PINBALL I
By Mark Keller
1980


This is a 2000-Bally "AstroBASIC" conversion of an original 300-baud BALLY 
BASIC program.

Pinball I (1980)(Mark Keller)(2000 baud) - Unpublished Arcadian submission ound 
in Bob Fabris' tape collection.  Use the player 1 trigger for the left
flipper, and the player 2 trigger for the right flipper.

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Here is a May 10, 2016 email to Paul Thacker from Adam Trionfo:


"I loaded and tried "Pinball I" by Mark Keller.  This was only archived as a 
300-baud program, so I loaded it via the Bally BASIC tape interface.  It loaded 
fine and played okay.  It's really quite slow.  I converted it to AstroBASIC 
using the 300-to-2000 baud converter program in the AstroBASIC manual.  I saved 
it to 2000 baud without making any changes at all.  I might need to insert NT=-
1-- I'm not sure (I haven't looked at the code).  I played "Pinball I" under 
AstroBASIC and it plays SO much faster-- it's like a different game.  I'm 
really impressed.

"I've attached the 2000-baud file.  Could you look at it and load it to test it 
on your machine to make sure it works too?

"It turns out that I no longer seem to have any computers that can load/save 
2000-baud programs with ease.  This old laptop can load AstroBASIC programs to 
the cartridge, but it just BARELY gets a signal from the AstroBASIC cart when 
:PRINT is used to save a program.  Luckily, I was able to use "amplify" in 
Audoacity, which allowed ballybin to work (where it failed on the unamplified 
file)."

Adam


Paul responded:

"Your recording worked for me. I didn't really have as good an experience with 
it, though. My ball got in a loop between a bumper and the top wall, which went 
on for 30 cycles or so. I was about ready to reset the game when it finally 
broke out. Of course, if it had been a high score competition, that would have 
helped me out.

"Just be sure to note when a game is a 300-to-2000 baud conversion. I believe 
this game was never published, so you may have been the first person ever to 
play it in 2000 baud format."

Paul


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In an unpublished letter to Bob Fabris (dated November 1, 1981), Mark Keller 
wrote:

Dear Bob,

Here are the answers to your problems with my programs (I hope).  Lines 30-70 
of Blockout 5.0 are:

50 CX=60;PRINT #2,L,
70 BOX C,-43,K,2,3;BOX Y,X,2,2,3

Yes, the line sequence in Pinball I goes 9, 10, 20, 40.

Both games ["Blockout" and "Pinball I"] were written as short, simple (and 
unfortunately slow) graphics games.  

Blockout 5.0 is played like Breakout or Brickyard.  The game will prompt for 
parameters and hand controller #1 moves the paddle.

"Pinball I" is a simple pinball game (no gravity).  It will prompt for 
parameters, triggers 1 & 2 control the flippers.  They stay on a set period of 
time when used and then are disabled for a set period of time.  I'll send more 
game soon (I hope), and am now working on a Bally -> Vic-20 interface.

Mark

