voidstar78
Veteran Member
Hey all - after studying and figuring out a few things about the POLY-88, I kicked around the idea of making some kind of new software for it. I did an article in COMPUTE (April 2026 issue) that covers a bit about the POLY-88 and touches a bit on that wild 1974-1976 era.
I almost attempted to do a version of Moon Patrol! But, concluded that I wasn't ready to pull that off yet. Then I recalled an early MS-DOS game I used to play a lot called BEAST - and that seemed like something easier to start with.
Here's a preview of the result, I think it turned out well (little bit of on-hardware at the end).
The main limitation is I couldn't figure out a way to detect two key presses at the same time - so it's not quite as slick as the original MS-DOS version - but still plenty playable. IIRC, the original PET 20XX had a similar limitation due to the keyboard matrix layout? Then that got improved where you could at least detect one key per matrix row? Or maybe all the PETs were the same, can't fully remember on that. Anyway, if you happen to teleport back to 1976, take this software with you ^.^ It's 6KB though, not exactly Altair flip-switch candidate. I'm not sure if either the VTI or VDM were ready in 1975 - so late 1976 is probably the earliest this could be ran.
Another nice thing on the MS-DOS version - as sucky as PC-speaker was - they pulled off some nifty sound effects. I'm mulling the idea of trying to pull off using that "AM audio" trick that these early 8080 systems could do, to put in some inline sound effects. I always thought the "POLY" in Polymorphic meant graphics and sound! But nope, it just had semigraphics - no audio. I actually do still have an AM receiver, so maybe I'll give it a shot - has anyone done that yet, pulled off inline "AM freq exploited audio" on any interactive software of an Altair or SOL-20? The POLY's could play DAISY also.
If you happen to have an 8080 / VTI system, I'd be curious if anyone else can get this going on their system. The ASM code compiles easy under Alfred Arnold AS assembler. You could adjust most of the EQU constants to just use regular ASCII symbols if you don't have a VTI. The POLY-88 didn't get its 60Hz counter until the "final" 4.0 Monitor around November 1976,.
github.com
I almost attempted to do a version of Moon Patrol! But, concluded that I wasn't ready to pull that off yet. Then I recalled an early MS-DOS game I used to play a lot called BEAST - and that seemed like something easier to start with.
Here's a preview of the result, I think it turned out well (little bit of on-hardware at the end).
The main limitation is I couldn't figure out a way to detect two key presses at the same time - so it's not quite as slick as the original MS-DOS version - but still plenty playable. IIRC, the original PET 20XX had a similar limitation due to the keyboard matrix layout? Then that got improved where you could at least detect one key per matrix row? Or maybe all the PETs were the same, can't fully remember on that. Anyway, if you happen to teleport back to 1976, take this software with you ^.^ It's 6KB though, not exactly Altair flip-switch candidate. I'm not sure if either the VTI or VDM were ready in 1975 - so late 1976 is probably the earliest this could be ran.
Another nice thing on the MS-DOS version - as sucky as PC-speaker was - they pulled off some nifty sound effects. I'm mulling the idea of trying to pull off using that "AM audio" trick that these early 8080 systems could do, to put in some inline sound effects. I always thought the "POLY" in Polymorphic meant graphics and sound! But nope, it just had semigraphics - no audio. I actually do still have an AM receiver, so maybe I'll give it a shot - has anyone done that yet, pulled off inline "AM freq exploited audio" on any interactive software of an Altair or SOL-20? The POLY's could play DAISY also.
If you happen to have an 8080 / VTI system, I'd be curious if anyone else can get this going on their system. The ASM code compiles easy under Alfred Arnold AS assembler. You could adjust most of the EQU constants to just use regular ASCII symbols if you don't have a VTI. The POLY-88 didn't get its 60Hz counter until the "final" 4.0 Monitor around November 1976,.
POLY88_RESOURCE/BEAST_P88_V1.ZIP at main · voidstar78/POLY88_RESOURCE
Repository of PolyMorphic Systems POLY-88 related resources - voidstar78/POLY88_RESOURCE
github.com
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