RadioPoultry

Here's a short blog post concerning Jim Henson's interaction with Atari. I wish there was more info, but I found it interesting nonetheless.
 
http://www.henson.com/jimsredbook/2013/05/55-61983/
 
There's at least one factual error. It's stated that neither Pigs in Space or Miss Piggy's Wedding's were produced, but of course the former was.

This looks spectacular as a blog, congrats on everything RP you deserve it!

DOH! - Well thanks for chiming in RadioPoultry. Shame to hear such a fine product has resorted to bundling Adware  :mellow: UGH the power of greed. 
 
I've not updated ImgBurn in some time so I was not aware. 
 
Anyway, seeing this I felt responsible to follow up at lest one more time, ugh this is yet another reason I hate giving advice, stuff like this biting me on the ass making me look bad  :unsure:
 
HOPEFULLY Stormsurge either you had not attempted to install yet or it did not install OpenCandy adware, since I don't know though my conscience motivated me to post the following since it can also help others with OpenCandy or even other Malware / Adware just as well (Hey never hurts to check, you might not even be aware you this or other adware / malware) IF you might be infected either way here is an excellent guide for removal, a little daunting for the beginner but just follow slowly and step by step, at the very least it is info WELL WORTH KNOWING and I can say I myself have followed these steps with great success! Typically steps 1-3 suffice, the last step 4 near the bottom (Hitman Pro scan) you usually do NOT need to go that far, it is an extra precaution.
 
To start first of all have MalewareBytes Anti Malware FREE installed (at the very least everyone should have this installed and at the ready to use for scanning if not running continuously), direct download HERE : 
 
https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/
 
OK installed and ready? Good, here is the guide (Note -THIS guide is straight from Malewarebytes using their and other FREE excellent software, I give you this because sadly if you google and search for such a guide often much of the resulting "advice" is either attempting to get you to download other adware / malware through fake anti-virus programs giving false results OR just scams trying to get you to license / buy their own inferior products. Sorry it IS a scary world out there. That said though this link is reputable, tried and true brand recognized FREE software and good advice I have personally tested (IE: It saved my bacon lol) So have total confidence 
PUP.Optional.OpenCandy Removal Guide
 
http://www.malwareremovalguides.info/pup-optional-opencandy-removal-guide/
 
You will be good to go after following that and again it is good software and advice regardless. 
 
LASTLY, as per RadioPoultry's advice here are some clear and free links to older versions of ImgBurn definitely Adware free, I have done the footwork for you.  From a great resource Olderversion . com , form now on when I recommend ImgBurn it will be THIS link given. Just click the big DOWNLOAD NOW button on THIS page 
http://www.oldversion.com/windows/imgburn-2-5-7-0
wait a moment and you will be prompted where to download to and you will have the ImgBurn 2.5.7 installer. Also keep that site in mind, great when newer version of software doesn't agree with your system OR you simply did not like later upgraded versions! 
 
OK I am out , again , hopefully if you had any issue I have at least made efforts to redeem myself  :mellow:
I DO care and I DO try. 
 
!!!!!!! UPDATE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have just the moment updated the link in my original post #7 to reflect the link for the older / safe version of ImgBurn with credit to RadioPoultry , checked and personally verified   

I recommend NOT getting the most recent version of imgBurn which uses the OpenCandy installer that can put adware on your computer. (A few people have said it still put stuff on their computer even after they deselected everything. I don't know if that's correct or not.) I recommend finding version 2.5.6 or 2.5.7 which did not use OpenCandy. Note that older versions are not available on their website, you'll have to look around the internet.
 
(I use imgBurn when emulating old DOS games I already own that have CD audio.)

I recommend NOT getting the most recent version of imgBurn which uses the OpenCandy installer that can put adware on your computer. (A few people have said it still put stuff on their computer even after they deselected everything. I don't know if that's correct or not.) I recommend finding version 2.5.6 or 2.5.7 which did not use OpenCandy. Note that older versions are not available on their website, you'll have to look around the internet.
 
(I use imgBurn when emulating old DOS games I already own that have CD audio.)

I recommend NOT getting the most recent version of imgBurn which uses the OpenCandy installer that can put adware on your computer. (A few people have said it still put stuff on their computer even after they deselected everything. I don't know if that's correct or not.) I recommend finding version 2.5.6 or 2.5.7 which did not use OpenCandy. Note that older versions are not available on their website, you'll have to look around the internet.
 
