Blue Max
Anyone remember the 8-bit video game ‘blue max’?
About six months ago, I downloaded a commodore 64 emulator for my computer (those of you who remember the 64 will realize how comic this is). Among other things, this has enabled me to have the fine experience of being beaten in chess by a computer with less RAM than a TI-82.. but I digress.
There’s a game called ‘blue max’, which involves flying a WW-II biplane around and bombing buildings, shooting down other planes, etc. Very tight code, I still haven’t figured out how they managed to get the entire thing into RAM with no overlays..
Anyway, the really cute thing about all this is that the game crashes.. pretty hard.. if you bomb your own runway. Now I’ve always been curious as to whether this was a feature or a bug – i.e. is this something the programmer intended or somethign that happened accidentally – and I was hoping that someone on the web would have a answer. However, a google search for ‘blue max bomb own runway’ turned up nothing even remotely resembling a answer. So now, unless I can run down the person who wrote blue max (assuming that he’s A: still alive and B: connected to the internet), I will have to relearn 6502 assembly and find a reverse-assembler for the C64 (no small feat, 20 years after the fact – I mean, I can’t even find a copy of VB6.0 2 years after it was written)..
So, does anyone else have any theories?
Come on, I know I’m not the only one amongst my friends who played 8-bit video games.
By the way, I’m amazed at how many of these games retain their playability twenty years after they were written. I can’t find the urge to install and play again most of the steller CD-ROM amazing-graphics-and-sound games that I have lying around, but Pogo Joe still amuses me.
I wonder if they wrote better games back then, or if it’s just nostalgia.
I guess I should get back to work on the evparts address book, huh.
S.
December 31st, 1969 at 4:00 pm
November 3rd, 2002 at 6:46 am
When I was in 2nd grade, my old 1st grade classroom was converted into a ‘computer lab’ and had about 12 commodore 64s. We got to play lots of games with dubious educational value, my favourite being Dig Dug. My first computer memory. 🙂
Alas, I have nothing to give you on the actual question parts of your post. Figured you’re filling my comments, I can do the same with yours. 😉
It’s probably nostalgia though. For the past 4 years, Atari 2600 has topped my Christmas list each year and I have yet to receive one. Of course for me, it’s probably because those games are the height of my game playing skills. Childhood memories officially triggered.