaged by any of the four normally-hidden screw
holes under them.
One thing common to both multicarts is that there will have to be a printed
chart included with each cart, to tell a person what programs are
stored on that cart and what the DIP switch settings are to activate
each of them. To keep things as simple and as user-friendly as possible
in the long term, I plan to do my best to keep the older settings "valid"
per each program, with any new programs using unused DIP switch settings
at each upgrade. In other words, I'm doing my best to plan ahead early,
so that you don't have to "re-learn" the DIP switch settings. |
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Q. |
When and how will you be looking for new game ROM images? |
A. |
I apologize in advance if this section seems overly defensive. I
just want to make sure that I am being perfectly clear on this important
subject, as this is one of the subjects most likely to cause friction
over the long term.
Let me say this up front, to put things into proper perspective and to
make the overall tone more positive: even "AS IS," these two
ROM image collections are already more complete than
most video gaming experts would likely have ever dreamed possible. In many
cases, there are games planned for release on my Bally and Emerson multicarts
that even the most hardcore, long-term collectors had simply never
heard of, before this year. I ought to know, because I'm one of
the section authors of the hobby's most respected
guide to collecting video
games.
My aquisition plan is to maintain my "pre-multicart-release" methods.
That is, a pretty relaxed and non-stressful pace with a minimum of money
spent on any new ROMs. Things still get done, obviously, so why rush
things?
Keep in mind that other gaming systems (Atari 2600, Vectrex, etc.) all have
groups of people that are each seperately working on archiving
new ROMs. The person making such a multicart may just download the image
off the net, and offer it as an upgrade. I think it is wonderful
that can happen, and I hope it continues to happen.
However, in the case of these much-more-obscure video game systems, the burden
for finding and archiving any new ROM images falls largely (if not entirely)
on my shoulders. I can't offer any new ROM image to you unless
I first can find a rare cart somewhere and archive it myself. That's
an important difference to grasp! (Please try!)
I did do something to help that along, as best I could. I
mailed off my own two custom-made archiving cables, to Joe Santulli
at "Digital Press," back in March
of 2001. (And made myself new ones.) Joe is not very familiar with archiving
things himself just yet, but I am assisting him with technical information
whenever he requests it. And of course he has others around
him locally that should be able to help him. Whether or not this will
ever result in the aquisition of new ROM images for either of these
systems is beyond my control, but I did try to raise the odds?
Also, please note that I've made pinout diagrams and other technical information
publicly available. If anyone out there wants to get involved with archiving
new ROMs for these systems, the necessary information is available?
Bottomline... To cover myself and reduce misunderstandings , I am hereby
announcing that I intend to make and sell these multicarts on an
"AS IS" basis, where ROM images are concerned. I am not promising
any new ROMs beyond those already included. If I do offer new
ROM images, just consider it a bonus, not
a paid-for feature!
"You can't get blood out of a turnip." Similarly, guys like me
can't pay others to obtain new ROM images from a
non-profit hobby project. Therefore, I am publicly
announcing that I have NO intention of paying what I myself would
consider to be insanely high "collector" prices for anything that is
listed on my ROM image "want" lists. (In fact, I hereby reserve the
right to decide not to pay anything for any new ROM
images, period.)
I am not saying any of this to be mean or rude. I want to be fair to every
potential multicart buyer, hence all of these warnings. As I mentioned
before, my personal income simply will not allow any project to be funded
out of my own pocket. There is no "profit" involved in this project since
I am simply charging buyers for my parts and labor. Therefore, I have no
financial resources to draw upon where new ROM images are concerned. Period.
Another reason I want to clearly forewarn potential multicart customers
is that it may literally take years to finally find the last of these
ROM images, even under the best of all possible circumstances. I am
basing that assumption on three major things....
-
First, we've already found just about everything that there is to find. I
have included more games now, than the software lists in the most respected
printed publications have even mentioned as "rumored" carts! That alone insures
that "diminishing returns" applies, big-time, from now on.
-
Second, there are only a tiny handful of people that are or ever
have been actively involved with archiving efforts for any of the more
obscure and/or less popular systems. The pace of archiving on a very popular
system like the Atari 2600 has no real relevance to "also ran" game
systems like the Emerson. If and when there are dozens of people involved
with something, of course their combined efforts will progress at
a faster pace. It is to be expected. However, it should be self-evident
that the opposite is also true.
-
Last but not least, I have been archiving ROMs for various obscure systems
since 1994. (Commodore VIC-20, AdventureVision, and these two obscure systems.)
I know from experience that the first carts
come relatively quickly and in relatively great numbers, at
the start of any archiving project. Once that period ends, diminishing
returns set in. Things still show up once in a very long
while, even seven years later, but it isn't worth waiting for in
advance. In my very experienced opinion, only a small handful of new
images are likely to show up in any given year, at this point. (To see
what I mean, check out the seperate multicart
timeline I created.) I have little or no control over all that, and it
is only fair to clarify that now.
|
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Q. |
What can I do to help get more ROM images, to have a "complete" library
available? |
A. |
There are many possible answers to this question.Which one applies to
you depends on how obsessed or relaxed you are about the subject.