(I use imgBurn when emulating old DOS games I already own that have CD audio.)

Fairchild Channel F (imperfect, doesn't show scores)
Magnavox Odyssey 2
Intellvision II
Vectrex
Atari 2600 (Sears Tele-Games 6-switch)
Atari 5200
Atari 7800
Atari Lynx (power supply issues)
NES (works, but I need to find new screws)
N64

Fairchild Channel F (imperfect, doesn't show scores)
Magnavox Odyssey 2
Intellvision II
Vectrex
Atari 2600 (Sears Tele-Games 6-switch)
Atari 5200
Atari 7800
Atari Lynx (power supply issues)
NES (works, but I need to find new screws)
N64

Fairchild Channel F (imperfect, doesn't show scores)
Magnavox Odyssey 2
Intellvision II
Vectrex
Atari 2600 (Sears Tele-Games 6-switch)
Atari 5200
Atari 7800
Atari Lynx (power supply issues)
NES (works, but I need to find new screws)
N64

Fairchild Channel F (imperfect, doesn't show scores)
Magnavox Odyssey 2
Intellvision II
Vectrex
Atari 2600 (Sears Tele-Games 6-switch)
Atari 5200
Atari 7800
Atari Lynx (power supply issues)
NES (works, but I need to find new screws)
N64

Happy Atari Day! Justin's work inspired me to make some more Atari animated gifs, of which there are far too few on the internet.
 
P.S. Cool photos, Storm! How are the paddles doing now?
 
 
 

Happy Atari Day! Justin's work inspired me to make some more Atari animated gifs, of which there are far too few on the internet.
 
P.S. Cool photos, Storm! How are the paddles doing now?
 
 
 

You can play AstroBlast with paddles?!

Happy Atari Day! Justin's work inspired me to make some more Atari animated gifs, of which there are far too few on the internet.
 
P.S. Cool photos, Storm! How are the paddles doing now?
 
 
 

You can play AstroBlast with paddles?!

Happy Atari Day! Justin's work inspired me to make some more Atari animated gifs, of which there are far too few on the internet.
 
P.S. Cool photos, Storm! How are the paddles doing now?
 
 
 

We go to the next game by selecting the middle pig from the menu. But this is not just any pig. This is the pig, the one and only Miss Piggy, or First Mate Piggy as she is cast. Hogthrob may have been the captain, but it's Miss Piggy who was the real star of the show. Indeed, the cartridge art not only depicts her the most prominently, but the title even reads "PIGS in SPACE starring MISS PIGGY". One could say she was the Seven of Nine of porcine science fiction.
 

 
This game is "Pastaroids". In case you are wondering, the only resemblance to Atari's "Asteroids" is in the title. The gameplay here is more original than for the previous one. It reminds me most of Activision's Freeway. Piggy is caught in the midst of a pasta storm and must spacewalk to the Swinetrek, which is slowly traversing the top of the screen. 
 
Starting at the bottom, she must avoid spaghetti (which travel left) and meatballs (which travel right) to reach the ship before her shipmates abandon her. Well, OK, according to the manual the crew come back for another pass, but either way is entirely within character for these swine. Accomplishing this causes the screen to be filled with more spaghetti and meatballs the next time the game is played. These obstacles knock Piggy down to the lane below, often right into another obstacle, and so on.
 

 
Pressing the joystick button compels Piggy to use her trademark karate chop, which can be employed to destroy oncoming meatballs. Noodles are impervious to all attack, naturally. At the beginning, I was unaware of the karate chop ability, and so, while the first few rounds were easy enough, they quickly became very challenging, and success seemed as much based on chance as anything. Even so, I was once able to complete this mini-game 15 times before expending all my lives. As soon as I discovered the karate chop, the game became much, much easier. If you have extra lives enabled, this is the game you'll go to to restore any lives lost. You don't get as many points as you do with the others, but it is easier and faster to complete than both.
 
Graphically, Pastaroids is not quite up there with the others, but it's not bad. The depiction of Miss Piggy here is a bit crude (and, arguably, without the spacesuit seen on the cartridge she has bigger problems than pasta), but the motion of the Swinetrek tilting side to side like a ship tossed at sea is nicely implemented with five frames of animation. It's the gameplay that is lacking. Depending how it is played, it either feels tedious or frustrating, but never really achieves "fun".
 
