Centipede hack or just crappy repair?

Motoman202

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Whatever is going on here is this some kind of hack or mod. Or is this just a crappy repair job for bad traces?

I do notice some odd game play. Like fleas dropping on the second board (but not always) and the centipede seems way faster sometimes. Both happen with the dip switch set to easy.

20230925_201716.jpg20230925_201724.jpg20230925_201727.jpg
 
Those just look like hack repairs to repair damaged board traces.

If you could pull those chips, you might see that the traces under them are damaged (if someone shoved a screwdriver under them, to try to remove the chips, which you sometimes see).

If it were me, I'd repair the traces properly, clean up those chips, and make sure they can seat properly in the sockets. But that might not fix everything, if you're having other issues.

Have you checked what test mode says?
 
Game isn't really having any problems per say. So I haven't dug too deep into it. First glance I just assumed crappy repair. But after playing it awhile...maybe I'm not remembering correctly but I thought the fleas didn't drop until board 3 or 5 when set to easy settings? And it seems the centipede is faster soemtimes. Which made me think this was some kind of jacked up speed hack but it could also be my imagination, it's been awhile since I had a centipede machine.
 
Those wires are just connecting pins/traces together that are normally supposed to be connected anyway. So they shouldn't be changing anything.

If they were not connecting things properly, you'd be getting ROM errors. And the 2055 is just the score saving EAROM, so maybe scores wouldn't be saving. But those wires are all connecting stuff that should be connected.

I can't speak for the details, but there are 4 different ROM versions for Centipede. Maybe some behave differently than others, I don't know the differences.
 
Thanks Andrew. I'll do a little research on ROM variations and I'll pull all this crap off and repair the traces properly. Even though it works and saves scores. Knowing the board looks like this drives me nuts.
 
Game isn't really having any problems per say. So I haven't dug too deep into it. First glance I just assumed crappy repair. But after playing it awhile...maybe I'm not remembering correctly but I thought the fleas didn't drop until board 3 or 5 when set to easy settings? And it seems the centipede is faster soemtimes. Which made me think this was some kind of jacked up speed hack but it could also be my imagination, it's been awhile since I had a centipede machine.
Fleas will drop on the second screen if you clear out enough mushrooms in the playfield area. The Centipede has 2 speeds in the early stages. It depends on if it is an original segment from the top or if they are new ones entering from the side when segments reach the bottom row. Game play sounds right to me
 
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