Were Vic Rally X & Vic Car Race ever really published ?

[ral-clan]

Hey guys!

I found some pictures of the ultra-rare Japanese VIC-20 cartridges: Rally-X, Pac-Man, Galaxian. I can't remember where I got them.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/clarke-santin/vic/VIC1903.jpg
http://www3.sympatico.ca/clarke-santin/vic/PACMAN.jpg

So this proves they were released in Japan as commercial products.

The OTHER, MAJOR important thing I just noticed. The number on the Rally-X cartridge can barely be made out....but I think it's VIC-1903!!!!

This is ONE OF THE MISSING CARTRIDGE NUMBERS!

I wonder what the numbers are for Galaxian and Pac Man. They are unreadable in these images. Perhaps all the missing number gaps can be filled in.

We've also recently discovered from another Japanese VIC picture that Commodore released an official monitor for the VIC with the debut of the VIC-1001 there. It was called the VIC-1510.

We really have to pay more attention (and get better resolution pictures) of the Japanese VIC product line. How could we have missed this important information before? VIC collectors have been wondering about these "missing cartridges" for a decade!

[Jeff-20]

Amazing discovery!!

[orion70]

Very interesting. They look like pictures from an ebay auction.

Cartzilla says 1903 was probably intended for a VIC version of Bank Robber (Raid on Fort Knox original game):

Game name

Raid on Fort Knox

[...]

Trivia

This game is basically a rewritten version of a Commodore game called "Bank Robber". BR has a copyright date of 1981, ROFK has a date of 1982. Other than that and screen color changes, they appear to be identical. Makes me wonder if BR wasn't originally going to be Commodore's # Vic-1903? Could be, perhaps.

According VIC-20 Cartridge Rarity & Gameplay list, it should be an educational vapourware:

Commodore [Vic-1903]
May be "Bridge; teach and play"? Brent Santin sent Ward some Sep 1982 promotional literature that lists that name as a planned cartridge.

As for Pac-Man, looks like (but I use a strong imagination ) it's 1934, or more probably 1936.

[carlsson]

I think you found those pictures in relation to this thread:
http://sleepingelephant.com/v-web/bulle ... php?t=1717

[Mayhem]

Indeed... and I have speculated in the DP Guide about the 1903 number on Rally-X and the allocation allegedly to the Bridge cart in the West. Proof though that Commodore may already have considered they couldn't release the game in the West as is, and changed it code wise (giving it a new number in the process) unlike Galaxian and Pac-man...?

[ral-clan]

From the thread linked to above I can see that Carlsson and some others already noticed the Rally-X VIC-1903 during the initial Japanese auction.

It really goes to show the huge gap in our knowledge. Even though we represent possibly the most knowledgeable VIC collectors, we still have a huge dark area when it comes to Japanese Commodore material.

We really need to find someone who owns these cartridges to give us better scans. Maybe we can finally fill in some of the gaps in the VIC-190X numbering system.

As for Pac Man and Galaxian, I wouldn't be surprised if we find that the numbers on those cartridges were re-used by games released in the Western world. Commodore clearly re-used product numbers (whether intentionally or accidentally). The original computer designation VIC-1001 was later re-used for the Waterloo Structured BASIC cartridge. I have a hunch that Pac-Man and Galaxian used early numbers in the VIC-190X numbering system, rather than the other two missing numbers which occur much later in the series.

What is the evidence that Commodore had reserved the VIC-1903 designation for the unreleased BRIDGE game (later released by HANDIC of course)?

So, is the VIC-1903 "Rally-X" number now clear enough to enter into the cartridge page of the VIC WIKI? It was commercially released and sold to the public, so that pretty much makes it official.

[Mayhem]

Galaxian was renamed as Star Battle, and Pac-man renamed as Jelly Monsters. Both Japanese and Western versions have the same product number. Only Rally-X and RRR have different numbers, in lieu perhaps of the fact the code was altered (and not just the name).

