Very cool post!
Tim's history is very detailed, and *very* interesting reading! His memory of
details is great! (I'm glad *someone* was paying attention to what was going
on!)
Tim's memory of Cinematronics agrees with Scott Boden's and my ex-Cinematronics
technician friend's memory! They've always claimed that Tim designed Star
Castle (with some help from Scott) and that it was written by Scott.
Another interesting point is his recollection of Dennis. I believe Dennis was
the guy my ex-tech friend was telling me about that was the first to reverse
engineer the instruction set. When Tim says Larry left them with nothing, he
mean's nothing! According to Scott (Bill Paul talked to him, not me) and the
ex-tech (he doesn't want his name mentioned for whatever reason), Dennis (I'm
pretty sure it was Dennis) had to go back and reverse engineer the instruction
set, to create the macros, that allowed new games to be written.
I'm pretty sure Bill got in touch with Dennis, but by this time neither Dennis
nor Scott had any documentation on the instruction set, so I had to reverse
engineer them for yet a third time. (Paul and Kurt being the second to do so!)
Another small side point: Scott did manage to get his name in at least one set
of ROMs, a dump of War of the World ROMs contains:
(C) 1981CINEMATRONICS INCWAR OFTHE WORLDSBY SCOTT BODEN 1981
Cool eh?
To be fair to Dan (who I know as well as you guys do since you've read all the
same email I have), while Dan (somewhat!) exaggerates his claim of coming up
with the idea and design for Star Castle, he didn't really claim to write it, in
fact knows nothing about what happened to anything he worked on after he left
Vectorbeam, he mostly claims to have come up with some rotating bricks.
And just to give him a voice he doesn't have here (I'm sure he's not a
subscriber to Vectorlist) here's a few comments on how I read what Dan was
trying to say...
On Tue, 25 May 99 21:27:23 -0500, James Hague <jhague@dadgum.com> wrote:
>>When Larry sold VB, for 2 million dollars, Cinematronics said
>>they would keep me on as a programmer, but it was a big let
>>down for me at the time after helping make VB a winning
>>company and hoping for better.
>
>This sentence about leaving Vectorbeam is especially peculiar. The 2
>million dollar purchase price was a fire sale. Larry Rosenthal had to
>have put at least that much into the physical plant alone. Given that the
>sale of 2,000 games (a number Speed Freak should have been able to reach)
>would equal that amount in net profit, was selling for 2 million a
>tempting offer that couldn't be refused? It's very hard to believe that
>Vectorbeam was a "winning company" based on a sale price of $2,000,000.
>Also, what does Sunday mean by "A big let down" and "hoping for better"?
>Did he expect to be made president or something?
>>There was an electrical tech, Sid, who did all kinds
>>of stuff. Eventually, when Exidy bought Vectorbeam
>>(you knew that, right?), Sid programmed Armor Attack
>>(I think that's what it was called) with a helicopter.
>
>Exidy may have eventually purchased the Vectorbeam facility after
>Cinematronics finished shipping Warrior. This would make some sense,
>given that Exidy licensed the rights to build a sit-down version of
>Tailgunner, Tailgunner II. However, it would have just been the physical
>plant they purchased. Not name, not product. This guy Sid programmed
>Armor Attack, eh? Nice trick since he would have been out of a job in
>1981, when I finished designing and programming that game.
>
>>In the final summer I also had a summer student (CS major from Berkeley)
>>working for me. He went back to school.
>
>So, now, was Dan Sunday the only programmer at Vectorbeam as he claims,
>or did he have help from this guy Sid, or maybe this summer student? I'm
>getting petty now, but if Sunday is going to make claims as outrageous as
>these, he had better get his story straight.
His comment on "Sid" and Armor Attack, was about something he believed to have
happened after he'd left the arcade business. Dan left Vectorbeam when Larry
sold it to Cinematronics, Sid (supposedly) stayed around and was there when
Exidy bought the plant, so any memory Dan had of Sid's "career" at that point,
was completely hearsay, and obviously wrong. (Does anyone really believe Exidy
(or Sid) wrote Armor Attack? ;^)
I think Dan was really just trying to remember who worked at Vectorbeam at the
time, to fully quote Dan:
>For the record, the max company size was about 80 employees. I don't remember
>many full names, but:
>Gil was the general manager, and ran the company. He put it all together and
>made the place work. He was really upset when Larry dumped us all, and I
>heard that he was trying to sue Larry for some of the profit from the sale.
