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From: ofoz@intgp8.ih.att.com (-Ozdemir,S.S.)
Subject: Re: Space War
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References: <25760DVVJTPGUNAHFJG@inferno.com> <3jhp27$t58@shore.shore.net>
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 1995 14:39:52 GMT
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In article <3jhp27$t58@shore.shore.net>, farren user <farren@shore.net> wrote:
>mrbill@inferno.com wrote:
>
>: If it works buy it!! If it does not work, then Hesitate and buy it!! If
>: not working the monitor or the power supply are likely the problem. They
>: will be a pain to fix!!!
>
>Agreed on all counts.
>
>: There are two space wars a cinematroics version and a vectorbeam
>: version. They are essentially the same game(The game code was shareware
>: at the time). LAter, Bill
>
>They are *not* the same. (Was the Atari version VectorBeam?  I remember it
>being raster-based.) The code for Space Wars (the Cinematronics version)
>was custom code for its custom TTL processor.  It was certainly not
>"shareware", as that concept didn't exist when Space Wars came out, and
>wouldn't have been applicable anyhow.  There have always been versions
>of Space Wars (the generic game) around for 'most any computer you can
>think of, but that isn't anything like the same thing.
>
Vectorbeam was a spinoff company from Cinematronics.  The Vectorbeam
hardware was 99% the same as the Cinematronics hardware.  As such, I'd
imagine that the Vectorbeam program was 99% the same as the Cinematronics
program (though I can't say for sure, since I've never compared the two
bit by bit).  I think the reason that the initial poster said that Space
Wars was "public domain" was that the original Space Wars program was
written on a PDP-? computer.  Larry Rosenthal saw it at MIT, and he proceeded
to make the custom TTL processor that both Cinematronics and Vectorbeam used,
so that he could play Space Wars at home in his garage!

One possible explanation for why both Cinematronics and Vectorbeam both had
Space Wars might be that Larry Rosenthal retained all rights for Space Wars.
So when he jumped ship to Vectorbeam, Vectorbeam could also build Space Wars.