Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 5:28 pm Post subject: Fairchild Channel F (and the like...)
There is a No-Intro post at the moment getting very little attention -- most likely due to the fact that the Channel F is an obscure and very crappy 8-bit console.
The link in the post is this one. (It even has dumps -- mainly bad -- of some of the protos in the pictures.)
Compared to the list of released games, it seems that there are a few that may be unreleased.
They are:
Color Organ
Draw Poker
Robot War
Now, Draw Poker may be Casino Poker, and Robot War may be an early version of Galactic Space War or Alien Invasion. Color Organ doesn't have any apparent released counterparts that I can easily discern without actually using a Channel F emulator and downloading the games.
Unfortunately, if you look at the protos.zip included at the site, it doesn't seem to include those games other than Draw Poker. Color Organ would be the interesting title to see.
The No-Intro post is void of any useful information, and it's not even certain that the poster is the owner of these prototypes, or even the owner of the website.
Admin Name........... Sean Riddle
Admin Address........ UNITED STATES
Admin Email.......... seanriddle@datalytixllc.com
Edit:
Well, under closer inspection it seems like Sean Riddle is a Channel F enthusiast. The site brings up an interesting point that the Channel F may have had the first easter egg as opposed to Atari's Adventure.
So, the poster of the No-Intro thread is most likely not Sean Riddle. If any more information would be dug up about these games, AtariAge forums would be the next best strategy.
Edit 2:
Sean Riddle also has a readily available site with all known software, the BIOS's, and his software.
His post count is rather low in AtariAge:
SeanRiddle
Posts: 6
Joined: October 24, 2004
All of it seems to be related to the Channel F.
Also, here is another site that is working to be a concise resource to Channel F software based on its American and European regions.
I'll try to contact Sean to get some more info regarding the prototypes. I'm not finding any information on these prototypes on AtariAge or DigitPress at the moment...
1) I believe an ex-Fairchild employee had them. Take a look here:
http://www.retrogamingradio.com/cge/2005/ClassicGamingExpo2005/photos/photo1
77.html and here:
http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/369#more-369
2) I do not think there is a difference. It might be that Draw
Poker was the development name, or maybe someone just mislabeled the cart.
I think Fredric said that there were a few bytes different from the released
cart, but it seemed to play the same.
3) Robot war was released as cart 13.
4) Color organ was dumped. Scott asked me to hold off on sending it
out until he released it on Digital Press. I guess I never replaced the ZIP
file on my web site, so I just did. I also added another ZIP file of the
prototypes that Fredric cleaned up.
Some of the carts had normal EPROMs, but some did not. The
Fairchild program storage units can't be dumped as easily as EPROMs, so I
built a cart dumper using a PIC microcontroller, and mailed it to a few
guys. They inserted a cart, plugged it in, and it stored the contents onto
an EEPROM. Then they sent the dumper back to me and I read the contents.
Sometimes the contacts were dirty, sometimes the chips in the carts had gone
bad. Some of the EPROMs were a very small size that many EPROM programmers
no longer support. My cart dumper also had a bug where if it read a bad
cart, sometimes all the carts read afterwards weren't read correctly. If
all the carts had been sent to me, I probably could have had a higher
success rate, but I respect that these are collectors with rare items, and
they are hesitant about mailing them.
I guess you've also been to
http://members.cox.net/seanriddle/chanf.html and
http://members.cox.net/seanandalicia/chanfinfo.html?
Sean
Original message
----------------------
Sean,
I tried hard, but may not have dug up all the necessary resources to
answer my own questions; the questions being these:
http://www.datalytixllc.com/channelf/
1.) From the above site, what's the story on how these prototypes were
acquired?
2.) Is Draw Poker any different from Casino Poker?
3.) Does the Robot War cartridge have another released counterpart?
4.) How come Color Organ wasn't dumped and is it entirely unreleased?
Sorry for such a hasty e-mail without much introduction, but I've been
researching this currently and it's just racking my brain.
If you can provide any information as to came across these or why a
lot of them couldn't be dumped or dumped properly, that would be very
informational.
(Or if this has already been addressed in a current thread, I'd love
to see it. :))
From one Sean to another,
B00daW (Sean)
So, in summary, I believe that this Color Organ unreleased game was already released at DigitPress. I'm sorry for the clutter, but at least this is a total success for Channel F fans and unreleased game collectors. I'm sure to give Color Organ a try.
The corrected zip that Sean talks about is located > here. <
b00m b00m! unreleased channel f gamez!! g0g0g0!
Edit:
I grabbed MESS and started playing with it. It seems to be a color concept demo. I don't hear any sound coming from the demo, but it will draw lines. Depending on the button you hold or joystick direction you hold, it will invert colors or draw different colors.
Meh... I was hoping for a sound demo or something. Would be neat to learn how to program sound for the Channel F. (I'll look into that on my own.)
Anyway, there ya go. And sorry for cluttering up this space and all, but mission complete. Since it's not really a game or practical piece of software, I wouldn't even lump this thread in with Unreleased Games.
Again, sorry; but I do hope that this could serve as useful information to the passing internet traveler.
--
Oh! I'm sure Sean will be frequenting this post. Finally, thanks for all of your efforts, Sean. Your selfless preservation techniques are duly notable.
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Edit 2:
