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     These archived Bally Arcade/Astrocade programs are for use with Bally BASIC (the BASIC that requires an external tape-interface to load and save programs).


Bally's Alley Bally's Alley
By John Collins.
1980.
Bally BASIC.

"An adventure game; one player. Game can last for days or weeks; can save at any point for restart; can go in nine directions; find the ten treasures and return to house; can only carry four treasures at one time. Each move subtracts a point. A magic word-sound-color will be helpful."

Bally's Alley was offered for sale on tape in the classified ads section of the Arcadian 2, no. 7 (May 19, 1980): 66.

This Bally BASIC game was typed-in by Paul Thacker in November 2022 and is considered a work-in-progress. On November 6, 2022, Paul Thacker wrote on the Bally Alley discussion group:

"I, perhaps foolhardily, decided that I could read John Collins's handwriting and typed it in. His 2's look like v's and he really smooshes his 8's together. Anyway, I've triplechecked the code and ended up with a game that seems to work. I had to put more delays in the WAV file than usual due to how the @ array is initialized. I can navigate between locations and display the score. The instructions led me astray on picking up items. I researched the character values and figured out you should enter G (GET), not TAKE. DR for DROP also functions. I see code for the magic word, but haven't actually run into it yet. I also saw indications in the code of a command starting with F and a command with L as the the third character.

"Adam and Chris played the similar game The Treasures Of Cathy a lot, so maybe they would be interested in additional testing. John said you could spend weeks playing it. I don't know about that, but a map would definitely be advisable, especially since the navigation seems to be pretty random rather than like an actual physical space."

There is plenty of additional information about "Bally's Alley" available:
Bally Chess Board "Bally Chess Board"
By John Collins
1979

Identical programs archived from tape from Mike White and hand-labeled tape in Bob Fabris collection. This program was originally offered for sale in 1979, then later printed in The Arcadian newsletter in ARCADIAN, 6, no. 11/12 (Oct. 31, 2984): 120.

Bowling "Bowling"
By John Collins
1979

Archived from tape in Brett Bilbrey's collection.

Checkers "Checkers"
By John Collins.
ARCADIAN, 1, no. 6 (May 4, 1979): 41-42 (Original Program Listing)
ARCADIAN, 1, no. 7 (June 15, 1979): 47 (Program Fix)
ARCADIAN, 1, no. 10 (Sept. 31, 1979): 77 (Program Modification)
ARCADIAN, 1, no. 11 (Oct. 31, 1979): 90 (Program Fix)
ARCADIAN, 2, no. 1 (Nov. 29, 1979): 4 (Program Fix)

Several modifications of "Checkers" are included in this archive, including one each by the following people: Mike Fink, Richard Houser and Karl Nystrom.

Here is what was printed with "Checkers" when it first appeared in the Arcadian:

There is an amazing amount of activity in this game, that is comparable to the $75 "Checker Challenger." Before the machine makes a move, it goes through some steps, and numbers appear to tell you where it is. The code for the steps is:

1. The computer has found that it can jump one of your men.
2. Checking to see it you can jump it.
3. Is a corner open?
4. Is there an open move?
5 and 6. Have the computer's men moving either to get kinged or toward and player's man left
7. Any move an unkinged computer's piece can make
8. Any move

To indicate a double jump, enter the two numbers (of the square you go through and the landing square) as if it were a single jump only.

Checkers (Prototype) "Checkers" (Prototype)
By John Collins
1979

These are prototypes of the "Checkers" program that first appeared in the Arcadian newsletter.

Checkers (2-25-79) (1979)(John Collins)(300 baud)(proto).zip - archived from tape in Bob Fabris' collection dated 2-25-79. A different version of this program was printed in The Arcadian in May 1979.

Checkers (2-25-79) (1979)(John Collins)(300 baud)(proto)[a][b].zip - archived from tape in Bob Fabris' collection dated 2-25-79. It was incomplete on the tape, but the extant code is different than any other known version.

Checkers (3-79) (1979)(John Collins)(300 baud)(proto).zip - archived from tape in Bob Fabris' collection dated 3-79. A different version of this program was printed in The Arcadian in May 1979.

Checkers (19xx)(John Collins)(h -)(300 baud) – archived from tape in Ken Lill's collection hand-labeled "New Checkers, Maze Services", with the reverse side hand-labeled "Bangman, Backgammon". It has several code changes as compared to the John Collins checkers programs printed in The Arcadian. It seems closer to the first program than to Checkers II and later updates.

Checkers II "Checkers II"
By John Collins
1979
Appearances:
     ARCADIAN 2, no. 2 (Dec. 22, 1979): 10, 12
     "Best of Arcadian - 1980" tape

     This is an updated version of the previous game by John Collins. 1 Player. All the moves of the board game, including double jumps. Use the Keypad to indicate the row and column that you wish to move FROM, and then the row and column you wish to move TO. Press GO after each figure. When the computer is up, it will go through five calculations in deciding where to move, and you will see the figures 1-5 as it does so. Every so often it will redraw the playing board.

     "Checkers II" must have been quite a popular program, as quite a few alternate versions have been found (and are included in the archive).

Hangman "Hangman"
By John Collins
1979

Archived from tape in Brett Bilbrey's collection.

Inspector Clue-so "Inspector Clue-so"
By John Collins
1980

Identical copies were archived from tapes in Brett Bilbrey's collection and Bob Fabris' collection.

W&W and John Collins just released some programs with the same name. Inspector Clew-so is a pretty similar Clue-style game, so maybe one was modded from the other, or they were both based on a program popular on other systems. The name is a riff on Inspector Jacques Clouseau in The Pink Panther. Mike White's software list spells the one by John Collins as Clue-so, and that spelling was used in Arcadian volume 2, page 66, so that name was used.

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