From: rotberg@dms.UUCP (Ed Rotberg)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.arcade
Subject: Re: Military BattleZone
Date: 22 May 91 16:12:19 GMT


From article <1991May21.203053.3822@ncsu.edu>, by bcasper@taco.cc (Brian Casper):
> 
> I remember reading quite a while back in an 'Electronic Games' magazine
> that the Army had purchased a bunch of modified BattleZone machines to use
> as simulators for the tank troops.  Does anybody have any idea what the
> modifications consisted of.  If it was a simple ROM change, where can I get
> a set?  I'd much rather shoot at a wireframe Russian tank instead of a high
> speed doorwedge...

Hey! Don't knock the "doorwedge"!!!  It has a minimal number of vertices which
allows for quick rendering.  "the Bradley Trainer" or ABZ (Army Battlezone) as
we called it had NO TERRAIN beause rendering the enemy tanks took too much
time.

First of all, it would not be a simple ROM change.  There was a much more
complicated controller -- nearly identical to the one used in the Bradley
Fighting Vehicle which is was the things was trying to simulate.  This
controller was the pre-cursor to the one used on the Star Wars game and
STUN Runner but had palm switches in addition to the finger triggers and
thumb triggers for each hand.  There was also a different set of code
used for the 2901 bit-slice math processor which did collision detect as
well as 3d math transforms in ABZ.  The hardware also had a switch to
allow you to switch your sight to different magnification levels and to
change between armor piercing and incidiary (sp?) shells.  The rounds
also followed true trajectory, unlike Battlezone, and thus it was much
harder to play.  (BTW the Russian tanks weren't as bad as the HIND chopper).
In addition, there were still other hardware modifications.  The game also
simulated (and I use that term VERY LOOSELY HERE) TOW missles.

I lost 3 months of my life (I'm not exaggerating much here) doing this
project under duress.  I know of only one surviving unit, and I'm not
about to divulge its whereabouts.  I thought if I answered this post,
I might stem the flurry of debate on a subject I'm not particularly
fond of so..........

>>>> PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, Drop the subject <<<<

This is not for any security reasons, it's just literally a painful subject!!!

	- Ed Rotberg -
	- Atari Games Corp. -