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S4:E10: Atari ST Games the Early Years
S4:E10: Atari ST Games the Early Years In this Episode, we cover the Atari ST, released in 1985 and what we consider to be the best “launch” titles for the system release in 1985 and 86. Of course these are not necessarily Launch Titles as computers rarely have them, but…
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STOS Scramble Port #1: STOS CODE Optimizations
By Jeff D. Fulton Yesterday I posted this video to youtube. It’s a progress report on my Atari ST port of the Arcade game Scramble to the ST using STOS. In the video I list a two optimizations I found to speed up code and rendering, especially in the interpreter,…
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STOS Tutorial #3: VSCODE Plug-in Development Pipeline and MissingLInk Hello World.
By Jeff D. Fulton In this, STOS Tutorial #3, we will expand on what we did in Tutorials #1 and #2 by exploring a different rending method: Using the Missinglink extension to render “pre-rolled” sprites, and set up a simple compile. We are going to utilize the STOSCODERS.COM Visual Studio…
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S4:E9: Charley Chuck Has Been Found Alive!
Charley Chuck has been found! Atari announced recently that there will be a 21st century new console update for the game Food Fight! In this episode we track down Interview with Andrew Marsh of Mega Cat to talk about their plans for the game, and also about what it means…
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S4:E8: The Disappearance Of Charlie Chuck – Remaster
There is new information regarding the whereabouts of one Charlie Chuck, the star of Atari’s 1984 coin-op, Food Fight. We will be revealing what we know and have a special interview in the next episode. But for now, refresh your memories of the full mystery with a remastered version of…
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S4:E7: A Joyous Noise: Adventures With The Pokey Audio Chip
In the 80’s we sold all of our Atari 800 discs and lost all of our youthful programs BASIC programs and creative output forever. Or so we thought. A few weeks ago we discovered a lost “treasure”: an audio tape from 1984 that we never remembered recording of us using…
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Into The Vertical Blank Season 4 Theme Video
This is the brand new 2021, Season 4 theme for the “Into The Vertical Blank: Generation Atari” Podcast. Hear more of Brian’s music here: http://www.briantravisband.com/ Song: Title: Into The Vertical Blank theme Words & music by Brian Travis (c)(p)2021 Taste This Moment Music ASCAP Video produced by Steve and Jeff…
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Album Review: COLOURSØUND II
COLOURSØUND II Review by Steve Fulton and Jeff Fulton We will come out and say it right now: COLOURSØUND II is a dark, challenging and heavy record. It’s obvious that the band was not satisfied with repeating themselves, but instead pushed the boundaries of what a combination of The Alarm…
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S4:E6 Top-10 Atari 400/800 Games Atari Should Remake For The VCS
In this episode we have a great story about the Atari 8 bit computers from Tony Longworth (and also his song “Star Raiders”…we should have just called this the Tony Longworth episode!), some Atari retro news, and a discussion about the Atari 8bit computers games we feel are ripe to…
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Space Raiders 7800 Homebrew Video
I’m not quite ready to share the binary yet, but Space Raiders is a game I started two weeks ago. I was thinking I could use it as the basis for a set of beginner tutorials on 7800 Basic. It started ballooning, and now and it is about 70% complete.…
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Video: Let’s play Atari 8Bit Ninja
Ninja was released by Millennium for the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Arcade, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, ZX Spectrum in 1986, It got mixed reviews, but you really you need to use a real Atari Joystick in emulation to get all of the moves available. Current Atari Mania Stats…
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Video: Let’s play Kid Gloves Atari ST (1990)
Kid Gloves was released by Millennium for the Atari ST and Amiga in 1990, Both version are very similar. I had the ST version on a combo pack import from the UK to the USA in 1990. Not a bad little platformer. It’s very difficult and even with a two…
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Video: Install, Setup and Play GameBaseST 4.0B
Intro The last revision to GameBaseST was done in about 2005. 16 years last, we get an incredible update that really helps show off the depth and breadth of the ST’s library, but also the advances that have been made in emulation, hard disk drivers, and STE upgrades since then.…
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Video: Atari ST Crazy Cars Series
The Titus Crazy Cars series contained three games by the time the 3rd game was released it had morphed from a decent, but flaw simple racer into a true competitor in the first person racing space. Note: Crazy Cars was released in 1988 not 1998. The years have gone by…
