Centipede PCB revs/manuals/roms

[retrotinker]

A few Centipede questions, if anyone can help out with them...

After reading around a bit, it appears that there were several revisions of the centipede PCB. Does anyone know if these are documented anywhere? It sounds like these were all relatively minor changes in layout and components used, but I haven't seen much detail on the differences. Also, it sounds like the model number on the board is the same between them, perhaps differing by a handwritten number at the end. Is there any easy way to distinguish which board rev is which?

Also, there appear to be at least 7 printings of the manuals + schematics. Were the schematics ever updated for the different board revs and does any particular printing of the docs go with any particular revision?

Lastly, I think there were 4 different rom revisions, but it sounds like they all work with all the different boards, as long as all of the same revision of rom is used together. Is this correct?

 

[mhcapps]

I just realized lately with the help of a few friends that revision 4 has a timed play. The timer shows up where the 2 player score would normally be. It was used in a tourney that Atari had, and apparently wrote bad checks to the winners for.

Mark

 

[retrotinker]

I just realized lately with the help of a few friends that revision 4 has a timed play. The timer shows up where the 2 player score would normally be. It was used in a tourney that Atari had, and apparently wrote bad checks to the winners for.

Mark

From poking at it a bit, it looks like rev 4 is single player only. It also appears that this revision was the last (most recent) one they made.

 

[andrewb]

Generally with Atari stuff, you don't need to care about board rev differences. They all
functionally work the same. Sometimes Atari made tweaks depending on parts they were sourcing from different companies, because some parts were hard to get at the time. But from the cabinets perspective the boards all work the same.

Same goes for the ROMs. Just go with whatever set your board has on it, unless there's a problem. There's no need to 'upgrade' ROMs.