Members don't see Ads, login now! LoginRegisterContact

TomCat

Unreleased Arcade Video game published 41 years ago by Atari, Inc.

Listed in MAME

TomCat screenshot

TomCat © 1983 Atari.

A color vector flight simulator where the player chooses between a fixed-wing jet or a helicopter. The player can choose between flying a fixed-wing jet and a helicopter. The universe shows a horizon line, a heads-up display, some simple objects on the ground to provide a reference, and a Battle Zone tank (also on the ground). There is also an enemy helicopter that came from the US Army version of "Battlezone".

Goodies for TomCat
Click to enlarge
(members only)
TECHNICAL

Main CPU : (2x) M6809 (@ 1.512 Mhz)
Sound Chips : (4x) POKEY (@ 1.5 Mhz), Texas Instruments TMS5220 (@ 640 Khz)

Players : 1
Buttons : 4

TRIVIA

This game was the very last XY Game created at Atari. It was around this time that Atari went 'supernova' but was never finished. By late 1985 Atari had decreed that XY was dead, and despite Jed's demo (which featured two linked TomCats) Jed was unable to get any of the Game Designers interested in working on it. Shortly before the demo, when Jed was costing the hardware, Jed has called American Microsystems Inc. (AMI) to verify the cost of the VG Gate Array. They said that they had contacted someone at Atari and asked him if it was ok if they threw out the tooling for the VG Gate Array and he had said, YES. And no, they didn't remember his name. They were willing to create new tooling for $20K. Jed was planning to investigate using a TMS32010 DSP to replace the AVG State Machine (and the Gate Array along with it), but the handwriting was on the wall so Jed canceled TomCat and accepted Rick's invitation to join the "Hard Drivin'" team.

STAFF

Lead Programmer : Jed Margolin
Graphics Designer : Hans Hansen, Doug Snyder

SOURCES

Game's ROM.
Jed Maegolin homepage; http://www.jmargolin.com