Converting Exidy Venture to Teeter Torture possible?

[Tornadoboy]

Thought people might find this interesting, it's a closeup pic of that note stuck to the marquee explaining that Exidy doesn't remember making it:

http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/bill/photos/calif-extreme-2005/teetertorture/img_3826.jpg

 

[ChompingQuarters]

Thought people might find this interesting, it's a closeup pic of that note stuck to the marquee explaining that Exidy doesn't remember making it:

http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/bill/photos/calif-extreme-2005/teetertorture/img_3826.jpg

Pretty funny!

 

[Tornadoboy]

Here's a close-up of the marquee from the same source, you can tell it was hand drawn, and was a pretty good job of it too!

http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/bill/photos/calif-extreme-2005/teetertorture/img_3825.jpg

 

[Tombo]

Looking at the pics of the original I've got a pretty good idea that controller could be replicated mechanically with a simple kid's scooter wheel mounted in a slot and resting on some roller pins with encoders.... hmmmm.... getting urges to experiment! If nothing else it might make a good spinner for things like Breakout and Arkanoid on the 60-in-1 I want to buy!

What about the trackball from Kick? I hate to admit it, but I have never played Teeter Torture and I have helped with 5 or 6 CAX shows 0_o

-tom

 

[Tornadoboy]

I just poked around the ROMs for all three games and noticed that (at least in MAME ROMs) all the Teeter Torture file names match those of Venture perfectly, although the later has almost twice as many, while Pepper II's are named totally different than either.

On the face of it that seems to bode well for a simple ROM swap with Venture, although I guess I'll only know that when I or someone else tries it. There of course is the whole issue of Venture's joystick vs Teeter Torture's spinner, being a total newbie/wannabe I have no idea whether circuitry needs to be added to the PCB itself or if encoder wheel signal can simply be piped into the joystick inputs? Regardless it would be damn rewarding to see a PCB boot up to TT's attrach mode, even if I couldn't actually play it!

Time for me to start hunting parts I guess

 

[p1899m]

I just poked around the ROMs for all three games and noticed that (at least in MAME ROMs) all the Teeter Torture file names match those of Venture perfectly, although the later has almost twice as many, while Pepper II's are named totally different than either.

On the face of it that seems to bode well for a simple ROM swap with Venture, although I guess I'll only know that when I or someone else tries it. There of course is the whole issue of Venture's joystick vs Teeter Torture's spinner, being a total newbie/wannabe I have no idea whether circuitry needs to be added to the PCB itself or if encoder wheel signal can simply be piped into the joystick inputs? Regardless it would be damn rewarding to see a PCB boot up to TT's attrach mode, even if I couldn't actually play it!

Time for me to start hunting parts I guess

pepper II and venture basically use the same board set. Same board/part number actually. Depending on when they were produced some pepper II boards are missing the sockets for a couple of the eproms on the the sound color board but they can be added easily. Could be other slight differences but if you closely inspect the venture and pepper II manuals you will find that they use the exact same schematics in both. Some diagrams in the pepper II manual still having the venture name written on the schematic. Venture would probably be the better candidate of the two boards but I believe both can be made to work. As far as getting a board to boot I believe it would be a rom swap and little more although spinner aside the board still might have issues and not play 100% correctly.

 

[Tornadoboy]

I'm chasing a lead on some Exidy PCBs so hopefully I'll have something to play with in the near future, then it'll just be a matter of getting an Eprom programmer and the needed chips, I'd like to avoid erasing anything original if I can avoid it.

Any make/model recommendations for a programmer and eraser? It'll primarily be used just for arcade related stuff, and as usual I don't have a lot of $.

 

[HudsonArcade]

Has anyone gotten in contact w/ the owner of the one from CAX to get pics of the board and (if it has one) CP interface?

 

[Tornadoboy]

WELLLLLL..... I just took a peek at the contents of the last TT ROM in the set using a hex editor, and looky what I found in the code:

bigtime!
I guess (and hope) that pretty much settles what hardware it's written for?

