FYI: D2716 is the standard ePROM device, and the M2716 is the military (MilSpec) version. Typically higher temperature range, e.g. it has a Military Temperature range.
I nearly squashed a friend under an arcade cabinet when moving house. We had to take the machine (a generic JAMMA cab) out my front room and down a small set of stairs. All was going well until my friend slipped on the wood flooring, slipped backwards and landed on the floor. The cabinet managed to wedge itself in the doorway, preventing him from becoming an unwilling pancake. I then transported the cab off to another friend’s house in my tiny trailer to be his problem as it wouldn’t fit in my new house. Arcade cabinets are like pianos, people think they’re fun to own right up to the point it’s in the front garden and they’re thinking “how can I get it in the house, and then where is it going?” 😁
Oh hey, you're Canadian. I thought I detected something. Also, thanks for writing TaskManager for Windows which is what led me somehow to find you! The titling on your videos is just awesome! Final Cut Pro?
Indeed! Occasionally when narrating (ie: off camera) I slip into my old accent a bit, I've noticed! Final Cut Pro indeed - I'm using the Leeming LUTs for color grading, filming in 4K Rec HLG3.
Hi, I literally just landed here too based on Task Manager! Thank you for writing it (it has saved me many a time) and looking forward to watching all your videos Dave!
Yep I could detect Dave is Canadian when he pronounces some "-Ar" sounds. I think a lot of us Canadians do the same thing. "car" comes out as "ker" or similar for us. That's often how I can pick up if youtubers are Canadian
I got good enough to roll Defender when it first came out. There was me and one other guy in the area good enough to post the highest score of 999,975 possible. We would strategically kill off ships with final deliberate collisions calculating the value of each enemy to reach a score of 999,975 then proceed to hyperspace off the remaining ships and hope one didn't land on top of an enemy causing the game to roll over having to start all over again. I just randomly ran into this other guy one day at a place I didn't normally play the game at. We didn't know each other. He was playing and I could see he was this guy. Then I casually went up and played and he understood who I was. We had been knocking each other scores off the top score list of games in the area for months, just him and I on all of them if they were up that high. It was one of those things you just will always remember. Anyway my hat's off the programmers Eugene Jarvis and Larry Demar that formed Vid Kidz working with Williams back in the day that brought us that game and others. I owned a couple Defenders but could beat it too easily and eventually so I kept it's sequel Stargate and also a Robotron (cocktail version) since I was never as successful at defeating them. I had a Robotron upright as well and yes like you found I am better playing the upright version but kept the Robotron as it is quite rare in the cocktail form.
My brother in law was that way on Defender. He could play for hours until he got tired of it, while I couldn't break 100,000. On the other hand, within weeks of it coming out, I could play Tempest for a couple hours on a quarter. I eventually made it to like level 85 or so, and had numerous trophies and T-shirts to show for it, but finally gave up not wanting to drop any more quarters! They go quick when you're in the upper levels... lol, good times...
Couple things.. 1: I've always thought the "M" version of the eproms are military spec (wider operating temperature among other things I think).. but also with every situation I've found so far, as long as you're only READING there will be no high voltage and you dont have to care about the specific type.. I am definitely more careful with writing because of the voltages you say. Second.. You could have pulled these ROM images from a MAME collection - Someone has already done the tedious work of pulling them and reading them into files. And third.. I saw a pinball machine too! What other arcade machines do you have? Tempest cocktail is pretty rare.. nice find!!
I bought a full size Tempest machine for a local arcade where I lived. They had two of them and I bought the best one of the bunch, I paid $200 for the machine and had it for several years till I sold it. I never got past the cyan level with the default setup, I only discovered the invisible levels after setting the dip switches to start off at virtually any level. Wish I was able to keep it but you know how it goes. I really miss this machine, however I can still fall to MAME.
I’ve realized that you wrote Task Manager for Windows and that’s amazing. I read your post on Reddit and there was something very interesting about the efficiency on that program. Would you like to make a video to make us better programmers and teach us to write efficient code, like you did in task manager ?
Ohh, Tempest, my old friend. Still remember when i encountered Tempest for the 1st time back then. This was so cool, so different, so addictive ... Looking forward to watch the full series ... thanks!
You bet! I'm almost done the Tempest stuff, but it's taken a lot of time! I actually have to build a new umbrella anyway, so... even my wife agrees :-)
You had mentioned a question about the types of ROMS. So back in the 80's there were Roms, Eproms, and EEProms. ROM is of course Write once and typically preprogrammed, EPROM is Erasable, Programmable ROM, and EEPROM or E(square) Prom is Electrically Erasable PROM. The EPROMs usually have a little window at the top, sometimes if these chips are exposed to the environment the programmer will put a piece of tape over the window. To Erase an EPROM you expose the chip to Ultraviolet light for 10 minutes and that will erase it. Hope my 2cents helps.
I remember those days when there was a line of quarters on the console. Awesome times. I loved the center of attention of being able to hog a game for hours on end and see people recall their quarters and become a spectator. But Tempest was never a game I got good at...albeit one of my favorite games.
Good back story and great video Dave! I mastered Asteroids because it was the only game a the local grocery store so I totally related to that. I just bought the arcade1up version of Asteroids and it included Tempest and I've been hooked on it but not talented so ... thanks again!
Back in the 70's I worked in Boston and commuted some 30 miles by bus. I would get off at a local bar and play tempest until my wife came and picked me up. It was my favorite arcade video game. Second best was Missile command
I also am nuts for virtual on and the twin sticks... I competed in many tournaments and won them... people watch me play through every level and all the high scores read MRX... I only have a us saturn chipped to play Japanese edition of virtua on.. I couldn't get my hands on the twin sticks there's an American release of both and they a ridiculously high price hard to find extremely fragile for the home gamer
The VTxxx computers reminded me of VAX terminals from my intern days at Caterpillar. Interesting enough, I see now they are both made by DEC so they are related in some way. Thanks for sharing, a good run down memory lane.
I was playing this game at a bowling alley back in ‘80. Not sure what level I died on, but I died nonetheless. I inserted my quarters, hit single player, sup the wheel to get to the highest level I made it to, and that’s when it got weird and I discovered the Easter egg score.. 😉🥃
Used to play Tempest so much when I was younger that I would dream about the game when I was sleeping, it was the first really addictive game I ever came across growing up in the arcade era. Even tried coding up a clone in Basic on my CoCo 2, with predictable results.
This is great. Hope you have way more stories and looks at coding. Perhaps you can look at the bike racing pc game you coded? Do you still have the source code for it? Love your story videos.
Acme Animaton, later called Aero Animation. As a company we did Ace of Aces and a couple of other titles. It was somehow related to Artech as well, or maybe just guys had worked at both, I don't recall!