However, there is one game left. Selecting Dr. Strangepork gives us "Escape from the Planet of the Gonzoids", or as I like to call it, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Boomeray". The Swinetrek is moving up through a passage, and the player must make sure the ship does not come in contact with any walls or projectiles until it reaches the exit. If the corridor seems to pass by too slowly at times (and it will, especially at first), at your own peril you can speed things up by moving to the top of the screen. I won't try to describe what occurs when the ship collides with an object, but it is an unsettling combination of sight and sound indeed.
 

 
The tunnel is always symmetrical, but sometimes divides into two passages. Continuing the game's food obsession, the manual explains that this is a pizza mine and that the Gonzoid robots placed along the walls are throwing deadly pizzas (which once again look like lines... but horizontal ones!).
 
There are places where destroying the Gonzoids is essential for passing safely, but the way to do so is not straightforward. Literally. The ship is equipped with the bizarre "Boomeray" which fires a dot which moves upward, then curves to the left or right (whichever you moved last), and then downwards. The shot cannot pass through walls. The placement of the enemies above the walls is such that the player must take advantage of the curving path of the boomeray to clear the way.This comes with risk: the returning dot can destroy the ship. Offhand, the only other classic game I can think of where you can be damaged by your own fire is Fortress of Narzod for Vectrex (no doubt there are others).
 

 
The progression of difficulty in this game is odd. Each time the game is successfully completed the mine passes a little faster, but also the Gonzoids alternate between firing quickly and slowly. The result is that the second round of this game is easier than the first. After roughly half a dozen rounds, the alternating pattern settles on a moderate firing rate.
 
There is one significant problem with this part of the game: the layout of mine and the placement of the enemies is the same every single time. Had the developers been able implement a bit of variety here, I'm sure the entire package would have a better reputation, but as it is they may have been pushing their eight kilobytes of ROM to the limit. I can't help but think, though, that with a bit of time they could've implemented something akin to River Raid's procedurally generated level design.
 

(I would like to add that Dr. Strangepork gets the short end of the stick through all of this. Being the hidden pilot of Swinetrek here and being omitted from the cartridge art entirely, his only real appearance is on the menu screen. Anyways, we still love you, Dr. Strangepork.)
 


 
So, looking at the whole, we have three games in one cartridge which aren't too terribly challenging and tend towards repetition quickly. That said, I love that Pigs in Space for Atari 2600 exists. That someone looked at one small piece of a favorite show, and figured, "We can make a game out of this!". And I sincerely enjoy the quirky humor and the small graphical touches. Had I been the person who originally purchased it, I might well have been disappointed, but as a collector, I find it's great.

Yippie ki-yay, RP! Welcome to the blog!!

Woo hoo! Congrats RP!

I made RadioPoultry a contributing writer to the Official Atari I/O Blog!

He posted his complete Atari 2600 Pigs In Space review, which you can see here: 

http://www.atari.io/atari-2600-pigs-in-space/

 

Thanks for the review, RP! This is a game that I admit I have always wanted to own. My love of everything Jim Henson demands that I now do what I must to pick up this cartridge!

We go to the next game by selecting the middle pig from the menu. But this is not just any pig. This is the pig, the one and only Miss Piggy, or First Mate Piggy as she is cast. Hogthrob may have been the captain, but it's Miss Piggy who was the real star of the show. Indeed, the cartridge art not only depicts her the most prominently, but the title even reads "PIGS in SPACE starring MISS PIGGY". One could say she was the Seven of Nine of porcine science fiction.
 

 
This game is "Pastaroids". In case you are wondering, the only resemblance to Atari's "Asteroids" is in the title. The gameplay here is more original than for the previous one. It reminds me most of Activision's Freeway. Piggy is caught in the midst of a pasta storm and must spacewalk to the Swinetrek, which is slowly traversing the top of the screen. 
 
Starting at the bottom, she must avoid spaghetti (which travel left) and meatballs (which travel right) to reach the ship before her shipmates abandon her. Well, OK, according to the manual the crew come back for another pass, but either way is entirely within character for these swine. Accomplishing this causes the screen to be filled with more spaghetti and meatballs the next time the game is played. These obstacles knock Piggy down to the lane below, often right into another obstacle, and so on.
 

