I had the chance to meet with Wings designer Stuart Ross, in 2005, to discuss this previously unreleased Atari 2600 game. Here's what he had to say about it.

The development time was about 16 months. I remember trying to figure out how to roll stuff on the radar screen appropriately, because you couldn’t actually track the radar screen to the map. It was too complicated. So I came up with this little algorithm that would state what should happen, but it required 55 bytes. To do all the things in 3-D in Wings required vectoring objects, but you can’t do trig in that thing with only 10.5k, so it was all a “guestimation”. The real trick was, how do you roll something on the screen when you bank the airplane, because you want the objects to move.

The game was basically finished (although marketing wanted clouds added…which were never implemented). We were about 2 weeks from having Wings ROMS manufactured when CBS pulled the plug. They even had some promotional material ready (hats and scarves), as well as a TV spot!

You can view the long lost Wings promo commercial from our Screening Room, HERE

Read the full interview with Stuart Ross HERE

Version dated 6-3-83 - Click HERE to download the ROM

Display type – NTSC (279 lines)

• Plays “Flight of the Valkyre” at power-up
• All gauges are fully functional
• There are no enemy aircraft or ground targets
• Sky will change colors to reflect different times of day (even night!)
• Complete end-to-end loops are possible!
  

Weapons:

Gauges:

Altitude - You need to maintain at least 512 (feet), otherwise the readout will flash/beep.

Fuel - Higher you throttle the engines, the more fuel you burn. Once it drops to 1500, the readout will flash/beep.).

Runway: Different colored markers on the runway tell you how far you are from the end. The colors go black –> brown –> pink –> dark red –> medium red.

Bugs:

• When you restart a new game, none of the dials or counters (including the score) reset.
• When taking off, if you constantly pull back on the joystick, the game may hang up shortly after gaining some altitude (between 20-40).
• If you throttle your engines down completely, you most likely won’t be able to restart them!
• If the fuel counter starts to flash/beep, the lower half of the screen will jump. It will continue to do this even if you start a new game.
• With a little effort, it’s possible to keep flying even when you’ve run out of fuel!
• If you crash and start a new game, you may not be able to throttle the engines.

Version dated 10-10-83 - Click HERE to download the ROM

Display type – PAL (310 lines)

• Includes title graphic and attract mode
• Music can be turned off/on with difficulty switch (defaults to off when first run)
• An ascending scale of notes now precedes the theme music, and when you start the game
• Can’t do a full end-to-end loop
• Enemy aircraft included, and they can be hit! Plus they can hit you
• Engine sounds are a bit different. The graphics for the weapons are also different
• The sky changes color faster
• The plane is often impossible to keep level
  

Left difficulty switch turns music off (B) or on (A).

The colors were changed to green –> yellow –> red –> orange+white.

The bar gauges don’t appear (most likely turned off in the code).

• When you restart a new game, none of the dials or counters (including the score) reset.
• When taking off, if you constantly pull back on the joystick, the game may hang up shortly after gaining some altitude (between 20-40).
• If you throttle your engines down completely, you most likely won’t be able to restart them!
• If you crash and start a new game, you may not be able to see the runway.