Computer Space


james1095

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  • 2 weeks later...

I never saw one either, even today I've never seen one in person, I don't think many were made and they were old news by the time I was born. It's not exactly the greatest game but it is *the first* ever coin-op video game, it came before Pong which is widely considered the first *successful* video game but not actually the first.

I haven't looked at the size of the ROM but it may fit into block memory, at least part of it. I think the best long term solution is to synthesize the sounds in HDL, I know it can be done, Asteroids, Galaxian and Space Invaders all have analog sound circuits that have been synthesized in VHDL. The schematics are hand drawn and difficult to read but it looks like the thrust sound from Asteroids could be borrowed with minimal changes and the missile sounds are not all that complex.

I was able to get Computer Space running on the Cyclone II mini board I was playing with so I'll try to find time to port it to the Papilio, it should be pretty trivial. You only need two resistors to get composite video and then some buttons for the controls so it's easy to rig up even without a wing. I used a small B&W portable TV set and it looked pretty good. I think it's cool that the original game used an off the shelf B&W TV set old enough that it used vacuum tubes.

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