2 Feb
2002
2 Feb
'02
1:52 p.m.
Does anyone on the list have one or all of these; The Adventure Vision
by Entex, the COSMOS by Atari, or the Microvision by Milton Bradley? I
hope to get a Microvision in a couple days but the others are hard to
find. The COSMOS for example has only 5 known to be left and only 2 of
those are working units.
2 Feb
2 Feb
7:44 a.m.
On Sat, 2 Feb 2002, John R. Keys Jr. wrote:
Does anyone on the list have one or all of these; The
Adventure Vision
by Entex, the COSMOS by Atari, or the Microvision by Milton Bradley? I
hope to get a Microvision in a couple days but the others are hard to
find. The COSMOS for example has only 5 known to be left and only 2 of
those are working units.
I have a Microvision (in not so good shape, I don't know if it's
functional or not) but never heard of Adventure Vision or COSMOS.
More info?
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
3 Feb
3 Feb
2:07 a.m.
I have a Microvision (in not so good shape, I don't
know if it's
functional or not) but never heard of Adventure Vision or COSMOS.
In the spring of 1980, Atari showed COSMOS at a press
conference in New York. It was designed by Al Alcorn and was a
'holographic' game. It's my understanding that it basically
disappeared after that. I've never seen pictures of it or it's
game(s).
Jeff
--
Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File
http://www.cchaven.com
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
2 Feb
2 Feb
11:16 p.m.
On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Jeff Hellige wrote:
I knew Curt would have the complete scoop :)
http://www.atari-history.com/cosmos/cosmos.html
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
I have a
Microvision (in not so good shape, I don't know if it's
functional or not) but never heard of Adventure Vision or COSMOS.
In the spring of 1980, Atari showed COSMOS at a press
conference in New York. It was designed by Al Alcorn and was a
'holographic' game. It's my understanding that it basically
disappeared after that. I've never seen pictures of it or it's
game(s). 
3 Feb
3 Feb
4:24 a.m.
Jeff,
There are only two fully assembled and functional units, Al Alcorn
doesn't even have one and he was the head of the Atari Cosmos project, but
he does own a set of the plastic shells. I have one of the functional
units and a CES mockup, the other is owned by a former Atari engineer from
Atari's special projects unit. Here is a link to images and history of the
Cosmos at my site:
http://www.atari-history.com/cosmos/cosmos.html
Curt
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Hellige" <jhellige(a)earthlink.net>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 11:07 AM
Subject: Re: Classic Game Console Search
I have a
Microvision (in not so good shape, I don't know if it's
functional or not) but never heard of Adventure Vision or COSMOS.
In the spring of 1980, Atari showed COSMOS at a press
conference in New York. It was designed by Al Alcorn and was a
'holographic' game. It's my understanding that it basically
disappeared after that. I've never seen pictures of it or it's
game(s).
Jeff
--
Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File
http://www.cchaven.com
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
5:30 a.m.
On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Curt Vendel wrote:
There are only two fully assembled and functional
units, Al Alcorn
doesn't even have one and he was the head of the Atari Cosmos project,
but he does own a set of the plastic shells. I have one of the
functional units and a CES mockup, the other is owned by a former
Atari engineer from Atari's special projects unit. Here is a link to
images and history of the Cosmos at my site:
http://www.atari-history.com/cosmos/cosmos.html
Why doesn't someone reproduce the boards used in the system and install
them in the empty shells? That is, if someone wants one badly enough.
-Toth
9:28 a.m.