 
Pressing the joystick button compels Piggy to use her trademark karate chop, which can be employed to destroy oncoming meatballs. Noodles are impervious to all attack, naturally. At the beginning, I was unaware of the karate chop ability, and so, while the first few rounds were easy enough, they quickly became very challenging, and success seemed as much based on chance as anything. Even so, I was once able to complete this mini-game 15 times before expending all my lives. As soon as I discovered the karate chop, the game became much, much easier. If you have extra lives enabled, this is the game you'll go to to restore any lives lost. You don't get as many points as you do with the others, but it is easier and faster to complete than both.
 
Graphically, Pastaroids is not quite up there with the others, but it's not bad. The depiction of Miss Piggy here is a bit crude (and, arguably, without the spacesuit seen on the cartridge she has bigger problems than pasta), but the motion of the Swinetrek tilting side to side like a ship tossed at sea is nicely implemented with five frames of animation. It's the gameplay that is lacking. Depending how it is played, it either feels tedious or frustrating, but never really achieves "fun".
 
However, there is one game left. Selecting Dr. Strangepork gives us "Escape from the Planet of the Gonzoids", or as I like to call it, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Boomeray". The Swinetrek is moving up through a passage, and the player must make sure the ship does not come in contact with any walls or projectiles until it reaches the exit. If the corridor seems to pass by too slowly at times (and it will, especially at first), at your own peril you can speed things up by moving to the top of the screen. I won't try to describe what occurs when the ship collides with an object, but it is an unsettling combination of sight and sound indeed.
 

 
The tunnel is always symmetrical, but sometimes divides into two passages. Continuing the game's food obsession, the manual explains that this is a pizza mine and that the Gonzoid robots placed along the walls are throwing deadly pizzas (which once again look like lines... but horizontal ones!).
 
There are places where destroying the Gonzoids is essential for passing safely, but the way to do so is not straightforward. Literally. The ship is equipped with the bizarre "Boomeray" which fires a dot which moves upward, then curves to the left or right (whichever you moved last), and then downwards. The shot cannot pass through walls. The placement of the enemies above the walls is such that the player must take advantage of the curving path of the boomeray to clear the way.This comes with risk: the returning dot can destroy the ship. Offhand, the only other classic game I can think of where you can be damaged by your own fire is Fortress of Narzod for Vectrex (no doubt there are others).
 

 
The progression of difficulty in this game is odd. Each time the game is successfully completed the mine passes a little faster, but also the Gonzoids alternate between firing quickly and slowly. The result is that the second round of this game is easier than the first. After roughly half a dozen rounds, the alternating pattern settles on a moderate firing rate.
 
There is one significant problem with this part of the game: the layout of mine and the placement of the enemies is the same every single time. Had the developers been able implement a bit of variety here, I'm sure the entire package would have a better reputation, but as it is they may have been pushing their eight kilobytes of ROM to the limit. I can't help but think, though, that with a bit of time they could've implemented something akin to River Raid's procedurally generated level design.
 

(I would like to add that Dr. Strangepork gets the short end of the stick through all of this. Being the hidden pilot of Swinetrek here and being omitted from the cartridge art entirely, his only real appearance is on the menu screen. Anyways, we still love you, Dr. Strangepork.)
 


 
So, looking at the whole, we have three games in one cartridge which aren't too terribly challenging and tend towards repetition quickly. That said, I love that Pigs in Space for Atari 2600 exists. That someone looked at one small piece of a favorite show, and figured, "We can make a game out of this!". And I sincerely enjoy the quirky humor and the small graphical touches. Had I been the person who originally purchased it, I might well have been disappointed, but as a collector, I find it's great.

Interesting read:
 
http://ataribook.com/book/what-are-the-real-facts-behind-pac-mans-development/
 

We go to the next game by selecting the middle pig from the menu. But this is not just any pig. This is the pig, the one and only Miss Piggy, or First Mate Piggy as she is cast. Hogthrob may have been the captain, but it's Miss Piggy who was the real star of the show. Indeed, the cartridge art not only depicts her the most prominently, but the title even reads "PIGS in SPACE starring MISS PIGGY". One could say she was the Seven of Nine of porcine science fiction.
 