 

[p1899m]

Has anyone gotten in contact w/ the owner of the one from CAX to get pics of the board and (if it has one) CP interface?

not yet. I was planning on waiting until CAX since I'm a bit tied up with another project at the moment.

 

[Roadrunner000]

Found this picture too that shows screen shot and control panel hardware...

 

[Tornadoboy]

Thanks Roadrunner000, I like the TT artwork screen on the front of the panel! I wonder where the spinner originated from? I doubt they made it custom for that one game but I guess that's possible, I think all the other Exidy spinner games had knobs and not rollers.

I've got a lead on an Eprom programmer, so if that comes through and can find a good Venture or Pepper II set (proving to be a pain) I may be taking a crack at this in the not too distant future. Also I did a comparison of the schematics for Circus and Rip Cord and they're identicle, so if I can find a Circus set I may try that conversion too, seems RC is pretty rare.

 

[Tornadoboy]

Wow, it's starting to look like Venture was Exidy's all purpose board! I just did a side-by-side comparison with Side Track and apparently most of it is the same except for the audio, it even has the composite B&W output though not used, so there's another one for my experiment list. Too bad Kreepy Krawler's ROMS and schematic aren't available, that would be a cool rarity to play with too.

I need Venture and/or Pepper II boards, HEEEEEEELLPP!!

 

[ChompingQuarters]

Wow, it's starting to look like Venture was Exidy's all purpose board! I just did a side-by-side comparison with Side Track and apparently most of it is the same except for the audio, though not used Venture even has the composite B&W output, so there's another one for my experiment list. Too bad Kreepy Krawler's ROMS and schematic aren't available, that would be a cool rarity to play with too.

I need Venture and/or Pepper II boards, HEEEEEEELLPP!!

Mouse Trap starting up sounds just like "venture". So, your probably right!

 

[Tornadoboy]

Mouse Trap starting up sounds just like "venture". So, your probably right!

Mouse Trap's board doesn't seem to schematically match up with any of the others I've checked, which is unfortunate because those boards seem like one of the easier ones to find. I'd like to find something very common that can be converted to Victory too, but I'm doubtful on that as there was speech hardware in the game and I don't recall any other Exidy games from that time period that had speech.

I've been yapping about this stuff forever, I guess I had better prove that some of these conversions can even work!

 

[ChompingQuarters]

Mouse Trap's board doesn't seem to schematically match up with any of the others I've checked, which is unfortunate because those boards seem like one of the easier ones to find. I'd like to find something very common that can be converted to Victory too, but I'm doubtful on that as there was speech hardware in the game and I don't recall any other Exidy games from that time period that had speech.

I've been yapping about this stuff forever, I guess I had better prove that some of these conversions can even work!

They must share the sound board. I'm going to be changing the POTS on my spare venture soundboard soon as well as testing the spare Mouse Trap PCB I just bought. I'll look at the boards closely to see what is different.

 

[prOk]

teeter would almost certainly be using the venture/pepper2 generation boards i'd think.

 

[Tornadoboy]

teeter would almost certainly be using the venture/pepper2 generation boards i'd think.

True, if you look at one of my earlier posts I opened a TT rom with a hex editor and found actual Venture text in it.

 

[ChompingQuarters]

Any more info on this project. Now that I was at CAX I really enjoyed the game play. Wish I could of gotten photos (wish I asked). Would a spinner mounted sideways work? Maybe with a custom roller? Like a roller blade wheel?

 

[p1899m]

Any more info on this project. Now that I was at CAX I really enjoyed the game play. Wish I could of gotten photos (wish I asked). Would a spinner mounted sideways work? Maybe with a custom roller? Like a roller blade wheel?

I got a look at the board and two things are evident.
1. it's definitely a venture/pepper II style board set.
2. the spinner/roller interface is basic with regards to connecting to the board set. Simply does so by adding a couple extra wires to the existing edge connector. Pretty sure it's gotta be like a arkanoid in the sense that it likely uses the left and right control pins to the harness along with a voltage (likely 5v) and a ground. I still expect to get a chance to get a look at this again hopefully in the near future.

I believe you could probably use an arkanoid spinner as a control. don't know about mounting it sideways.