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S4:E5 Discovering the Atari 400: Star Raiders, Caverns Of Mars, Miner 2049er
The Atari 400 was a games machine masked as an entry-level computer computer. When it was released in 1979, it could play Atari’s killer-app “Star Raiders” just as well as it’s more serious, older brother the Atari 800. At the same time, the Atari 400 acted as a gateway…
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S4:E4: Rest In Peace Marz
This is not a regular episode. Today we talk about our sister Mari (Marz) who passed away at her home in early April. Marz was our older sister, teacher and protector and also our game playing companion. We talk about grief and how sometimes memories of life events…
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Video: Let’s play Atari 8Bit: X:8 ABBUC Winner 2013
X:8 is a horizonal blaster, probably the best Gradius style game on the 8-bits, with the possible exception of the horizontal levels in Paul Lay’s Atari Blast. It’s great fun and a hand buster, but…auto fire is on Automatically! Download at Fandal’s site. Stats: Year 2013 System: Atari XL/XE/XEGS Type:…
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Video: Let’s Play Atari STE Upgraded Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge (2021)
Lotus STE is an adaptation of the original Lotus 1 game that makes use of the additional hardware in the Atari STE. Put simply, it’s a major graphics and sound upgrade from the original game! New Programming: Thomas, Jonathan [Chicane] New Sound FX and Mixing: Jamie [Junosix] Atari mania Page…
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Atari SA Analysis: Will They Support Or Throttle The Atari Homebrew Community?
Yesterday Atari SA, the holding company that licenses Atari I.P. for stuff like hotels and NFTs, announced a re-organization. You can read the entire press release here: Atari announces the creation of two divisions, Atari Gaming and Atari Blockchain, and a change in Leadership To sum-up the press release, Atari…
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S4:E3: An In-Depth Interview With David Crane, Garry Kitchen, Dan Kitchen from Audacity Games
Last week we caught up with David Crane, Garry Kitchen and Dan Kitchen from Audacity Games to chat about the old Atari days, Activision, Absolute, Skyworks, the tragedy of digital obsolescence, their new venture Audacity games and their spectacular new Atari VCS game, Circus Convoy. See full video version of…
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Unboxing VIP Circus Convoy From Audacity Games: New Atari VCS Game (video)
Enjoying a pleasant morning, as my dark roast Starbucks coffee brews, unboxing the a VIP version of the new Atari VCS game “Circus Convoy” from Audacity Games (Crane, Kitchen and Kitchen). The coffee brewing and unwrapped packages might be considered ASMR, but I’m no expert.
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How The Atari 2600 Almost Killed Me (video)
A few years ago I tried my hand at making an Atari 2600 game. I did not realize how deep I would fall into its’ grasp. Story taken from the Into The Vertical Blank podcast episode S4:E2 Podcasts – Into The Vertical Blank Brickbasher code available here: Brickbasher:How The…
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XEGS Carts that Should Have been Vol 2
Games: Operation Blood, Pondering About Max, Mission Shark, The Brundles Volume 1: https://atomic-temporary-177246833.wpcomstaging.com/2020/11/29/xegs-games-carts-that-should-have-been-if-atari-had-decided-to-continue-vol-1/ When Atari Corp dropped support for all 8bit systems in 1992, they had only produced a couple dozen official game cartridges for the XEGs console. Other companies, Including Atari, nut mostly mainland Europeans in Germany and Poland…
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Our Latest Atari 8bit Computer Videos
Jellystone (Yogi) BBS Atari 400/800/XL/XE Games Disk 002 Part 1 (13 games) The Jellystone / Yogi games disks are a USA based compilation of the games released for the Atari 400/800 computers, and compiled by the Jellystone BBS . 98% of these will also work on the XL and XE…
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S4:E2: How The Atari VCS Almost Killed Me. Plus the 9 VCS Launch Games And Circus Convoy
An episode jampacked with Atari VCS goodness! First a story about the allure (and danger) of Atari VCS programming in modern times. Then a playthrough and history of the original 9 VCS 1977 launch titles. Also memories of Combat! from Tony Longworth. and a discussion and reaction of the brand…
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Never Let The Fires Die #26: War and The Alarm Central
After a year break when there was no need for a podcast because The Alarm was basically podcasting 2 hours of content a week, we are back to discuss the twin earthquakes that shook The Alarm world this week: War and Alarm Central.
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S4:E1: 1981 -Atari Coin Ops Avalanche, Firetruck, Super Bug and Dominos and games you’ll never see.
