Questions tagged [arcade]
Early arcade games and hardware. Not to be used for modern arcade machines capable of running early games, or for custom (e.g. home-made) machines that happen to be old.
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Finding a vertical scrolling arcade game from the '90s
The game I'm looking for had the possibility for two players controlling a red or blue fighter jet. The style reminds me of the "Raiden" games in the arcades.
The only specifics I remember ...
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Why weren't discrete x86 CPUs ever used in game hardware?
Please don't point out APUs with x86_64 cores used in current generation game consoles, these are not part of the question
I cannot recall a single arcade system or game console that ever used x86 ...
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How was a demo mode implemented in arcade machines
On many arcade machines when running in attract mode, they often show a demo gameplay. I wondered how they did this?I guess those are not pre-recorded movies, so I think that they probably ran the ...
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How similar were the X68000 and Capcom CP system?
The Sharp X68000 was used in the development of many Capcom games in the CP system era. It was a formidable workstation but I've also heard it said that the two systems were similar in capability, to ...
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Help identify a 1980s vertical space shooter [closed]
I need help identify a 1980s vertical space shooter. It was a coin operated arcade game, I remember it around the mid 80's at a local aracde. The player's spacecraft was at the bottom, and fired up at ...
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Breakout style arcade game from 90s
I'm looking for a breakout style game where the paddle was held by a Chinese character with red clothes. The character holding the paddle above his head and he was running to prevent the ball from ...
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Why does the boot-up screen for Cruis'n USA (arcade version) display this strange text?
(I originally asked this in the "gaming"/Arqade section. However, it was suggested by a commenter that I should instead migrate it here. Since I don't know how one "migrates" a ...
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Arcade game similar to Commando, but better music
I'm trying to find the ROMs for an arcade game I played circa 1987. It was very similar to Commando in general concept - vertical scroller, very simple isometrics, guns and grenades.
Although it was ...
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Do people fix software bugs in old arcade games?
Do people fix software bugs in old coin-op arcade games? Here is one list of arcade game bugs.
Presumably the ROM images that run on emulators like MAME allow reverse compilation. This would allow ...
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Futuristic arcade spaceship game where your ship gains wings and wheels, collecting power-ups—from the late 80s/early 90s
Can anyone identify this game from the late 80s to the early 90s?
What I remember about this game is that it had some very particular mechanics. For example, in some levels, your ship had wings, and ...
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Was it actually possible to do the cartoon "coin on a string trick" for old arcade and slot machines? [closed]
In cartoons, you often see characters like Scrooge McDuck with a coin where they have drilled a hole in the middle and attached a string, enabling them to insert the coin multiple times and keep ...
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Late 1980s shooter arcade game with a flying robot
I am trying to find the name of an arcade shoot em up game (vertical scroller).
The game is probably from the early 1990s or late 1980s. It had a flying robot that would shoot bullets (round bullets) ...
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Arcade game from 80s or 90s about a doctor and spray [closed]
I recall (vaguely) being a doctor/scientist who had a spray can to kill bugs/enemies. Not remembering the name is driving me crazy! Help! :-)
It is not Dr. Mario.
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Drawing Asteroids DVG vector objects
I'm trying to draw the vector objects from the original coordinates of the Asteroids arcade game, starting with the ship from here, but I'm having trouble figuring it out and getting weird results. E....
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Bloodsport: Which version of Karate Champ is it?
In the movie "Bloodsport", there's a sequence which is famous among video game players, where Frank Dux and Jackson "fight" through a Karate Champ arcade game machine.
Now I'm ...
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Help identifying an 80's Vertical Shoot em up
I remember playing this on an arcade machine in the late 80s. You started as a ship but by collecting power ups you slowly began adding robot parts until finally you were piloting a full size robot. ...
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Help identifying an arcade game from the late 1980s
I'm looking for an arcade coin-op game from the late 80's that I remember seeing as a child.
