Ports
Tass Times had different features and graphics depending on which system it was developed for. This was a common practice for games of its era due to the disparate abilities of the systems of that era. For example, the higher-end system (Amiga, Atari ST and Apple II) versions had 16-32 color graphics and wavetable sound, while the lower-end (Apple II, PC) versions had more rudimentary graphics. Likewise, the higher-end systems supported sound, while some of the lower-end ports had no sound capability. The low-end versions, however, had a fully animated intro screen, depicting what may have been Ennio's first arrival into the mundane world. The Apple II version can run in 6-color HGR graphics on 64k models or 16-color DHGR graphics on 128k models.
The Amiga and Atari ST versions, while very similar, have some differences. The Amiga version has a title song, where the Atari ST version does not. Though they both share the same title screen as seen at the top right of this page. Interestedly, the Atari ST version has some animated scenes within the game.
The PC port was one of the earliest games for IBM compatibles to support mice, which were rare in 1985 and had little software that could use them. Since it was a booter game and no drivers were loaded, the programmers had to code their own routines to read a serial mouse.
András Szigethy converted the Commodore 64 version of Tass Times to Commodore Plus/4.
Read more about this topic: Tass Times In Tonetown
Famous quotes containing the word ports:
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks of science, where they merely refit for this world, and no natural currents concur to individualize them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“O polished perturbation! golden care!
That keep’st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)