Emerson Arcadia 2001: Frequently Asked
Questions |
TABLE OF CONTENTS |
Historical information |
Technical information
|
Published news reports Section also functions as a chronological time-line |
Copyright notice & disclaimer
Copyright (c) 1999, 2002 Ward Shrake.
This document is a derivative work. It is based on a |
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Credit for contributors, past and
present |
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(Editorial note: I'm behind on updating this section, but will catch up soon-ish.) | |
Carlo Altieri |
Contributed to the list of known software titles. Wrote a "front end" for the stand-alone emulator. Archived one game ROM image (Crazy Gobbler) without assistance. His web page: http://users.iol.it/c_altieri/hanimex.htm |
Daniel Amend |
Sent Ward a ton of trivia related to software for the various console families, for inclusion in the next edition of the "Digital Press Collector's Guide". (Version 7.) |
Olivier Boisseau |
Contributed information to the FAQ and the list of software titles known to exist. His pictures of various game systems helped us to figure out the mystery of the family differences. Helps improve the volume and quantity of information available about this system and its clones and software. See Olivier's web page at: http://www.old-computers.com/ |
Anthony Brown |
Contributed information to previous FAQ author; mostly related to hardware specifications. |
James Carter |
Contributed information to previous FAQ author. |
Greg Chance |
Contributed information to previous FAQ author. |
William E. Combs |
Contributed information to previous FAQ author. Specifically, he submitted a 1982 magazine article. |
Jonathan H. Davidson |
Contributing information via research on the actual companies that once sold these systems (so that we can learn more about their history) but also to try to find the copyright holders, so that we can ask them (nicely!) if they'd consider letting fans of this system copy and use games for non-commercial purposes. Found the official trademark application online: that in turn included this system's official "birth" date. Also found out that Emerson only licensed this system: we are still tracking down the real creators of this system. Jonathan's painstaking research is much appreciated! |
Michael Davidson |
Contributed information to previous FAQ author. Supplied information on software availability in New Zealand and Japan. Instrumental in helping to figure out that the Emerson and MPT-03 families were internally compatible. See his web page at... http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~pinwhiz/weird.htm |
Sylvain De Chantal |
Created and maintained this FAQ until December of 1998 when Ward Shrake took "version A.04" and rewrote it, then converted it to HTML. (We two FAQ authors have agreed to liberally borrow from each others FAQs from that point on.) Sylvain collects for the Leisure-Vision system. Sylvain's web page about the Emerson can be found at... http://www.chez.com/slydc/arc-2001.htm |
Dean Dierschow |
Created the original Internet list of software titles for the Arcadia 2001 system. (And many other lists for most of the "classic era" game systems). |
Martin Gansel |
Contributed information to previous FAQ author; mostly related to the Schmidt system's software. http://home.ins.de/~martin.gansel/ |
Leonard Herman |
His book "Phoenix: The fall and rise of home video games" was -- besides just being a good read -- of some use in putting the system in a historical context. |
Rene Kamerbeek |
He was the first person to suspect that the Ormatu system was related somehow to the Emerson family of clones. He loaned Ward three Ormatu cartridges for archiving and inspection purposes. Using these, Ward was able to confirm that the Ormatu system is the fourth known family of semi-compatible game systems. (Same systems, with different cart pinouts.) His cart loan also resulted in three new ROM images for play on software emulators such as MESS. http://www.retrorene.nl/ormatu.htm |
Rikard Ljungkvist |
Contributed information to previous FAQ author. He collects for Schmidt TVG 2000 and Tele-Fever. |
Daniel A. Mazurowski | Contributed information to previous FAQ author. |
Michael J. Novak Jr. |
Contributed information to previous FAQ author. |
Rayth Orlea |
Collects for the Arcadia 2001 system. Contributes information to the FAQ authors when he can. |
Russ Perry Jr. |
Contributed information about game titles that were available in Japan, as well as in other places. Russ collects items for the Arcadia 2001 system and many many others. He was instrumental in a number of big retrogaming projects, on and off the Internet. One of the biggest was the CD-ROM made by/for "Digital Press". It includes many pictures from Russ' collection. |
PeT |
"PeT" took over the Emerson 2001 emulation project, when Paul Robson no longer had time to do updates on it. He added the emulator into MESS; the popular "Multi Emulator Super System" program. The Mess home page is at: http://www.mess.org/ |
Stefan Piasecki |
Generously made a trade offer to Ward Shrake, to put a real Palladium console in Ward's hands. Ward made a counter-offer, and we did a three-way trade that put the console into PeT's hands instead. (MESS emu author.) Stefan also loaned Ward some rare Palladium carts for archiving purposes, and he has just plain "kept the faith". |
Matt Reichert |
Contributed information about various games, loaned Ward a number of rare carts for archiving purposes, and just generally "kept the faith" regarding this game system and it's overseas clones. Check out his web site at: http://www.msu.edu/user/reicher6/ |
Paul Robson |
Creator of the first
software emulator for the Emerson Arcadia 2001 system. Contributed info about hardware specifications to this FAQ. Turned over all his emulator code, his notes and so on to PeT when he no longer had the time to do further updates on the emulator. (Considering Paul wrote the first, pre-MESS emulator without ever having seen a real console, that's very impressive!) See http://users.aol.com/mk14emu/arcadia.htm |
Lee Romanow |
Found a place that still sells the service manual
for the Emerson Arcadia game console. This is useful info to have, if you are technically inclined! |
Joe Santulli |
Known among classic gamers as the person behind the "Digital Press" fanzine, and the very popular "Digital Press Collectors Guide" series of books. He allowed Ward Shrake to totally rewrite the Emerson section of the DPCG book, as of volume six (2001). Ward more recently wrote the volume seven version. See http://www.digitpress.com/ for more info on that. |
Ward Shrake |
Creator of this version of the FAQ document and a number of other 'Digital Archaeology' texts that are available on the Internet. Archived approximately two-thirds of the existing ROM image collection by himself. (Thanks to loans from generous collectors.) First confirmed that the Emerson and MPT-03 family of cartridges were 100% internally compatible. Figured out the MPT-03 family pinout. Confirmed that a simple adapter cable could be used to play games made for one family on another. (See pinouts for tips on building such an adapter yourself.) First noticed that an IBM PC floppy drive cable was almost perfectly spaced for use in building such a home-made adapter. First confirmed that Palladium carts were internally Emerson-compatible, just as MPT-03 carts turned out to be. Figured out the pinout for the Palladium system cart slot. Totally rewrote the Emerson Arcadia section of the "Digital Press Collector's Guide," version six. Ward's Emerson web site can be found at: http://classicgaming.com/arcadia/ Ward also makes a multi-cart for this system, as well as one for the Bally Astrocade game system. See: http://classicgaming.com/arcadia/multifaq.htm Ward also runs a "Commodore VIC-20" web site: http://members.aol.com/wshrake/index.htm |
Jack Spencer Jr. |
First noticed that "Cat Trax" appeared to have been ported over to the Atari 2600 system. This set off a renewed search for "UA Limited," who wrote most of the games for the Emerson as well as this port. A number of other Atari 2600 titles by UA were found once people were looking for them, specifically. |