Game in question is a puzzle-action featuring a penguin pushing blocks of ice over smooth ice.
After a few ...
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Why does the kill-screen glitch occur in Pac-man?
Pac-man is a game where you navigate a small yellow circle around a maze, collecting dots and fruit whilst avoiding brightly-coloured monsters, or ghosts. As long as there was at least one 'man left, ...
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Arcade/Computer Game: Alien crashed in graveyard, platform/side-scroller
I'm looking for a game which I remember playing at an arcade, probably around 1995-2000. I also think I played it (or a very similar game) on PC under Linux ~5 years ago.
It's your typical platform/...
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1980s arcade game with overhead perspective and line-art cut scenes
This is a long shot. I saw this game around 1990 at an arcade in eastern Europe. The place had all western machines (e.g. Rampage, Gauntlet, Tron, Donkey Kong Jr, etc) so I believe it was also a ...
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Identify a vertical arcade shooter from the very early 1980s
I'm trying to identify an arcade game that I remember playing.
At the bottom was the player's rocket that you could move in left-right direction and possibly also a small amount up and down (not sure ...
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Identify those arcade games from a 1983 Brazilian music video
This is a music video, recorded around 1982/1983, from Kodiak Bachine, considered to be the first Brazilian synthpop musician.
At 5:39 you can see what looks like an arcade game:
and at 5:50 another ...
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Help me name this Arcade game?
Help me identify an arcade game I played, trying to remember what it was called..
All i remember it was a 2D platformer cartoon-like person character which had a gun and could fly with a jetpack, I ...
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Are the details of the Galaga entrance patterns deterministic or random?
I've been playing a lot of Galaga lately on a Namco Revision B board, and I'm running into an interesting game detail that has probably been documented or examined by others or could be divined by ...
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Help me identify a vertical shooter from the 80's, please
Just reaching you guys because I'm completely unable to identify the game, and I haven't seen it in any compilation neither in Mame, etc. The following data are based just in my memories from the 80's....
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What's the point of the CPS-2 suicide battery?
The CPS-2 arcade board contains a suicide battery that will force the board to kill itself when it runs below a certain power threshold.
Supposedly this was created to mitigate piracy of the games, ...
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How did Ridge Racer the arcade game store its music?
For both Daytona USA and Sega Rally (released around the same time but produced by SEGA), the arcade machines had sort of a synthesizer soundtrack with no CD-ROM involved. Only the home ports of those ...
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Where did the standard arcade font originate?
Nearly anyone who has seen an early arcade game from any company has probably seen this or a very similar font. Who created it and where, and why did it become so widespread, ending up in games from ...
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What was the first games console to be as powerful as the Sega Model 2 board? [closed]
Back in the day, Sega's Daytona USA was the king of arcades. All those polygons flying around at 60 frames per second, it was incredible. It was also hugely expensive. What was the first games console ...
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Were vertical monitor arcade games programmed differently from those with horizontal monitors?
Many classic arcade games like Pac Man (Namco 1980), Assault (Namco 1988), Mercs (Capcom 1990), etc, use a monitor oriented vertically. I assume that they used the same physical hardware, with the ...
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What are the technical differences between the Midway 8080 and Taito 8080 hardware boards?
In my research on 1970s-era arcade machines, I've noticed that both Midway and Taito created games which used Intel's 8080 microprocessor. However, each company had their own host boards which ...
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Did ancillary LEDs trade arcade game design for manufacturing cost?
Looking at the 1974 arcade game Speed Race, I notice that the cabinet includes ancillary LEDs to show the scores.
https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=wide-flyer&db=videodb&id=4056&image=...
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What would "Special Makeup" design have been in the 1988 arcade game, Splatterhouse? [closed]
Upon beating the Namco arcade game Splatterhouse, released in November 1988, the following is shown in the credits along with the expected programmers and artists:
SPECIAL MAKEUP DESIGNED
...
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Why was Atari Tank less cloned?
