Mordekai's Original Games, Pt. 2

By Mordekai

In the last installment, I looked at some of the early computers I worked with.  It occurs to me that I failed to mention the Radio Shack Science Fair Digital Computer Kit.  While this was mostly a toy, using it as a kid taught me about logic circuits, program algorithms and program flow.  However, I digress.  In this installment, I’ll look back at some more computers from the early days.

TRS-80 Model 100

Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

Commodore VIC 20

Commodore 64

Apple IIe

Tandy TRS-80 Model 100

I picked up a TRS-80 Model 100 from Radio Shack when I was in-between desktop models.  The Model 100 was quite the machine for its time, having a built in address book and word processing software.  It also had Model 100 BASIC in ROM and 16kb of RAM.  Biggest thrill of all for this little laptop was a built in 300 baud modem.  I used the Model 100 for my first on-line experience by calling up Compuserve and using my free subscription for 30 days.  As the payment for Compuserve was almost as much as my payment for the Model 100, I opted not to continue to use Compuserve.  That’s when I discovered the Bulletin Board Systems.  Programming the Model 100 was more involved and difficult than the old Model I.  I created some short-run text adventures.  It turned out to be mostly a novelty item as I started doing all my programming on a TI-99/4A.

Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

Texas Instruments busted into the home PC market in 1979 with the TI-99/4, which was the first 16-bit home PC.  It sold for a whopping $1,150 and featured a wide range of peripherals and TI’s “solid state software,” which was ROM cartridges, like an Atari.  The TI-99/4 was a giant flop and was replaced in the early 80’s by the TI-99/4A, which sold for half the price and had twice the features.  TI made several mistakes with the 99/4 series, the most serious of which was to disregard hobbyists and hackers as a source of ideas and information; the second was not allowing third-party resources such as game cartridges and peripherals.  TI suffered hundreds of millions in losses, mainly because of those mistakes. 

I purchased my TI-99/4A brand new, in late 1983, from a Target store in Rapid City, SD, for $50.  At the end of 1983, TI was unable to compete with Commodore, Apple and IBM, so they dumped their systems, dropped all support functions and got out of the microcomputer business until the early ‘90s. Even though it tended to look like a toy, the 99/4A was a fairly powerful machine for its time.  I programmed my first graphical game on the 99/4A -- a rudimentary joystick-controlled Space Invaders wannabe.  The 99/4A also featured the ability to produce musical tones.  The programming book had a list of notes and frequencies.  I had a guitar-playing friend, Scott Aldrich, ask me if I could program the notes for Freebird into the computer.  I can’t play a single lick of music -- but I can program.  Scott told me what notes to program and I hot-keyed them from 1 to 9.  Using the 99/4A as organ, we laid the background tracks for the Skynyrd classic.  Scott played the rhythm guitar and would nod at me each time I needed to change notes.  We recorded the background track on a stereo cassette tape recorder.  We then played the background music on my home stereo as Scott played the lead guitar and I kept rhythm with a Michelob bottle filled with popcorn kernels.  We recorded the whole song, minus vocals.  It was my coolest use of the TI-99/4A.

Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore-64

I never owned either of these machines.  My main activity regarding the Commodore computers was to make fun of them because I owned an Apple //e.  However, I have a short story.  When I was in Rapid City, I lived in military housing.  My neighbor to the north had a VIC-20 and my neighbor to the south had a Commodore 64.  We all had chess programs for our respective computers.  I had a program for the Apple called Sargon III.  It was a great chess program for its time.  One day, after we’d lost a chess match to his computer, my neighbor with the VIC-20 (his name was John Hancock -- I am not making that up -- true story) said, “I bet my VIC can beat your Apple.”  I said, “No way.” We brought the VIC to my house and played the computers against each other, giving each the same amount of “think” time.  Sargon slaughtered the VIC-20.  I don’t recall the name of the VIC chess program, but it was not even a challenge for the Apple with Sargon III installed.  So then, the neighbor to the south challenged my Apple with his Commodore 64.  After my victory over the VIC, I wasn’t too concerned about the 64 as I knew they were pretty much the same machine.  I wasn’t wrong.  Sargon III humiliated the Commodore and they never challenged me again.

Apple //e

I bought my Apple //e, with a single disk drive and green-screen monitor, in 1984.  I used it for everything from writing as a military journalist to evaluation of demographic data for magazine readership using the Appleworks Spreadsheet.  Mostly, I played games.  By the time I gave up the Apple in 1994, I had well over 1000 disks, almost all games, as well as 5 floppy drives, two external modems, and a color printer.  I produced three issues of The Reformer Magazine using the //e.  I ran a Bulletin Board System using floppy drives and a RAM disk card.  I even wrote my first paid program for the Apple //e.

