Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!well!ewhac
From: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: 3D for cheap!
Message-ID: <5682@well.UUCP>
Date: 12 Apr 88 22:34:43 GMT
References: <1038@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP>
Reply-To: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Organization: MTV (Music TeleVision):  Mind rot a specialty.
Lines: 35
Keywords: 3D graphics in integer math
Summary: I, Robot is a hack.

In article <1038@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> chas@ssc-vax.UUCP (Chas Boyd) writes:
>	There was an arcade machine called "I Robot" Copyright Atari 1984
>   (4 YEARS ago) that had full 3D graphics:  perspective, hidden line
>   shaded polygon fill, 3D rotations and real-time animation of data bases
>   involving well over two hundred polygons or 500 vertices.  [ ... ]
>   It could not have cost much over $3000 to produce, so WHY isn't this 
>   technology available now?  Was it all custom bit slice?  Is it a lost art?

	I own one of those monsters.  I bought on the premise that I would
dive inside and re-program the sucker to play _Starfighter_.  To this end, I
managed to get in contact with the game's designer at Atari Coin-Op.

	It turns out the 3D system is based on an AMD bit-slice setup, with
nine bits of resolution (just enough for 512 pixels across).  He pulled
every trick known to man, and a few more besides, to get that thing to
perform the way it did.  It is nowhere near to being a general 3D polygon
manipulator.  The controlling CPU is a 6809 running at 1.5 MHz.

	My conversation with the designer went something like this:

Me:	"Hi.  I'd like to get some programming information on _I, Robot_."
Him:	"You're kidding, right?"
	"No.  I wanna re-program it."
	"No, you don't."
	"....Yes I do."
	"No, you don't.  I designed that thing; I *know* what's in there.
You don't want to mess with it.  It's just too ugly."

	I'd still like to get in there and muck around with it.  I have a
6809 assembler rarin' to go......

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape  ihnp4!pacbell -\
 \_ -_		Recumbent Bikes:	      dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac
O----^o	      The Only Way To Fly.	      hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack")
"Work FOR?  I don't work FOR anybody!  I'm just having fun."  -- The Doctor