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Alpha One

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ByVecFever

Atari Major Havoc Prototype

For almost all just a curiosity but if you are into arcade history and/or Major Havoc it is nice to take a look and maybe play an earlier version of an arcade game which is considered a classic.

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The game uses a spinner but it is very well playable with the analog Vectrex controller. Atari’s driving controller uses a digitally encoded spinner plus one button which when just plugged into a Vectrex unmodified is connected to the analog joystick and can be measured with some calibration.

Binary Star’s ‘Spinner’ is using a spinner with the same digital grey encoder but has two buttons which makes it ideal for Alpha One.

  • Input: Analog Joystick / Spinner / Atari driving controller
  • Game Info: ”                           Welcome to Alpha One, a prototype version of Major Havoc which survived in cabinet form.                Quite an interesting curiosity from a historical arcade viewpoint – both hardware and software are not final yet and Alpha One only uses one cpu and two pokeys but already the full bank switching for the avg plus cpu rom bank switching. Software-wise the enemies have not yet names and their behavior is different, the game differently named and due to this we know the name of the ship the clones fly – the Alpha One (I assume it is rebuilt for new clones when the player crashes it).                The avg stream data is unique in that a regular avg chip would not display a few things like the logo so I made the assumption that there is something special going on and revived the vectors since the logo plus animation is in the stream – just the ‘stat’us information is odd.                The game setup is already pretty close to Major Havoc but the reactor levels all differ quite a bit. Again, interesting to see how they evolved – Alpha One, Major Havoc, Return to Vax and The Promised End all differ. Keeps it interesting. According to Jess Askey – the programmer of the newer versions and owner of the Alpha One cabinet – the Major’s Christian name is ‘Rex’ and this name can be seen on the glove of the character on the Alpha One marquee.                                         “

Localization

//NAME="ALPHAONE"
//

GERMAN[] = {
    { 0, 0, 0}
};

FRENCH[] = {
    { 0, 0, "                           Bienvenue dans Alpha One, l'un des prototypes de Major Havoc qui a survécu en borne d'arcade.                Il s'agit d'une curiosité intéressante du point de vue  historique - le matériel et les logiciels ne sont pas encore définitifs et Alpha One n'utilise qu'un processeur et deux puces pokeys, mais déjà sont effectifs la commutation complète de banque pour le générateur de vecteurs analogique (avg) et la commutation de banque processeur central-Rom. Du point de vue logiciel, les ennemis n'ont pas encore de nom et leur comportement n'est pas le même que dans la version finale; le jeu porte également un autre nom et grâce à cela, nous connaissons l'appellation du vaisseau sur lequel volent les clones: l'Alpha One (je suppose qu'il est reconstruit pour de nouveaux clones lorsque le joueur se crashe).                Les données du flux avg sont uniques dans la mesure où une puce avg classique n'afficherait normalement pas certains éléments tels le logo; j'ai donc supposé qu'il se passait quelque chose de particulier et j'ai réactivé les vecteurs puisque le logo et l'animation sont dans le flux: les informations de 'stat'us sont juste étranges.                La configuration du jeu est déjà assez proche de celle de Major Havoc mais les niveaux avec les réacteurs diffèrent tous un peu:  là encore, il est intéressant de constater la façon dont ils ont évolué. Alpha One, Major Havoc, Return to Vax et The Promised End sont tous différents. Ça ne manque pas d'intérêt. Selon Jess Askey - le programmeur des nouvelles versions et propriétaire de la borne Alpha One - le nom du Major est \"Rex\" et ce nom peut être remarqué sur le gant du personnage du fronton de la borne d'arcade Alpha One.                                         "}
};

ENGLISH[] = {
    { 0, 0, "                           Welcome to Alpha One, a prototype version of Major Havoc which survived in cabinet form.                Quite an interesting curiosity from a historical arcade viewpoint - both hardware and software are not final yet and Alpha One only uses one cpu and two pokeys but already the full bank switching for the avg plus cpu rom bank switching. Software-wise the enemies have not yet names and their behavior is different, the game differently named and due to this we know the name of the ship the clones fly - the Alpha One (I assume it is rebuilt for new clones when the player crashes it).                The avg stream data is unique in that a regular avg chip would not display a few things like the logo so I made the assumption that there is something special going on and revived the vectors since the logo plus animation is in the stream - just the 'stat'us information is odd.                The game setup is already pretty close to Major Havoc but the reactor levels all differ quite a bit. Again, interesting to see how they evolved - Alpha One, Major Havoc, Return to Vax and The Promised End all differ. Keeps it interesting. According to Jess Askey - the programmer of the newer versions and owner of the Alpha One cabinet - the Major's Christian name is 'Rex' and this name can be seen on the glove of the character on the Alpha One marquee.                                         "}
};
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