Well,
Of the two known boards sets, neither one of us is really interested in
having someone tinker with them and take chance to damaging them or their
components. Someone would also need to find suitable replacement for the
COPS411 MCU and read off the current code and port it to a newer MCU say
from Microchip or others. There are only 3 empty
shells out there, so I
doubt the demand would justify the work... IMHO, or maybe not
:-)
Curt
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tothwolf" <tothwolf(a)concentric.net>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 2:30 PM
Subject: Re: Classic Game Console Search
On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Curt Vendel wrote:
There are only two fully assembled and functional
units, Al Alcorn
doesn't even have one and he was the head of the Atari Cosmos project,
but he does own a set of the plastic shells. I have one of the
functional units and a CES mockup, the other is owned by a former
Atari engineer from Atari's special projects unit. Here is a link to
images and history of the Cosmos at my site:
http://www.atari-history.com/cosmos/cosmos.html
Why doesn't someone reproduce the boards used in the system and install
them in the empty shells? That is, if someone wants one badly enough.
-Toth
10:55 a.m.
On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Curt Vendel wrote:
From: "Tothwolf"
<tothwolf(a)concentric.net>
Well, a really good scan of each side of the boards would do as a starting
point for most of the true hardware hackers. Most of the time would be
spent on sections of the board other than the main processor anyway. I
imagine there are some nonworking or unfinished boards floating around out
there somewhere too.
What might really be nice, is to get permission from whoever still owns
the design for the units to reproduce them. With today's manufacturing
techniques, the boards would be the least expensive part to reproduce. The
most expensive parts of a reproduction that involve a molded plastic case
are having the molds duplicated. I wonder if Atari stored the molds for
this thing away somewhere... Heck, even back then Atari decided it was
worthless, maybe they'd be willing to put the design in the public domain
;)
-Toth
On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Curt Vendel wrote:
Of the two known boards sets, neither one of us is really interested
in having someone tinker with them and take chance to damaging them or
their components. Someone would also need to find suitable
replacement for the COPS411 MCU and read off the current code and port
it to a newer MCU say from Microchip or others. There are only 3
empty shells out there, so I doubt the demand would justify the
work... IMHO, or maybe not :-) There are only two fully assembled and functional
units, Al Alcorn
doesn't even have one and he was the head of the Atari Cosmos project,
but he does own a set of the plastic shells. I have one of the
functional units and a CES mockup, the other is owned by a former
Atari engineer from Atari's special projects unit. Here is a link to
images and history of the Cosmos at my site:
http://www.atari-history.com/cosmos/cosmos.html
Why doesn't someone reproduce the boards used in the system and install
them in the empty shells? That is, if someone wants one badly enough.
12:51 p.m.
I've spoken with some people out in Tawain and they did find one set of mold
die's for some Atari 520ST cases, I have the photo's they mailed to me, the
molds were rusted and ruined.... I can't imagine that the blocks up machined
aluminum from 1981 would still be around or be in any type of usable
shape.... I've spoke with some of Atari's former Industrial Designers and
even on a side as a favor, to make new CNC'd dies for a short run would be
into the tens of thousands, there's gotta be someone who's sympathetic to
the classic gaming/vintage computing cause willing to do some CNC work on
the side for a smaller fee and then you could take those to any place with a
multi-ton press and run off a few dozen to a few hundred pieces of plastic.
I have wanted to do this for a long time, some of the projects of newer
hardware I've been messing with have been using what I called "recycled
Atari" cases as I use existing products, machine them with needed opens, get
color matching lexan to make cover labels and such and do neo-Atari products
Curt
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tothwolf" <tothwolf(a)concentric.net>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: Classic Game Console Search
Well, a really good scan of each side of the boards would do as a starting
point for most of the true hardware hackers. Most of the time would be
spent on sections of the board other than the main processor anyway. I
imagine there are some nonworking or unfinished boards floating around out
there somewhere too.
