Measuring interest in classic stern disassembly project

seymour.shabow

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Nov 11, 2016, 2:56:55 AM11/11/16

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Project goal:

Disassemble and comment all classic Stern game roms

Reason:

To enable people to re-program on the native platform - no p3, no
arduinos, etc. Program in 6800 assembler just like the 70s guys did!

You can create new games from scratch as well, or conversion kits.
Rewrite rules the way you want

I have to be honest, motivation to disassemble code for games I don't
own is not very appealing. I do have it down to about 20 hours to
disassemble a game and get in shape to re-compile - no real comments
other than broad descriptions. You can put in 100+ hours REALLY getting
into the code and explaining what it does.

What am I looking for?

People who either know some form of assembly or are willing to learn - I
will send you examples and documentation of the mpu200 language (it's a
token interpreter - you can't just dump straight assembly with it - it
takes a while to manually create macros). If your interest lies in the
earlier mpu100 games, those are straight 6800 assembly.

Some of the games are in various states of commenting already - off the
top of my head, done thus far:

Stars
Wild Fyre/Dracula (same exact roms! Slightly different switches!)
Trident
Meteor
Galaxy
Seawitch
Flight 2000
Dragonfist
Star Gazer
Hot Hand

It's probably no surprise that the above games are games I either
currently own or have owned in the past.

Interested? Let me know via email and I'll get some training materials
together.

seymour...@gmail.com

dothedoo

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Nov 14, 2016, 8:43:38 PM11/14/16

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I'd love to help. Email sent.

Quench

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Nov 15, 2016, 6:56:31 AM11/15/16

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I can help. Email being sent.

EAF

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May 1, 2018, 9:30:28 PM5/1/18

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mail sent

John Robertson

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Apr 26, 2021, 8:11:12 PM4/26/21

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Anything ever come of this other than that rather informative post on
the other pinball forum?

It would be nice to see if there was a way to have Stern games all able
to set to Free Play for example...

John :-#)#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
MOVED to #7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
(604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

seymour.shabow

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Apr 27, 2021, 9:47:11 AM4/27/21

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John Robertson wrote:
>
> Anything ever come of this other than that rather informative post on
> the other pinball forum?
>
> It would be nice to see if there was a way to have Stern games all able
> to set to Free Play for example...
>

There's already free play roms for all the classic stern games, but they
aren't all switchable on/off.

Yes, it's still progressing slowly. There's at least one other person
that is doing free fall, and many of the other games are slowly
progressing by me, just not in released form yet. Mpu 100 games would
be the most incomplete.

John Robertson

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Apr 27, 2021, 10:42:40 AM4/27/21

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Where are the free play images?

Thanks,

seymour.shabow

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Apr 27, 2021, 11:16:43 AM4/27/21

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John Robertson wrote:
>
> Where are the free play images?
>
> Thanks,
>
> John :-#)#
>

I stuck them here for you
https://sites.google.com/site/allentownpinball/galaxy-asm

The date stamp on the zip file was 2010 so these are really old. There
are other variants that others came up with, for instance I think all
the ones in the weebly board are a different flavor (although I could be
wrong about that as well.... it has been 11 years since these were made)

John Robertson

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Apr 27, 2021, 12:57:50 PM4/27/21

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Thanks! I was greedy and have archived it all now on my
computer...however I have no free time to do disassembly. This will help
another project though!

However have you chatted with Dave Alverson about this project? He likes
poking around assembly code when bored.

seymour.shabow

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Apr 28, 2021, 11:22:16 AM4/28/21

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John Robertson wrote:
>
> However have you chatted with Dave Alverson about this project? He likes
> poking around assembly code when bored.
>

Don't know him unless it's only by his handle!

Dave Alverson

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May 9, 2021, 12:32:49 PM5/9/21

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I might be able to help with disassembly and commenting code. If you can point me to some more information, I'll be happy to take a look.

seymour.shabow

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May 10, 2021, 11:22:04 AM5/10/21

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https://sites.google.com/site/allentownpinball/galaxy-asm

Most the games are 'in progress' at this point, so if there was a
specific one you wanted to work on LMK. (Not all of them are on that
link, a couple of the completed ones are there)