Scratchenstein creations: Death Race

Hello, its blogging time again and its Halloween again. For the celebratory blog today, i decided to revisit Scratch to attempt to recreate a game ive mention before that was the basis for lost game i discussed previousy, Exidys Death Race!

The flyer for Death Race

Released in 1976, It was the first video game to generate controversy and the first to use shock value as a selling point.

We begin our journey with a recap of the history of Death Race: In 1974, a former Engineer for Monitor and arcade game company RamTek named Pete Kaufmann left the company to form Excellence In Dynamics, or Exidy. Their first games started shipping out at the end of 1974 and in 1975, their games TV Pinball, Table Pinball (the cocktail version of TV Pinball), Table Foosballer, and Destruction Derby were demonstrated at the 1975 MOA Show in Chicago, with Destruction Derby being the popular winner.

Flyer for Exidy's newest titles in 1975

The demand for Destruction Derby was so great that since Exidy was so small, they had to devote their entire production line just to make Destruction Derby. To free up production, they licensed the game to another company called Chicago Coin who produced the game as Demolition Derby.

A flyer for Chicago Coin's Demolition Derby

The only problem was that Chicago Coin was going out of business. So to recoup their investment and to provide a filler game til their next game Car Polo was released, Designer Howell Ivy redesigned the game adding operator-adjustable maximum time-limit of 99 seconds and changed the cars to people and hitting these stick figures the machine would emit a scream sound. 

Death Race Gameplay

The game shipped in January 1976, and 7 months later,  Seattle Associated Press reporter Wendy Walker noticed the game at a local shopping mall arcade. She wrote an article in the paper discussing the games graphic content and pretty soon news outlets in the US, Canada and the UK were covering the game. Even Exidy's assertion that you weren't running over people but rather "gremlins" didn't stop the controversy.

The first article discussing Death Race from the July 3, 1976 of the Daily Oregonian

However, the controversy actually had a complete opposite effect on the game as Exidy went from selling only 200 units to around 3000 units. What was meant to be a filler game sparked the very first controversy involving video games and Exidy became the first video game company to use shock value as a selling point. 

So what I thought id do today was attempt to recreate it in Scratch. Now there already is a recreation available of Death Race, but I decided to do it in scratch as a side project.

Or at least, that was my intention, as I ended up putting it off over work so I ended up having to do it all in 1 day! And trust me, It wasn't easy! Never the less I did at least get it to a playable state.

It's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE! (Err...Sort of!)

So there it is, Not perfect but playable. In someways I did better than with Batari Basic which i made a game recreation out of previously, But its still not quite up to par with a full port. Though its still not far off, all I need to do is:

1.  Fix the countdown timer
2.  Add a 2 player scoring system
3.  sort out the AI
4.  Refine the Controls
5.  Add sounds

I am by no means done with this yet, I will continue to mess around with it and get a proper version of the game. But thats not all, A few months from now im going to use this as the basis for something else, and I think you can probably figure out what that is. But until Happy Halloween, and ill see you next time!

Before the Xbox: A look at the Mitsubishi ML-8000 and the Daewoo Zemmix series

Hello its blogging time once again and its MSX time again! In the last entry I went over the history of the Sony HitBit range, the similar gaming machines after and how they layed the groundwork for the PlayStation, and the MSX standard. In that entree I also mentioned Mitsubishi ML-8000 and a series of game consoles based on the platform that layed some spiritual groundwork for Microsoft's own gaming endeavors. In this entree Im going to circle back to those machines to talk about them in more detail and provide some info on how those systems effectively created a Microsoft game console before the Xbox was a glimmer in Seamus Blackley's mind.

We begin our journey with a brief recap of the history of the MSX: 1983, The Japanese personal computer market was starting to explode in popularity. However, with popularity came incompatibility with each machine. ASCII director and VP of Microsoft Japan Kazuhiko "Kay" Nishi,  saw an opportunity to get into the market by introducing a standard each manufacturer could follow. 

  Kazuhiko "Kay" Nishi in 1978

Inspired by the Spectravideo SV-318 and SV-328 computers launched that year, he came up with a computing standard that used a Z80 CPU, 16 color graphics and 3 voice sound. he called the standard the MSX and was announced on on June 27 1983, and the first machine to use the standard, The Mitsubishi ML-8000, was introduced on October 21 1983.

