PING-PONG
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PROGRAM NOTES
The game is for two players. Keys 1 and 4 control the top bat, and keys 7 and 0 control the bottom bat. The scores for the top and bottom players are shown in the bottom-left and bottom-right corners respectively. There are a total of ten balls per game, and it is the ball character itself that displays how many are remaining ('9' to '0').
This game was recovered from a back-up cassette.
The publisher of the game is unknown. The machine code for the game is stored as hex digits within PRINT statements, which are then extracted and POKEd into memory. This is a similar mechanism to that used by Macronics in their Breakout game. Further the game uses similar sized bats as that in Breakout and also displays the ball number as the ball character itself.
The game does not appear to have been created by Macronics since it does not appear in any of their adverts or software brochures. However, Macronics did sell annotated disassemblies of their Breakout and Space Intruders games to allow others to learn the flicker-free technique and deploy it in their own programs, as shown by this from one of their software catalogues:
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It seems plausible that this is why Ping-Pong is very reminiscent of Breakout.
The creator of the back-up cassette recorded an audio description prior to the program that indicates the program's name and publisher. However, I have not been able to make out who the publisher is or locate any adverts based on the name of the game. Can you identify the game?
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Click here to play the audio description of Ping-Pong. |