Miracles do happen: Cine Dev System

atariscott

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Here is a little piece of arcade history that I picked up recently. It is a complete miracle that this thing has survived. The story is slightly complicated but here it goes.

A friend of mine was looking for a Tektronix 8560 to help someone read some data from an 8 inch floppy of arcade source code from 1980. He needed this unit, because the game was developed with this hardware. He searched eBay and he eventually found a selling, with a lot of 5 units for sale. In the pictures of the auctions were lots of vintage computer parts and floppy discs. He won the auction and paid the seller.

He had a friend that was local to the seller pick up the items and they delivered it to him a couple months later. When he started going through the boxes, he noticed some floppy discs with familiar names on them. Solar Quest, Space Wars, Hovercraft, and a whole bunch of others. He had stumbled upon one of the Cinematronics development systems and a floppy disc archive. There are hundreds of 8 inch floppy discs in 4 bankers boxes.

What is truly amazing, is that this pickup was was a complete fluke. The eBay seller had picked up these items at a storage unit auction in the San Diego area. He had no idea what he had stumbled upon. The original auction never mentioned the Terak system and did not have any pictures of it either. Also, if my friend had not been looking for a Tektronix 8560, during the week that this auction ran, this stuff may have ended up in a non-arcade collectors hands. It may have even ended up in a dumpster if the auction had ended with no bidders. Not many people are looking for a Tektronix 8560....

I have just started going through the discs, but there are some amazing things on the few I have looked at.
 

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Hovercraft is one of those legendary lost prototype vectors like Vertigo, I hope he can salvage the data!

"Space Wars II????" A previously unknown prototype??????
 
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Incredible! That qualifies as a cosmic convergence if there ever was one! Looking forward to hearing more about what else you find, such as the condition of floppies. The general mantra was that the contents of floppies would begin to degrade in 10 or 20 years, although I always hoped that wasn't the case (have a crap-load of C64 stuff).
 
Incredible! That qualifies as a cosmic convergence if there ever was one! Looking forward to hearing more about what else you find, such as the condition of floppies. The general mantra was that the contents of floppies would begin to degrade in 10 or 20 years, although I always hoped that wasn't the case (have a crap-load of C64 stuff).

There's always a chance, I've heard it said that if left alone magnetic media is actually stands up to long term storage relatively well, so hopefully its still salvagable, at least long enough to get the data off. And some of that stuff is so incredibly rare he ought to consider taking them to professional data recovery people, I know some of the MAME team were planning to take the Ms. Gorf floppies to some.
 
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If all else fails and the disks are unreadable, try taking the media out of the jacket, rinsing it off to get rid of the loose stuff, and put it inside a different, clean jacket once it dries. That works with some of the 5 1/4" disks to get data off when the media starts dusting.
 
Wow...that is super cool...I always loved Cinematronics stuff so I hope some of this stuff is saved and made available ....Keep us updated...and more pictures...love finds like this...

It would be cool to know how in the hell it ended up in the storage unit....see that is why I love watching storage wars...there truly are treasure troves out there.
 
;**************************************************
;
; Another data table for THE DRAGON'S LAIR
; by Vicente DISPLAY ..............................................................
DISPLAY .................... LAZER COMMAND FILE.........Chung
; COPYRIGHT
; Advanced Microcomputer Systems (c) 1983
;
;**************************************************


NG
DEFW N3M ;DEATH
DEFW N3N ;DEATH
DEFW N3O ;DEATH
DEFW N3P ;DEATH
DEFW N3Q ;DEATH BY SPIDER
DEFW N3R

T502 D

T505 DEFW N505A
DEFW N505DB
DEFW N505A ;FLAMES
DEFW N505B ;EXIT
DEFW N505C ;DEATH BY DRINKING VIAL
DEFW N505D ;EFW N502A
DEFW N502DB
DEFW N502A ;BATS AND ERODING FLOOR
DEFW N502B ;ERODING FLOOR
DEFW N502C ;BATS & CRUMBLING STAIRDEATH BY FIRE
DEFW N505E

T18 DEFW N18A
DEFW N18DB
DEFW N18A ;SNAPPING SKULL
DEFW N18B ;LARGE SKELETON HAND
DEFW NS
DEFW N502D ;GIANT BAT AND ERODING FLOOR
DEFW N502E ;ERODING FLOOR
DEFW N502F ;EXIT
DEFW N502G ;DEATH BY BATS
DEF18C ;GOO
DEFW N18D ;LARGE SKELETON HAND
DEFW N18E ;GOO
DEFW N18F ;SKELETONS
DEFW N18G ;EXIT
DEFW N18H ;DEATH BY W N502H ;DEATH BY CHASM
DEFW N502I ; " CHASM
DEFW N502J ;DEATH BY GIANT BAT
DEFW N502K

