pseeds
Active member
Picked one up a week ago. One I had never seen BITD or played but the game and art looked cool. I am not disappointed. I will get pics when I get caught up on other stuff. It really is a fun game. The Jeep can haul ass. 
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Armor Attack is a great game and I believe it can convert it to Rip Off by removing the green overlay and swapping some roms (sound board optional). I happen to be lucky enough to have both boards and a spare overlay so I've never had to actually unseat any roms ;-)
I only have the one Cinematronics game but it's one of those games in the collection that I will probably never let go.
The boards are 99.9% the same. I can't recall if Rip Off is using 2716 and Armor Attack 2732 eproms or they are the same. Otherwise the cpu board should be identical.
Edit: Just checked the mame driver and Rip Off is using 4 x 2k eproms (2716) and Armor Attack has 4 x 4k eproms (2732).
An Armor Attack could run Rip Off but not vice versa. Also be aware that most Cinematronics games got around "ROM swaps" by changing the control panel mapping on each game. For instance, although Star Castle and Rip Off use the same board and even the same type of controls, the inputs specified in the ROMs are different. An example is "player one left" from Rip Off maps to the same input as "fire" in Star Castle.
You either need the control panel or you need to hack the ROMs.
many years ago Steve O made a hack to cinematronics to change games with a rotary switch. I think he built one for himself that did armor attack, star castle and rip off. It had to have each sound board(I think wired in at the same time), but it ran on 1 board.
He made a kit for me to do star castle and ripoff, but I never installed it.
Ahh the memories of playing Armor Attack with my brother at Zayre---back when departmant and grocery stores had games....To owners out there...Does the game get real montonous gameplay wise after awhile???
This and Star Castle are the two Cinematronic vectors I remember the most. Don't think I ever saw a Rip Off back then....