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quantump: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Quantum (c) 1982 Atari.

The game itself has an interesting concept, similar to "Qix". You have to encircle various particles using a trackball controller.

- TECHNICAL -

The game came in the same cabinet as "Space Duel" and "Gravitar", but it was not a conversion kit. It had totally different art, and was only available in full dedicated cabinet form. Like all vector games, Quantum is very problematic, and monitor failures are very common.

Game ID : 136016

Main CPU : 68000 (@ 6.048 Mhz)

Sound Chips : (2x) POKEY (@ 600 Khz)

Screen orientation : Vertical

Video resolution : 256 x 231 pixels

Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz

Palette colors : 32768

Players : 1

Control : trackball

- TRIVIA -

Released in December 1982.

Quantum was the first Atari game to allow a player to try the game without inserting a coin. During the attract mode, the game allowed the player to move the comet to try to capture a particle. During this mode, the messages 'TRY CAPTURING THIS ATOM' and 'MOVE THE TRACKBALL'.

Quantum was also the first game to allow player to 'draw' his name with the trackball when he gets the high score.

Quantum was designed by General Computer for Atari as part of a lawsuit settlement for a "Missile Command" speedup kit to which they affixed their copyright.

Quantum was released in very limited quantities. Atari employees have said that there were 500 or fewer games produced. The original price was $2,095.

- SCORING -

Electron : 20 points.

Triphon : 100 points.

Splitter : 100 points.

Photon : 200 points.

Positron : 200 points.

Tryd : 300 points.

Nucleus : 300 points.

Pulsar : 400 points.

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* Once you capture a particle (or anything), you should keep circling it. You can keep capturing it over and over until you get tired. For 4x the score, you can apply this trick to two particles at once. Obviously this trick is easier to do on the very early levels.

* White particles always move vertically, while colored particles always move diagonally. Knowing this may make capturing them easier.

* If the player earns the highest score, a special option allows them to sign their name using the trackball, as well as enter their initials into the high score table.

- STAFF -

From High Score table: Betty Tylko (BET), (DEC), Art Ng (ART), Kevin Osborne (KEV), Doug MacRae (DBM), Mike Horowitz (MAH), (LRD), (PRG), Steve Golson (SEG)

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

MAME Info:

0.33b7 [Paul Forgey, Hedley Rainnie, Aaron Giles]

0.30 [Paul Forgey, Hedley Rainnie, Aaron Giles]

WIP:

- 0.146: Couriersud improved sound emulation for POKEY chip. Changed audio emulation to emulate borrow 3 clock delay and proper channel reset. New frequency only becomes effective after the counter hits 0. Emulation also treats counters as 8 bit counters which are linked now instead of monolytic 16 bit counters. Fixed high pass filters for POKEY. Added POKEYN device based on modern device. Fixed random lfsr generation. Consolidated polynom code. Removed legacy left overs from pokey code. Added a internal pokey_channel class. Convert all remaining drivers to use the modern pokey device.

- 0.145u7: Quantum was developed by GCC [hap]. Changed manufacturer to 'General Computer Corporation (Atari license)'.

- 0.136u4: Mathis Rosenhauer reduced flickering in Quantum (video\avgdvg.c).

- 0.129u5: Couriersud added save state support to Quantum.

- 0.115u1: Changed region proms to user1.

- 0.108u5: Mathis Rosenhauer rewrote the Atari vector generators, using the schematics and actual state machine PROMs. The state machine is now emulated so timing should be much more realistic. Clipping hardware in bzone and others is emulated instead of hardcoded. Improved accuracy of clocks and various other bits of cleanup. Changed 68000 CPU clock speed to 6048000 Hz and added prom ($0 - AVG PROM).

- 0.71u3: Frank Palazzolo moved flipping and swapping API stuff from vector.c to avgdvg.c, this is specific to Tempest and Quantum only.

- 12th February 2002: Aaron Giles fixed the Quantum and Omega Race vector graphics bugs.

- 0.58: Changed palettesize from 256 to 32768 colors.

- 0.57: Aaron Giles fixed Quantum colors.

- 0.37b14: Fixed screen orientation to vertical.

- 5th April 2001: Nicola Salmoria fixed Tempest and Quantum screen orientation and added screen flip / rotate support to the vector routines, but the changes are not yet complete.

- 0.35b13: Zsolt Vasvari added clone Quantum (prototype).

- 6th May 1999: Zsolt Vasvari added a Quantum prototype romset.

- 0.35b3: Changed M68000 CPU1 clock speed to 6MHz.

- 0.34b5: Nicola Salmoria added high score saving to Quantum.

- 0.33b7: Some fixes to Quantum [Paul Forgey]. Changed 'Quantum' to clone '(rev 1)' and '(version 2)' to parent 'Quantum (rev 2)'. Renamed (quantum) to (quantum1) and (quantum2) to (quantum).

- 0.33b4: Some fiddling with the Atari vector games frame rates [Nicola Salmoria].

- 0.30: Paul Forgey, Hedley Rainnie and Aaron Giles added Quantum (Atari 1982) and clone (version 2).

LEVELS: 99 (endless)

Other Emulators:

* AAE

* Retrocade

Recommended Games:

Disco No.1

Disco No.1 (DECO Cassette)

Romset: 81 kb / 11 files / 44.7 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Quantum (prototype)</description>

<manufacturer>General Computer Corporation (Atari license)</manufacturer>

</input>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</game>

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