In 1994 a friend of mine, Tim Johnson, had a master’s degree project in electrical engineering to calculate the efficiency of a solar cell based on several adjustable parameters.  It was a challenge.  He said, “I thought I’d just show you the math and you could make a program.”  He showed me the math involved and I said, “You’re going to have to explain that to me.”  Once I understood what the math meant, I actually had to write subroutines to calculate hyperbolic trig functions because they weren’t built into Applesoft BASIC.  The end product would ask for parameter inputs, then perform the calculations to determine the efficiency of the cell as a percentage of solar energy converted to electricity.  In addition, the program would screen plot and print a wave graph showing the ramp and peak of the cell.  It took it 36 minutes to run on my Apple //e.  Tim said he couldn’t wait that long for the number of results he had to produce and wanted to know if I could put it on his IBM 386-50.  So, I re-programmed it on the 386 using Q-BASIC.  It would run in under 3 minutes.  At that point, I realized I’d have to upgrade.  But I was sad.

So I upgraded.  Next time, we’ll talk about my first IBM compatible and an original Intel 286 processor computer I built from scraps on a piece of plywood.

John Smith (AKA Mordekai) on Google Plus

PSN Review: Zombie Racers

The PlayStation Minis line of games are all small in size and in price, but that doesn't necessarily mean small in content or fun. Unfortunately, Zombie Racers is far from the best example of the Minis library: with its terrible AI, high difficulty, and wonky controls, the game manages to justify its super-low-budget title.

At first glance Zombie Racers looks, and even sounds promising. A top-down racing game in the style of classics like Off-Road and RC Pro Am, Zombie Racers gives players two simple tasks: beat your opponents, and kill zombies. The concept is a simple one, but the game presents it well, and the first race is a pleasant blend of the two, though the game quickly loses its fun factor as the difficulty spikes.

Let's look at what Zombie Racers does right first. The visual presentation of the game is quite nice, with colorful 2D sprites for all on-screen action that give a good, clear indication of where you can and cannot drive, and never get too muddy whether playing on the PSP's screen or a TV (for the purposes of this review all gameplay was on the PSP.) The game has a good, if small, selection of punk music backing up your time running over zombies, and the controls are responsive for a top-down racer. The game even offers multiple game modes including arena-style combat with weaponry where your goal is not to beat your opponents in a race but instead to slay more zombies than them in a given amount of time, or reach a kill goal first. With eight core tracks, at least three arena tracks, and a collection of about 12 cars to choose from (all with a selection of speed, handling, and acceleration upgrades that can be purchased) there is a lot of game here for your dollar.

It really is a pity that playing the game just isn't fun.

What starts out promising quickly escalates into an exercise in abject frustration as the game's difficulty is unforgiving in the extreme. Players will likely have little trouble at all coming in first on the first course of the racing mode, but without the right upgrades the second race is near impossible, with each race afterward jumping the difficulty substantially and requiring a steady pace of new upgrades and, soon, new cars, to keep up with your opponents. Money is gained at the end of a race based on how many zombies you killed on your trip around the track, but money is ONLY earned from races you come in first on, with no other way to earn money outside of races. What this means is that each trip around the track is not only a race against opponents who are almost inevitably faster and more maneuverable than you, but that you are forced into having to veer constantly to take out as many zombies as possible just to secure what funding you can, and if you don't manage to excel at either one then the game quickly becomes next to impossible. Every race requires incremental increases to your vehicle's capabilities, but vehicles also have caps to their maximum capabilities. Combining these limitations with exorbitant pricing on new vehicles and upgrade costs that rise every race and you have a game that can easily bring your progress to a grinding halt on the grounds of inflation alone.

Next is the enemy AI. Racing games are not known for their excellence in the AI department on general principle (with a few exceptions, like Forza or Gran Turismo,) but Zombie Racers' AI is nothing if not a joke. Rather than giving each opponent a semblance of autonomy the game relies on the classic tactics of rubber banding and the AI working together to create its difficulty. Call it a personal quirk, but one of the things that has always gotten my goat in racing games is AI that doesn't actually treat its indiviual racers as competitors but, instead, as a team whose sole goal is to prevent you from winning, yet this is what Zombie Racers relies on. This would be a little more balanced if the rubber banding the game applies worked both ways, giving players a chance to catch up when they fall behind, but it seems to only apply to the AI racers, making every race either a barely-squeaked-by victory or a defeat that leaves you laps behind your opponents. Opponents will never make mistakes, never compete or jockey for position with one another, and even in the arena battles will always know exactly where the biggest groups of zombies and power-ups are, rendering any sense of fair play or balance that might have remained after the upgrade issues moot.

This difficulty is only made that much more frustrating by the game's un-intuitive controls. Gas is square and brake is triangle, with no options to change these controls and no tutorial to teach them to you. During the combat stages X fires your vehicle's picked up weapons. Why the developers chose to implement a control scheme so completely counter-intuitive is anyone's guess, but it hardly helps to curb the game's difficulty.

Final Rating: 3 out of 10

Despite a promising first impression with its solid collection of content and rock-bottom pricing, Zombie Racers quickly destroys any sense of fun with its terrible AI and difficulty balancing. With a little work the game could be something truly special, namely lower cost for upgrades/cars and a more shallow difficulty curve, but as it stands the game forsakes fun in the name of punishing difficulty and controls. Fans of super-hardcore racing games or gluttons for punishment may find some worthwhile gameplay here, but for anyone else the return on time invested is negligible, and with the price of PSP games right now there are other, better racing games available for not too terribly much more than this will run you.