T14 DEFW N14A
DEFW N14DB
SWING
DEFW N18I ;OVERPOWER DIRK
DEFW N18J ;DEATH BY SKELETON HAND
DEFW N18K ;DEATH BY GOO
DEFW N18L ;DEATH BY SKELETDEFW N14A ;1
DEFW N14B ;2
DEFW N14C ;3
DEFW N14D ;DEATH
DEFW N14E ;EXIT
DEFW N14F ;EXIT
DEFW N14G ;DEATH BY FONS
DEFW N18M
 
Another Code Snippet.
; WRITTEN BY SCOTT T. BODEN
; nineteen hundred and eighty A.D.
; TESTING FOR IRA AGINST MISSILE.
; 6/18/80 CHANGED WS MAP FOR IRA'S AND MISSILES.
; 6/24/80 POLISHED UP GAME,WORKING EDIT HISTORY
; date additions.
 ; 3/24/80 "CHOPPER" CANIBALIZED AND TURNED INTO QUACK2.
 ; 3/2 ON FIREBALL.
 ; 6/25/80 INSTALLING GAME FUNCTIONS.
 ; 6/28/80 WORKING ON GAME FUNCTS.,GETTING READY FOR SOUND.
 ; 5/80 GOT SHIP TO MOVE AROUND FREELY,MODIFIED TO "2D".
 ; 3/26/80 INSTALLED DRIFT AND ACCELERATION.
 ; 3/28/80 W 7/7/80 TRYING TO GET THE BUGS OUT......
 ; 7/8/80 INSTALLING HYPERBLITZ !!!!!!!!!!!!
 ; 7/11/80 GETTING IT REO^C†2£áORKING ON MULTIPLE MISSILE ROUTINE.
 ; 3/31/80 COMPLEATED MISSILES,ENTERING STARS.
 ; 4/1/80 COMPLEATED STARS,WORKING ON RINGS.
 ; 4/5/80 REWRITING RINGIT FOR FASTER EXECUTION.
 ; 4/15/80 STILL TRYING TO GET RINGS TO WORK RIGHT!
 ; 4/17/80 GOT RINGS TO WORK OK.
 ; 4/18/80 WORKING ON "IRA'S".
 ; 4/21/80 POLISHING ROUGH DRAFT WITHOUT "IRA'S".
 ; 4/23/80 CHANGED RINGS TO SUBROUTINES AND DUAL INTENSITY.
 ; 4/24/80 RINGS OK--WORKING ON BOUNCE BACK.
 ; 4/26/80 BOUNCE BACK AND COMPAS ROUTINES OK.
 ; 4/30/80 CHANGED TO "RINGWAR",ADDED COMMENTS.
 ; 5/2/80 WORKING ON CENTER IRA AND POLISH.
 ; 5/12/80 RESUMED WORK AFTER DIAG17,18 AND ENTERED COMMENTS.
 ; XXXX XXX X X XXX X X X XXXX
 ; X X X X X X X X X X X X X
 ;
 ; 5/15/80 ENTERED NEW SHIPS.
 ; 5/17/80 ADDING EXPLOSION ROUTINES FOR RINGS & SHIPS.
 ; 5/22/80 INSTALLING G X X X XX X X X X X X X X
 ; XXXX X X X X X XXX X X X XXXXX XXXX
 ; X X X AP DETECT FOR CENTER SHIP.
 ; 5/23/80 INSTALLING GROWING RING ROUTINES.
 ; 5/24/80 WENT TO SAN FELIPE.
 ; 5/27/80 X XX X X X X X X X X X
 ; X X X X X X X XX XX X X X X
 ; X X XXX X X XXX X X COMPLEATED RING ROUTINES,STARTING ON FLYING IRA'S.
 ; 6/4/80 WORKING ON STICKING IRA'S.
X X X X

 
SOLAR QUEST MASTER BACKUP sounds like the name of an indie-rock band!

Awesome find, there's some incredible history there!