Jay Tilton |
Figured out the pinout diagram for the cartridge slot, for all systems within the "Emerson family". (He contributed that information to the readers of usenet's rec.games.video.classic newsgroup.) Archived the first-ever ROM images; twelve games. First confirmed that ROM information originally taken from an "MPT-03 family" game, does in fact also work in an "Emerson family" system, when put into EPROM format on a cartridge made for the "Emerson family". (This helped to show the main family differences are the pinouts.) Check out http://users.erols.com/tiltonj/index.html for lots of cool hardware info on various machines. |
Bruce Tomlin |
Contributed hardware information to Internet users. His pinout diagram of the 2650 CPU chip was Jay Tilton's starting point, when Jay Tilton first decided to figure out the Emerson's pinout. |
Tom Zjaba |
Contributed some images of MPT-03 boxes, and some info related to the cartridge list. See: http://tomheroes.com/ for his gaming e-zine site. |
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Virtually everything that people once thought they knew about this system has proven itself to be incorrect. We few who consider ourselves historians and researchers of video game history are slowly beginning to see the real story more clearly. We now see Emerson as being the rough equivalent of an actor that only has scenes in the second act of a three-act play. We learned that someone else created and marketed the system. Emerson merely said "yes" when this unknown company gave them the opportunity to license their "Arcadia 2001" game system for sale within the United States. That cuts Emerson out of the first act of the play; the system's creation. That logically must have taken place during late 1981 or early 1982. We learned that something important which preceeded this particular console's creation was happening during 1981, giving us a "couldn't be before this" date. We know that most of the actual sales activity of this particular console took place during the latter part of 1982, so the system's creation had to have taken place between those time periods. Most of the software created for this system shows dates of 1982. A smaller amount of non-US titles appeared during 1983. However, Emerson as a company had already decided to abandon both "their" console and the gaming market in or around 1983. Now that we know this about Emerson, we can push that information aside and focus instead on the unknown parties that really did design and create and market both the hardware and the software for the Arcadia 2001. Emerson was only one company among many that licensed this hardware system and sold it within one geographic area. Some of these companies made efforts to appear like they had created this system. One by one, we are eliminating most of them as "possibles". The sheer number of different-looking consoles and cartridges, spread widely across the entire planet, slows this effort down. Even back in the days when collectors and video game historians honestly believed that Emerson was pulling all the strings, we knew that there were half a dozen or more non-US companies that had licensed this technology from someone and had made a cartridge-compatible clone of their own, for sale within their geographic area. Most of these "clone" systems looked very similar to the console that Emerson had released for use in the United States; some were identical except for the name on the console itself. A few of these non-US consoles looked considerably different. However different these consoles may have looked from one another on the outside, they had the same technology inside. The cartridge slot was also identical. As a result any of these consoles would accept and play cartridges made for any of the other systems from this console family. In terms of historical understanding, our single largest leap forward came when we discovered that there were more than one of these family types. Certain collectors around the world were fond of finding any cartridge or console that was unusual or odd. As their collections grew in size and diversity they began to notice that games for what we now think of as the "MPT-03 family" of consoles, were very similar to the games made for the more familiar "Emerson family" of consoles. One of these collectors mailed some of his MPT-03 cartridges to Ward Shrake, since he had enough technical expertise to be able to examine them well in detail. Ward played "hardware detective" with these cartridges, studying their cartridge slot and memory chip configuration until he could successfully "dump" (read and store) the program content of these cartridges. Similar efforts had already taken place on the Emerson family, thanks to Jay Tilton, so there were enough known-good ROM image files from both console families to allow comparison. Checking the most common cartridges from each family type showed the programs to be 100% identical internally. As any technically inclined person can tell you, there is simply no way this could be possible unless the systems that they plugged into were also 100% identically internally. None at all. At that time, we proudly announced our discovery -- see the detailed list of credits contained in this FAQ -- to other fans of the so-called "Emerson system". Ward announced it both online and in print; by then he had taken over the Arcadia 2001 section found within the printed publication called the "Digital Press Collectors Guide". (See version 6, released in February of 2001. A perfect year to have announced such an important confirmed discovery about a system named the "2001"!) Long story short, as of March 2002 with the next version of the DPCG book's publishing deadline quickly approaching, Ward is happy to report that our understanding of the global complexities of this group of consoles has really improved. For instance, we have now positively identified four total cartridge families now instead of just two. The Emerson family was known from the beginning; collectors across the globe became simply aware of that largely self-evident relationship, simply by exchanging cartridges and plugging them into their nearly-identical looking consoles. Michael Davidson of New Zealand helped to identify the MPT-03 as a ROM-compatible family... even though the carts were not slot-compatible. Stefan Piasecki of Germany next helped to identify the Palladium console as a third family type. Rene Kamerbeek of the Netherlands helped to identify the Ormatu console as a fourth family type. All ROM-compatible but not slot-compatible. I am going to close this section of the FAQ now, and move on. This does not mean the story ends here. We still have a lot we would like to find out about this mysterious group of people that created the Arcadia 2001 console group. The things I have discussed so far have been confirmed through rigorous study, observation, research and so on. The next part of the story is still under investigation, and contains much more speculation, historically speaking. I'd rather wait until we know what we are talking about with a reasonable degree of certainty, than to prematurely publish simple speculation here. The next section of this FAQ may interest those of you who want to find out more about this company's activities. There is at least one major discovery we have not discussed yet; the reality that the Arcadia 2001 was NOT the first console group created by these people. In fact, a technologically similar group of consoles I refer to collectively as the "Interton-VC4000" console group, came before the "Arcadia 2001" console group. These systems have now been proven to be completely incompatible with one another, in any commonly understood way of describing that term. But since that is a discussion that really belongs elsewhere, I will end this part of the FAQ now and resume the discussion in this FAQ's next section. |
