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Coleco Pac Man
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serge1
Kenner Red Line


Joined: 19 Nov 2011
Last Visit: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 40
Location: Mont-laurier, quebec, Canada

PostPosted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 8:00 am    Post subject: !! Reply with quote

Congratulations Billy!!! Its so interesting to see the pattern. Looks like you could play all day long with that one. Its also interesting to see that you have the US version while I have the Canadian one. The US version has a mini pac man square surrounding the screen (Rik correct me if I am wrong Smile ). Now I have to test the pattern on the canadian unit. On the Miss pac man I am also using a pattern and I sincerely believe that I could play all day long until my brain explode! Mr. Green

Also I just found that my US pac man unit has a bug. The skill levels are reversed! Skill 1 is skill 2 and vice versa. That's very strange, Rik?
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Rik
Site Admin


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
Posts: 1932
Location: California

PostPosted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 9:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

blanka wrote:
Is Super Puck Monster 100% the same? Guess the red foil missing is not affecting game play or does it Wink ? I have that one, not Coleco's.
Or is the original Coleco game limited by the batteries? The Gakken has a power plug socket.


Well, it seems not every Coleco Pac-Man is 100% the same... Cool Taking a guess, I'd assume the Gakken game is identical to at least one version of the Coleco game... But I've never opened my SPM to see if it's using the same chip/circuit boards...

Rik
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Rik
Site Admin


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
Posts: 1932
Location: California

PostPosted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 10:03 pm    Post subject: Re: !! Reply with quote

serge1 wrote:
Congratulations Billy!!! Its so interesting to see the pattern. Looks like you could play all day long with that one. Its also interesting to see that you have the US version while I have the Canadian one. The US version has a mini pac man square surrounding the screen (Rik correct me if I am wrong Smile ). Now I have to test the pattern on the canadian unit. On the Miss pac man I am also using a pattern and I sincerely believe that I could play all day long until my brain explode! Mr. Green

Also I just found that my US pac man unit has a bug. The skill levels are reversed! Skill 1 is skill 2 and vice versa. That's very strange, Rik?


What's the difference in the skill level, speed? I don't have a game handy to try... I'll grab all the ones I have tomorrow and play with them and see what they are doing. I think I have a Canadian one also...
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Rik
Site Admin


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
Posts: 1932
Location: California

PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 2:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ridiculous amount of info here:

http://www.handheldmuseum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1719

Cool

Out of 5-8 games I have, only one has the border on the screen, that's actually a new one to me.

And, on Skill 2 I was able to make Billy's pattern work on every machine I have. But, I did notice that on one machine it was more forgiving to a small error. I could miss a turn and quickly go back and it would work most of the time. On the other games, one mistake, no matter how small, and the pattern was ruined. Definitely harder to do, but I was able to make it work on all of them...

I need to open them all and see if any of them are different on the inside. If they are all the same, it may not prove much. I know there's at least 5 variations of the circuit board in the game, not sure if that would make a difference or not though.

Here's a new challenge though: Rather than high score, can anyone get a perfect score? All dots, and eating all 4 ghosts for each power pellet.

All the dots are worth 830 points
Ghosts are 100, 200, 400 and 800
So, after the first screen you should have 6830 points after getting all 4 ghosts 4 times.
13,660 after the second and so on... If it's doable at all, how many levels can you do it on? Smile

Took nearly 20 years for this to be done on the arcade game (all the way to the end- the arcade game crashes on the 255th level...) and has only been done 6 times in total I believe...

Edit- score fix...


Last edited by Rik on Tue Dec 06, 2011 4:16 pm; edited 1 time in total
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blanka
Atari Cosmos


Joined: 14 Dec 2010
Last Visit: 13 Oct 2022
Posts: 561
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands

PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 12:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rik wrote:
Ridiculous amount of info here:
Ghosts are 100, 200, 400 and 800
So, after the first screen you should have 2330 points

Nope, you have 6830 points after a perfect screen. You have to kill all Ghosts with EACH power pellet!
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Rik
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Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
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Location: California

PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 4:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

blanka wrote:
Rik wrote:
Ridiculous amount of info here:
Ghosts are 100, 200, 400 and 800
So, after the first screen you should have 2330 points

Nope, you have 6830 points after a perfect screen. You have to kill all Ghosts with EACH power pellet!


Oh yeah, totally missed that small detail... Rolling Eyes Oops...
So 6830 for screen one, 13,660 after the second. It's easy to calculate on the handheld since the ghost always become edible when you get a power pellet (on the arcade, some of the higher levels they just change direction).

I'll update that post... Mr. Green
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billytherobot
Gakken Dig Dug


Joined: 23 Feb 2008
Last Visit: 07 May 2019
Posts: 152
Location: Ohio

PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:22 pm    Post subject: hi rik! Reply with quote

hi rik!
well, i can't compare the ghost pattern on both units for a while because i have given the game back to my buddy...but i can certainly borrow it again and do that.
i do notice that this particular pac pattern does not work until the 2nd or 3rd board. it sort of "speeds" up on both game units and doesn't work until here.
in terms of opening the unit and changing something on the board, i hope
all of the mini-video game collectors know i would never do such a thing. heck, i don't know HOW ANYONE COULD?!
seems to be you would have to be a computer wizard to figure out what wire or circuit changed speed or movement! and believe me, i'm not that smart. i'm just stubborn. that's all it takes to get these crazy scores, you have to play every day until you force yourself to improve and it looks like i have a LOT of work to do this next year!
thanks everyone.
billy
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serge1
Kenner Red Line