Into The Vertical Blank: Generation AtariAtari Coin Ops Avalanche, Firetruck, Super Bug and Dominos and games you’ll never see. To start off the 4th season, we chose four games to play and discuss : Early Atari Coin-ops, Avalanche, Fire Truck, Super Bug, and Dominos and Fire Truck. We also discuss…
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Atari 800 Christmas 1983: Newly Scanned Photos
Here are some newly scanned photos of what it looked like to get an Atari 800 computer for Christmas in 1983.
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River Raid 2020: My High Score Finally Arrives
I recently purchased a fresh copy of Activision’s River Raid from eBay with the express purpose of opening it and pretending like it was Christmas 1982 all over again. I opened the game and played my first round on the Retron 77 using the Retron 77 joystick. the experience was…
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S3:E25: 1981 – Atari VCS Christmas
For the 2020 Christmas episode we go back 39 years to 1981 and talk about how it felt to want, and ultimately, get, an Atari VCS that year. We have a story from Steve about our twin scheming and planning to get a VCS, and then we have a…
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The Pitfalls Of Trying To Recreate Atari Christmas 1982 in 2020
This year for Christmas bought myself new copies of River Raid and Vanguard for the VCS so I could open them and try to recapture some of the feeling of 1982. I bought the games with very little eBay research, choosing the price over most everything else. At the same time,…
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S3:E24: Three Ghosts From Christmas Past
As we prepare for the 2020 Christmas episode of Into The Vertical Blank, here is a supercut of three Christmas stories from past seasons told for the first time, in Chronological order: -The Best @*#! Christmas Ever (1983) -Atari 7800 Christmas (1986) -The Christmas Train (1982-2011) Written, Edited, Produced by…
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Atari ST/E Santa Goes Berzerk #1 Exploring the STOS Standard Feature Set
Watch the companion video. I story explanation follows: A couple weeks ago I started working a little game as a demo for a Bill Lange hosted “Zoom” (it wasn’t Zoom, but Zoom is a generic term now) sort of demo / Holiday party. The party was really fun with about…
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Pokey Player Sound Tool (Atari 7800)
Here is a tool I built a tool to help me figure out what pokey sounds on the 7800. It lets me test out sound mixing on all four channels at the same time. You can view it here; JS7800: Atari 7800 Emulator (raz0red.github.io) Controls:-Joystick/arrow keys select the value to change (orange)-Left…
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XEGS Games Carts that should have been – if Atari had decided to continue. Vol 1
When Atari Corp dropped support for all 8bit systems in 1992, they had only produced a couple dozen official game cartridges for the XEGs console. But Atari UK and Germany produced or were in the middle of producing a number of high quality semi-budget games that could have been used…
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Atari ST / STE / Mega STE Activision Game Reviews Vol 2: From Galaxy Force 2 to R-Type 2
Atari ST / STE (8mhz) and Mega STE (16mhz) Activision Game Reviews: Action / Arcade Games. In this series we will cover game play and capsule reviews and scores for Activison UK Arcade and Action Games Galaxy Force II (ST 8MHZ) – 80% – Ambitions fun blaster that is a…
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Into the Vertical Blank: Generation Atari S3:E23 Companion Video
In this video we investigate of the games that we discussed in the episode: S3:E23: Why We Are Thankful for STOS: The Game Creator In every episode we discuss games from across multiple systems, they may not be the main game or subject discussed, but they do deserve to have…
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Using A8bit #fujinet to play “Pet” Galaga from – Homesoft Game Disk 404
By Jeff D. Fulton Today we are going load up Homesoft game Disk #404 and play the only version of Galaga available for Atari 8bit 400/800/XL/XE Machines. We Will play directly an Atari 130XL by loading it over the internet via WIFI with #Fujinet! Disk 404 Download #Fujinet Here is…
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S3:E23: Why We Are Thankful for STOS: The Game Creator
In this episode the brothers talk about the creation of their one and only completed Atari ST game (“Zamboozal Poker Dice”) and the tools that helped them complete it: the Mandarin / JawX Software products under the STOS banner. Come along for the ride as they discuss the old days…
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STOS Tutorial #2: Brute force Blitter Sprites, Joysticks and more.
By Jeff D. Fulton In this, STOS Tutorial #2, we will expand on what we did in Tutorial #1 by using a BRUTE FORCE method to Blit a non-destructive Sprite on to a complex background and move it with the joystick. We will be Using the Missing link Extension by…