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You may have noticed all the unusual terminology I'm using here? These terms are the author's idea of how best to try to clarify and explain this situation, which he realizes must be confusing to non-technical people. It is not so much that Ward loves talking about technology, when describing this system's history. There just seems like no way to do so without it! One other new term is "console group". To avoid confusing people that are new to this subject -- which is probably just about everyone reading this -- Ward adapted a term he saw used by Olivier Boisseau on his "old-computers.com" web site. It was here that Ward began looking into his next big discovery in regards to the global nature of the Arcadia 2001. Olivier's experience with many different consoles made by many different non-US companies led him to try to invent a way to classify and categorize them, so he could better discuss them to his web site's readers. He began thinking of any console that was similar to another console as part of a "console group". The combined result of Ward's and Olivier's attempts to summarize things is as follows. Any single machine that plays games is considered to be a "game console". Many of these exist throughout the world. Any given game console has a specific type of cartridge that can be plugged into it and played. If two seperate consoles share a common cartridge slot configuration, they are said to be "slot-compatible". However, be careful not to assume too much, too quickly! This does NOT in itself mean that these two consoles will allow you to mix and match games. There are many standardized card edge connectors used within the electronics industry. For instance, the cartridge slot connector used on the MPT-03 family is visually identical to those used on the Ormatu family, the Commodore VIC-20 home computer, and many arcade games manufactured in the early 1980's. None of these electronic devices will understand or be able to use a plug-in cartridge from any of the other devices. Electronics are much more precise and unforgiving than that! Think of it this way; if you press even one incorrect button while dialing a phone number, you do NOT get to talk to the person you had hoped you would. If you read a street address incorrectly, you could end up miles away from where you hoped to end up. ("123 N. Any Street" is NOT identical to "123 S. Any Street" at all; they are in two seperate ends of the same town.) To avoid being overly-technical in my discussion, I'm going to simply hope you take my word on it; slot-compatibility is just one thing that must be common to any two consoles, if you hope to be able to interchange game cartridges and play them. "ROM-compatible" is the next new term. In other words the program contents stored within two different cartridge famiies may or may not be identical. Again, please take my word for this; if even ONE byte is not EXACTLY where it is supposed to be and what it is supposed to be, the odds are heavily in favor of the idea that you will not be able to play the game on any console it was not designed for. One family's cartridges will not work directly on the other family's console, unless they are both slot-compatible and ROM-compatible. It is simply impossible; it will not work, no matter how much you want it to. However, note the word "directly" in that sentence; it is important. You can create an adapter device to allow one game console's carts on another console, so long as the only problem is that their slot is not compatible. If the slots are different but the cartridges are completely ROM-compatible internally, then under certain circumstances you can interchange games. I apologize for all these new terms, and for what are likely new concepts to many non-technical people. Unfortunately, trying to describe things accurately demands that I lay a firm foundation first, before I move on to my next subject. We now have the terms "console" and "family" and "slot-compatible" and "ROM-compatible". As used here, a "console group" is the entire collection of all of the consoles that do, in fact, allow you to play each other's games. You may have to use some sort of home-made adapter to get past slot-compatability problems, but once you do, there is very little practical difference between one console and another. The end result is that you can plug games in, and they will work. This last term may or may not seem important or necessary, at first. Sadly enough, without the term "console group" things would soon become completely unmanagable! I say that with firm conviction and no exaggeration, because our research has just now (March 2002) made the discovery that the "Arcadia 2001" group of consoles was preceeded by an older group of consoles called the "Interton-VC4000". The games look like they are roughly equivalent at a glance. Since that was all the "seed" that it initially took to begin the research that led to the discovery that the MPT-03 and Emerson families were related, despite apparent differences, some collectors and historians have now begun to assume too much, in some cases. They see a game that looks similar, and have begun to automatically think, "Hey, this console looks like it is another one of the families that must belong to the Arcadia 2001 group of consoles." That is dangerous! That is a good observation in itself, but unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending on your point of view as a collector or a historian -- most of the simiarities end there. Ward feels that he has very scientifically proven the idea that the Arcadia 2001 console group is a completely seperate entity from the Interton-VC4000 console group. (There is another whole section of this FAQ that deals with nothing but that subject, including precisely how Ward reached that conclusion.) For the limited purposes of this section of the FAQ, please just take my word on it for it. Pleaes keep reading... with an open mind. I realize that I am human, as we all are, and that we all make mistakes. However, please remember that I am also the person that single-handedly did all of the actual technical research necessary to have positively confirmed that there was indeed some level of compatability between what once looked like completely different game consoles. Does this mean that I "know everything" and that my word on a subject should simply be accepted without question? No. However, I do not really think that I know nothing, and should be ignored, either. I do not feel the need to "establish my credentials" on this particular subject, but for the record please consider this well. If I can be allowed to explain to all interested parties within the classic gaming community that some seemingly-unrelated and seemingly-incompatible game console families are in fact really just part of one big console group, then it stands to reason that those same people should be willing to listen to me when I speak out and say that just the opposite is true in some cases. It is only fair? If I say that some game consoles do not belong within the Arcadia 2001 group then that ought to have some credence, just as it was slowly-but-surely accepted that my earlier theory was correct. No one took my word for it then, and I did not expect them to. In that case, I asked other technical people to independently confirm my findings. And they did. It would not bother me in the least if other technical people choose to independently confirm my more recent findings. One last bit of explanation, and then I'll move on to the FAQ's next subject. We had collectively found published news reports that had said that the Arcadia 2001 console (group) had been based upon the earlier Interton-VC4000 console (group). We knew that, or had heard that, "all along". However, it takes so much time and effort and painstaking research to actually confirm most of the statements that various companies had made back then, that we had no idea what to make of this brief sentence or two of text, before we'd begun to narrow down the related technical issues more clearly. |
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Compatability between Arcadia 2001 and Interton-VC4000 |
The following is a somewhat edited reprint of a text that Ward Shrake
wrote up |
The question we have been asking ourselves lately is this... is the "Emerson
Arcadia 2001" console group truly "ROM-compatible" with the "Interton VC-4000"
console group? If the answer is not 100% yes or no, then to what percentage
are the systems related?
