As far as I know, I'm the only one with a Speed Coin cabinet. It's definitely a prototype, as the cabinet is made of nice plywood and not particle board. Also, the marquee and control panel are made of colored paper, colored electrical tape, and a blown-up xerox copy of a coin face. My understanding is that it came from Stern when it shut down.
The boardset is a Scramble, with hand-labelled ROM chips inside. Also, the wiring harness is different, since it only requires a 2-way joystick.
When I went to plug this into the Scramble driver in MAME (back in 1999!), I was stymied by the fact that the background was blue in MAME, but black on the "real thing". I traced through the PCB only to find that the monitor was adjusted with the blue gun turned off! When I adjusted it, it matched MAME exactly.
In case you are wondering about the sound, the music sounds kind of muted and noisy on the real thing, just like in MAME.
Last year, I was stunned to play Speed Coin in an arcade in Nashville, Tennessee. It turns out the Ultracade guys added that game to their Multigame system, under "Arcade Classics"?!. I'm sure they used the ROM images I dumped in my basement, and here it was on a machine in another city. Pretty strange feeling.
I really don't think it's a classic. More like "Arcade Relics". :)
Oh well, I'll get back to Space Raider this weekend, hopefully. I have a newly-found JAMMA harness and a brand new RGB-to-TV adapter which should make things easier. With that, I'll be able to take screenshots from actual boards, and compare them with MAME.
7 comments:
Being the strage MAAMEr that I am, I think Speed Coin is a fun little game, the muted music does get on my nerves, so I turn it up. I'm surprised to see it with a 2 way joystick, I always assumed a spinner, or an analog joystick. Well, time for more frustratin, and more speed coin on my digital joystick!
i'm just having fun with my almost indestructible mame keyboard ;-P.
(sound strange.. since i'ts possible that frank are the only "legally entitled" to play that game in mame (childrens, don't do it at home :P)
J.
An interesting game, but quite addictive - perhaps I'll get past level 2 sonetime!
Perhaps you could do the honours with a digital camera, Frank, and submit pictures of the cabinet & marqee to the appropriate people (not sure who!) - it doesn't look like they'll come from anyone else.
Cheers.
Hope someday that a sequel this game is made. With a few small changes, the game would have a lot more play value -- even with the eight screens were kept pretty much the same.
1. The coin drop holes should move a bit from level to level, and maybe even a small random shift all of the time.
2. The sticks should shift somewhat from level to level, making unknown shots worth taking.
3. Make the highest time bonus (x4) actually possible on most levels.
4. The bonus round is pretty lame as there is no real way to control all of those rows with a single left-right control in a meaningful way.
Having said that, Speed Coin is in my favorites folder. 500,000 is a pretty good score for me.
I love this game... Its so simple and its by far my most played rom. Thank you for the dump. I would of never seen it with out ya.
If you ever sell, please consider me as a buyer. I messaged you my information on the Atari Age forums.
Thank you!
Lovvely post
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