What is the farthest Fruit you made it too on PACMAN?

Snowbear, you sure are one heck of a video game freak. I'm still sticking with my recollection of score registration on the table version. I've got an email into some expert who calls himself "Mr. Roboto," if I don't get a return email I might just try Billy Mitchell himself. You do remember that there were a few different releases of Pacman, each requiring either adjustments to your patterns or reworking them entirely? Obviously, the table version had to be different for the obvious reason of flipping the maze image.

Searching the internet to refresh my memory has been fun. It's the 7th key not the 13th where you can no longer eat the ghosts. I suspect I remember 13 because the first key appears on the 13th level. I also determined that on my PR I had to be well above 55 keys. The lowest level at 1,060,000 playing perfect was 64 keys, and I'm positive I never played anywhere near perfect, I missed plenty of keys, for sure, I'd now guess I was at the 75th key, maybe as high as the 85th. FWIW, everyone knew about the hiding spot.

Can't seem to find one word on a "Randy Tufts" anywhere.

Last time I played was 4.5 years ago. I was picking up a pizza, saw a table, smiled and sat down. Put in a quarter and scored about 40,000. After 20 years, with no residual haptic memory, there was no gentle touch, no 'rolling' around corners, no subtle jukes -- it was just me trying to bully the joystick.

The only remnant I have from Pacman is a slightly disfigured middle finger -- "Pacman finger". HA!

[quote]malmo wrote:

Snowbear, you sure are one heck of a video game freak. I'm still sticking with my recollection of score registration on the table version. I've got an email into some expert who calls himself "Mr. Roboto," if I don't get a return email I might just try Billy Mitchell himself. You do remember that there were a few different releases of Pacman, each requiring either adjustments to your patterns or reworking them entirely? Obviously, the table version had to be different for the obvious reason of flipping the maze image.

[quote]

At that time there was only one PCB that Pac-Man games ran off of. I personally own one for my game, and an extra as back-up.

The cocktail(sit-down version) ran off of the EXACT same PCB. The only difference was that one of the pins on the edge connector was grounded. So, the difference was in the wiring, not the board or the software.

You could take a board out of a cocktail version and put it in an upright and it would work perfectly with no adjustments.

There were no different releases that I'm aware of that existed prior to about 1988.

The only variations you can find in original Pac-Mans would be the speed (fast or slow) which is changed by swapping out a chip on the PCB. You could also change the difficulty (hard or standard) by grounding something on the board (I don't remember what, and I've never seen this done).

There were later sequals to Pac-Man. There was Jr. PacMan, Pac-Man Plus, Ms. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, ect. These are the ones where you had to alter your stategies and no true patterns existed.

Coopington, I'm not talking about different games (ie Ms Pac-Man etc), I'm talking about different releases of the original. You seem to be an EE or a repair guy, but as you previously stated, you weren't very old in 1982. The Games were definitely different depending where you played. You definitely had to adjust patterns. The restaurant I played in with the table games only had Pacman and Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong didn't do anything for me. I'm open to the real possibility that I'm mixing up games, but like I said, I wasn't really a video game freak, and only played Pacman - with the exception of Zaxxon (and Burger Time... and Crazy Climber ... and this lamp ... and this paddleball ... that's all I need to be happy.) After I hit a million, I quit soon after.

I'm the same age and played the same games. A dollar in quarters could keep me entertained for hours. Donkey Kong was a blast. Sometimes I ran to the pizza place. Now, I made my reply about running.

I don't understand why you guys call it the keys... every level was a fruit, and that is a blue berry! you gyuys have been living a sham!

fasadsf wrote:

I don't understand why you guys call it the keys... every level was a fruit, and that is a blue berry! you gyuys have been living a sham!

After about the the 8th or 9th screen you get a "galaxion" (which I call a "gnat") then a bell, and finally at the 13th level, a key. Keys continue to the end of the game.

malmo wrote:

Last time I played was 4.5 years ago. I was picking up a pizza, saw a table, smiled and sat down. Put in a quarter and scored about 40,000. After 20 years, with no residual haptic memory, there was no gentle touch, no 'rolling' around corners, no subtle jukes -- it was just me trying to bully the joystick.

At the Marlin on Catalina I was pleased to find a "multi-game", that had the old PacMan, Ms PacMan, Galaga, and a few others. There was a high score memory, but obviously it was a remake. It had been a long time since I'd seen one.

I was always more of a Galaga fan than PacMan and unlike the days of old despite many attempts to loosen the joints with malt beverage I left without any initials on the board.

Now I was always even more of a pinball fan. The big advantage with pinball is you could catch the ball, have someone hold the button and go take a whiz. Very handy when playing in a bar. I could play Ted Nugent all afternoon.

[quote]Keith Stone wrote:

At the Marlin on Catalina I was pleased to find a "multi-game", that had the old PacMan, Ms PacMan, Galaga, and a few others. There was a high score memory, but obviously it was a remake. It had been a long time since I'd seen one.

[quote]

The game you saw sounds like one that I have. I bought an empty Galaxian cocktail cabinet and wired it up for one of those boards. I think they started making those boards about 5 years ago, when emulation and MAME really started taking off. I bought a board that has DK, Dkjr, Pacman, Ms. Pacman, Dig Dug, Frogger, Centipede, Galaga and Galaxian on it. It's cool and it sure takes up a lot less space than having 9 full sized games.

With emulation available, a lot of people are making MAME machines that basically run off of a computer an plays thousands of games. I stick to dedicated originals mostly.

malmo, it's totally possible that there were bootlegs out earlier than I know of. I've just never seen one that holds high scores but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Actually, the Galaga that I have runs off of a bootleg board that was made in 82 or 83. So, bootlegs were being released early.

I never thought of having anyone "hold" the ball for me. I just always stood there doing the "pee-dance" while playing the silver ball.

My wife used to clean house for a family that had a pinball machine in their basement, I'd go over there and wait on her to finish work and play that game for hours.

Just made it up to 1,314,570 points in 104 boards. Its not only a personal record on PACMAN but I also broke a Million for the first time ever.

Anthony