Steve's Spaceport (home arcade) 2008 Party

[Permafrostrick]

very possible...hope you lock it down....figure you would want an original pac board.
...wonder if the difference is just 1 chip that happens to be a socket chip or on a daughter card you can just swap that and be good to go.

I am not familiar with where those specifics are though...but figure given you can pop daughter card to switch to other pacs, figure it might be there.

[awesome]

I remember probably 5 or 6 different chips for Pac-Man. Everyone was doing so well with the pattern thing that they kept coming out with new chips to make old patterns not work (thus possibly more money). The Atlantic City chip was one I specifically remember. Seems like at least one of the pattern books told you how to tell which version the game was just by watching the attract mode (one of the ghosts did something specific in one version and not others). I have a couple books around here...I'll try to dig them out and look at what it says.

[Permafrostrick]

steve's appears to be the chip set they made to get rid of the sit spots.
..but maybe more than 1 of those also?

[MDARULZ]

As requested, here's a few pics of a group of us at Steve's, proudly wearing our CAGDC t-shirts.

Remember to bring them out to all the events you attend, so you can 'wear your colors' !  And, I'll be doing giveaways at a number of the events (including Funspot X), so you can even pick up some cool freebies as a bonus.

[Permafrostrick]

those came out pretty good Mark..thx for posting them!

Since that, I have gotten my haircut....really short again as you remember it from the last CA Challenge.

...plus lost about 8 pounds since then...hoping to lose another 20 over the summer  :D

[U.K Jon]

It's only Rick and Mark who seem happy ? 

[MDARULZ]

those came out pretty good Mark..thx for posting them!

You're quite welcome, Rick - sorry I didn't get 'em up sooner.  Full coverage of the arcade party is in progress.

It's only Rick and Mark who seem happy ?

Perhaps we're hams, Jon, and just love the camera !  Plus, I think most of the other guys don't embrace a photo nearly as much, and go for a more stoic pose.

We'll have to have a naked college sorority girl take the group shots next time - I predict it will be all smiles !! 

[dave88]

Wow, awesome game room. I like the space themed carpet and walls. There was a Spaceport here in Seattle (a couple photos can be seen in an old Joystick mag), but I don't think it was part of a chain.

Edit: on thinking on it I've got it mixed up, the place I'm thinking of was Lectric Palace they did it up real nice sort of star trek style. There were 2 or 3 Spaceports around the seattle area.

[dave88]

I remember probably 5 or 6 different chips for Pac-Man. Everyone was doing so well with the pattern thing that they kept coming out with new chips to make old patterns not work (thus possibly more money). The Atlantic City chip was one I specifically remember. Seems like at least one of the pattern books told you how to tell which version the game was just by watching the attract mode (one of the ghosts did something specific in one version and not others). I have a couple books around here...I'll try to dig them out and look at what it says.

Actually there are only 2 common original chipsets The original and the modified chip, Ken Uston called it the "Atlantic City" chip.

You can watch the demo to see which you have. On the original Pac-Man gets caught by inky above the lower left energizer. On the Modified version he gets caught by Pinky right above the ghost box. If Pac-Man dies somewhere else, you have some kind of rarity.

I'm pretty sure switching it back to original would just need swapping 1 chip.

[MDARULZ]

Actually there are only 2 common original chipsets The original and the modified chip, Ken Uston called it the "Atlantic City" chip.

Thanks for the info, Dave, and welcome to the forums (glad we worked out getting you activated; thanks for your patience !).  In my non-expert investigation into Steve's Pac-Man boardset, I had come up with basically the same conclusion - there seemed to be two common chipsets 'back in the day'.  I'm glad to have someone with more expertise give weight to my informed guesswork.

[marco marocco]

Nice people in the photo  !
Mark, I do want the t-shirt !!!!
Plz, tell me how I can get it  !

[Permafrostrick]

You can watch the demo to see which you have. On the original Pac-Man gets caught by inky above the lower left energizer. On the Modified version he gets caught by Pinky right above the ghost box. If Pac-Man dies somewhere else, you have some kind of rarity.

the second is just the pacman (harder?) set right?

What I saw on Steve's was different from the original pac and the "harder?" one.

it's almost like some hybrid...on the very first screen you normally can go left and down around bottom-left and eat all the way along the bottom and the blue/green monster reverses/pops just before you reach him.

In Steve's system, the blue monster comes out very early on the cherry board(like he comes out in regular pac on later boards) and you will run into him on the bottom.

we counted the #hops the monster does before exiting the monster box.  in regular pac, think it was 8.5 hops...on Steve's, that sucker was coming out after only 3 hops.

does that help to nail down what set?

[dave88]

the second is just the pacman (harder?) set right?

Yes, thats what it's called in mame

What I saw on Steve's was different from the original pac and the "harder?" one.
it's almost like some hybrid...on the very first screen you normally can go left and down around bottom-left and eat all the way along the bottom and the blue/green monster reverses/pops just before you reach him.
In Steve's system, the blue monster comes out very early on the cherry board(like he comes out in regular pac on later boards) and you will run into him on the bottom.
we counted the #hops the monster does before exiting the monster box.  in regular pac, think it was 8.5 hops...on Steve's, that sucker was coming out after only 3 hops.
does that help to nail down what set?

I forgot, there are two other possibilities. If the difficulty jumper on the board is connected on the original set Pac-Man gets caught by Clyde under the left energizer. On the "harder" set (Modified, Atlantic City) if the difficulty jumper is connected he gets caught by Inky right away in the lower right. It sounds like Steve's is probably the harder set, with the difficulty jumper on his pcb connected. Inky comes right out like you describe on this configuration.

Watch the demo, if Pac-Man gets caught by:

Inky, lower left = original chip, difficulty jumper not connected
Clyde, lower left = original chip, difficulty jumper connected

Pinky, above ghost box = modified chip, difficulty jumper not connected
Inky, lower right = modified chip, difficulty jumper connected

DAS