Joined: 19 Nov 2011
Last Visit: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 40
Location: Mont-laurier, quebec, Canada

PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

''i'm not that smart. i'm just stubborn. that's all it takes to get these crazy scores''

Laughing Mr. Green Laughing Mr. Green Ah ah ah!! Lots of fun ahead!
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billytherobot
Gakken Dig Dug


Joined: 23 Feb 2008
Last Visit: 07 May 2019
Posts: 152
Location: Ohio

PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:32 pm    Post subject: serge!!! Reply with quote

hahaha. serge! you are a MAD MAN.
i am shocked at how quick you beat all
of my scores. i'll be back!!! Yessss!
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serge1
Kenner Red Line


Joined: 19 Nov 2011
Last Visit: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 40
Location: Mont-laurier, quebec, Canada

PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:47 pm    Post subject: Re: serge!!! Reply with quote

billytherobot wrote:
hahaha. serge! you are a MAD MAN.
i am shocked at how quick you beat all
of my scores. i'll be back!!! Yessss!


Lol... Billy, I let you the zaxxon score...Played 30 min non stop tonight and I can't see how I could beat you. The game feels clunky and totally broke. Confused So much that I don't have any fun playing it. I have been unable to kill the zaxxon a single time in 30 min of gameplay. Start to wonder if my unit is working right. Or perhaps its just me Crying or Very sad best score so far is 202 and dont ask me how I did it. Rolling Eyes Mr. Green Mr. Green
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Rik
Site Admin


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
Posts: 1932
Location: California

PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 1:39 am    Post subject: Re: hi rik! Reply with quote

billytherobot wrote:
hi rik!
in terms of opening the unit and changing something on the board, i hope
all of the mini-video game collectors know i would never do such a thing. heck, i don't know HOW ANYONE COULD?!
billy


Oh, no worries there... Just kind of making a joke. The whole game is pretty much in a chip, so there's not much you can do to it anyway... Cool One of those that came up with the arcade score battles, the 'suggestion' that someone might tamper with the game (much easier to do on an arcade...)

Rik
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blanka
Atari Cosmos


Joined: 14 Dec 2010
Last Visit: 13 Oct 2022
Posts: 561
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands

PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 11:14 am    Post subject: Re: hi rik! Reply with quote

billytherobot wrote:

in terms of opening the unit and changing something on the board, i hope
all of the mini-video game collectors know i would never do such a thing. heck, i don't know HOW ANYONE COULD?!
seems to be you would have to be a computer wizard to figure out what wire or circuit changed speed or movement!


First of all, I opened a lot of games, all WERE dead, mute or invisible, until I fixed them Smile
Second, changing the speed is actually one of the easier things to mod. Most chips have a combination of resistor and capacitor to tell the frequency the chip operates at. You can change it quite easily. Have a look at Entex games, they implemented a potmeter instead of the fixed resistor already to change it.
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Rik
Site Admin


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Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
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Location: California

PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 10:22 pm    Post subject: Re: hi rik! Reply with quote

blanka wrote:
billytherobot wrote:

in terms of opening the unit and changing something on the board, i hope
all of the mini-video game collectors know i would never do such a thing. heck, i don't know HOW ANYONE COULD?!
seems to be you would have to be a computer wizard to figure out what wire or circuit changed speed or movement!


First of all, I opened a lot of games, all WERE dead, mute or invisible, until I fixed them Smile
Second, changing the speed is actually one of the easier things to mod. Most chips have a combination of resistor and capacitor to tell the frequency the chip operates at. You can change it quite easily. Have a look at Entex games, they implemented a potmeter instead of the fixed resistor already to change it.


Yeah, you could do an overall speed change hack probably (but that would be obvious while watching you play, or watching a video of the playback). Anything more than that wouldn't be very easy (if possible at all). Like programming the ghosts to always go away from you instead of coming after you, or making the power pellet last twice as a long... Stuff like that.

You could also re-wire the difficulty switch so the game is always on 1 even when it's switched to 2...

The potential for cheating is there, but I don't think any of us are doing anything like that. It's more the satisfaction of actually being able to _get_ the score, not seeing your name next to a big number...

I wonder if that's part of the difficulty difference between machines. Maybe not all of them use the exact same resistor, or if there's a cap involved in the chip speed control, it could be getting old (hell, they ARE old) and affecting it's ability to work correctly...

That's why a real competition would probably require every person trying to win to play the exact same game... That way you know it's an even playing field...
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blanka
Atari Cosmos


Joined: 14 Dec 2010
Last Visit: 13 Oct 2022
Posts: 561
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands

PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 12:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote


Phew, this one is really hard. Harder than Ms. Pac. Guess I have to learn the pattern. BTW, I play Gakken SPM, I don't have the Coleco.
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serge1
Kenner Red Line


Joined: 19 Nov 2011
Last Visit: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 40
Location: Mont-laurier, quebec, Canada

PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 11:34 am    Post subject: New Score Reply with quote

Here is a small video of my new pac man score. 168,080 skill level 2. Shocked Mr. Green Cool Billy give me a break...Please.. Mr. Green Mr. Green Mr. Green

View full size to see the score.

http://youtu.be/mHknCe_Xvjo?hd=1
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