What might really be nice, is to get permission from whoever still owns
the design for the units to reproduce them. With today's manufacturing
techniques, the boards would be the least expensive part to reproduce. The
most expensive parts of a reproduction that involve a molded plastic case
are having the molds duplicated. I wonder if Atari stored the molds for
this thing away somewhere... Heck, even back then Atari decided it was
worthless, maybe they'd be willing to put the design in the public domain
;)
-Toth
On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Curt Vendel wrote:
> From: "Tothwolf" <tothwolf(a)concentric.net>
> > On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Curt Vendel wrote:
> >
> > > There are only two fully assembled and functional units, Al Alcorn
> > > doesn't even have one and he was the head of the Atari Cosmos
project,
> > > but he does own a set of the plastic
shells. I have one of the
> > > functional units and a CES mockup, the other is owned by a former
> > > Atari engineer from Atari's special projects unit. Here is a link
to
> > > images and history of the Cosmos at my
site:
> > >
> > > http://www.atari-history.com/cosmos/cosmos.html
> >
> > Why doesn't someone reproduce the boards used in the system and
install
them in the empty shells? That is, if someone wants
one badly enough.
Of the two known boards sets, neither one of us is really interested
in having someone tinker with them and take chance to damaging them or
their components. Someone would also need to find suitable
replacement for the COPS411 MCU and read off the current code and port
it to a newer MCU say from Microchip or others. There are only 3
empty shells out there, so I doubt the demand would justify the
work... IMHO, or maybe not :-) 
2:08 p.m.
On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Curt Vendel wrote:
[...] I've spoke with some of Atari's former
Industrial Designers and
even on a side as a favor, to make new CNC'd dies for a short run
would be into the tens of thousands, there's gotta be someone who's
sympathetic to the classic gaming/vintage computing cause willing to
do some CNC work on the side for a smaller fee and then you could take
those to any place with a multi-ton press and run off a few dozen to a
few hundred pieces of plastic. I have wanted to do this for a long
time, some of the projects of newer hardware I've been messing with
have been using what I called "recycled Atari" cases as I use existing
products, machine them with needed opens, get color matching lexan to
make cover labels and such and do neo-Atari products
I worked for a couple of years at an industrial design / manufacturing
company as my first job out of college. Our speciality was getting
finished plastic parts in the hands of our clients in the shortest
amount time possible. Sometimes we'd take customer ideas from napkin
sketches to finished injection molded parts in a matter of a 3-4 weeks.
Something like a 520ST case is big and complex enough that you'd
definitely be in the multiple tens of thousands of dollars to do the CAD
work and to machine aluminum molds from it. Jack the price up higher if
you want steel. You could reduce the price by going with a very plain
exterior, but even then you're still dealing with some sizeable and
expensive molds.
Something simpler and smaller, like game cartridge molds, would be
easier to find someone willing to do that cheaply.
-brian.
7:11 a.m.
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5 Feb
5 Feb
8:50 a.m.
New subject: Classic Game Console Search Follow-up
Well everyone gave you a good update on the COSMOS but no one talked
about the Adventure Vision. Here are a few facts I found my searching
goolge; this unit was considered state-of-the-art in 1983 as it was the
only tabletop cartridge-based game system (not counting the Vectrix).
Entex's machine required no TV hook-up since the screen was built-in,
with 6000 light locations to create images with more than 20 times the
resolution of any table-top game on the market at the time. It used
four "D" batteries and came with a Defender game cartridge. The unit
also featured a full fidelity speaker that produced unrivaled sound
effects. During it's short run only about 4 games were produced for it.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sellam Ismail" <foo(a)siconic.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2002 3:44 PM
Subject: Re: Classic Game Console Search
Festival
On Sat, 2 Feb 2002, John R. Keys Jr. wrote:
> Does anyone on the list have one or all of these; The Adventure
Vision
> by Entex, the COSMOS by Atari, or the Microvision
by Milton Bradley?
I
> hope to get a Microvision in a couple days but
the others are hard
to
> find. The COSMOS for example has only 5 known to
be left and only 2
of
those are
working units.
I have a Microvision (in not so good shape, I don't know if it's
functional or not) but never heard of Adventure Vision or COSMOS.
More info?
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at
www.VintageTech.com *
8 Feb
8 Feb
2:21 a.m.