 The Mitsubishi ML-8000

So thats the rundown, now lets have a look at that first machine. As previously mentioned, the Mitsubishi ML-8000 launched on October 21 1983, and retailed for ¥59,800.

Inside the box were the manuals the video cable, and of course the computer itself.

 The Mitsubishi ML-8000 in box (Sadly this one looks like its been UV damaged and hopefully got some Retr0bright by its new owner)

The machine itself is typical for the MSX. I like the case design for this machine. The formfactor, the silver, black, gray, blue, and green color scheme, and the shape of the keycaps really resonate with me and I defiantly do think its stylistic of the other Japanese home computers of the time which also have similar looks.

 The Mitsubishi ML-8000

On the right side you have your joystick ports and a special connector.

The right side of the ML-8000

On the Back you got your printer port, a reset button, the cassette port, RCA video and audio out an RF output for TV's (with the channel selection switch to the left), and the power cord with a monitor plug above.

The back of the ML-8000

And on the left side is the all important power switch.

The left side of the ML-8000

Powering up the system drops you into MSX BASIC, in contrast to the HB-55 which drop you into built in software. Here Ill preform the HELLO WORLD! program as usual.

For software storage media, Mitsubishi provided the ML-10DR and ML-20DR cassette recorders for use for their machines.

The Mitsubishi ML-10DR and ML-20DR cassette recorders 

For Joysticks, Mitsubishi provided the Mitsubishi ML-50JY, which was also rebadged by several other compaines to use for their own MSX machins including Cannon, Fujitsu, Gradiente, Hitachi, Pioneer, Sanyo, Toshiba, and Victor Company Of Japan (Or JVC). 

The Mitsubishi ML-50JY

It also had an optional keypad that could plug into the cartridge port, the Mitsubishi ML-10KB. this was somewhat unique in that it wasn't a numerical keypad, it was a Hexadecimal keypad. Probably useful for programing in hex or something. 

The Mitsubishi ML-10KB

Also unique were the Mitsubishi Diatone Z10 and Z-30 audio intelligent systems, which were full Hi-Fi decks, Turntable Radio and cassette deck combo and everything, that could be controlled  using a dedicated Roboty interface with built-in software. How cool is that?

The Mitsubishi Diatone Z10 and Z-30 audio intelligent systems and the Roboty Interface

Also neat was the the Mitsubishi Move Master II RM-501, which was a robotic arm that could be controlled by using the printer port with some extra software in MSX-BASIC.

The Mitsubishi Mitsubishi Move Master II RM-501

While Mitsubishi continued to produce MSX computers into 1987, they never were that popular when it came to manufacturers of the standard. But they did prove to get the standard off to a decent start and by 1984, The MSX standard had made its way outside of Japan to countries like Europe, France, The UK, Australia, The Netherlands, Germany, the Middle East, Brazil, Spain, Finland, Kuwait and even the Soviet Union. But the most important countries the MSX was Introduced to thats relevant to our story was South Korea.

Major manufacturers like Samsung and Goldstar (Now LG) made MSX computers. One of those companies was Daewoo.

They were founded in 1967, and initially got their start in the textile business. But eventually they became a conglomerate working in construction, travel, automobiles, and of course consumer electronics.

While Daewoo had introduced their own line of MSXs in 1984, By 1985, they were struggling to compete due to the many Famiclone consoles flooding the Korean market. So they had an idea, take the MSX system, remove the keyboard and I/O connectors, and stick it in a console shell. And thats exactly what they did by launching the Zemmix in 1985 costing ₩70,000 in a set with a joystick and a 20-1 multicart or ₩81,000 with a extra joystick

An Ad for the Zemmix CPC-50

It's quite simple, You got Your cartridge port on the top and your joystick ports on the front.

The Front of the Zemmix CPC-50

On the back is RF out (with the channel selector on the left), RCA video and audio out, and the power plug.

The back of the Zemmix CPC-50

Interestingly the power switch is not on the console but rather the power supply, Kind of like the Amiga 500 I suppose.