 
This game is "Pastaroids". In case you are wondering, the only resemblance to Atari's "Asteroids" is in the title. The gameplay here is more original than for the previous one. It reminds me most of Activision's Freeway. Piggy is caught in the midst of a pasta storm and must spacewalk to the Swinetrek, which is slowly traversing the top of the screen. 
 
Starting at the bottom, she must avoid spaghetti (which travel left) and meatballs (which travel right) to reach the ship before her shipmates abandon her. Well, OK, according to the manual the crew come back for another pass, but either way is entirely within character for these swine. Accomplishing this causes the screen to be filled with more spaghetti and meatballs the next time the game is played. These obstacles knock Piggy down to the lane below, often right into another obstacle, and so on.
 

 
Pressing the joystick button compels Piggy to use her trademark karate chop, which can be employed to destroy oncoming meatballs. Noodles are impervious to all attack, naturally. At the beginning, I was unaware of the karate chop ability, and so, while the first few rounds were easy enough, they quickly became very challenging, and success seemed as much based on chance as anything. Even so, I was once able to complete this mini-game 15 times before expending all my lives. As soon as I discovered the karate chop, the game became much, much easier. If you have extra lives enabled, this is the game you'll go to to restore any lives lost. You don't get as many points as you do with the others, but it is easier and faster to complete than both.
 
Graphically, Pastaroids is not quite up there with the others, but it's not bad. The depiction of Miss Piggy here is a bit crude (and, arguably, without the spacesuit seen on the cartridge she has bigger problems than pasta), but the motion of the Swinetrek tilting side to side like a ship tossed at sea is nicely implemented with five frames of animation. It's the gameplay that is lacking. Depending how it is played, it either feels tedious or frustrating, but never really achieves "fun".
 
However, there is one game left. Selecting Dr. Strangepork gives us "Escape from the Planet of the Gonzoids", or as I like to call it, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Boomeray". The Swinetrek is moving up through a passage, and the player must make sure the ship does not come in contact with any walls or projectiles until it reaches the exit. If the corridor seems to pass by too slowly at times (and it will, especially at first), at your own peril you can speed things up by moving to the top of the screen. I won't try to describe what occurs when the ship collides with an object, but it is an unsettling combination of sight and sound indeed.
 

 
The tunnel is always symmetrical, but sometimes divides into two passages. Continuing the game's food obsession, the manual explains that this is a pizza mine and that the Gonzoid robots placed along the walls are throwing deadly pizzas (which once again look like lines... but horizontal ones!).
 
There are places where destroying the Gonzoids is essential for passing safely, but the way to do so is not straightforward. Literally. The ship is equipped with the bizarre "Boomeray" which fires a dot which moves upward, then curves to the left or right (whichever you moved last), and then downwards. The shot cannot pass through walls. The placement of the enemies above the walls is such that the player must take advantage of the curving path of the boomeray to clear the way.This comes with risk: the returning dot can destroy the ship. Offhand, the only other classic game I can think of where you can be damaged by your own fire is Fortress of Narzod for Vectrex (no doubt there are others).
 

 
The progression of difficulty in this game is odd. Each time the game is successfully completed the mine passes a little faster, but also the Gonzoids alternate between firing quickly and slowly. The result is that the second round of this game is easier than the first. After roughly half a dozen rounds, the alternating pattern settles on a moderate firing rate.
 
There is one significant problem with this part of the game: the layout of mine and the placement of the enemies is the same every single time. Had the developers been able implement a bit of variety here, I'm sure the entire package would have a better reputation, but as it is they may have been pushing their eight kilobytes of ROM to the limit. I can't help but think, though, that with a bit of time they could've implemented something akin to River Raid's procedurally generated level design.
 

(I would like to add that Dr. Strangepork gets the short end of the stick through all of this. Being the hidden pilot of Swinetrek here and being omitted from the cartridge art entirely, his only real appearance is on the menu screen. Anyways, we still love you, Dr. Strangepork.)
 


 
So, looking at the whole, we have three games in one cartridge which aren't too terribly challenging and tend towards repetition quickly. That said, I love that Pigs in Space for Atari 2600 exists. That someone looked at one small piece of a favorite show, and figured, "We can make a game out of this!". And I sincerely enjoy the quirky humor and the small graphical touches. Had I been the person who originally purchased it, I might well have been disappointed, but as a collector, I find it's great.