Discussion with Rickey Spiece of Dave Nutting Associates Compiled by Richard C. Degler, 12/28/2010 April 2005 "A new member of this newsgroup" ... and replies (with embeded quotes deleted.) [These 11 messages are all he commented on.] Message #2078 Tue Apr 19, 2005 5:50 pm "rickeyspiece" Hello all, I am new to this newsgroup. I worked on the original Bally Arcade back in the 70's at Dave Nutting and Associates. It is nice to see all of the interest in our work from back then. I don't know how much I remember, being that it was 25 years ago I last worked on the Bally Arcade, but I might be able to fill in a few details. I noticed that TERSE was mentioned. TERSE is an acronym and it stands for Terse Efficient Recursive Stack Engine. And for you real observant types, yes the name itself is also recursive. I think it was Al McNeil (sp?) that did the original work on the engine itself and came up with the name. He was my office-mate at DNA for awhile before he went to Stern. All of TERSE was written in house. Once you disassemble the engine in Z80 code, pretty much everything else was written in TERSE so you would need a TERSE disassembler. I first started at DNA in 1977 and my first cartridge was SeaWolf/Missle and I remember developing that using the wire-wrapped boards before the chipset was back from the fabricators. I have fond memories of flexing those huge boards to get them to work! I also developed Panzer Attack/Red Barron, Grand Prix/Demo Derby, Blackjack/Poker/Acey Ducey -- I actually finished the development started by Mason, but he didn't shuffle the cards correctly. I used Donald Knuths shuffle algorithm which worked just great. I also co- authored the Football cartridge with Bob Ogden when he first joined. He played football in college and I was a wiz at programming cartridges! The other work I did for them was all proto-types that never went to market. I think I wrote the proto-types in TERSE and the rest was straight Z80 code. Hello and bye for now. Rickey Spiece --- Message #2078 Tue Apr 19, 2005 5:50 pm Russ Perry Jr Whoa! Howdy, and welcome to the group! Have any of those survived the years? There are a lot of people who would be interested in preserving these prototypes. --- Message #2080 Tue Apr 19, 2005 6:56 pm Rickey Spiece Russ, the most important proto-type I worked on was a pinball machine names Zoltan. It was the very first pinball with a graphical screen added. It was a hybrid between a traditional pinball machine (we started with the existing Zoltan) and we essentially put the Bally Arcade graphics behind the head glass. This was very experimental and reasonably cutting edge for the 70's. Only one prototype was made and I think it was canibalized for some other work. I absolutely loved pinball and still do. I can't say that I ever played a pinball machine with graphics added that I really liked. Perhaps I am some sort of purist! My only souvenir from that project was obtaining an original Zoltan headglass and also an original Fireball headglass. Which I still have and still cherish. Unfortunately the prototype cartiriges and my Bally Arcade(s) were lost sometime when I got divorced 13 years ago. I now wish I had kept that stuff. I don't know if my ex kept them or burned them. I didn't exactly leave on the best of terms... --- Message #2081 Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:02 pm Rickey Spiece Ooops. I mis-typed. I meant Voltan, not Zoltan. [editor note: Zoltan was a "Fortune Teller Arcade Machine" instead.] --- Message #2082 Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:16 pm Lance F. Squire" Yes, Welcome! Thanks for stopping by! SO many questions... ;) I presume you've seen BallyAlley and/or the Ballyfaq? More later... Lance --- Message #2083 Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:30 pm Rickey Spiece Lance, no I have only seen a few entries in the newsgroup. Since I am new to this, I am starting at ground zero here. What should I look at? Or easier on me, what questions can I answer? Rickey --- Message #2084 Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:51 pm "Lance F. Squire" Well, http://www.ballyalley.com a huge repository of information that Adam put together with help from me and others. http://www.alteeve.com/~lance/Ballyfaq.html, My website. As for quastions, I'm mostly interested in unknown history/information about the BPA, the keyboard expansion, and more recently programming tips/hints for a project I'm working on. Goto: Files > AssemblyLanguage Source Code ScrollTestA.z80 To see what I'm working on... Files > Cartridge Images ScrollTestA.bin Runs on MESS or XMESS. (or an actual Bally if you have a burner...) Adam Atrionfo is much better at the 'interview' type questioning... Lance --- Message #2085 Tue Apr 19, 2005 11:54 pm "Tony Miller" Rickey; Glad to see another ex-DNAer here! I've been trying to remember the last name of Lew ..., the guy who wrote the breakout game of the original code. Do you remember it? And Welcome aboard! Tony Miller --- Message #2087 Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:50 am Rickey Spiece Tony, I do remember him vividly. I can't think of his last name off the top of my head. Let me cook on it a while and see if I can remember. Rickey --- Message #2088 Wed Apr 20, 2005 12:19 pm Russ Perry Jr Rickey Spiece wrote: > Russ, the most important proto-type I worked on was a pinball > machine named [V]oltan. It was the very first pinball with a > graphical screen added. It was a hybrid between a traditional > pinball machine (we started with the existing [V]oltan) and we > essentially put the Bally Arcade graphics behind the head glass. > This was very experimental and reasonably