The most direct way you can help is a cart loan. If you own
a cartridge that is not on my "have" lists, and you
are willing to loan it to me for a short period so that I can archive
it,
contact
me by e-mail and we'll work out the details. (But please remember that
my financial situation will not allow any money to change hands. Sorry!)
If you know someone personally that owns a cart, and you are a friend of
that person, consider pointing them towards this FAQ. They can then read
about what I'm doing, and decide for themselves if they want to help or not
with this archiving effort. (Be aware that I've contributed to four different
system's ROM image library over the years, even before things like emulation
were around. ROMs that I archive generally also get emulated.)
If you know of someone that owns a given cartridge, but you do not
know that person themselves, PLEASE treat that person very gently! If
you do try to get them to help out, and they show signs of not wanting to
help, that is their decision. Please leave them alone! Please do
not put any pressure on them! It is their decision to make. Like it or not,
"no" is an acceptable answer. (I say this for a number of reasons, good manners
among them.)
In the past, most of those willing to help say "yes" almost immediately.
It has been my experience that just about everything shows up later in the
hands of someone willing to help out, if one source is reluctant to help.
I beg you not to get obsessed with pestering anyone for their possessions.
It isn't healthy, and it isn't helpful.
I learned through my ROM archiving efforts on four different classic game
systems that it is difficult to get people to even discuss their gaming finds
in detail (to get part numbers, etc.), let alone to have them loan their
prized possesions out to some stranger. That's just basic human nature? Most
people just don't care about other's needs, wants, or emotions.
If they can't get something out of an effort personally, they won't
make that effort.
Most of the carts that exist now on my want list are either going to
take years to show up, or will not show up at all. That's beyond
my control. Please try to accept that, and please be relaxed and
non-obsessive about it!?
My stance is this: "If some person is willing to loan me a cart they
have, great. If not, oh well; I can't help it." I try to be both patient
and grateful to those people who are generous enough to loan
me a cart to archive. If this involved finding a cure to cancer,
I'd try harder. But it is just a hobby. Hobbies shouldn't become obsessions. |
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Q. |
How many people have expressed interest in buying one of these? |
A. |
Excellent question! The short answer is, "not very many at all". Not
enough to make this all financially feasible.
In the first six weeks that the public was aware that these were going
to be offered for sale, 26 total carts were spoken for. That is for
both systems combined, making the system average barely over one dozen
each. (By any reasonable financial standard that makes the project a complete
waste of my time. But I kept going anyway.)
Of these initial expressions of interest, only a fraction seemed to be truly
hardcore fans of one system or the other. Most people appear to be just buyers
of anything new and unusual, or video game collectors in general. Some
even admit that openly. I have my doubts as to how many of these items
are actually going to be "played with"?
One other thing to consider is that I've been told by some very knowledgable
and experienced homebrewers that the percentage of people that actually make
good on their promise to buy a project when it comes out, is very low. (I've
been quoted figures as low as five percent of those expressing interest on
well-known projects.) This makes the project even less worthwhile, if one
is considering this a business venture and not just a hobby project?
Subtract from that remaining figure -- pitiful as it already is -- the large
percentage of people that either want to pay less than my full asking price,
or want to just trade me some of their stock of gaming items instead of paying
anything at all. (Easily fourty percent.) This whole thing quickly becomes
a laughable thing; a financial disaster waiting to happen. At best, I'm doing
this as a labor of love? At worst, I'm wasting my time. |
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Q. |
How much work goes into building one of these multicarts? |
A. |
More than enough, believe me! As one supporter recently told me, "No
sane person would do what you are doing. We're glad you're insane." If I
had a "normal" day job I might never have seriously considered doing it.
The best way I can give you a detailed look into the process is to refer
you to my Timeline text, and to the
cost section of this FAQ. The cost section has a
detailed breakdown of all of the parts and
labor costs involved. The Timeline text includes a section that describes
the step-by-step chores necessary to build one
cartridge, as well as keeping track of the overall amount of work it
took to create all of the multicarts that were made so far. Be sure to
multiply the steps you see there by the total amount
of people that are willing to pay for one or both carts. |
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Q. |
I like your custom label artwork. How did you make it? |
A. |
The short story is that I used my IBM-compatible personal computer, my
flatbed scanner, and a program called "Paint Shop Pro" to actually create
the labels. I printed them out on my Lexmark 5700 inkjet printer, using
adhesive-backed paper made for inkjet printers. (A trick that I learned from
being in the "A#1FLC" label club.)
