ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 1990 MORE NEVER RELEASED SOFTWARE MODULES FOR THE 99/4A ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Charles Good ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Lima Ohio User Group Milton Bradley made two game modules for the 99/4A that I have never seen mentioned in the TI literature. One is their dealer's game demo module, and the other is a previously unknown game. When you plug in the MILTON BRADLEY GAME VISION module and press any key from the TI's title screen, you are presented with the following menu: PRESS 1 for TI BASIC 2 for Milton Bradley Games 3 for Connect Four 4 for Hangman 5 for Yahtzee 6 for Zero-Zap Thats right folks, this single module contains all four games. If you press 2, you get a continuously running demo of all four games, one game at a time. The demo starts out with MILTON BRADLEY GAME VISION PRESENTS, and the major features of the first game (Connect Four) are presented in a text display. Then there is a short demo of the actual game. This demo runs for a couple of minutes and then the major features of the next game (Hangman) are displayed as text, etc. etc. Once all four games are demonstrated, the whole thing starts over. By pressing any key (none of the keys on my console are labeled as the "any" key), you are given the opportunity to actually play the game currently being demonstrated. I have no idea when this module was created. There are no dates or copyright statements in any of the game demos. It's easy to see why Milton Bradley never actually sold this module. Such sales would undercut the market for Milton Bradley games sold as individual modules. The other "never released" module is Milton Bradley's CARD SHARP. There is no date or copyright statement on the title screen. You get your choice of two gambling card games with CARD SHARP, Stud Poker or Blackjack. Selecting Stud Poker brings up these instructions: Enter Bet----ENTER End Game-----@@ Show Card----S Hide Card----H Fold---------F Secret Show--X You are then prompted to enter the amount of money you wish all players to have at the start of the game. As you may know, Stud Poker starts with the first card of each player face down and the rest face up. Cards are dealt one at a time, and each player must bet in order to stay in the game and receive the next card. SHOW allows a player to peek at his hidden card. SECRET SHOW reveals ten cards NOT yet dealt out. The game always includes four hands. If there are fewer than four human players, the computer plays the remaining hands, to the end. If, for example, there is only one human player and he folds, the computer continues to automatically play the other three hands until there is a winner. Sometimes the computer will FOLD some of the hands under its control, just as real players sometimes FOLD. Selecting BLACKJACK brings up this submenu: Enter Bet----ENTER End Game-----@@ Hit----------H Stand--------S Double Down--D One to four can play at once. The computer plays the dealer. Except for the sound of cards being shuffled, there are no sounds or music in CARD SHARK. There is no fast action, There never is in card games. The only graphics are the display of the cards. Quite honestly, there are several BASIC and XBASIC public domain programs that play Blackjack and Stud Poker every bit as well as CARD SHARK. This is probably why MILTON BRADLEY never tried to market CARD SHARK. My thanks to Mike Wright for calling my attention to this software. .PL 1