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Ultima IV - Quest of the Avatar

Atari 400/800 disk published 39 years ago by Origin Systems, Inc.

Not listed in MAME yet

Ultima IV - Quest of the Avatar screenshot

Ultima IV - Quest of the Avatar © 1985 Origin Systems, Inc.

TRIVIA

Ultima IV was the final game in the series ported to the Atari 8-bit family. The game is still designed to support a 48K Atari 800 even though four models of 64K/128K Atari 8-bit computers had been released, and one 64K-upgradable model, starting two and a half years earlier. In order to fit the game in 48K, the Atari 8-bit version cut out music support. The reason 48K was made the requirement instead of the 64K requirement of the original Apple II version is that, whereas the earliest Apple II models were upgradable to 64K, the Atari 400/800 were only officially upgradable to 48K. Since the Apple version was programmed to require 64K, and the Apple 6502 code was ported to create the Atari 8-bit (and Commodore 64) version, it would have required extra programming to selectively use 48K/64K, by including music support only for 64K machines. Since the Atari 8-bit market was the smallest installed bases that the game was initially released for, this special support was not provided. For similar reasons, the game was distributed on the earliest 90k Atari 810 disk format, so as not to require a disk drive upgrade for any players, thus it occupies four disks instead of two disks, as with the Apple II and Commodore 64 versions.

SOURCES

Game's disk.