A subset of questions involves choosing the best descriptive terminology... a seperate, on-going debate that I don't plan to cover in this post. I'm going to word this post as carefully as I can, using quote marks to seperate my final conclusions from my explanatory comments. (Sly DC, if you want to quote me on any of this in your upcoming Interton-VC4000 DPCG write-up, go ahead. If others wish to republish this information, go ahead; but please do not quote any of DPCG's authors without proper attribution.) OK, drum-roll, please... And the first answer is: "No, these two console groups are definitely NOT ROM-compatible with one another. Given the available evidence gathered by scientific testing methods which appear to be sound, there seems to be both no backward and no forward software compatibility between these two console groups." As to whether or not these two console groups are actually related to one another in some other manner, that must be answered separately... "It appears that they most certainly are related, in terms of their technology and their shared history, although we have confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no connection whatsoever between them in terms of ROM-compatibility." "The Interton VC-4000 console group was created and marketed at some point, by parties unknown. At a later point in time, parties unknown created and marketed the Arcadia 2001 console group. At least one programmer wrote programs for both systems, according to standard ASCII messages found coded into a number of game ROMs on both groups. This person did include dates in these hidden messages. These dates indicate a rough time period of 1981 for the games he wrote for the Interton-VC4000 group, and a rough time period of 1982 for the games he wrote for the Arcadia 2001 group. I will also note here in passing that at least three games that were originally written for the Arcadia 2001 group, were ported over to the Atari 2600 on or about 1983. Any additional dates and/or historical details surrounding these console groups will need to be determined through additional on-going research efforts." "On a technical level, the primary difference between the two console groups appears to be a secondary processing unit, which was largely responsible for the audio-visual capabilities of each console group. The Interton-VC4000 group used a Signetics 2636 chip. The Arcadia 2001 group used a Signetics 2637 chip. By all indications, the 2637 appears to be a later and more advanced model of the earlier and less-powerful 2636 audio-visual co-processing unit. Both systems used the Signetics 2650 and/or 2650A models for their central processing unit." Having said all that, I can now move on to discussing how I arrived at those conclusions. "Sly DC" e-mailed me (Ward) 16 ROM images, which Sly DC had in turn received from a very knowledgable source I will not name here. Ward did not archive these ROMs himself, nor did he have any way to verify where these ROM images came from, as far as what system they were allegedly derived from. Given the trusted source and the circumstances, Ward is personally confident that these 16 ROM images were both (a) good ROM dumps and (b) derived from carts made for the Interton-VC4000 group of consoles. The fact that the MESS emulator seems to like them tends to confirm those ideas. Each of these 16 ROM images was two kilobytes in length, or 2048 bytes. This is notably different from most ROM images that came from Arcadia 2001 consoles. Only two ROM images out of the nearly fifty known-good cartridge ROM images for the Arcadia 2001 console group are that small. The vast majority of them are either 4k or 8k, with a few 6k ROMs. The implication here is that these Interton-VC4000 ROM images come from a console group that is older and less sophisticated than the Arcadia 2001 console group. This fits logically within our other research. Note that this is not entirely speculative. Published accounts exist which stated that the Arcadia 2001 group had been based upon the earlier Interton-VC4000 group. Ward's web site hosts a FAQ which contains that complete, verbatim news article. Other news articles are similarly quoted within that FAQ to enable us to peice the historical record together. Moving on to my actual testing methods... In short, I took all of the seperate ROM images that I was sent, I wrote a batch file to concatenate them all sequentially into one big padded ROM image file housed on my modern PC, I burned them into one big (500k) EPROM chip, I plugged that EPROM into a known-good Arcadia 2001 group "multi-cart" that I had previously made, and I proceeded to test each ROM image in my Leisure-Vision console by selecting each image seperately, powering it up multiple times to see how each Interton-VC4000 program would react when its code was run on an Arcadia console. To insure that my testing methods were as sound as possible, I had burned this EPROM as a combination of both Emerson and Interton ROM images. The first 16 "slots" within the multicart's memory map were used by the 16 Interton ROM images I'd been sent. The remaining "slots" in memory were filled with the normal, known-good ROM images that this multicart usually contains, in the exact order they normally go. To accomplish this I simply loaded the known-good, standardized ROM image file that contains all of the known Arcadia group games into the buffer area of my Needham's EMP-10 EPROM programming device. I then over-wrote the first 16 game ROM images in the buffer with the contents of a single newly-created ROM image file containing the 16 Interton programs. What all of this allowed me to do, in general, was to eliminate as many variables as possible, that might affect the outcome of these tests. For example: when testing began I activated the Interton program found in slot #1, tested it by powering on to see what it would do, then switched immediately over to the #17 slot within the large EPROM chip. This allowed rapid, back-to-back testing, between Interton ROMs of unknown compatibility and known-good ROMs that definitely work well on this system. Having tested the #1 slot, I would then test the #2 slot, comparing it to the #18 slot. I went through the entire software library this way. Due to the testing methods used, the only real variable that might have been able to influence the tests was the position of a single DIP switch on the multicart. At no time during the testing cycle was it necessary to burn more than one EPROM file, to plug or unplug EPROMs into a chip socket, or to insert or remove a cartridge from the cartridge slot. It is very hard to believe that testing methods were flawed? In every instance, the Interton ROM image would simply refuse to do anything useful, interesting, or recognizable whatsoever. Turning these games on resulted in much the same effect as if no cartridge at all had been plugged into the cartridge slot. Any attempts made to reset the games had no effect. Multiple power-cycles (off, on, off, on, with lengthy pauses in between) resulted in no audible or visual difference, from one testing attempt to another. The only Interton programs that really appeared to do anything beyond crash the system (resulting in a screen full of visual garbage such as random letters, numbers and graphic symbols) was that two of the games caused the screen to flash rather wildly. The visual garbage was still present on the screen just as in every other Interton program's case. The two programs named "Soccer" and "Space War" (in their ROM image form) simply added one more effect. It is likely these were the two programs that were actually the closest to being software compatible, out of the 16 ROM images under test. However, they were still obviously very much ROM-incompatible. At no time was anything resembling a game apparent. By way of contrast, in every instance the Arcadia 2001 ROM images that were functioning as a "control group" worked exactly as they were supposed to, without so much as a single instance of trouble. My overall conclusion, therefore, is that ROM images written to work on an Interton-VC4000 console group system, will not run in an Arcadia 2001 console group system. The two are obviously incompatible. As stated previously, this does not rule out a similar background or shared history. But that's another story, which will take additional research to clarify! DPCG book plug #2... Please realize that as the guide's "Emerson Arcadia 2001" section editor, I will be adjusting all of my software entries to accomodate this new knowledge as best I can. I imagine that "Sly DC" will also be doing extensive work on his own sections, including the new Interton-VC4000 area. There are many historical implications that he and I will likely end up discussing in private between now and the deadline, to make guide #7 the best ever. In addition to my own efforts to shed light on this subject, I would also like to acknowledge the work done by some of my fellow researchers, whether they were directly involved in these tests or not. In particular, Olivier Boisseau who (to my knowledge) was the first person to publicly state that these two console groups shared technology, and that might or might not mean they were compatible. He had the original theory, which I have now tested. Sylvain DeChantel, who has done a lot of research in regards to multiple consoles, has always been helpful to me. To keep this already very long-winded posting as brief as it can be under the circumstances, be aware that I intend to add my full list of attributions and thanks in the credits section of the Emerson FAQ... where it will more likely be seen, anyway. That FAQ can be found on my web site. I'll see if I can't get a newer copy onto other places that store FAQs, such as DP. Highly observant and patient readers may notice that I have entirely avoided touching on the issue of whether or not either the Arcadia 2001 console group or the Interton-VC4000 console group is in any way related to other groups of consoles. That too is a subject needing to be addressed, separately, after much additional research and verification takes place.
