Anyone have a working SHARK ATTACK?

andrewb

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Any working Shark Attack owners out there? This is the Pacific Novelty game, similar to Thief and NATO Defense.

I'm working on repairing a boardset for @Phetishboy. There's something I want to check, and need a favor. It should only take a couple of minutes.

Flip the game into test mode (by flipping dipswitch 8 in row 5 of the I/O board to the ON position, see below). This should put the game into test mode and display the ROM checksums. Then post a pic of the whole screen, including all of the checksum values, and the version number in the upper right.

I'll explain more if someone can post a pic.

shark attack test mode dip.jpg
 
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Here to say Shark Attack rips! Good luck with the fix.
I have never seen one in person that I remember, only played it in MAME. Love the canned audio samples!
 
I don't even know an owner of that. Can you maybe track down someone via the VAPS listings?


VAPS says @i86time has one, maybe he can help. The handful of other registered ones are from users I either don't recognize, or I haven't seen active in a while.

But I know not everyone keeps their VAPS 100% updated, so maybe there are more out there that aren't registered.

And yeah, this game is way underrated. Thief and Nato Defense are ok (and are similar hardware), but I think this one has more appeal, both in terms of theme and gameplay. It's pretty cool.
 
I assume this is from the same boardset you sent me?

(If so, it doesn't count, as that's the one I'm tying to check.) :)

Long story short, I'm looking for someone with a different Shark Attack cab to post the same screen as above, to see if the results are the same.
Yeah, it's mine, I was just offering a visual aide.
 
I don't even know an owner of that. Can you maybe track down someone via the VAPS listings?
Yeah, I don't ever remember playing that one or let alone seeing it in arcades? That must be a pretty rare game?
Interesting it did get a 2600 release though
🤣 It didn't get much love as a 2600 port.🤣 Honestly, neither the arcade or the 2600 port looks like much fun.
The only Shark game I remember from around that time was Killer Shark (1972)
I think it got a cameo in Jaws (1975)
Now that was a pretty good game.
You could tell by that clip, Video games were just starting to heat up.
 
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Is MAME of any value (for this exercise, I mean)?
View attachment 827082


Somewhat. But maybe not entirely. (But thanks for posting either way.)

For background, the Shark Attack manual gives a listing of what the test mode checksums are supposed to be. However note that two of the values are different from what both Phet's board and MAME report:

shark attack checksums from manual.PNG

I manually compared the ROMs on Phet's board to the MAME ROMs I got online (reading them both into my GQ-4X), and they match. And the board works. So I suspect the info in the manual is an error. But I'm looking to confirm with someone else who has an actual board with actual ROMs that ideally are independent of the MAME ROMs.

It's made more complicated by the fact that the checksum algorithm that the self-test uses is not the same as the one burners use. So it's more than a matter of just comparing the checksums, since all of the values in self test are different from what the burner reports.

The Shark Attack manual contains other technical errors (related to the DIP settings). So I suspect this is an error as well, and I'm 99% sure that's the case and the ROMs are fine. But I'd like to compare against another independent set of hardware to be 100% sure.
 
I can check by Saturday, but those reported here are likely the same (some checksums reported that did not match the manual). I noted this because my board had a couple bad ROMs, so I had to use the only set available for MAME to program replacements. Luckily they worked fine (same revision, I assume). I do have a 2nd working board somewhere and I can check that one as well.
 
I can check by Saturday, but those reported here are likely the same (some checksums reported that did not match the manual). I noted this because my board had a couple bad ROMs, so I had to use the only set available for MAME. Luckily they worked fine (same revision, I assume). I do have a 2nd working board somewhere and I can check that one as well.


That would be awesome, thanks.

And yes, the MAME set indicates version '01/12/81' on the screen (see the screenshots above), which is also what is stated in the manual (pic above).

All the more reason why the manual is most likely in error. (I'm guessing someone made some last-minute changes to the ROMs before release, and the manual never got updated.)

Also interesting is that apparently the cocktail ROM set differs by a couple of ROMs. And I'm not sure if those have been dumped. VAPS shows one cocktail, registered to user HeadHuntaz, but he hasn't been active in a couple of years. It would be nice to get those preserved.
 
It's weird how there's almost a beauty to this checksum screen. Colored numbers in a sea of blue never looked so good.
 
So have you ever played this game before? Or, was this just another "Famous Phetty Free with Dimebag Purchase" opp?

😆

EDIT: Thought this was surgery for a BobaPhet project.
 
I bought it 16 years ago for 10 bucks. I had never played it before that time. Once I put the cabinet together after restoring it, I played the game for the first time last year and actually liked it quite a bit. Is it simple? Sure, but it's the simplicity, the sounds and the pre-recorded tape comments kicking in at the right time that make it special. It also reminds me of Atari 2600 game like Sea quest or Name this Game.
 
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