Arcade Game with VIC-6560!

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gklinger
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Arcade Game with VIC-6560!

Post by gklinger »

Wasn't really sure where to post this. Other Systems? Games? Anyway...

Over at Lemon, Pete Rittwage of the C64 Preservation Project mentioned that were an arcade game called Attack UFO (1980, Ryoto Electric Co.) which used the VIC-1 chip. The game info states, "Game is running on VIC6560 - like chip MOS6560, with few changes in the internal structure". I had never heard of the game so I downloaded it and tried it out. It's a Space Invaders knock-off, and not a particularly good one, but the fact that it uses the VIC-1 makes it worthy of mention.

Anyone know of any others?
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ral-clan
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Post by ral-clan »

Wow, great! I knew that they had DESIGNED the VIC I chip to sell to video game makers - but I thought it was rejected by video game makers and as a result this caused Commodore to make the VIC-20 to have a use for the design.

It's a direct Space Invaders clone but it doesn't look too bad.
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Post by PaulQ »

It's possible that this game served as a "Proof of concept."
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ral-clan
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Post by ral-clan »

I can't see a ROM download link on that page. Is there a place to download the ROM for MAME?
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Victragic
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Post by Victragic »

That's a huge scoop, gklinger!

1980.. would be fair to say that the Vic was already on the cards when this one was released..?

I wonder what differed between MOS 6560 and VIC 6560.. the specs mention a 16 colour palette..
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gklinger
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Post by gklinger »

ral-clan wrote:I can't see a ROM download link on that page. Is there a place to download the ROM for MAME?
MAMEWorld's mandate is to provide information rather than ROMs. I suspect they're trying to avoid legal hassles. Me, I don't much care so I've made the ROM available here. Let me know what you think. I'm particularly curious as to how people feel it compares to similar VIC games.
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eslapion
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Post by eslapion »

Victragic wrote:... I wonder what differed between MOS 6560 and VIC 6560.. the specs mention a 16 colour palette..
The difference is quite simple... the VIC 6560 does not exist... VIC is just a nickname.

Open up your VIC-20, what does it say on the video chip? MOS 6560 ... not VIC!
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Victragic
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Post by Victragic »

That's an okay Space Invaders game, but I think Avenger is still more accurate.

I recall reading about the space invaders arcade machine and how if you counted the number of missiles you fired, you could score 300 points on the UFO every time.

I tried it out on Avenger, and was amazed that it worked perfectly!
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ral-clan
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Post by ral-clan »

That's the awesome thing about avenger. I always say that it is the most accurate port of Space Invaders (arcade) released for a home system at the time. The invader graphics look to be bit for bit copies of the arcade graphics.

The only difference is the size and aspect ratio of the graphics due to the VICs lower resolution screen.

Heck, even the "official" port to the Atari 2600 looked completely different than the arcade version. The invaders, shields and missile base were totally changed. Even the "marching" music was changed. I never understood why programmers in the early 80s did this --- they got an official license to port an arcade game, then they take artistic license and "improve" or change the graphics to their liking. Atari 2600 Pac Man is one example of this. Brown and Blue maze? Pac Man has eyes now? The bonus is a brown and yellow square? There is no reason why the Atari 2600 couldn't have done much more accurate versions of these games. But I guess in the early days, the programmer's couldn't resist changing things.
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eslapion
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Post by eslapion »

ral-clan wrote:...But I guess in the early days, the programmer's couldn't resist changing things.
Or perhaps making the game in a way that took much less time to program and chuck out the door onto the store shelves. :wink:
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Victragic
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Post by Victragic »

A bit of both, I think, and I wonder how many programmers had to make games 'sight unseen' because they didn't have access to the arcade machines.

Not like running a game on MAME where you can pause it, copy the graphics, turn on cheats...
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Post by carlsson »

Unless you didn't notice, the VIC-20 also has a 16 colour palette. It is just limited so border and foreground colour must be one of the first 8. The background and one auxillary colour (in multi colour mode) can be any of the 16.

The aspect ratio probably depends on the screen. You can tweak many monitors to shrink or expand pixels both horizontally and vertically, so an arcade game based on the 6560 may use a monitor that shrinks pixels differently from the standard setting on your TV.
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orion70
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Post by orion70 »

carlsson wrote:The aspect ratio probably depends on the screen. You can tweak many monitors to shrink or expand pixels both horizontally and vertically, so an arcade game based on the 6560 may use a monitor that shrinks pixels differently from the standard setting on your TV.
As a curiosity, you can shrink and expand pixels with Photoshop:

Attack UFO:

Image

VIC Avenger:

Image

Expanded and compared:

Image

As you can see, they're not so different, except from the number of aliens per row (11 in the arcade, 10 in the VIC version). Original Space Invaders also had 11 aliens:

Image

So we've found that VIC Avenger is NOT philologically perfect :wink:
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ral-clan
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Post by ral-clan »

I wonder if it would be possible to get ATTACK UFO running on a VIC-20! Does the original arcade machine use a 6502 microprocessor as well?

Hey, Orion70, can you adjust the Avenger and Arcade Space Invaders screens so that things are roughly the same aspect (i.e. the ships are the same size in both)? Would be interesting to see the two side by side in comparison at the same aspect ratio.
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orion70
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Post by orion70 »

Voilà- the similarities are impressive :!: (but with only 10 aliens - I wonder why...)

Image
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