s; these include; pits, quicksand, rolling logs,
fire, rattlesnakes, scorpions, and crocodiles. Your only skills are; jumping, climbing and swinging on vines. You need to also collect Treasure on your
way. Of course because you are not a celebrity; you can't yell; "get me out
of here", and you are up against the timer, so will need to move accurately
and quickly. The game allows the player to move both left to right and even back again with a flip scrolling screen, there is even a secret cave to move through missing out some of the "harder screens" you can then back track, a technique that seems to work well through the game.

TECHNICAL

The game play may sound simplistic; however technically the game is complex; and causes many challenges for the programmer. Obviously one man hadn't been listening to these challenges and as to why an accurate version of the game couldn't be converted to the Vic; although fitting 255 the screens into a vic wouldn't be difficult; using the same bi-directional polynomial number generator that David Crain used on the original. The programmer also says
that "the Imagic games; Dragonfire and Atlantis, used similar raster effects
on their games back in 1983; and were an inspiration to use these techniques, as well as the various new 'graphics modes' developed by Mike and Tokra as chronicled on the Denial forum"

So Achieving flicker free game play; wouldn't be impossible on the machine,
the game could be made to work on the vic. Enter the programmer Victragic;
who started working on a conversion of the game . Now today; with a more or less completed version; and a file available to download; we have Vic pitfall or is that Pitfall for the Vic.

SO HOW DOES IT LOOK?

The game looks vastly superior to the Commodore 64 version of Pitfall! and looks just as good if not better than the Atari 2600 version; the backgrounds and creatures; have been extremely well crafted from the original; animation
is as slick as the Atari version. Indeed looking at the games side by side; the conversion is superb! The programmer says that "work really stated on a version in 2012 but was abandoned because it didn't look right" then he
created another version from scratch taking only 2 to 3 months to complete,
all in his spare time! Not only does the game look good and accurate; it's
the game-play that seems to win it the well earned 85% score here. Although the sounds are minimal; they are accurately converted from the Atari version.

I can't really fault the program; other than the fact, it would be nice to
have some sort of splash screen; but the programmer is already working on
that! And a commercial release would be the icing on the cake for the game. However I presume copyrights would prevent this from ever happening which is a real shame.

SCORES

Graphics: 8/10
because this is a conversion also because of the technical achievements Sounds: 6/10
accurate conversions of the 2600 game
Gameplay: 8/10
very like the original
Overall: 8.5/10

COMMENTS

A very convincing version; with superb technical and programming knowledge of the vic, the game looks and plays well; and is very accurate to the original Atari 2600 version. If it were a commercial release with nice printed cover; and splash screen then it could even reach the dizzy heights of perfection!

DOWNLOAD

docs.google.com/file/d/0BypQg4QBo87vU3pKQ2E3eW1wSHc/edit?pli=1

DISCUSSION

gator3293.hostgator.com/~sleeping/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t =6659&hilit=pitfall

Reviewed by Nigel Parker


*************************************
WHAT WAS THE SCPU
From CMD
*************************************

The SCPU or "Super Central Processing Unit"; was released by the now-defunct company "CMD" (Creative Micro Designs). The device was released for sale in 1996, however CMD stopped selling its products in 2001, after which the distribution and manufacturing was taken over by Maurice Randall from Click Here Software Co. Sadly, Maurice hasn't fulfilled many, if "any" orders for these units, and he now seems to have closed his site. Instead, you are redirected to another website where he appears to only be producing software for tablet devices now.

The SuperCPU converted the standard c64 into a veritable powerhouse; with a 20Mhz processing unit using a Western Digital W65c816s processor. The unit also had the capability to add more memory to the c64, taking it to a massive 16MiB with the installation of the SuperRAM card. The SCPU also added the ability for Commodore 64 users to code in 16-bits.

The SCPU comes supplied as a cartridge that plugs into the expansion port of the machine. The device is angled at 90 degrees, so it doesn't take up too much desk space behind the machine. Installation is simple; With the c64 "turned off", plug in the SCPU, flick the switch to "enable" the device and then power on. The c64 boot screen will show the change instantly. First,
you will notice the SCPU animation zoom across the screen. Then the c64 reports SUPERCPU DOS. If you have more memory installed, then this will also be shown and you are, as they say, "good to go".

The SCPU Mark1 accelerator card was originally only available for the
Commodore 64. Very soon after its launch however, CMD released a much
improved Mark II version, this would be available in two variants:

1. C64 Mk2
2. C128

The C128 version could function on both the C64 and the C128 (in both 128 and 64 modes). The Mk2 version provided improved stability of the device. This stability was a major problem over here in the U.K. and Europe; however, it didn't seem like much of a problem in the USA. Personally, I am convinced
that these stability problems were all power related. Now, after a lot of personal experience, I always recommend that users purchase the C128 version
of the SCPU, even if you will never use the C128 mode! At least you'll have the benefit of better reliability and stability on a C64.

I personally think that practically all UK & Europe PSU's were inferior and could literally burn out, or stop functioning whilst running the SuperCPU.
CMD would later sell you an upgraded PSU, should you feel the need to spend more money. There were briefly a couple of other suppliers of larger PSU's, and if you got hold of one of those, then all power problems disappeared. A relatively low cost fix, if you have a C128 PSU, is to make a small adaptor plug. This allows you to run your c64/SCPU with the boosted power of the
C128. This adaptor makes for a very capable PSU on a c64, and I highly recommend it for anyone with any type of REU attached. You would know if you needed a power boost, as once the SCPU was connected to the C64 the commodore would display "SUPERCPU INITIALIZATION ERROR", that generally meant the power supply was not powerful enough for powering both the c64 and the SCPU. Other errors included freezing programs, system crashes and strange read/write errors.

Although other accelerator cards had been released, such as the Schnedler Systems Turbo Master CPU (4Mhz) and the Flash 8 (8Mhz & 256KiB ~ 1MiB internal RAM), the compatibility of these other cards with standard Commodore software seemed to be an issue. In the majority of cases, the software failed to even load, which of course was a shame and a problem!

The SCPU also catered for one more particularly important market. That market was full of the GEOS users (a graphical operating system for the Commodore64). It also made financial sense for CMD to release the SCPU because CMD were also the distributors of GEOS, and one would sell the other. With the high level
of compatibility from the SCPU, GEOS was not only fully compatible but the
SCPU would also add new features and enhancements. CMD had hoped for this to be a perfect partnership. Sadly, the SCPU was released a little too late for the market, with many (but not all) GEOS users leaving the platform, and from there moving to the Amiga or PC. Those Hardened GEOS users, still sticking with their faithful machines, were extremely well c

--- MBSE BBS v1.0.01 (GNU/Linux-i386)
* Origin: Dragon's Lair (39:901/280)