[carlsson]

What is the evidence that Commodore had reserved the VIC-1903 designation for the unreleased BRIDGE game (later released by HANDIC of course)?

According to the Cartlist, there once was a nice fellow called Brent Santin who sent Ward some September 1982 promotional literature that listed "Bridge; teach and play". But indeed it doesn't say that this literature explicitely mentioned the part no# 1903. It sounds more like a suggestion to fill out the blanks.

[ral-clan]

What is the evidence that Commodore had reserved the VIC-1903 designation for the unreleased BRIDGE game (later released by HANDIC of course)?

According to the Cartlist, there once was a nice fellow called Brent Santin who sent Ward some September 1982 promotional literature that listed "Bridge; teach and play". But indeed it doesn't say that this literature explicitely mentioned the part no# 1903. It sounds more like a suggestion to fill out the blanks.

Ohhh! I forgot about this! Thanks Carlsson. Funny how the evidence comes back full circle to me...

So...it's interesting to note that this little catalogue I had from 1982 (which mentioned Bridge and Space Vultures) at least proved accurate in that Bridge was actually found. It means that there might be a Space Vultures cartridge out there somewhere.

Well, I guess then since it's fairly well agreed that VIC-1903 was Rally-X, I will edit the WIKI cartlist accordingly, with a note that says "Only In Japan?".

[carlsson]

On the other hand, Commodore planning a Bridge game and Handic eventually releasing one doesn't neccessarily mean they were one and the same project.

[nbla000]

Well, I have the NTSC ROM image of VIC Rally-X and it works. I have had this image since 1983 so I assume this was a real cart.

Sorry to resume this very old thread but after more than 10 years I have discovered that this image of the rom present on zimmers and in all the vic-20 collections on the web is buggy or rather it is a bad dump.

The problem is a bad/random/empty playfield on rounds 4/5/6/7 and 12/13/14/15, and debugging the game on Vice, I've discovered and fixed the problem.

The game has 2 playfields, the first is used on rounds 1/2/3 and 8/9/10/11, the pointers to these playfield are on last 4 bytes of the rom ($BFFC/$BFFF) and last byte on $BFFF is wrong:

Code: Select all

bffc  3c 1c  ; Playfields 0/1 pointers Lo-byte
bffe  be 59  ; Playfields 0/1 pointers hi-byte

$BE3C pointers for the first playfield is right while $591C for the second playfield is wrong and since is a RAM location, playfield maybe any kind, it depends on bytes value in ram $591C->$59FB

Correct value for $BFFF is $BF (so pointer is $BF1C), I've attached the fixed versions for NTSC and a PAL-fixed version too.

PS: The other version on Zimmers called Rally-X but similar to Radar Rat Race and the hacked version Car Race, have a different byte on $BFFF but exactly same problem/same solution while Radar Rat Race versions (1)(2) are correct.

[orion70]

Now this is an excellent reason for necro-bumping
Thanks a lot for this fix, I guess it wasn't easy to accomplish.

[nbla000]

I guess it wasn't easy to accomplish.

No but I'm very tenacious

I've discovered the issue by working on a cheats version (It is difficult to reach round 4 without cheats and the game has 15 rounds !!! then it loops to the first but counter says round 16), at first I thought the rom was a prototype and I was looking for a way to keep it at least on round 3 but after a long debugging session finally I solved the mistery

PS: I know there is a trained version by Miklós but I was working on my own version for next Mega-Cart revision.

[Snarko]

Love this kind of dedicated work. Oh man the music in Vic Rally X is even more annoying than in Radar Rat Race. But the gameplay is of course A+, classic game!

[nbla000]

Oh man the music in Vic Rally X is even more annoying than in Radar Rat Race.

matter of taste, for me it is just the opposite, I even find it relaxing

To be honest it is the main reason why I have been so tenacious in finding the issue...