Ward Shrake |
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Clones of the Arcadia 2001 |
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Country | Name | Family | Company |
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Canada | Leisure-Vision Hanimex HMG-2650 |
Emerson Emerson |
Leisure-Dynamics Hanimex |
France | Advision Home Arcade Hanimex MPT-03 Prestige MPT-03 |
Emerson MPT-03 MPT-03 |
Advision Hanimex (?) |
Germany | Hanimex HMG-2650 Palladium Telespiel Schmid TVG-2000 Tele-Fever |
Emerson Palladium Emerson Emerson |
Hanimex Palladium Schmid, (?) |
Italy | Leonardo | ? | Leonardo (?) |
Japan | Bandai Arcadia | ? | Bandai |
New Zealand | Tunix home arcade Video Master |
Emerson MPT-03 |
Monaco Distributors Ltd. Grandstand |
United States | Arcadia 2001 | Emerson | Emerson |
Unknown | Rowtron MPT-03 Soundic MPT-03 Tryom |
MPT-03 MPT-03 MPT-03 |
Rowtron (?) Soundic (?) Tryom (?) |
Notes:
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Hardware information and specifications
Main Processor | Signetics 2650A |
RAM | One kilobyte (1024 bytes), despite advertising claims of 28k total. |
ROM | None in the conventional sense; see hardware notes below. (Plug-in ROM cartridges seem to use 8K or less of total ROM memory.) |
Video display | 9 Colors total; 4 for characters, 4 for sprites, one for background. System includes 4 independent, single color hardware sprites. |
Sound | Single channel; Signetics 2637N. |
Controllers | Two separate hand controllers; one for each player. Each include a 12-button numeric keypad and a movement disc / joystick. There are two ports on the rear of the console, apparently for paddles, but no one yet has reported having heard of games that use the paddes? |
Power supply | 12 volts DC at 0.5 amps (500 milliamps or larger) current rating. Plug's physical physical size is 5.5 mm outside diameter by 2.1 mm inside diameter. The Tip is "+" and the Ring is "-". Radio Shack part number 273-1776 will work. Get the "M" sized Adapt-a-plug (tm) adapter with it; RS part number 273-1716. |
Please note that a company still sells service manuals
for the Emerson. You can order |
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List of internal components found in Emerson family systems |
|||
Qty. |
Part number |
# pins | Chip function |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "2650A N" |
40 | 2650 Central Processing Unit An 8-bit processor which can directly address 32k of memory space, but only in banks of 8k each. May be clocked at 3.58 Mhz? By Signetics. Socketed chip. |
1 | "2637N" | 40 | 2637N Capable of handling 4 'objects' (sprites?), has a built-in character generator ROM, does collision detection, and has an Analog to Digital converter with 4 inputs. By Signetics. Socketed on PC board. |
1 | "2622N" | 14 | Video sync generator. 2622 chip generates NTSC signals. The 2621 is the PAL-signal equivalent. By Signetics. Socketed on PC board. |
2 | "2114" | 18 | RAM memory A total of 1024 bytes (1k) of RAM. Ignore any advertiser's claims that this system had anything more than that; 28k was a lie made up when Emerson found out that systems by Atari (5200) and Coleco (Colecovision) had much better specifications than their system. Socketed on PC board. |
1 | "7805" | 3 | Power regulator. Takes the 12 volt power input and converts it to a clean 5 volts. A fairly large heatsink is included, so that the chip does not burn itself out too quickly. |
1 | "74LS04" | 14 | Hex inverter. |
2 | "74LS86" | 14 | Quad exclusive OR gate. |
1 | "SN74LS145" | 16 | BCD-to-decimal decoder/driver. |
1 | "74LS00" | 14 | Quad 2-input nand gate. |
1 | "74LS258" | 16 | Quad data selector/multiplexer inverter with 3-state outputs. |
1 | "MC14069UB" | 14 | Hex inverter (?) |
1 | "CD14066B" | 14 | CMOS quad bilateral switch. |
Notes:
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Pinout of the Emerson family cartridge port |
Component side of the plug-in cartridge's PC board and the |
(A12) A13 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 D0 D2 D1 NC NC NC GND GND NC -=---=---=---=---=---=---=---=---=---------------=---=---=-- 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 -=---=---=---=---=---=---=---=---=---=---=---=---=---=---=-- GND +5V A0 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10 A11 A12 (/EN) |
Solder side of the plug-in cartridges but the plastic |
Notes:
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Pinout of the cartridge port |
Component side of the plug-in cartridges' PC boards. Rear side of
the cart. |
|
Solder side of the plug-in cartridges. Label side of the cart. |
Notes:
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Pinout of the cartridge port |
Solder side of the plug-in cartridges' PC boards. Rear side of the cart. |
|
Component side of the plug-in cartridges. Label side of the cart. |
Technical notes:
Historical notes:
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Pinout of the cartridge port |
Solder side of the plug-in cartridges. Rear side of the cart. |
|
Component side of the plug-in cartridges' PC boards. Label side of the cart. |
Notes:
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Pinout of the 2650A microprocessor |
__________ __________ | \__/ | --> SENSE | 1 40 | FLAG --> <-- A12 | 2 39 | Vcc <-- A11 | 3 38 | CLOCK <-- <-- A10 | 4 37 | /PAUSE <-- <-- A9 | 5 36 | /OPACK <-- <-- A8 | 6 35 | RUN../WAIT --> <-- A7 | 7 Signetics 34 | INTACK --> <-- A6 | 8 2650A 33 | D0 <--> <-- A5 | 9 micro- 32 | D1 <--> <-- A4 | 10 processor 31 | D2 <--> <-- A3 | 11 30 | D3 <--> <-- A2 | 12 29 | D4 <--> <-- A1 | 13 28 | D5 <--> <-- A0 | 14 27 | D6 <--> --> /ADREN | 15 26 | D7 <--> --> RESET | 16 25 | /DBUSEN <-- --> /INTREQ | 17 24 | OPREQ --> <-- A14-D../C | 18 23 | R../W --> <-- A13-E../NE | 19 22 | WRP --> <-- M../IO | 20 21 | GND |________________________| |
Notes:
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An article from the "Wall Street Journal" business
newspaper |
---|
Complete article text: "Emerson Radio Corp. says it plans to market a foreign-made game console and 20 game cartridges under the name of Arcadia 2001 by Emerson, which are expected to generate about $15 million in revenue between July 1 and December 31... It declined to identify the maker of the video console and games". |
Added commentary: Ward wishes to thank Jonathan H. Davidson for researching this subject, and finding such an important bit of news. Jonathan further told Ward that ... "The next mention of Emerson Radio Corp. in the WSJ (other than things like stock splits and dividends) occurs June 11, 1985 (p. 16, col.1). This article discusses the then current product line and makes absolutely no mention of the (apparently brief) foray into the video game business." |
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An article from "Computer and Video Games" |
|
Article as written |
Ward's added commentary |
---|---|
"Keep your eyes open for a new home game centre dedicated to arcade games. Called the Hanimex Home Arcade Centre it will be on sale at the end of June. | Note the system's launch date matches the date this magazine came out. Assuming industry standard publishing delays of about three months, that would mean this article was originally written on or about March of 1982. Note also that the announcement by Emerson came three months after this Hanimex press release. |
"Swindon-based Hanimex is launching its new system with a total of 17 games cartridges, six of which are versions of money-spinning arcade favourites. | Note that it appears that Hanimex was the maker of this system, and not Emerson at all. Details are not clear yet, but Emerson may have been just one of many licensees? Note also that from the start, arcade games were a big part of the maker's marketing plans. |
"The Home Arcade incorporates the handsets used by the Mattel Intellivision centre. These differ from the conventional hand controllers because they come with a circular disc with which you make your maneuvers. Others use a joystick device. | Self-explanatory. |