I'll try to add some more details to this explanation, at some future point.
|
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Q. |
Why don't you sell some of these on eBay? |
A. |
People keep asking me that, lately. Sometimes they ask it as if
they thought I was dense, since I apparently did not think of that on
my own. The reality is I did think of it, almost instantly. And I rejected
the idea just as quickly.
These people are correct in saying that I could probably get more money
for any unit sold that way. However, if this project was strictly about money,
I would simply charge much more. (Or abandon
this project and go find a part-time job instead.) Yes, money is
very important to me; I need all I can get. But listing an
item on eBay that is considered to be
questionable due to software copyright
concerns is not going to benefit anyone in the long run.
I realize some people will argue that "nobody will care".
No offense, but that's really not much of an argument.
From the years of effort I've put into my "Digital Archaeology" researching
efforts, it should be clear that I deeply respect the imaginative artistry
and technical skills involved, which made these games possible in the first
place. I respect the people that made these games. I am making the best moral
compromise I know how in both helping to preserve and display these artifacts
of our cultural past, while trying to adhere to the spirit of copyright laws.
I feel very good about the feedback I have received over the years from various
software authors of this era. They generally seem to be glad to see people
still care about their early artistic works. They generally don't mind non-profit
distribution. I think they'd support my efforts, as is, but agressively seeking
profit is a very bad idea. I see mutual respect as the best way to keep both
sides of this -- creators and admirers -- contented and happy.
I care how the rights of other artists are treated. I want others
to know I understand and support their rights. I will not sell these items
on eBay myself and I do not support anyone else who would try to re-sell
these items for profit. I am selling these on a
strict "one to a customer" basis, in
part to discourage any such resale efforts. |
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Q. |
I don't like your rules. I want special treatment. How do I get special
treatment? |
A. |
Take a very deep breath. Hold it. Continue to hold it. Be very
patient. If you pass out before you get what you want, that means you
probably were not trying hard enough. Go back to the beginning and start
all over again.
Seriously, you are not going to do yourself any good by putting pressure
on me to give you special treatment.
I made these rules to protect myself, to
protect my customers, and to make things as fair as circumstances will allow.
The simple reality is that there are roughly six billion people on this planet,
and only one of me. No matter how much of my life I dedicate to this project,
those numbers clearly indicate that I simply can't avoid one or
more interested people becoming a "have not". If I simply have
to cut someone out of the loop, I'd rather it be someone that has made
my life complicated and miserable, rather than someone that has added value
to my life.
If someone is working hard to make my life miserable and complicated instead
of fun and simple, I'm going to do whatever is necessary to protect myself
from that abuse. That may mean I'll end up pushing the difficult people
to the back to the line, as it were, so that I can give my full attention
to pleasing the customers who aren't a pain. In some cases, I'm going to
take Thoreau's advice to simplify my life by refusing to do business
with certain people.
I am not going to abandon the results of decades of mental discipline
and training in a foolish attempt to do the impossible for the
ungrateful with inadequate resources. I have limits, and that means
that neither one of us is going to get everything they want out of this.
That's life. Like it or not, we can't have all of the candy in the store. |
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Q. |
Other multicart creators did things much better than you plan to, when
they put out their multicart for [insert any of the more popular "Classic"
game systems]. Why can't you be more like them? |
A. |
If I were more like them, I would not have made these multicarts at all.
You should be glad I'm not like them!
The truth is, I tried to get the "big names" interested in doing
projects like these, on-and-off, for a number of years. So did a lot
of other people. None of them wanted to do it. Frankly, I don't
blame them given the huge financial gamble it would have meant to them, with
little or no chance of breaking even let alone making a profit?
I don't consider myself to be their competitor, and I seriously doubt
that they see me as their competitor? I am glad that between all of
us we're managing to "cover all the bases" for fans of various old
gaming systems.
The only reason that I am even able to consider offering these multicarts
at all, is that I was fortunate enough to have learned how to design and
etch my own circuit boards using relatively inexpensive equipment and methods.
The other hobbyist game manufacturers have to rely on outside vendors
to create their boards. They risk tons of their own cash up front to
make their multicart projects. (And they lost all of that start-up money
in at least one case that I'm aware of. They made a simple mistake
on the boards when they ordered them -- they reversed
an image. This made every one of the non-returnable, paid-for circuit
boards into garbage.)
I applaud any homebrew effort for the simple
reason that I understand it is a "labor of love"
sold at a loss. One of the things that saddens me the most in regards
to people doing homebrew projects for others, is the
nearly total lack of empathy shown to the
artists creating this stuff. If you want to see projects like
this one continue, PLEASE do not make it any more difficult than it already
is, on any homebrew-type person! "Play nice."
Guys like us do not grow on trees, and are not easily replaced when
we move on to bigger and better things. Our
motivation is fragile enough to begin with. Please try to show some real
empathy and compassion for us. Thanks. |
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