New subject: Classic Game Console Search Follow-up
On Tue, Feb 05, 2002 at 04:50:47PM -0600, John R. Keys Jr. wrote:
Well everyone gave you a good update on the COSMOS but
no one talked
about the Adventure Vision. Here are a few facts I found my searching
goolge; this unit was considered state-of-the-art in 1983 as it was the
only tabletop cartridge-based game system (not counting the Vectrix).
Entex's machine required no TV hook-up since the screen was built-in,
with 6000 light locations to create images with more than 20 times the
resolution of any table-top game on the market at the time. It used
four "D" batteries and came with a Defender game cartridge. The unit
also featured a full fidelity speaker that produced unrivaled sound
effects. During it's short run only about 4 games were produced for it.
MESS (the Multi Emulator Super System) emulates the AdventureVision --
see http://www.mess.org for binaries and source. You'll have to search
elsewhere for ROMs. Not surprisingly, all the games that were produced
have been preserved over the years. :)
Also see http://gamerland.com/systems/cgi-bin/showsystem.cgi?id=1
and http://www.adventurevision.com for general info.
-- Derek
9:27 a.m.
New subject: Classic Game Console Search Follow-up
MESS (the Multi Emulator Super System) emulates the
AdventureVision --
see http://www.mess.org for binaries and source. You'll have to search
elsewhere for ROMs. Not surprisingly, all the games that were produced
have been preserved over the years. :)
Sort of OT, MESS is one of the emulators I love to hate. I admire the idea
but it ends up strongly as a jack-of-all-trades-therefore-master-of-none.
Case in point is the C64 emulator, which compared to the others out there,
really sucks and it's not like there's a dearth of technical documentation
on the system to prevent them from improving it.
Even on machines that it is the only (major?) emulator for, it's still not
very good. Take the KIM-1 emulator, for example, which is terrible! It does
work but it would be much better if it emulated KIM's teletype capability
instead of just the keypad and LEDs. And if you use the backdrop, at least
on the Mac version, the LEDs don't work anymore.
In the rush to cover as many (admittedly including some of the very obscure
and therefore worthy) systems they seem to have done a slapdash job on them
in the process.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- if (you.canRead(this)) you.canGet(new job(!problem)); -- Seen at JavaOne ---
4:24 p.m.
New subject: Classic Game Console Search Follow-up
I thought the beauty of MESS was that everyone could write their own driver
for the machine of their choice. if the one for you favorite machine is
messed up, write your own and give it to the community. I believe it is the
same for MAME.
Gotta love open source.
Francois
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cameron Kaiser" <spectre(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: Classic Game Console Search Follow-up
does
MESS (the
Multi Emulator Super System) emulates the AdventureVision --
see http://www.mess.org for binaries and source. You'll have to search
elsewhere for ROMs. Not surprisingly, all the games that were produced
have been preserved over the years. :)
Sort of OT, MESS is one of the emulators I love to hate. I admire the idea
but it ends up strongly as a jack-of-all-trades-therefore-master-of-none.
Case in point is the C64 emulator, which compared to the others out there,
really sucks and it's not like there's a dearth of technical documentation
on the system to prevent them from improving it.
Even on machines that it is the only (major?) emulator for, it's still not
very good. Take the KIM-1 emulator, for example, which is terrible! It work but it would be much better if it emulated
KIM's teletype capability
instead of just the keypad and LEDs. And if you use the backdrop, at least
on the Mac version, the LEDs don't work anymore.
In the rush to cover as many (admittedly including some of the very
obscure
and therefore worthy) systems they seem to have done a
slapdash job on
them
in the process.
--
----------------------------- personal page:
http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University *
ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- if (you.canRead(this)) you.canGet(new
job(!problem)); -- Seen at
JavaOne ---
8354
days inactive
8361
days old
14 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
curt＠atari-history.com -
dpeschel＠eskimo.com -
fauradon＠frontiernet.net -
foo＠siconic.com -
jhellige＠earthlink.net -
jrkeys＠concentric.net -
spectre＠stockholm.ptloma.edu -
tothwolf＠concentric.net -
vaxzilla＠jarai.org