"Retailing at around 89 pounds Home Arcade follows in the footsteps of Hanimex's other video games centre, the Interton VC4000. | It took literally years before we were able to track down enough other independent facts to make any real sense of this statement. Olivier Boisseau's Old-Computers.Com web site was the first big help Ward located... he reported that this was a console group that was similar to the Arcadia 2001 console group in terms of its technology, but with one critical difference. The Signetics 2636 audio/visual co-processor chip used to power the Interton-VC4000 group was an older model than the Signetics 2637 chip used in the Arcadia 2001 console group. No one knew for certain what that meant. Historians and collectors debated the issue of whether or not these two groups were actually ROM-compatible with one another for quite some time, with no way to prove if it was or was not. (See this for more info on what appears to be the answer.) |
"According to Hanimex the new centre is based on a more advanced system than the Interton. | Our loosely-knit group of I'net historians and collectors has confirmed this. The more powerful audio/visual co-processor found in the Arcadia group of consoles allowed new games to be more complex than were possible on the Interton... although it appears some games were ported over to take advantage of the existing library. |
"Software for Home Arcade springs initially from a Hanimex team who then pass it on to an American sub-contractor which designs and writes each program. | This is still proving elusive to find more solid info on. The company name "UA Limited" is listed on many Arcadia console group cart labels, as the people that wrote most of the Arcadia's games. We thought they only did software coding until Ward noted that "UAL" was permanently etched into the main circuit boards of the Arcadia. We even located a programmer's name, hidden within the ROM images of games from both the Interton and Arcadia groups. (Andrew Choi or Choi Andrew.) We think he worked for UA in some capacity since he worked on some games copyrighted by them. His text messages indicate that he worked out of Hong Kong during the Interton days. Finding out much more than this has proven to be incredibly difficult to date. |
"The manufacturing process is taking place at the firm's Swindon factory. | We presume Swindon is located in the UK? |
"Scheduled for launch in June are versions of Phoenix, Defender, Crazy Climber, Pac-Man, Galactica and Berzerk. | All of which were actually made early on, despite what collectors
initially thought when heavy-duty research had begun on this system. Some
of these games had to be altered to become less obvious clones, over time,
but they were all written early on as just what the company had promised
here.
|
"Plans are afoot to continue bringing out new games cartridges for the new game centre which will be of an equally (high) standard and meet public demand. | Their plans went awry when Atari began sueing its competitors, after it bought up exclusive licenses to various arcade games. Companies like ColecoVision also began licensing the more popular arcade games, leaving little but the most obscure arcade titles available for licensing. In the latter days of this system, the makers did license quite a few of these obscure arcade titles. |
"Future releases include Centipede, Jungler and Galaga. | Tracking these titles down has been less easy:
|
"At the same time Hanimex will carry on the Interton VC4000." | Self-explanatory, though it is interesting to note that the two systems were essentially competing with one another in the same geographic markets. |
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Atari declares copyright war on Pac-Man rivals
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
ATARI has fired the opening shots in what promises to be a copyright war with far-reaching implications. Commodore has been the first to feel the effects but other companies, including Bug-Byte, A and F Software and Micropower are also involved. Graham Daubney, Atari's software manager, would not comment on his company's actions but issued the following official statement. "Atari International (UK) Inc is at present campaigning against video games which infringe the Pac-Man copyright. The campaign is being pursued to protect the customer against imitations. "As part of the campaign, Atari is applying for an injunction against Commodore Business Machines (UK) Ltd, Jellymonsters. "Atari allege that Jellymonsters is an infringement of their copyright. Atari are pressing for a full hearing as soon as possible and will claim substantial damages." Atari's campaign is being conducted on two fronts. Both the Commodore and Bug-Byte actions concern Vic-20 cassettes. In each case the companies have been instructed to stop sale of the tapes, to surrender all remaining stocks and promotional material to Atari, to pay Atari all revenue gained through their sale and to allow Atari access their businesss records. Commodore is not prepared to comment on the situation at present. A spokesman for the company would only say: "We are aware of the Atari claim." Bug-Byte, however, has agreed to abide by the first two of Atari's instructions. It has stopped all sale of its Vic-Men program and has surrendered all remaining stocks and promotional material to Atari. "We had the choice of doing what we did or getting involved in a very expensive legal battle that could have cost tens of thousands of pounds," said Bug-Byte's managing director, Tony Baden. "We do not agree that they have got copyright except on the Pac-Man program listing - and all our listings are completely different," he told Popular Computing Weekly. "There is no way that we can afford to stand up against a company the size of Atari, but it obviously needs something like this to go to court to sort out the position. "In the long term I suppose it will be good for the industry. The arcade situation is becoming stale at the moment and it will force companies to think up original games. "Atari's action has not affected us at all. Admittedly Vic-Men was one of our most successfull games but we will survive." In the other series of moves A and F Software and Micropower have received instructions to send copies of certain programs to Atari for inspection. Mike Fitzgerald, managing director of A and F Software explained: "The letter from Atari requested us to send them a copy of our Polecat program for the Acorn Atom to look at and play. If they decided that the program is not an infringement then Atari would send us the recommended retail price of the cassette. "We have no intention of sending them a copy of Polecat. It does not, in our view, infringe the Atari copyright. If Atari wish, they are quite welcome to call and we will demonstrate the program. "Whatever happens, we are not removing our program Polecat from the market and it will need a court order for us to do so. "A and F fully intend to go ahead and develop the Polecat program for any computer we choose. "We believe that the program does not infringe Atari copyright either in machinecode or visual image." Micropower has now received three letters similar to that received by A and F, relating not only to alleged infringements of the Pac-Man copyrights but also that of another Atari game, Centipede. Managing director, Bob Simpson, said: "It is unlikely that we shall be supplying copies of any of our games. We have over 150 games on sale and if we start sending out tapes in this way, where will it all end? "There is no doubt, though, that any injunction taken out against us would be quite damaging, bearing in mind that the average life of a computer game is at most three or four months." |
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Emerson unveils Arcadia 2001 |
|
Full article as originally written | Ward's added commentary |
---|---|
"Emerson Radio expects to have a new videogame system, along with 20 game cartridges, in the stores in time for the holiday gift-giving season this year. | Note that this implies delays had set in... the original plan was to have 20 games ready to be sold by July 1st. That would presumably have been about when this article was originally written, give or take... and yet they were saying they needed almost half a year to prepare? |
