Re: Asteroids cheat (again)

> I hate to re-post this, but I only got one reply last
> time and it didn't solve the issue. I have a customer
> who REALLY wants his Asteroids to have the score cheat
> that is mentioned on so many web sites as being in the
> original version of the ROMs. Unfortunately, neither
> he nor I can make it work. I've tried both original
> and version 2 roms in the original hardware and even
> tried it in MAME and could not seem to make it work
> anywhere. Does anyone know for sure that this cheat
> exists and if so, how to go about doing it? I
> appreciate anyone's help in figuring this out.

Perhaps my perspective will help -

I believe it's a hoax, much like the rumors of being able to drive to the
mountains in Battlezone. I've heard of this "cheat" since 1996 when I
wrote EMU (old vector emulator that predates MAME). With version 1 ROMs,
and I'll repeat, with version 1 ROMs, I have tried this no less than 30
times. I had owned an Asteroids upright, version 1, since the mid 80s and
have also tried it countless times and had never been successful.

More telling, I've found and looked at the collision detection code in
Asteroids rev 1 and there is NOTHING that would exclude a region. There is
no relationship to the scores or any of the text in terms of collision
detection. They are handled by completely separate sections of the code.
Coding up something to specifically do what is being claimed would have to
be deliberate.

I'm convinced that it's a fool's errand to look for it. Just one of those
tales of arcade folklore.

-->Neil

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neil Bradley "The true axis of evil in America is the brilliance of
Synthcom Systems, Inc. our marketing combined with the stupidity of our
                          people.." - Bill Maher
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Received on Mon Nov 22 12:28:53 2004