KaterBegemot
Computer Space, Clean Sweep, and Gran Trak
editFirst, in regards to Clean Sweep, the source you referenced, as well as the few others that give a date appear to be in error. In his autobiography, Ralph Baer includes a spreadsheet of game sales data he compiled during the 1970s by consulting Playmeter and other industry sources. He records sales of Clean Sweep in 1973 and 1974. This also jives with an interview I conducted (not a reliable source for wikipedia purposes, but the Baer book is) with Howell Ivy in which he stated that he took over video game development for the company in 1973 after the release of Ramtek's initial Pong clones. As to Computer Space, Ted Dabney has given interviews in which he describes how Nolan Bushnell used discrete diodes in order to create the graphics of Computer Space, which is a form of ROM memory. An article that discusses this is http://technologizer.com/2011/12/11/computer-space-and-the-dawn-of-the-arcade-video-game/2/. The wikipedia article is in error. I hope that helps. Indrian (talk) 04:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- So after some further discussion on my talk page and a little more digging, it does appear that the sources stating that Computer Space used ROM are in error. I think what happened is that in one interview, Dabney and the interviewer made some comments about how the diodes were used to create something similar to a discrete form of ROM and subsequent sources took that too literally, as it seems there is nothing actually in memory. I still believe Clean Sweep predates Gran Trak, however, based on the evidence provided above, and I know for a fact that one used ROM as well as RAM. Indrian (talk) 07:33, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not so sure about that. Maybe Clean Sweep used ROM, but it's about storing sprite graphics in this ROM as Marty Goldberg desribed it. Actually i cannot find any detailed information about Clean Sweep. The Gran Trak 10 manual on the other side introduced Ataris ROM and stated, that the ROM stored the car image, the race track display etc. Why are you so sure that it used "ROM as well as RAM"? By the way i found an interesting passage in Nick Montfort's and Ian Bogost's book "Racing the beam": Atari’s driving game Gran Trak 10 was the very first to have a store of ROM, but it did not use a chip to implement this memory. It stored sprite graphics in a matrix of diodes, each of which was placed individually on the printed circuit board. ... It was groundbreaking to use ROM of any sort... The important ROM technology for gaming and other computing applications was mask ROM, in which the whole memory was stored on a single chip. This was the technology introduced in Tank. --KaterBegemot (talk) 01:23, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think its fair to say that Howell Ivy knows whether he used ROM in his own game or not: http://systems99llc.com/About%20System99/About_System99.htm ;). Also, and I realize this is not a reliable source from a wikipedia perspective, I did interview Howell Ivy a few years back and he confirmed that Clean Sweep was released in 1973 and that he used ROM for the paddle graphics (if you look at the game in youtube videos or whatever, you will notice that the paddle has a more distinctive curved shape than those found in typical ball-and-paddle-games of the day, which is thanks to storing the graphics in ROM). So you have this interview (yes, I know, not technically reliable) which is backed up by Ivy's own site for the use of ROM and Ralph Baer's vintage sales info for the 1973 release date. Indrian (talk) 04:04, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- So video game history needs to be rewritten? ;) I already expressed doubts about GT-10 being the first arcade game with ROM at your talk page, but maybe that's just a question of detail or interpretation. The website's text states that Clean Sweep "utilized the first use of Prom and Ram memory within a coin operated video product". However PROM is not exactly the same as ROM. I'm not a technical person, too. So in the end you might be right... --KaterBegemot (talk)
- Fair enough, I mean a technical person may see an important difference between what was implemented in Clean Sweep and what was implemented in Gran Trak and I would pretty much have to take their word for it. On the wikipedia page for PROM in the infobox it looks like PROM is listed as a subset of ROM so I think its in that family of memory, just a specific type. I could be way off base about that though. Anyway, This has been a good conversation. Sometimes the best way to navigate the poorly documented and often contradictory material from early video game history is to talk through these kinds of things. Indrian (talk) 18:10, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- So video game history needs to be rewritten? ;) I already expressed doubts about GT-10 being the first arcade game with ROM at your talk page, but maybe that's just a question of detail or interpretation. The website's text states that Clean Sweep "utilized the first use of Prom and Ram memory within a coin operated video product". However PROM is not exactly the same as ROM. I'm not a technical person, too. So in the end you might be right... --KaterBegemot (talk)
- I think its fair to say that Howell Ivy knows whether he used ROM in his own game or not: http://systems99llc.com/About%20System99/About_System99.htm ;). Also, and I realize this is not a reliable source from a wikipedia perspective, I did interview Howell Ivy a few years back and he confirmed that Clean Sweep was released in 1973 and that he used ROM for the paddle graphics (if you look at the game in youtube videos or whatever, you will notice that the paddle has a more distinctive curved shape than those found in typical ball-and-paddle-games of the day, which is thanks to storing the graphics in ROM). So you have this interview (yes, I know, not technically reliable) which is backed up by Ivy's own site for the use of ROM and Ralph Baer's vintage sales info for the 1973 release date. Indrian (talk) 04:04, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not so sure about that. Maybe Clean Sweep used ROM, but it's about storing sprite graphics in this ROM as Marty Goldberg desribed it. Actually i cannot find any detailed information about Clean Sweep. The Gran Trak 10 manual on the other side introduced Ataris ROM and stated, that the ROM stored the car image, the race track display etc. Why are you so sure that it used "ROM as well as RAM"? By the way i found an interesting passage in Nick Montfort's and Ian Bogost's book "Racing the beam": Atari’s driving game Gran Trak 10 was the very first to have a store of ROM, but it did not use a chip to implement this memory. It stored sprite graphics in a matrix of diodes, each of which was placed individually on the printed circuit board. ... It was groundbreaking to use ROM of any sort... The important ROM technology for gaming and other computing applications was mask ROM, in which the whole memory was stored on a single chip. This was the technology introduced in Tank. --KaterBegemot (talk) 01:23, 1 April 2012 (UTC)