From: gkomatsu@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Galen Tatsuo Komatsu)
Subject: Re: Yar's Revenge secret? and other 2600 tricks
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 08:36:59 GMT

In article <1992Jul25.104948.13865@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> mjbrown@lonestar.utsa.edu (Marc J. Brown) writes:
>Awhile back, someone mentioned something about a programmer's secret in the
>old Atari2600 game Yar's Revenge.  Could somebody please E-mail me how to do
>the secret?  Plus any other tricks there might happen to be in any other
>games (aside from Adventure :).  I've decided to rake out the 75 games I have
>and crank 'em up... ah, nostalgia!

	Sorry for the non-e-mail reply, but I figure all us Classic Atari Fans
would like to know...  I found it myself rather by accident, and I thought
things had messed up!  Anyways, if I recall correctly (haven't been playing
anything but Secret Quest and Millipede recently!).....

	Wait for the Quotile to spiral & fire at you, then kill it in mid-air.
In the "spectacular!" =^) explosion  You'll notice a black line going down
the screen where you made your kill.  Position yourself so that the little
square on your back is over this line.  If things go right, after the explosion
finishes, the screen will blank out and "HSWWSH" will appear on the line
where (I think) the word "SELECT" is displayed.  It's a rather errie effect
since usually after the explosion you get the constant low humming of the
game, but when you do this all goes silent (since doing this trick will
end your game.)

	Some tricks, eggs, and quirks I recall:  (There's many more, as I
only have about 50 games so far, some rarely played...)

Missile Command:  Play game 13 and let the missiles rain down on all your
	cities.  Also waste all your missiles since you're not supposed
	score any points.  The initials "RF" will appear in the ruins
	of the rightmost city.

Video Pinball:  When your ball goes down the left tube, if you nudge it to
	the right it'll hit a "wall" at the bottom and not fall out.  If
	the ball is moving quickly enough it'll bounce up, I once was able
	to nudge & use this ball to retrieve my ball WITHOUT TILTING!

Street Racer:  In Number Cruncher, pick up to full speed and wiggle yourself
	left & right, sometimes (often really) a number will "jam" and your
	points will rocket to 99.

Warlords:  If you get it right, you can literally "catch" the ball by
	jamming it between your shield and the edge of the screen.
	I have no idea as to how my sister did it several times IN
	ONE GAME.  (I could never do it myself.)  It's rather weird,
	you'll hear a dull *thump* and everyone will be wondering
	"wha?" "where's the ball?"  Moving will release it.

Space Invaders:  Hold reset when you power on & you can fire two shots
	at a time.  (tell me who DOESN'T know this one!)

Pitfall!:  Dunno if it's a quirk of digitial joysticks, but if you climb
	a ladder as high as you can then pound straight down on the
	joystick (hit the top of the stick with your palm) Harry will
	jump straight up. (and fall back down the hole...)


>Now I'm going to talk about some tricks that are not only dangerous to your
>Atari hardware and cartridges, but they require that you use the original
>2600 (not the small, black one).
>   All of the following tricks are performed by turning the 2600 unit off
>and back on, with very little pause between (which is a no-no, but we were
>using someone else's 2600 :).  Again, it takes a few tries (often, a LOT

	The 2600 Connection calls this "frying".  I remember doing this
as a curious youth, wondering what would happen if I put the switch
_just between_ on and off. =^)  The ones I recall doing:

Donkey Kong:  You would get a "twin" of Mario (Luigi? =^) in greenish
	colors, usually stretched out, standing on the floor above
	He would run in sync with Mario, and if he died, mario died!

Dragonfire: Not sure if I remember correctly.  But I think you would
	start in a treasure room, sometimes LOADED with crowns & other
	sparkling goodies.  The dragon's shape would be scrambled, but
	could still flame you like crazy.

Cosmic Ark:  I don't remember how the game started, but then you get to
	the planet screen, when you start your tractor beam you'd
	beam up an alien, and another, and another, and another....

	The 2600 Connection #11 mentions effects for the games: Quick Step,
Carnival, Stampede, Sky Jinks, Burgertime, Pitfall, and Crossbow.

	Anyone have maps to Secret Quest?  I've only mapped the first
four stations (since that's as far as I've gotten! =^)

--
         Galen Komatsu           !     Apple//e     !      XTC
gkomatsu@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu  !  Sega MegaDrive  !  Sakai Noriko
  ar592@cleveland.freenet.edu    !    Atari 7800    !    Checkers