Atari 400 / 800 / XL / XE - Space Dungeon - Points - 105,885 - Steve Rasmussen

Points
Score Track	https://www.twingalaxies.com/scores.php?scores=17356
Rules	Players must use the game's default settings upon boot-up.
Submission Message	Performed on 04 December 2020 on an Atari 800xl. AtariMax MY-IDE II flashcart is used. Dual SunCom SlikStiks were used. Multiple attempts in video. Record game starts around 8:05. I had this on the 5200 back in the day, it was one of my favorites. The controllers really worked well with game. FInal score.https://www.twingalaxies.com/images/...2a77a0249f.jpg

I just made a post about this particular version in another thread:

https://www.twingalaxies.com/admin-s...8#comment64084

Space Dungeon was never released for the Atari 800 computers. What you're playing is a pirate version of the 5200 cartridge.

I saw that post, thanks for the heads up. This was a favorite of mine back in the day, I didn't know it was converted to the Atari eight bit.

I played the game specified by the track.

Hi scott,
not understanding if you're just providing interesting information, or if you're suggesting this is cause for reject. If there is no official version then i'm not sure we can determine which version is prefered. i guess we can try to find intent by figuring out what existed when duncan submitted to this, but lets be blunt, tom had a lot of tracks with mystery prototypes only he had and noone else. it seems pretty clear to me the "spirit" of this tracks rules was 'lets give tom any unfair advantage we can so the ref can have a higher world record count than hes capable of in fair competiton" and thats a spirit i refuse to partake in. If tom wanted his score protected then he should've put in the effort with better rules to make more clear what it was about. otherwise, too bad so sad his score goes down.


i'm inclined to accept unless theres something further i'm missing

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scott S.

I just made a post about this particular version in another thread:

https://www.twingalaxies.com/admin-s...8#comment64084

Space Dungeon was never released for the Atari 800 computers. What you're playing is a pirate version of the 5200 cartridge.

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I posted this thread in the Scoreboard Error Wall post as well. It's a discussion about the tracking of Space Dungeon on XE/XL given its origins. There's a reference to a possible for fulsome discussion in the Referee Forum:

https://www.twingalaxies.com/showthr...ions-for-XL-XE

That said, wouldn't we treat this track like many of the homebrew releases for 8-bit consoles? As long as people can compete with the same ROM on the XL/XE, I think it would be fair game?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Evener

I posted this thread in the Scoreboard Error Wall post as well. It's a discussion about the tracking of Space Dungeon on XE/XL given its origins. There's a reference to a possible for fulsome discussion in the Referee Forum:

https://www.twingalaxies.com/showthr...ions-for-XL-XE

That said, wouldn't we treat this track like many of the homebrew releases for 8-bit consoles? As long as people can compete with the same ROM on the XL/XE, I think it would be fair game?

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its interesting part of tom's logic is that if the rom is ok on the emu track then it should be ok on the ntsc track. I get that logic. And also they're simultaneously talking about 3 games so its possible he wasnt specfiically meaning this one so he may not have made a logic flaw, but i think this game not having any emu tracks for it really shoots down the logic. i suppose its possible an emu track used to exist and was wiped out?

I just read that 2006 thread. The versions of Qix, Centipede, and Battlezone for the 5200 and 8-bit computers is completely different versions, so the differences are far beyond bright or dark colors (and Battlezone wasn't released for either).

As for how unofficial versions like Space Dungeon should be treated, that's up to TG. If TG wants to track them, they should note the originals of them, but that sets a precedent to track ALL pirate versions, doesn't it? Calling Space Dungeon for the 8-bit computers a "homebrew" isn't correct but it's not a homebrew, it's a pirate version; someone literally stole the game and hacked the code so that it would run on the computers. In the case of 5200 Space Dungeon, the game was designed specifically to use TWO joysticks (one for moving and one for firing) and included a special bracket to hold both controllers. The pirate version does still support using 2 controllers, but it's also been hacked so that you can use one joystick (if you hold the fire button down, the joystick controls which direction you can fire in, but you can only either fire or move. You can't do both at the same time). So you can't treat the 5200 version and the pirate version as the same because the pirate version is fundamentally different. IMO, TG shouldn't track pirate versions or hacked versions. I'm not in favor of them tracking prototype, either, because with most of them, they're not finished versions of code - they're incomplete and often full of bugs and glitches.

Thanks for clarifying. I guess I’m a bit neutral on the pirate issue given the traditional disclaimers associated when you load a ROM in MAME and the point that several home brews on the ColecoVision front are ports from other systems that might run afoul of copyright in the same way that Space Dungeon does.

With MAME, the ROMs are exact copies of the originals. I've used ROMs from MAME to repair many an arcade board. Besides, MAME itself isn't illegal. Back in the 1980s, there were illegal copies of games floating around for most systems. Being most of the games incorporated some sort of protection (to prevent most people from using basic methods to copy them), the games had to be 'cracked' (i.e. the protection had to either be removed or circumvented by 'hacking' the code). Depending on which company was behind the game, the protection could either be simple or complex, and the more complex it was, the more effort it required to crack it. Well known hackers at the time would often put their name in the code somewhere (and usually their alias name on the screen) for bragging rights. "Glenn the 5200 man" (real name Glenn Botts - https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/anti...n-the-5200-man) was one of the most well-known among Atari owners). MAME is all about not only having original/verified ROMs but in offering accurate emulation of them, so you can't really compare MAME to the 'warez' community.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Snowflake

Hi scott,
not understanding if you're just providing interesting information, or if you're suggesting this is cause for reject. If there is no official version then i'm not sure we can determine which version is prefered. i guess we can try to find intent by figuring out what existed when duncan submitted to this, but lets be blunt, tom had a lot of tracks with mystery prototypes only he had and noone else. it seems pretty clear to me the "spirit" of this tracks rules was 'lets give tom any unfair advantage we can so the ref can have a higher world record count than hes capable of in fair competiton" and thats a spirit i refuse to partake in. If tom wanted his score protected then he should've put in the effort with better rules to make more clear what it was about. otherwise, too bad so sad his score goes down.


i'm inclined to accept unless theres something further i'm missing

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I'm not for tracking pirate versions, but if TG chooses to continue doing so, they should note them as such.

As for Tom Duncan, I haven't looked too deeply into his database records here, but I just came across this Atari 8-bit computer entry for "Asteroids 2"
https://www.twingalaxies.com/game/as...-400-800-xl-xe

Now, Atari never released "Asteroids 2" for that system, or any other Atari system. I'm guessing this track is for this version - "Asteroids II":
https://archive.org/details/a8b_Aste...req_OSb_k_file
http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari...ds-ii_353.html

But without video or even a screenshot, I don't know for sure. I can't find any info about the company Incubus Software or the programmer K. McNichol, but by all appearances, this is a homebrew effort.