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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Open-source browser port of Pitfall from the Atari 2600
anthk wrote 13 hours 7 min ago:
Port it to SDL2.
kleiba wrote 16 hours 7 min ago:
I played Pitall 2 on the C64 and will never forget the background music
as long as I live.
mopenstein wrote 13 hours 30 min ago:
The original Pitfall did not have a continuously scrolly playfield.
When you got to the far left or right, a new screen was displayed
along with every element on that screen (like barrels).
The creator of this version probably chose to have the barrels fade
in to accommodate this.
gus_massa wrote 12 hours 24 min ago:
Did you intend to reply to [1] ?
URI [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42791024
kleiba wrote 16 hours 7 min ago:
I notice that the rolling barrels/logs sometimes fade out in what looks
like alpha blending. Was that really possible on an Atari 2600??
plastic3169 wrote 18 hours 57 min ago:
Enjoyed this GDC presentation about the developement and working with
the original hardware
URI [1]: https://youtu.be/MBT1OK6VAIU
MR4D wrote 19 hours 52 min ago:
Mobile controls!!!!!!
Itâs actually playable on my iPhone. Gotta love that!
Edit: I still suck at it just as much as I did back on the old 2600,
but itâs still fun.
pryelluw wrote 20 hours 1 min ago:
This is really well done. Took me back to the good old coleco days. The
controls on mobile are well done.
guidedlight wrote 20 hours 50 min ago:
Such an incredible game.
Iâm amazed what the Atari 2600 was capable of with 2 player sprites,
2 missile sprites, a ball sprite, 128 bytes of memory, no buffer, and a
1.19 MHz CPU.
Because of what talented developers (like David Crane) could deliver,
the console had an incredible 15 year lifespan (longer than the NES).
cmiller1 wrote 12 hours 51 min ago:
According to Wikipedia the NES had a lifespan of 20 years.
fredoralive wrote 11 hours 41 min ago:
Possibly a difference in definition of lifespan, I suspect the 2600
one is using âfirst game released to last new game releasedâ,
whilst the NES / Famicom is âhardware available for purchaseâ,
as Nintendo Japan didnât officially discontinue the AV Famicom
until circa 2003, even though the last new game was released around
1994.
BobbyTables2 wrote 21 hours 58 min ago:
How is the original source available? Wouldnât Activision still hold
the copyright ?
siev wrote 10 hours 28 min ago:
Most of the popular games in the 2600's library have been
disassembled and reverse engineered over the years.[1]
As for Activision, they pretty much don't really care about a bunch
of hobbyists tearing apart their 40+ year old piece of software.
URI [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230404054728/http://www.bjars....
mopenstein wrote 13 hours 23 min ago:
Distella is a disassembler specifically for the Atari 2600. Since its
creation, it has been modified to disassemble Atari 7800 code as
well. It creates source code that is usually recompilable without any
human intervention. It examines the code and performs some basic
tracing routines which allow it to accurately distinguish data from
code.
URI [1]: https://github.com/johnkharvey/distella
dylan604 wrote 22 hours 22 min ago:
So, are you a go left or go right type of player?
Edit: Ugh, I had a weird quirk where the sound of getting hit by a log
would not stop sounding. Even tried hitting another log hoping it would
reset, but nope. Cmd-R was the only solve
meatfighter wrote 9 hours 46 min ago:
If you stand on a stationary log and jump, it gets stuck in that
state.
Thanks for reporting this bug. I'll patch this when I get a chance.
Until I patch this, if it happens again, run over a stationary log to
unglitch it.
pigeons wrote 22 hours 26 min ago:
This was my favorite game.
robterrell wrote 23 hours 51 min ago:
Nice. I appreciate that it's a loving recreation and not an emulator.
dlachausse wrote 1 day ago:
I got an Atari Gamestation Pro for Christmas and it just amazes me how
well a lot of those old 2600 games hold up. My kids have had a blast
playing Pong, Warlords, Bowling, and Outlaws with me.
URI [1]: https://myarcade.com/products/atari-gamestation-pro
orionblastar wrote 1 day ago:
I remember playing this on the spare B&W TV with no color. My father
bought a new color TV and we got the old one for the Atari 2600 and it
was like baller status.
dylan604 wrote 22 hours 25 min ago:
I grew up with an Atari 2600 that was connected to a small color TV.
Eventually, that same TV was used with the NES, but it wasn't until
the NES that I learned that TV had a serious flaw. The bezel on the
TV actually covered up part of the image so that I was unable to see
the edges of some games. I learned this playing Metal Gear and was
just utterly stuck. I wound up buying a magazine with hints for the
game, and started comparing the screen grabs in the 'zine to what I
could see. It wasn't until quite some time later that I asked someone
and they told me about overscan/underscan. I took the TV to some
repair place, and they opened it up and adjusted it (there was no
switch to enable underscan).
The things kids today will never have to endure /s
everseason wrote 11 hours 42 min ago:
Ha, I too had the pleasure of playing Metal Gear on an old CRT that
had a similar bezel that covered the sides of the screen. I too
had the pleasure of going crazy trying to figure out what to do.
Good times.
dylan604 wrote 6 hours 5 min ago:
did you continue playing after realizing this? I realized that if
I punched at the edges, the sound was different if there was a
door. Then it was just a matter of finding which card would open
the door.
everseason wrote 1 hour 42 min ago:
It was my cousins' game so we were playing it at his house to
start with. Eventually he came over to spend the night at my
house and I had a different TV that we could see the edges of
the screen.
DidYaWipe wrote 23 hours 37 min ago:
I had an Atari computer, and for years it was hooked up to a
black-&-white TV. I got a job in a computer store and bought the
legendary Commodore 1702 (which I still have).
It was like looking at candy. I remember some games in particular
(especially from Synapse) looking just brilliant.
GladHatter wrote 17 hours 6 min ago:
"Looking at candy" is such a good description of Synapse games on
the 1702. I had Zaxxon, Necromancer, and Blue Max. Many Access
Software titles were beautiful too (Beach Head, Raid Over
Moscow,etc). Fun times!
DidYaWipe wrote 6 hours 23 min ago:
Yeah, Necromancer! I blanked on the name, but that was the one I
was thinking of.
But the all-time winner in my book for artistic cleverness AND
playability was Alley Cat.
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