Kyle :cool:
 
Another Code Snippet.
; WRITTEN BY SCOTT T. BODEN
; nineteen hundred and eighty A.D.
; TESTING FOR IRA AGINST MISSILE.
; 6/18/80 CHANGED WS MAP FOR IRA'S AND MISSILES.
; 6/24/80 POLISHED UP GAME,WORKING EDIT HISTORY
; date additions.
 ; 3/24/80 "CHOPPER" CANIBALIZED AND TURNED INTO QUACK2.
 ; 3/2 ON FIREBALL.
 ; 6/25/80 INSTALLING GAME FUNCTIONS.
 ; 6/28/80 WORKING ON GAME FUNCTS.,GETTING READY FOR SOUND.
 ; 5/80 GOT SHIP TO MOVE AROUND FREELY,MODIFIED TO "2D".
 ; 3/26/80 INSTALLED DRIFT AND ACCELERATION.
 ; 3/28/80 W 7/7/80 TRYING TO GET THE BUGS OUT......
 ; 7/8/80 INSTALLING HYPERBLITZ !!!!!!!!!!!!
 ; 7/11/80 GETTING IT REO^C†2£áORKING ON MULTIPLE MISSILE ROUTINE.
 ; 3/31/80 COMPLEATED MISSILES,ENTERING STARS.
 ; 4/1/80 COMPLEATED STARS,WORKING ON RINGS.
 ; 4/5/80 REWRITING RINGIT FOR FASTER EXECUTION.
 ; 4/15/80 STILL TRYING TO GET RINGS TO WORK RIGHT!
 ; 4/17/80 GOT RINGS TO WORK OK.
 ; 4/18/80 WORKING ON "IRA'S".
 ; 4/21/80 POLISHING ROUGH DRAFT WITHOUT "IRA'S".
 ; 4/23/80 CHANGED RINGS TO SUBROUTINES AND DUAL INTENSITY.
 ; 4/24/80 RINGS OK--WORKING ON BOUNCE BACK.
 ; 4/26/80 BOUNCE BACK AND COMPAS ROUTINES OK.
 ; 4/30/80 CHANGED TO "RINGWAR",ADDED COMMENTS.
 ; 5/2/80 WORKING ON CENTER IRA AND POLISH.
 ; 5/12/80 RESUMED WORK AFTER DIAG17,18 AND ENTERED COMMENTS.
 ; XXXX XXX X X XXX X X X XXXX
 ; X X X X X X X X X X X X X
 ;
 ; 5/15/80 ENTERED NEW SHIPS.
 ; 5/17/80 ADDING EXPLOSION ROUTINES FOR RINGS & SHIPS.
 ; 5/22/80 INSTALLING G X X X XX X X X X X X X X
 ; XXXX X X X X X XXX X X X XXXXX XXXX
 ; X X X AP DETECT FOR CENTER SHIP.
 ; 5/23/80 INSTALLING GROWING RING ROUTINES.
 ; 5/24/80 WENT TO SAN FELIPE.
 ; 5/27/80 X XX X X X X X X X X X
 ; X X X X X X X XX XX X X X X
 ; X X XXX X X XXX X X COMPLEATED RING ROUTINES,STARTING ON FLYING IRA'S.
 ; 6/4/80 WORKING ON STICKING IRA'S.
X X X X


To read the comments and see the progression of development is awesome. Thanks for sharing.
 
Mind-blowing find!

At last we get to find out which of those branded 8" disks really do stand the test of time! :)

The code snippets means that the disks (or some of them anyway) are readable after all?
 
Most of the 5 1/4" floppys I still have from my Atari 8 bit systems still work fine. Only a few "died"

3.5" floppys, especially the ones produced towards the end of them being in regular use were of much worse quality and I've seen a lot gone bad within just a year.

Advantage is that the old floppys have wider tracks and less data per track which makes is more fault tolerant.

Great find indeed !!! Really curious what goodies this "Time capsule" will bring up :)
 
If some of these prototype and unreleased titles end up on Clay's upcoming multi-vector drop-in board I think I might need to change my underwear.
 
Man that's some incredible stuff. To think it never got thrown away, I wonder how many people have had the stuff and didn't know what it was, or if the storage locker belonged to somebody who used to work there and saved the stuff as long as he could, knowing the value of it?
 
Big F**King deal.

No point in getting excited about finds like this, 99% will never see the light of day.

It will be horded by the same 2-3 people just like the Atari & Williams source code.

It just the same narcissistic bullshit, look at what I have and what you never will.
 
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