It's Tuesday, so let's relax with a prototype videogame breakdown
June 6, 2017 3:25 PM   Subscribe

 
It was hard to understand some of the game modes. Animated gifs or short movies would really have helped there!
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 5:22 PM on June 6, 2017


I feel like we probably got the better deal out of that particular series of events, in the end. Cool post, though!
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:11 PM on June 6, 2017


I love digital archaeology with a ludic bent.
posted by Samizdata at 8:24 PM on June 6, 2017


Tangentally: has anybody dissected and disassembled 1980s-vintage arcade games? I have been wondering about the architecture of those games: how the work is divided between the multiple CPUs (they usually had 2-3 Z80/68xx-class CPUs), what communication/synchronisation mechanisms are used, whether the different houses (Namco, Taito, &c.) had different architectural approaches or converged on a set of standard practices?
posted by acb at 3:46 AM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


acb: "Tangentally: has anybody dissected and disassembled 1980s-vintage arcade games? I have been wondering about the architecture of those games: how the work is divided between the multiple CPUs "

Tangentially related, but when Sega ported 3D Out Run (a 1988 arcade game) to the Nintendo 3DS, they enhanced the port with new music and new levels, which they implemented directly on top of the original source code, meaning that the modifications could (and did!) run on the original hardware. Complete with new Z80 chiptunes!

M2 (the developer responsible for the port) certainly seem to have developed a fairly comprehensive understanding of the architecture, and also seem to employ at least a few developers who were working on those systems when they were new.
posted by schmod at 12:26 PM on June 7, 2017


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