>There was an electrical tech, Sid, who did all kinds of stuff. Eventually,
>when Exidy bought Vectorbeam (you knew that, right?), Sid programmed Armor
>Attack (I think that's what it was called) with a helicopter.
>In the final summer I also had a summer student (CS major from Berkeley)
>working for me. He went back to school."
I took all that to mean that while Dan was working at Vectorbeam he remembers
Gil, and a guy named Sid that was a electrical tech (at least while Dan worked
there), who he thinks went on to add a helicopter to the game Armor Attack
(obviously wrong).
And that he also had some summer student (who's name he doesn't remember)
working for him, with no mention as to what he did, I assumed he also worked on
hardware (sound boards?), but from this sentence you really couldn't rule out
software, though probably not a significant role.
The key thing I read from that sentence was "When Larry dumped us all" and
"Lawsuit". When Dan said:
>>When Larry sold VB, for 2 million dollars, Cinematronics said
>>they would keep me on as a programmer, but it was a big let
>>down for me at the time after helping make VB a winning
>>company and hoping for better.
I took that to mean: After helping Larry build up Vectorbeam to a company that
he was able to sell for $2,000,000 (a lot of money as far as *Dan* was
concerned!) and got little more than a "Thanks a lot" from Larry, he wanted out
of the gaming business completely. It sounds like he thought he was being
screwed over by Larry, not Cinematronics. (Not unlike the impression Tim has of
Larry.) I didn't get that he was asking for more from Cinematronics, but from
Larry.
I don't believe Dan was as aware of his business surroundings as Tim obviously
was, and knew little of the politics that caught him by surprise with the sale
of Vectorbeam, putting him out of a job with no warning and very little (if any)
concern over his future. It seemed likely Dan *thought* he was working for a
"winning" company. It seems in character for Larry to be telling him how great
they were doing... just before yanking on the carpet.
Dan's memory is certainly a bit cloudy on some things (but then again Tim
couldn't remember how many grids Sundance had). One thing's clear, Tim has
given this a lot more thought than Dan did, and no doubt has the better
recollection, especially as far as the Cinematronics side of things went. Dan
could have no knowledge of what went on in Tim's mind after the takeover, and he
certainly wasn't there while Scott coded up Star Castle.
I published Dan letters, not because Dan "claim's" to have designed Star Castle
(though I didn't figured that would go unnoticed!), but to fill in the hole in
history that was Vectorbeam.
What I really thought was interesting in Dan's letter was the history of Oops!
Up to this point *very* little was known about this game, and from his detailed
recollection of how it came about, it seems pretty clear that he had a lot to do
with that game, and that's where it seems Dan's mind was, writing games -- not
to mention were Larry's mind was!
He also verified the existence of Scramble (and even some weird word game I'm
sure we'll never see!) Pretty cool!
As far as Tim's part in the History of Arcading in general and Cinematronics
specifically, he has little to fear! I don't think anyone doubts his design of
Star Castle (I certainly don't!) -- an all time classic, why else would people
be fighting over the credits? His contributions to the gaming world are right
up there with those programmers at Atari!
And just in case he ever reads this e-mail, to Tim:
Tim! Dude! Sundance is one of the coolest games ever! Back in the 80's if
Tempest was in use, I would turn around and start throwing quarter's in
Sundance. Tempest and Sundance were my two favorite games! (I even went home
and started writing a port to the TRS-80, but the graphics just *sucked* too
badly on the TRaSh-80). Putting Sundance in the same league as Tempest (even if
it's only in my feeble mind) is not a bad thing!
(BTW: It used two 3 x 3 keypads that corresponded to two tic-tac-toe like grids
that you controlled latches on, and a "Nova" fire button. With artwork that
used a font the Partridge Family would have been proud to have painted on the
side of their bus! Very retro!, Very 70's!, Very cool! If you give me some
time to get it out of storage (I'm in the processed of moving) you're more than
welcome to come by and play it again!)
-Zonn
Received on Wed May 26 02:32:15 1999
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