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Prototype RCA Arcade Game from 1975 Dumped and Emulated
#373234 - 01/18/18 07:47 AM
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Andy Modla has added Swords to his emulator of the RCA Studio II and related hardware.
https://github.com/ajavamind/rca-studio2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbSNnIyc1K4
Swords was developed by RCA for their Fredotronic arcade hardware in 1975. It was based on the RCA 1801 CPU, a predecessor to the better known RCA 1802. It was location tested, but never put into mass production. However, RCA did release the RCA Studio II home console in 1976 using similar hardware. To put the time frame into perspective, Midway released Gun Fight, the first mass produced arcade game to use a CPU, in November 1975.
The program data was found on an audio cassette at the Hagley Museum And Library in Wilmington, Deleware, which holds a number of records from an RCA research laboratory. Thanks also to Ubersaurus, who arranged for the tape to be digitized.
http://findingaids.hagley.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/2464_09.xml
Based on the labels of other tapes in their collection, they appear to have data for other games on the hardware. The other known titles are Mines, Chase II, and Bowling. Some of these tapes have been recorded as WAV files, but have not been processed further as far as I'm aware.
Some Atari Age users have posted documents, photos, and instructions from their visit to the archives.
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/209519-...47#entry3872336
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/209519-...49#entry3906140
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/209519-...49#entry3906144
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/209519-...49#entry3906146
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| gregf |
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Re: Prototype RCA Arcade Game from 1975 Dumped and Emulated *edit*
[Re: ranger_lennier]
#373236 - 01/18/18 12:00 PM
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>Andy Modla has added Swords to his emulator of the RCA Studio II and related hardware.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbSNnIyc1K4
I like the video clip, but after having more time to look at links and photos including some of the paperwork, I'd like to believe the RCA Fredotronic arcade hardware can also be emulated in MAME...assuming there is permission to support the tape data in MAME.
>Swords was developed by RCA for their Fredotronic arcade hardware in 1975. It was based on
>the RCA 1801 CPU, a predecessor to the better known RCA 1802. It was location tested, but
>never put into mass production. However, RCA did release the RCA Studio II home console in
>1976 using similar hardware. To put the time frame into perspective, Midway released Gun
>Fight, the first mass produced arcade game to use a CPU, in November 1975.
MAME is part way there to supporting the hardware. The cpu support is there, but unsure if other hardware components such as video need to be added first in MAME before the RCA Fredotronic arcade hardware can be emulated.
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src/mame/drivers/studio2.cpp
CONS( 1977, studio2, 0, 0, studio2, studio2, studio2_state, 0, "RCA", "Studio II", MACHINE_IMPERFECT_SOUND | MACHINE_SUPPORTS_SAVE )
src/devices/cpu/cosmac/cosmac.cpp
RCA COSMAC CPU emulation
// device type definition
DEFINE_DEVICE_TYPE(CDP1801, cdp1801_device, "cdp1801", "RCA CDP1801")
DEFINE_DEVICE_TYPE(CDP1802, cdp1802_device, "cdp1802", "RCA CDP1802")
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>The program data was found on an audio cassette at the Hagley Museum And Library in
>Wilmington, Deleware, which holds a number of records from an RCA research laboratory.
>Thanks also to Ubersaurus, who arranged for the tape to be digitized.
>Based on the labels of other tapes in their collection, they appear to have data for
>other games on the hardware. The other known titles are Mines, Chase II, and Bowling.
>Some of these tapes have been recorded as WAV files, but have not been processed further
>as far as I'm aware.
I hope more of the tapes can be preserved sometime later.
Edited by gregf (01/18/18 09:18 PM)
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Re: Prototype RCA Arcade Game from 1975 Dumped and Emulated
[Re: ranger_lennier]
#373237 - 01/18/18 05:36 PM
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> The program data was found on an audio cassette at the Hagley Museum And Library
That's a mighty robust audiocassette to still be playable 40+ years after it was made and recorded on.
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Re: Prototype RCA Arcade Game from 1975 Dumped and Emulated
[Re: MrGoodwraith]
#373238 - 01/18/18 07:21 PM
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> > The program data was found on an audio cassette at the Hagley Museum And Library
>
> That's a mighty robust audiocassette to still be playable 40+ years after it was made
> and recorded on.
My experience is that tapes of that vintage are usually still playable, at least if they've been stored in good conditions. The binary data is generally encoded as a series of long and short square waves, so you can often recover the data even if there's quite a bit of noise. Personally, I've successfully archived Astrocade tapes from as long ago as 1979.
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| gregf |
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Ramtek's Trivia promoter
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Re: Prototype RCA Arcade Game from 1975 Dumped and Emulated
[Re: ranger_lennier]
#373243 - 01/18/18 09:33 PM
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>> > The program data was found on an audio cassette at the Hagley Museum And Library
>
>> That's a mighty robust audiocassette to still be playable 40+ years after it was made
>> and recorded on.
>My experience is that tapes of that vintage are usually still playable, at least if they've
>been stored in good conditions. The binary data is generally encoded as a series of long
>and short square waves, so you can often recover the data even if there's quite a bit of
>noise. Personally, I've successfully archived Astrocade tapes from as long ago as 1979.
It makes me curious if the tapes used with the RCA Fredotronic arcade hardware incorporate audio output for sound effects as well or if the sound effects are simple analog discrete output from the RCA Fredotronic arcade pcb hardware components. I haven't looked the available source code yet, but it is neat to see this being done at this time.
I noticed you were asking about tape details within the thread. I hope one or two of the folks involved will be able to get all the specs down to being accurate enough that the video (and audio?) data output will almost match what is shown from the cab photos from the mid 1970s.
I never heard about the RCA Fredotronic before so this is new to me. I hope it can also be supported in MAME, but probably more hurdles having to be done in MAME first before there is any chance of RCA Fredotronic being supported.....first would be getting permission to be able to support the games.....but I hope it will be possible.
btw: Seeing the block/square style cabs in the photos is amusing. The side art is interesting. That would be something if one of the 3D cab modelers can recreate the cab and sideart for emulation scene.
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Re: Prototype RCA Arcade Game from 1975 Dumped and Emulated
[Re: gregf]
#373250 - 01/19/18 04:33 AM
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There aren't any sound effects on the tape recording I listened to. I'm not even sure if the arcade hardware used tapes. These may just be backups made by the developers.
I don't any reason it couldn't be added to MAME--it emulates just about anything nowadays.
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