Notes from Owen Rubin - a collection of e-mails traded back and
forth a few years ago. Feb 2004.

.......
The Malibu game was my game from a Project Manager stand point,
I was responsible for the game play and the overall project. Ed
Logg with some assistance from Ed Rotberg on the Math Box did most
of the software on the game.

As far as I can recall, Malibu was the same hardware as Battlezone.
We killed it because while battle zone worked fine, when you put a
track on the screen, it was almost impossible to see. And given that
it was true 3D, you could drive anywhere. We actually went to Malibu
and recorded cars while driving, and simulated the height and feel
of the cars.

I also did a version of Tunnel Hunt (aka Tube Chase and Vertigo) that
was originally done in vector. I started the motion routines, went on
vacation, and when I came back Mike Albaugh and Ed Logg had it running
on the screen. My idea was from the landing sequence of the original
Alien movie, but because we had no hidden line removal, it did not work
well.

I do not believe I ever made ROMs for the Tube Chase Vector game
prototype. This was tested on the bench only, and because of that it
was only loaded into the emulator. I suspect you will not find these.
Same is true for Malibu, I never put this on test, so no ROMS were ever
made. Too bad really, I would like to see these again as well.

There was a 2 player space battle demo programmed up by Ed Rotberg that
was also very cool. TWO Vector systems tied together, you flew through
space in true 3 dimensions. You could approach the other ship from any
angle or direction. Was very cool. Small universe, so you wrapped, which
was also fun. But most people did not get it. Seems space movies all have
the ships flying in the same plane! You never see them approach from an
obtuse angle, both lying flat in their own planes which are not the same.
So people were confused when they would approach the enemy and the ship
was rolled and pitched at a strange angle. It was VERY cool, and eventually
led to Star Wars. Too bad actually, this was much more fun for the engineer! :-)

Dave Theurer did Tempest, which started out as a first person Space Invaders
where the view was from the shooter's point of reference.

Jeff Boscle, the person NOT laughing in the picture from the Smithsonian
Magazine (I think that pic is on my web site) was working on Ed Rotberg's
second version of Battle Zone. The reason we are all laughing is that as I
was playing, I was making smart ass cracks because the screen looked like
it was designed by someone on drugs. There was just a bunch of simple shapes
spinning about. The game was SUPPOSED to be from inside a tank again, where
you not only had to avoid enemy tanks, but stop missiles from taking off,
shooting them as the launched. It did not look like that at all. It was sad
and funny, and never done. He called it Battle Zone II, I called it Attack
of the Killer IUDs, because it looked like you were fighting Copper 7 IUDs
in a Berzerk sort of way. I had JUST named it when everyone laughed, the
Smithsonian guy walked in and took the picture.

Rick Maurer was the person who started Space Duel vector, but left the
program about 1/3 the way through. It was B&W at the time, I finished his
work and added to the game, converted it to color, and did all the sounds.

Orbit should have been vector, but they convinced me to do it raster. Big 
mistake! They wanted cheap. I added the orbiting space stations and the
option changeability so we would be different than Space Wars. But then again,
they stole the idea from DEC anyway!

[end]