Atari Emulator - Laser Gates

I've spoken a little about Laser Gates, haven't I?  Did I ever tell you about how I hacked an already hacked copy of O'Riley's Mine?  Well, I actually ALSO did a similar trick with a hacked copy of Laser Gates.  See, there was a problem with my hacked copy: the ship wouldn't make a hole in the grey walls when you shot at it.  I could therefore only get to about level 5 or 6 before I completely lost it.  Very frustrating at that age.  So, I figured out where the data for the ship was.  I would load the data from the file into a player-missile, thereby enabling you to find the shapes of certain thigns... things.  So, I found the ship and just erased it!  And it worked like a charm... maybe too well.  For you see, with no visible ship, you can't make that halfway pitstop to get more fuel, and so you have to just speed through the whole thing.  And for some reason, shooting the big 6502 chip at the end of the level got harder and harder.  It seems you need a visible ship for that or something.  That's just how beloved this game was to those of us who played it and liked it.  I mean, for God's sake!  You actually wanted to get to those higher levels to see what color the planets would be.  So far on the emulator, I've only gotten to level 9.  Guess I've just got to try the old trick again somehow.

(Jan. 4) - Whelp, the old trick worked and... I never thought I'd say this!  It worked way too well.  Also, I managed to overcome the programmer's other barrier to entry of the game.  See, they anticipated my hack of finding the ship in the game's code.  Well, first of all, they seem to have turned on the '128' bit for all player-missiles.  Either the 128 or the 1 bit.  So there's that.  Second, when you get to levels 13 and above, all the little bumps on the big 6502 chip in the game don't like it when you shoot at them.  It takes from your ship's shields, even when the ship doesn't technically exist!  So the trick is to shoot at the very bottom of the 6502 chip... the one in the game, not the one in the Atari computer.  And so, now that I'm at level 32, I guess the colors of the various planets isn't that interesting anymore.  I'll post the new attached photo and you can see for yourself.  See?  Mostly the bright pastel numbers, a few blatant repeats, what have you...  Never meet your childhood heroes, so to speak.  And don't tinker with your childhood games either.

Atarimania home of Laser Gates

Mushca home of Laser Gates (scroll down to Diskette 40)