The first commercially successful arcade video game was Pong in 1972. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_video_game the number of units eventually sold was about 19,000. (A lower figure ...
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How common was MADSEL?
I recently completed a software disassembly of the 1980 coin-op arcade game Missile Command. I'm curious whether a feature of the hardware is unique or commonplace.
First, a bit of background: ...
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What API did the "math box" provide?
Some classic vector arcade games, such as Battlezone and Red Baron, were based on the 6502 CPU. The processor wasn't fast enough to do the 3D computations, so a co-processor commonly known as the "...
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Why does the original Donkey Kong update the screen in a curtain closing pattern?
For those of you who don't know, Billy Mitchell, the former Donkey Kong world record champion was caught cheating due to differences between the original Donkey Kong format, and MAME. In other words, ...
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Arcade games in Apple IIc's ROM
Is there a website where I can find the old games that where pre-installed in the Apple IIc ROM? When I could not get an OS disk, I could still have some fun with my Apple IIc by playing those arcade ...
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Arcade game: pseudo-3D flying down a Death-Star-like trench
I cannot find any references to this game so maybe someone here will recall it:
It was a full-sized arcade cabinet with an aircraft-yoke type controller with fire buttons on the tip of the yoke. I ...
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What kind of graphics hardware did Nichibutsu's 1985 arcade game "MagMax" use?
The arcade game MagMax by Nichibutsu came out in 1985 and features for its time an impressive 3D scrolling effect which, in my observation, is not widely discussed yet, although it should be ...
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Mid 80's arcade top-down scrolling spaceship shooter with upgradable ship
I used to play an arcade game back in 1987 (first year high school) and I can't remember what it was called. The screen scrolled from the top (very much like 1942) but you flew a spaceship.
Some ...
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How did Capcom make the decision to produce 1942? [closed]
The classic Capcom game 1942 puts the player in the pilot seat of an American fighter aircraft in WW2, shooting down wave after wave of Japanese aircraft.
Capcom is a Japanese company.
How did Capcom ...
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How does the rotary control button of Forgotten Worlds/Lost Worlds encode rotation?
How does the rotary control button of Forgotten Worlds/Lost Worlds encode motion? How does it create a binary signal for game software to know how far and which direction to rotate the player's game ...
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How can I get MAME to run modified ROMs whose checksums don't match the originals?
In the aftermath of the question about running the arcade Pac-Man ROM on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum I discovered that about the same time that was done, somebody else did the reverse, porting a classic ...
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What is language use for level name in level 3 and 5 of Strider arcade game? [closed]
Arcade strider game show level name use different language follow Strider Hiryu (飛竜)'s adventure. But I not recognize languages for level 3 and level 5.
Can see titles in this video, Arcade Longplay [...
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How did 1980's 8 bit video game coders create realistic fireballs and explosions?
Back in the 1980's, I tried my hand at programming video games, mostly using Atari's player/missle
system which used sprites.
I could freehand draw most sprites but couldn't come close to the animated ...
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Why the 50/60Hz speed rule didn't apply for arcades but did for consoles?
Take the NES, the Super NES and say, the PlayStation, they all have something in common : games on PAL regions were about 16.7% slower than their NTSC counterpart.
Now if on you play an arcade game, ...
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Player 1 / Player 2 input for Space Invaders
According to the Computer Archeology page on Space Invaders, port 1 presents "player 1's shoot/left/right" input to the CPU, whereas port 2 presents player 2. Playing around the code in an ...
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Converting from 15 kHz RGB to VGA for an 80's Atari Centipede arcade machine?
I have been hunting around to find a replacement flat panel monitor to replace the honking CRT in a 1980's Atari centipede machine. The existing monitor supports 15 kHz RGB which is not really ...
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What was Pong called in Britain?
Pong, the electronic ping-pong game invented by Atari in 1972, was the first really successful video game.
In Britain, 'pong' was also slang for a nasty smell, and I remember reading somewhere, a long ...
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