NordicTrack Hyperciser

Hyperciser (V)EX/Hyperciser Challenge (V)EX, the top-end 'gym' model. Includes network bay, heart rate sensor, weight sensors and tri-video (either as three monitors in wide configuration, or as a VR stereo headset in the VEX trim) support. “Challenge” trim adds digital leaderboard and prize redemption/ticket gamification. Hyperciser SX, intended for smaller/hotel gyms, removes tri-video support and network bay. Hyperciser LE, the high-end home model, removes card access control, bookkeeping/accounting and coin/bill validator support.

Hyperciser SE/S/X, uses a simplified pedal control and changes games to suit it. X is intended for school or gym use, whereas the SE and S are lower-cost models of the LE with basic handlebars, no weight or heart rate sensors, and has a tray for a 13“ or smaller TV, not included.

In addition to the inbuilt OS, the following Hyperdiskette software is provided:

• Polygon Trainer, with the same title for both the commercial gym/arcade version and the home version (although, the commercial version is referred to as Pro Polygon Trainer by enthusiasts, owing to a string in the ROM). Has one “world” with six courses from Onesburg to Sixford, and two “boss” levels (Acute Factory and Obtuse Labyrinth).
• Power Polygon Trainer (Pro)/Polygon Trainer II (Home). A much expanded version, PPT/PTII has eight main worlds carrying a notable theme, with three courses each with three subtracks/checkpoints to play in order. Each world is named for a polygon, except the first two, Point St. Arthur and the High Line District.
• Polygon Pacer (Pro)/Polyrhythm (Home). A more music/rhythm-oriented spin-off of the Polygon Trainer series.
• Hyper Polygon Hunter: Darkfalter (Pro)/Dark Falter (Home). An action/FPS type game, which uses the handlebars for aiming a weapon, and the pedals and leaning function for locomotion. Has multiplayer support, but no known deployment of multiplayer on more than two machines at a time. Not available on SE/S/X models.

In common with all software on the Hyperciser platform, Effort is the in-game currency, 'health bar', 'magic meter' and overall scoring metric. Effort is measured in 'kilocalories', or in US versions, 'Calories'. The calculations are derived from physical resistance training values by scientists hired by NordicTrack.

The NordicTrack Hyperciser uses the PowerPC 405 embedded CPU to run the game engine. The HyperMotion coprocessor in the Handlebars is also a PowerPC 401, with similar code, seemingly built from the same source tree.

The Hyperciser's OS, based on a microkernelized TRON OS developed by Matsushita, has a dynamic LIFO heap while in-game, to cache items loaded from disk, program code and scripts, as well as objects in the game engine. Managing the heap effectively, through targeted loading and unloading of items and Scenes, can help shave lag frames or load times off of speedruns.

The NordicTrack Hyperciser uses the Matsushita Hyperdiskette format, a magneto-optical 260MiB (256MiB addressible, plus 4MiB of boot code and file tables) 'floppy' diskette which looks like a regular Microfloppy or SuperDisk format disk, but with shutters on both sides of the disk, and four heads to engage the disk on both sides and both ends. Despite spinning at 8x and reading sequentially at 24x the speed of a typical FDD (6.2 Mbit/s), the seek mechanism is as slow as an FDD and as a result, loading can take a while.

A 'library' is a Hyperdiskette sequential datafile, which contains the assets and data expected to fill the Heap pre-serialized and ready to be read, albeit compressed.

“Handlebars” are the primary directional input, a 'gaming 8-axis yoke', on the Nordictrack Hyperciser EX, SX and LE series, but not available on the SE, S, or X series, which are rail-based in-game, and only have directional buttons for menu selections.

Jans Henrik Mittelson, born July 23, 1985 in the Skøyen region of Oslo, Norway, is a video game music composer, known for his work on the NordicTrack Hyperciser games, several shareware titles on the Amiga and IBM PC, and in the demoscene, under the alias 'd0rkb0mb'. After composing the award-winning Gravis UltraSound tracks for the 'Urban Exploration' demo on the PC by demogroup PREVA1L, he was hired by NordicTrack in 1997 to produce music for their exercise games. In 2003, he left NordicTrack, and went on to work for Infogrames.