RE: webpage to look at...

> Thanks for the preview of the Tempest multi-game page. I have a
> comment
> (opinion) about the menu.
>
> You state that the menu is called up on power-up. I'd like you to
> consider
> changing this, and am interested if anyone else feels the same.
>
I'm a little limited by what I can do (from the hardware), but...

> If you don't want to deal with making a UI for
> setting the default (ie: press super zap and show another object (e.g.
> fuseball) to the right of the default game) then defaulting to the
> last
> played game would be ok.
>
Setting a default is tricky unless I can find an unused byte in the
NOVRAM I can take over. (Probably do-able, I'll need to look at it.)

The other option I forsee is rather than the menu system going into a
screen-saver mode after ~45 seconds I could default a jump to the latest
version of Tempest and automatically start the game. I was going to
have jumpers set a default game, but the stupid PLD I used didn't want
to cooperate and I didn't want to add cost and switch to a more flexible
device...

> Also, some people might get lazy and not install a game select switch.
> I
> could just imagine people powering the game down and up, over and
> over, just
> to get back to the menu. This surely can't be good for the machine or
> monitor.
>
I dunno. It works essentially the same as the MultiPac and the
SegaMultigame in that regard-- haven't had any complaints about the menu
behavior there, but maybe that's just 'cause nobody bothered to comment?
I wouldn't add a button to my Tempest cab, but then I leave the
coin-doors upon for adding credits (I'm not a big fan of "free play"
settings) so I just put a little Radio Shack switch in there. The
little "add-on" board that allows a reset to be generated by pressing
two buttons on the control panel is there to allow a "stock"
configuration to reset the machine.

> While at it, will each game save it's own high score table?
>
Nope. The "real" Tempests will share a high-score table, and the other
games won't mess it up. Vortex, Aliens, and Vector Breakout don't have
high-score support.

-Clay
Received on Thu May 13 11:11:47 1999