cutting edge for the > 70's. Only one prototype was made and I think it was canibalized > for some other work. Ah, bummer. It would be cool just to have that code -- I assume the pin had a full monitor on it then, or was it some kind of smaller display? > I absolutely loved pinball and still do. I can't say that I ever > played a pinball machine with graphics added that I really liked. > Perhaps I am some sort of purist! I've always been more of a videogame fan than a pinball fan, but I tend to find that sort of thing gimmicky. I still hope to run across a Spanish Eyes pin that I played in my youth, at least I'm pretty sure that's the right one -- the only thing is the only Spanish Eyes art I've found online was sort of "op art"/"modern art" whereas what I remember was more realistic paintings of lovely latinas; I don't know if it's a false memory of the art (possibly it was table or side art, not backdrop art) or the name, or if it was just a rarer variation or re-release or something. > Unfortunately the prototype cartiriges and my Bally Arcade(s) were > lost sometime when I got divorced 13 years ago. I now wish I had > kept that stuff. Me too. :-( Do you at least recall what kind of stuff you were working on and how complete it was? > I don't know if my ex kept them or burned them. I didn't > exactly leave on the best of terms... Oh, sorry to hear that. --- Message #2089 Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:28 pm "David E. Turner" I don't suppose you would have any old documentation on TERSE lying around? Or even the compiler on some ancient media? I may be the poster who refered to TERSE. I like to do work on the commercial side of the Astrocade hardware (for example the Gorf coin- op game) which is has a lot of similarities to the Bally Astrocade. Anyway, I wrote Jamie (Jay) Fenton (programmer of Gorf) about it a long while back and she told me of TERSE and that Gorf was programmed in the language. She still has the Gorf source and the TERSE manuals, but unfortunatly for me, they went into storage when she last moved (more or less in storage permantly now I think). I really would like to get info on TERSE (among other things) for historical purposes. I know it is a good bit like Forth and my comparisions of some of the disassembled Gorf code to Camel Forth source seem to confirm this... I seem to have rambled on... so let me close and say Welcome to the group! :-) -Commander Dave --- Message #2090 Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:47 pm Frank Palazzolo Hello, While we're on the subject of Forth and the Bally hardware... I worked on the emulations of Bally chipset for the MAME and MESS emulators. For a long while, no-one had managed to emulate Professor Pacman, and there was speculation that the rom images were corrupt. At some point, I started to dig into the code, and to my surprise I discovered a Forth interpreter in there! :) This explained why a lot of the code didn't disassemble, it was mostly Forth byte code. Ironically, this actually helped me figure out the bank-switching in that game. I disassembled some of the interpreter, and found the code for an "absolute jump". By searching for this byte sequence, I managed to piece together where each ROM was switched into the memory map. I still needed other techniques, but eventually it was emulated successfully. Along the way, I looked a bit further and discovered that most of the Bally coin-ops were written this way. I could even see the interpreter revisions from one coin-op to the next. Jamie [Fenton] also confirmed to me that it was TERSE. Thanks, -Frank P.S. Last month, I managed to add the "Demons and Dragons" prototype to that MAME driver as well. --- Message #2091 Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:32 pm Tony Miller Commander; Try tracking down Alan McNeil, who wrote TERSE (which, as I recall, stood for Terse Efficient Reentrant Stack Engine). Last I heard (which was many years ago, now) he and his wife Karen had bought a ranch in Montana. Cheers, Tony Miller --- Message #2092 Thu Apr 21, 2005 12:16 am Rickey Spiece Tony, you are correct that Alan McNeil wrote the original Terse engine. However, Terse stands for Terse Efficient Recusrsive Stack Engine. As for Alan, I haven't seen him for years but I know that his wife went to school and majored in Western Indian something or another. Not to sound stupid, but last I knew them she was working at the Museum of Natural History in Chicago. I would not at all be surprisied for them to end up in Montana. Also, I remember Alan telling me that his father was a Physicist with his summers off and he spent many summers in Montana in what I recall was Kalispell near Flathead Lake. So, Montana would be a natural for both of them. I shared an office with Alan and met his wife-to-be back in the 70's. They are very nice people! Rickey --- Message #2093 Thu Apr 21, 2005 12:41 am Tony Miller Rickey; I remember asking him what it stood for, and he said reentrent. But then again, they say that memory is the second thing you lose. I forget what the first is. Al was actually the 1st guy I stole from DNA when we were staffing up URL, followed by Terry Coleman, Jim Hemmer and Bill Jahnke. When we started Xtar, he joined us for a while, working on a 3D game, and then decided to move on. Great guy, wish I had kept in touch with him. Tony --- Message #2094 Thu Apr 21, 2005 10:22 am Rickey Spiece Tony, I think I remember you. Unless, perhaps you are Dave Otto in disguise ;-) !!! Rickey --- Message #2095 Fri Apr 22, 2005 4:23 pm Tony Miller Rickey, No, I'm not Dave Otto. But we did name the smiley face in Berzerk after him - Evil Otto. Cheers, Tony Miller ---