Found an old book of mine sitting on a shelf: Mastering Pac-Man by Ken Uston.
At the beginning of the book, he mentioned some variations: Slow: appears to be pacman with DIP Switches Difficulty -> Normal Fast: appears to be pacman with DIP Switches Difficulty -> Hard Atlantic City Chip: appears to be pacmod with DIP Switches Difficulty -> Hard
Towards the end of the book, he mentions some alternate versions: New PUC-ONE: doesn't exist in MAME, but seems like newpuckx from his description (it shows "New Puck - X" when you insert a coin, so it's definitely not the same, but seems identical otherwise). I definitely played this one at some point, because there are blank mazes in the book to add your own patterns, and I drew one in. Mazeman: doesn't exist in MAME, but the maze seems like it matches newpuc2.
I realize this is 40 years ago (holy jeebus), and ROM hacks were a dime-a-dozen back then to try and entice people to keep playing, but do these ROMs still exist? Are they just graphics hacks and were deemed not significantly different enough to warrant inclusion?
I saw HBMAME has mazeman, but it seems like someone trying to recreate it, as it doesn't match the description.
I have been looking for MazeMan FOREVER!! Marcel Silvus (aka SIL) is the one that did the remake as we were talking about it back in the day. Obviosly we did not know the ghosts name or what "Richard Nixon Monsters" looked like or the Frog and the beer also mentioned.
There are at least two in the wild as of a few years ago.... I have been dying to track one down. Sadly none of the pictures have screenshots good enough to use for a recreation.
>Towards the end of the book, he mentions some alternate versions: >New PUC-ONE: doesn't exist in MAME, but seems like newpuckx from his description (it >shows "New Puck - X" when you insert a coin, so it's definitely not the same, but seems >identical otherwise). I definitely played this one at some point, because there are blank >mazes in the book to add your own patterns, and I drew one in. >Mazeman: doesn't exist in MAME, but the maze seems like it matches newpuc2.
>I realize this is 40 years ago (holy jeebus),
That was my thought when couriersud introduced actual pong emulation in late spring 2012 in MAME. "almost 40 years approaching..."
> and ROM hacks were a dime-a-dozen back then >to try and entice people to keep playing, but do these ROMs still exist? Are they just >graphics hacks and were deemed not significantly different enough to warrant inclusion?
>I saw HBMAME has mazeman, but it seems like someone trying to recreate it, as it doesn't > match the description.
>Thanks for any info!
Maybe dwidel might be the person that knows about details of Mazeman He would be best possible person about this imo.
Granted things are still a ways to go for PSE brand games, but hardware documentation and skeleton drivers are a promising start.
Schematics for both Desert Patrol and PSE Bazooka are now online. couriersud also did an update for how proms and roms are treated in netlist operation. And with additional prom hardware support for games that use a particular prom model, maybe some future images of other non-cpu games may eventually happen.
> btw: Does this look familiar? ;-) > > -- > src/mame/machine/nl_dpatrol.cpp > > // license:BSD-3-Clause > // copyright-holders:Ryan Holtz > > > Netlist (dpatrol) included from pse.cpp > -- > > Granted things are still a ways to go for PSE brand > games, but hardware documentation and skeleton > drivers are a promising start.
Ooooh, wouldn't that be something. Go, Moogly... I think I saw a while back he was also playing around with Stunt Cycle. Do you know if that progressed at all?
Exciting things going on with netlist drivers. I'll likely build next release (first time in probably a year, sadly) and take a listen to these new old Cinematronics sounds. I just played Star Castle and Armor Attack in the past year on an actual machine, so I'd really like to hear what MAME is up to.
Thanks for the links. Maybe it'll show up in MAME one day. Maybe Crazy Otto will too
I was hoping to see MazeMan at Galloping Ghost arcade near Chicago last year, but sadly, nothing. And I always keep an eye out out when the pinball/arcade expo comes to town, but you mostly get classics with few obscurities.
Nothing new to report on those two, been spending a lot of time on other things in MAME. I've been thinking about having a look at both now that the netlist system has had a bunch more devices added to it, but work has been a real pain. With the whole working-from-home thing, I tend to only have time for small, bite-sized MAME-related tasks in my spare time.
> Found an old book of mine sitting on a shelf: Mastering Pac-Man by Ken Uston. > > At the beginning of the book, he mentioned some variations: > Slow: appears to be pacman with DIP Switches Difficulty -> Normal > Fast: appears to be pacman with DIP Switches Difficulty -> Hard > Atlantic City Chip: appears to be pacmod with DIP Switches Difficulty -> Hard > > Towards the end of the book, he mentions some alternate versions: > New PUC-ONE: doesn't exist in MAME, but seems like newpuckx from his description (it > shows "New Puck - X" when you insert a coin, so it's definitely not the same, but > seems identical otherwise). I definitely played this one at some point, because there > are blank mazes in the book to add your own patterns, and I drew one in. > Mazeman: doesn't exist in MAME, but the maze seems like it matches newpuc2. >
IIRC NEWPUC1 was the pacheart set - unless that was NEWPUC2. Haven't looked at Pac-Man hacks for a long time.
>been spending a lot of time on other things in MAME.
Fairlight work is probably most anticipated item and understandable of why it is. Once it approaches similar to what is shown on video maybe expect some musicians (keyboardists) to be sending in appreciation to the work from Phil, you and any others involved with Fairlight. To that crowd 'Stunt Cycle' is just another 'one of those games'.
> Thanks for the links. Maybe it'll show up in MAME one day. Maybe Crazy Otto will too > > I was hoping to see MazeMan at Galloping Ghost arcade near Chicago last year, but > sadly, nothing. And I always keep an eye out out when the pinball/arcade expo comes > to town, but you mostly get classics with few obscurities. > > H@P
I have personally spoke with Steve Golson, one of the programmers from MIT that did Crazy Otto/Ms. Pac-Man. MazeMan will show up before Crazy Otto does. Trust me, I have been waiting for the original for years and years.
Scott Lawrence did a hack of it in HB Mame, and for all intense and purposes, it is the real thing. Just doing a graphics hack is not enough. According to Steve there is more frames in the animation of Crazy Otto walking than there are in Ms. Pac-Man eating dots. Scott actually went in and added the missing frames of animation. Scott's version is called 'Otto project' and has multiple versions covering every known stage that Steve has mentioned in his keynote speeches. If you watch his keynotes, and look at the Otto Project in HBM, you will see what I mean.
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Trust me, I have been waiting for the original for years and years.