Dubbed Arcadia 2001, the new machine has a number of desirable features including a 12-volt system to make it usable in trailers, campers, cars and boats, cable-ready connections and a controller that easily switches from an Intellivision-style direction disk to the more traditional joystick. Another nice touch is a power on-off light, to prevent home arcaders from accidentally leaving the system going after a play session. | All of which pretty much ignores whether or not the system is any good, from the game player's perspective. Sounds like this was simply a press release, and that the magazine didn't actually get to see this system in action? Even so, you would hope that Emerson could come up with a better selling point than having a "power-on" light included? |
Arcadia 2001 will get heavy software support from the company, promises Emerson's senior vice president of marketing Sonny Knazick. | Uh-huh. Emerson actually ended up totally abandoning the game system, but other companies did go on to write more software on their own... overseas, in 1983. |
There will be 30 cartridges for the system by the end of this year, with another 20 scheduled to appear in 1983. | Ahem... what's a polite way to say "bulls**t" while laughing so hard that your sides hurt? Maybe worldwide, fifty-plus titles were eventually made? Just barely, and only if you count MPT-03 and Palladium games as well? |
Also planned for next year is an even more advanced version of the Arcadia 2001, though no details of this second generation unit are available at the present time." | Which essentially boils down to an admission that they realized at this point that the system was not going to be able to hold its own, against its competitors. No more information on this newer game system has ever surfaced. |
Three screen shots accompanied the article. They are labeled as Football, Soccer and Cat Trax. Close inspection of these screen shots shows that they are not the real thing. The colors are not correct on Football; the game itself had more variation than the nearly-monochrome screenshot shows. Soccer is closer, but at least one player is missing from the field in the screenshot. Cat Trax is nothing of the kind; the supposed screenshot looks exactly like a photo-negative of the "Crazy Gobbler" opening maze, but with the name "Gobbler" erased from the top of the screen. I could overlook the first two, chalking it up to low tech magazine creation at the time. However, the totally faked screenshot of Cat Trax is hard to ignore. I think they were still trying to push arcade games they couldn't really sell. To add insult to injury, right below this article was an article that said some other company was calling itself Arcadia, and making Atari 2600 VCS games on cassette tape, to play through what became the Starpath Supercharger. (In other words, not even their name was very original?) |
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Emerson Arcadia 2001 - A Gamer's
Evaluation |
|
Article as originally written | Ward's added commentary |
---|---|
"A wise man once said, 'Good things come in small packages.' Whoever coined this adage certainly wasn't thinking about Emerson's new Arcadia 2001 videogame system, | Is it just me or did the reviewer just insult the machine, twice? The "wise man" reference could mean that the buyer should beware? The rest sounds like a warning, too? |
but the phrase sure fits, anyway. | Added against reviewer's wishes? |
This unit, which looks something like the Intellivision's baby brother, has got to be the cutest system around. The carton in which the Arcadia 2001 comes packed, hardly looks big enough to hold a handful of cartridges. | Is this another set of mild insults or even warnings to potential buyers? I don't see parents rushing out to buy this system, on these points? |
Nonetheless, the console packs the power of a senior programmable video game machine. | Is this another hidden insult? By "senior" does he mean to imply that the system is to be thought of as both old and very outdated? I can't think of any other time that I have heard any person use that term to describe any other video game system? Can you? |
Though it's hard to know if the designers considered it in this light, the Arcadia owns the distinction of being the world's first portable videogame system. Besides its diminutive size, always handy in a take-along, the 2001 is capable of operating off of any 12 volt DC power source. This includes auto batteries of the type used in boats and campers, a video power belt or the battery pack of a portable TV. Just think, once Watchman-size color television becomes a reality, you'll be able to fit a complete fun factory into a briefcase! | Add a multi-cart to it, and you're all set! |
Flanking the central cartridge slot on the Arcadia 2001 console are two Intellivision look-alike controllers. Just below the cartridge slot is the on/off switch and buttons for reset, game select, option select, and start. A 'power on' LED completes the picture. | Self-explanatory. |
Along the back panel are found conveniently located jacks for two optional controllers, a 12 volt DC power source, two hard-wired coil cords for the built-in controllers and a channel 3 / channel 4 selector switch. | The optional controllers never made an appearance, to my knowledge? (They are only wired up for single paddle controllers, such as Pong, and nothing more.) |
The big news about the system, however, is its extremely high memory capacity. The unit contains 28K of RAM, | This is actually a lie. This system actually had NOTHING like 28k of RAM ... it had one kilobyte, not 28. To an expert, this claimed number does not even make any sense. All digital computers and video game systems work on binary principles; everything has to be based on powers of two. A claim of 32k would have made more sense. A claim of 24k is still plausible. But 28k? Sorry, you're lying, badly! |
which makes it the second (Colecovision has 48K) smartest videogame system around. | I am sure this reviewer could and did figure out he was being lied to? Why else would he imply that you should compare this system's games to the ColecoVision system? |
All this power is great if it is used properly, | Which implies it was not used well, from what he could see. |
but unfortunately the only six games available for testing at the time of this writing | Indicating there were still serious delays in getting ready for market. Emerson had claimed 30 games would be ready by the end of the year, and they only had six ready for review in what I am guessing was then August? (Lead times.) |
used more than 8K of memory. | How could this reviewer know exactly how much ROM memory was in each cart, but he had no clue how much RAM memory was really in the system? I suspect he did know in both cases, but had to print the manufacturer's claim. |
The controllers are almost virtual twins of those found on Intellivision. There are 12 buttons on the keyboard, two firing buttons (Mattel has four) and a disk controller. The latter features a long-awaited innovation, screw-in joystick. If you like the disks you've got em, and if you crave a joystick it's there in the box just waiting for you. | Self-explanatory. |
Mylar overlays come with each game, as needed, and both controllers fit neatly into the console when play is completed, though the cords dangle. | Self-explanatory, but note that not every game came with overlays. |
One glaring omission is that the system does not contain circuitry to either blank the picture after two minutes of non-play or to vary the colors or intensity of the on-screen image. When questioned about this lack of TV protection circuitry, Emerson told EG that it is looking into the situation, but that it feels such protection isn't needed. Emerson may be right, but the company is going to have a hard time convincing potential buyers of this. | Some of the later games do cycle or change their colors, if you plug them in but you don't play them for awhile. But note that most of the overseas 1983 titles were written after Emerson had abandoned the market. |
