MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: Kinda a silly Space Invaders question...

> I've always been kinda curious, so I thought I'd just go ahead and ask. The original
> 1978 space invaders was black and white, and you needed a color overlay to see any
> colors. Space invaders part II released a year later was in color. No overlays were
> needed. However, a year after that (1980), Space Invaders Deluxe was released and it
> went back to black & white with a color overlay. I was just curious why they went
> back to black and white, when they were using color monitors

Afaik the correct order is:
Space invaders tabletop (cocktail) (taito, 1978) - gel overlay
Space invaders standup (upright) (taito, 1979) - gel overlay
Space Invaders (upright) (midway, 1979) - gel overlay
Space invaders tabletop color (cocktail) (taito, 1979) - color generator onboard
Space invaders part II (cocktail and upright) (taito, 1979-1980) - color generator onboard
Space invaders deluxe (upright) (midway, 1980) - gel overlay (and mirror, backdrop)
Space invaders II (cocktail) (midway, 1980) - gel overlay? and dual sound board

The reason the midway releases don't use the color generator is because they are based on midway's own "m8080bw" hardware which dates to 1975 and never had a color generator on the board. Taito's cocktail hardware (except for the very earliest 1978 boards) all had the color generator. Taito's upright hardware was 'roughly midway compatible' and did not have the color generator nor flipscreen hardware.

Ask Andy Welburn, he can clarify.

LN

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