Faked prototypes?

[Zaxxon]

How does anyone know that these protos that mysteriously surface out of nowhere after 20+ years are real? Wouldn't it be relatively easy for someone who knows how to program the Atari 800 really well to create a 5200 proto? It wouldn't even have to be a finished, working game(5200 Tempest) for everyone to go nuts over it and start a bidding war. From what I've seen, it's not hard at all to edit 2600 .bin's to alter the graphics etc. to make it look like an new, undiscovered game.

[christianscott27]

what puts a stop to that sort of thing is the fact that in most cases you can find somebody, that is to say a programmer, who actually worked for the company back in the day. not that it hasnt been tried before, theres the ugly swordquest airworld incident not so long ago. luckily for us we've got skeptical, smart people double checking the claims. you'd be surprised how easy it is to track down classic game programmers, almost everyone is still alive and still working so you can find their email contact somewhere if you spend enough time on it.

[zmweasel]

N/A

[christianscott27]

well the debate largely went down on atariage, it was one of those endless 15 page threads, so you could search and find it there if you have some time to kill reading thru it. if i remember it right the bogus proto seller had sort of cut and pasted game elements together to form airworld screenshots. it was fairly convincing to a lot of people and the predicted drooling, release arguments were well under way when some started to pick it apart. it seems the guy had attempted to auction it a few years earlier but took that auction down in a cloud of specualtion. the debate got into programming, people pointing out inconsistant screen elements and so on and the finally some one brought one of the actual swordquest programmers into the thread and he said that the screenshots in question were wholly unrelated to the proposed game back in the 80s...i'm sure a few here recall this in more detail

[Sniderman]

Because I'm a hell of a nice guy:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13042&highlight=airworld

[TheRedEye]

God, re-reading this is frustrating me all over again. It's like, "For fuck's sake, guys, LOOK AT THE SCREENSHOTS. LISTEN TO ME. AHHHH!"

EDIT:


TheRedEye might choose his words a little more carefully as all ages read this forum and he's coming off like a 13 year old who hasn't realized he can get his point across more intelligently without using such ridiculous phrases as "Ass shit bastard blowjob"

I'm telling you, man. As soon as I write a book, that's the review quote that goes on the back.

[Alex Kidd]

not that it hasnt been tried before, theres the ugly swordquest airworld incident not so long ago. luckily for us we've got skeptical, smart people double checking the claims.

You mean back when some guys were talking about how they had an unfinished version of Airworld that they were gonna finish and re-compile for the 5200 none of it was real? it was all homebrew?
Or are you talking about something entirely different...
and if you are, whatever became of that 5200 Airworld?

-EDIT-
I'm aware the answer to this question is probably in that link posted, I don't want to have to read such a long discussion, could someone give me the jist of it?

Alex Kidd

[Sniderman]

I'm aware the answer to this question is probably in that link posted, I don't want to have to read such a long discussion, could someone give me the jist of it? I spent the time looking for that thread and posting it here. You can take 5 minutes and read it yourself. :roll: Kids these days, I tell ya. :) P.S. Love the Randall quote from the Clerks 'toon. "*You're* a cigarette!"

[spoon]

"Why are we walking like this?"

I LOVE that show! All six episodes. If you don't have the DVD, pick it up!