The power supply of the Zemmix CPC-50

For controllers, the system came with the Daewoo CPJ-902, a pretty basic ergonomic stick.

The Daewoo CPJ-902 Joystick

For hardware, Its identical to the MSX. It has same Z80 CPU, The same TI TMS9918 video chip, The same GI AY-3-8910 sound chip, and the same amount of VRAM as a MSX1 (16K). The only differences are the lack of I/O ports and a slightly modified BIOS+BASIC chip.

The Inside the Zemmix CPC-50

Most of the games avalible were Korean bootlegs of MSX games from Japan like Namcot's Galaga and Konami's Antarctic Adventure.

The Korean version of Galaga

The Zemmix line turned out to be a sales hit. The wide availability of MSX games  meant that the system already had a large software catalog, and success continued to grow. on July 1st, 1987, The Korean government passed a law that protected the copyright of software programs in that region. Resulting in all bootleg games and famiclones became illegal. Not only did that lead to more retail space, but now those companies making bootleg famiclones started to produce new games for the Zemmix, From unlicensed versions of games like Super Mario Bros, to conversions of late 80s Japanese arcade titles Double Dragon, Bubble Bobble, Tetris, and Altered Beast.

The MSX version of Altered Beast

Daewoo also continued to release new versions of the Zemmix that used variants of the later versions of the MSX standard such as the Zemmix Super V (Based on the MSX2), the Zemmix Turbo V (Partially based on the MSX2+), and there was even an all in one unit built into a TV called the Zemmix SuperBoy. the former two even allowed users to hook up keyboards and other peripherals to make them fully MSX compatible.

Left to right: The Zemix Super V (1990), the Zemmix Turbo V (1991), and The Zemmix SuperBoy (1989).

It wasn't until 1995 when Daewoo finally stopped making them, around the same time the MSX line itself was discontinued in favor of IBM compatibles finally took over in the east, and Daewoo themselves stopped their Electronics operation in 1999 when they were dismantled by the Korean government. but Microsoft's journey into the game business doesn't end there.

4 years later in 1999, back in Microsofts home country of The United States, Microsoft Co-Founder and then CEO Bill Gates hired a down-on-his-luck game designer looking for a break from games. His name, Seamus Blackley.

Jonathan "Seamus" Blackley and his dog Charles in 2021 

Blackley began his career at the legendary Looking Glass Technolgies in 1992 working on titles like Ultima Underworld and System Shock before leaving the company in 1995 to work for Dreamworks Interactive to design Jurassic park Trespasser, released for the PC in 1998, and ultimately failed due to its rushed nature.

 Jurassic Park Trespasser (1998) Fun Fact: The control scheme of Trespasser inspired Octodad and Surgeon Simulator.

Embarrassed by its failure, Blackley went to work for Microsoft in the graphics department. Around the same time, The Sony Playstation 2 was announced and rumors began to spread that the upcoming PlayStation 2 would kill PC gaming and PC Graphics outright. Blackly thought these rumors were outright ridiculous and decided to try to convince Microsoft to enter the Video game console business.

After teaming up with with fellow DirectX Project Manager Kevin Bachus, Bachus's boss Ted Hase, DirectX team leader Otto Berkes and later game division head Ed Fries, the team managed to get Bill Gates approval for the console and on November 15th, 2001, The Xbox launched durring a special event was held on the prior night as part of the grand opening of the flagship store of Toys 'R' Us at Times Square in New York City, and was an immediate success selling over 1 million units  after just 3 weeks.

The Xbox (2001).

While Microsoft has all but forgotten about the MSX, The Daewoo Zemmix series is not. In 2013, Retroteam Neo created the Zemmix Neo (A system using fpga technology to recreate the MSX turbo architecture in a modern compact design that saw limited release), and in 2019, Team Neo created the Zemmix Mini (A officially liscenced miniturized version of the Zemmix V using a Raspberry Pi) .

Left to right: The Zemmix Neo (2013), and The Zemmix Mini (2019).

Anyway that wraps it up for my look at the Mitsubishi ML-8000  the Daewoo Zemmix series, and the MSX range itself. I hope you've enjoyed my look at these fascinating little pieces of gaming history. Thanks for reading! see you next time!