Let's take a closer look at some of the games: The great American pastime Baseball is done justice by way of one delightful innovation in the 2001's diamond program. When a ball is hit to the outfield, a second screen appears which shows an outline of the outfield and the single player involved. This provides a much better chance for the outfielder to catch and field a ball than other home simulations. After the player gets the ball, the screen reverts to normal and the coach can direct the fielder to throw to any baseman including the catcher. With a full nine-player team represented and control of pitching, hitting and running, managers can make realistic plays. The game is not quite as detailed as the award-winning Intellivision cartridge but it is close - and an excellent baseball game in its own right. It is also easy to learn and to master, giving it a leg up on most of its competition. This reviewer liked 2001 Baseball and looks forward to other sports simulations from this newcomer on the block. | Self-explanatory. |
Breakaway, the 2001 approach to wall-bashing is nothing more than adequate. The cartridge is innovative in that it allows varying of the paddle speed and includes a vertical version of the game, but the overall effect was unimpressive. As EG tested an early version of the game and we were told later versions would be much improved, it isn't worth detailing the problems. Suffice that paddle speed was much too pokey, the vertical versions had to be played with the joystick moving diagonally, and overall control was anything but smooth. Judging from the other games we previewed, we could only wish for the improved version to come our way. We have no doubt that Emerson can do a much better job than with this first edition of Breakaway. It really shouldn't have broken away from Emerson at all. | You gotta love that zinger in the last sentence? Ouch! What may not be entirely self-evident now is that the arcade game "Breakout" was an unofficial benchmark test for game systems that dated from the late 1970's and/or early 1980's. The idea that this system might not be able to live up to even some relatively simple expectations, implied the system was probably not worth buying? After all, any system that could not do an advanced Pong variant well, surely could not be expected to really compete with a next generation system like the ColevoVision? (The Apple II was considered by EG to be a dead or dying game machine by the time this review was written -- see page 51 of this same issue for a Freudian slip saying so -- but even it could still do a decent version of Breakout.) |
Cat Trax conversely, is not a game for pussycats, but more of a clever maze-chase. Cat Trax provides three rather than nine lives, as you maneuver your kitty through a maze dodging a trio of hungry dogs. At the same time, the electronic feline must gobble up pieces of catnip and an occasional bone. The bone flashes periodically in the middle of the screen, and if you snatch it, you turn into a dog catcher's van that enables you to race through the maze at a very high speed and capture the offending canines. Once touched, the dogs are placed in the pound for up to 20 seconds of game time. There's a time clock within the doghouse that lets you know just how long you have to grab the catnip before the dogs are released once more. Each time you eat a bone and send the pups to their just reward, less time is awarded to get the job done. The graphics are clever, and the game is generally a great deal of fun. It is one of the few home maze games that offers almost as much fun as the granddaddy of them all, Pac-Man. Cat Trax is a good game and should keep you purring for hours at a time. | Self-explanatory, but note that this is simply a legalized re-write of a game that started out being much closer to the original Pac-Man. The original game would have been much more attractive to the public. |
Sticking within the labyrinth category, there is Jungler. Played in a maze that closely resembles Cat Trax, Jungler pits a gamer's controlled serpent against one driven by the computer. Notice that we didn't say snake because some people just don't like the thought of snakes, much less actually having one in their home, even if it is electronic. Sticking closely to the arcade version, Jungler challenges players to position a serpent so that its lashing tongue can destroy sections of the rural reptile before the same is done to you. Normally, you can only consume sections from the middle and tail of the opposing serpent, but if you pass through the center of the maze when it is flashing, your head turns color and you can shoot head to head. The game is a little slow, and the maze is a little broad, but Jungler is challenging and fun. Its also unique to the system, so if this Jungler is your coin-op fave, here is the only way to the safari. | This review was done after the company had already made their first legally licensed game clone. This indicates that many of the company's early marketing plans had already gone awry, and that they were scrambling to keep up. |
The last of the arcade style games, is Space Attack. A combination Galaxian and Space Invaders, Space Attack pits your horizontal cannon against a field of attacking aliens that stays in formation and fires at you relentlessly. An occasional invader comes down one-to-one to keep things interesting. There are no shields so quick reflexes are key to survival. One of the problems in Space Attack is that each round starts with the cannon somewhere off screen to the right. Until you get used to beginning a round with the joystick pointed dead left, you may think the designers forgot a key graphic - your cannon. Other than that idiosyncrasy, there is a pronounced slowness to the movement of the cannon we found irksome. Again this condition may be corrected by the time the final versions hit the home market. Other than these two small problems, graphics are good and Space Attack may be considered another reasonable version of several very familiar space shoot-em-ups. | Another last-minute legalized re-write, which would appeal less to the public than "the real thing". There is information hidden inside the ROM code, indicating a date of July. It was being reviewed perhaps a month after it was re-written; not very long at all? So much for 30 game titles at the end of the year? |
Capture, an electronic version of Reversi is a delight. In this battle of wits, which can be played against another opponent or the computer, the object of the game is to capture and maintain ownership of the highest number of squares on a grid. You capture a square by placing your piece next to you opponent's piece, on a line or diagonal which also contains another of your pieces. In simpler terms you sandwich your opponents squares with your own pieces. He may then sandwich you in, sort of like putting hands on a baseball bat until no more room is left, and the game goes back and forth until all squares are captured by someone. The game allows you, through its options, to set time limits, change difficulty levels or simply represent two human players. It also keeps a running score and times of each move. Capture is not a speed and reflex game, but rather an intellectual challenge. As such, it's first rate and highly enjoyable. | Self-explanatory. |
We can only wonder what Space Chess will be like since Emerson is obviously quite clever, judging by Capture, at producing electronic board games. | Sounds nice, but kids of the time mainly wanted fast-paced arcade games. I'm sure the mag knew it? |
That's the story of the little videogame system that could. | This sounds to me like a hidden warning that the reviewer didn't really believe much of what he was hearing. Why else call it a story? |
At a list price of $200.00, but with an actual selling price of only half that amount, Arcadia 2001 packs quite a wallop for the buck." | Indicating it had serious problems in the market, even before the system launch had really begun. And it also sounds to me like "don't pay full price for it, cause it won't last long". |
End of document. |