RE: [stella] 7800 programs -- potential problems?

Subject: RE: [stella] 7800 programs -- potential problems?
From: "John Saeger" <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 07:58:23 -0800
Russ Perry Jr wrote:
> >The following games also have back doors:
>
> Verified?  Or assumed?

I'm just going by what Eckhard Stolberg has told me.  So probably verified.
I'll let you know when I post the new version of the backdoor source code,
that has more details.  I just haven't gotten around to it because I've been
so busy on other things.

> And why would these have back doors if they're Atari games?

Maybe their programmers had an instinctive dislike for this kind of thing.
They were all just a bunch of hippies weren't they?  ;-)  Of course I'm just
going by what I saw in the Howard Scott Warshaw video...

> That's kind of my personal opinion...  But to be fair, it's not like he's
> out there publicly bullying folk (which is why I was keeping it quiet at
> first).  I think Lance was merely sounding off worries about what
> releasing the Monitor Cart again might lead to.

I've never talked to Lance myself, but I've heard he's a nice enough guy.

> Are you talking monopoly allegations, or other cases?

Probably in this case, I'm thinking mostly about the thin veil between their
operating system division and their applications division.  How the inside
folks always get information about new releases first and get information
about secret features that the O.S. has but outside folks get different
information.  And other ways that some companies get preferential treatment
as far as the flow of information goes.  It's not a level playing field for
outside developers.  This is just my personal opinion, but I think
programming information should be freely available to anybody who wants to
know.  To me that's *fair use* of a computer.  And this applies to gaming
consoles too.  I really don't like the licensing structures that most gaming
companies have set up around their machines.  And I really don't care about
their concerns about quality of games that become available when independent
development is allowed.  Let the market decide what is good.

> Actually, I meant the question in a more physical way...  If I put a
> 2600 EPROM on a 7800 board, can I plug it into my 2600?  I know that
> 7800 games have more pins on the board, but do the extra pins mess up
> anything in a 2600?  Or is the board too wide (it occurs to me that
> I've never compared them!)?

I don't think it would fit.  2600 boards fit in 7800s but not the other way
around.

John



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