I have a TRON prototype

Braido

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So last year i purchased from HobbyRoms the Free Play eprom but when i went to put it in i got a scrambled screen. So i took it off put the orginal back in it's place and threw the Free Play eprom in the coin box thinking it was defective. So a couple of weeks ago i decided i would buy another one as the 1st didn't work. I get it and put it in same thing, crap on the screen. So i take a picture of my board set close up on the eproms so Steph can see the dates on them. I email him that picture as well as a picture of the screen crap and wait to hear from him.

This evening i get an email from him that basically tells me i might have a proto type board that predates the known ones out there. He also asks me to send him my eproms so he can load them up to MAME and in return will send me correct and working free play eproms.

Anyways i'll copy his email in here tomorrow and i'll also include the pictures etc.. that i sent him of my board showing the eproms, dates, etc...

My question is: What would you do? I trust the guy and think it would be cool to share this if in fact they are somewhat rare or a prototype???

Let me know your thoughts,

Braido...

(sorry for the wait on the pictures etc.. they are at my office and it's 1:00 am here as i write this)
 
If it is a proto, I'd only let trused people touch it, end of story (I don't know the person in question)
 
If it is a proto, I'd only let trused people touch it, end of story (I don't know the person in question)

Steph's done this before. he has a pretty upstanding reputation, I wouldn't worry about it.

awesome score though.
 
Find somebody with an EPROM burner, save off the ROM data, and keep the board original. Just send him the copied ROM dumps in return for his updated ROM data.
 
I'd definitely keep the original board all together and working after ripping the roms. Is he making a custom high score rom for your board, or are you going to put shipped roms in there? If you are putting shipped roms in, I'd buy another tron board.
 
Although Ottawa is full of douches, Steph is an outstanding guy.

Send him the proto's
 
Although Ottawa is full of douches, Steph is an outstanding guy.

Send him the proto's


I second that Steph is an upstanding guy (can't vouch for the first part of the statement. I still have a lot of relatives in and around Ottawa ;)).

Just because I have a loathing of the way most packages are shipped, if you can dump the ROMs and send him the images or at least keep the images safe before shipping the ROMs, I would do one or the other. I would hate to read a later posting that said the F***ing post office lost the ROMs.

There has to be a KLOVer near you that can dump the ROMs, if you don't have a burner....

ken
 
Yes, I informed Braido of his rare find last night
after he sent me the pics.

The eproms are dated May 12th,
with the letters "PRO" (prototype ?) written in pen on the labels.

The only known production versions for Tron are Jun 15, Jun 17 and Jun 25,
so I have every reason to believe these are legitimate protos.

My offer to archive and document the eproms for MAME
was for the preservation of the data.
( ... there's no financial gain to be had in making copies of proto roms... )

I told Braido I would send him a new set of Jun 25 eproms first (free)
(...to make sure they worked on his board),
and then offered to copy his proto eproms and return them to him.
(...I would of course take great care of them...)

That said, I "am" all the way up in Canada,
so if he can find someone locally to copy the eproms
without having to ship them out, that's cool with me too.

(...and I'll STILL send him a free set of Jun 25 game roms
with the Free play option ! ;-)

--

Quite a find...
... and quite a-propos given the new Tron movie release... ;-)

Cheers,
Steph
www.Hobbyroms.com
 
this could mos def be a great score....

question is do you know the serial # on the machine? do all numbers match too (board, cab, sounds board, power supply?)

def a interesting piece of tron history.
 
I guess no one knows but I guess I wonder if there is any game play difference between the proto roms and the production version?
 
I second that Steph is an upstanding guy (can't vouch for the first part of the statement. I still have a lot of relatives in and around Ottawa ;)).


ken

Ottawa, the capital of Canada with all the politicians in it!

Braido is in BC, Canadapost is not that bad for shipping.
 
I hope you or Steph replies later with any info on whether there are differences in the "proto" and the regular game.

Aaron
P.S. I have dealt with Steph and would trust him with and of my boards
 
Although Ottawa is full of douches, Steph is an outstanding guy.

Spoken like a true Leafs fans

[ Edit : for 90% of the board who don't follow Hockey, ....eh,
that was a poke at Toronto's farcical Hockey team known as the Maple Leafs
.... aka the "Make Beliefs"

... not that Ottawa's team is much better this year .... sigh.... ]

;-)

Steph
 
I guess no one knows but I guess I wonder if there is any game play difference between the proto roms and the production version?


If/when the proto eproms get dumped,
it would be easy to see that using MAME.

My question is whether the graphic and sound eproms are also the same...?

I'm guessing most likely yes
(...since, with most games, only the game roms change,
but not the sound or graphic roms... ),
but it would be interesting to dump those too...

Steph
 
The guy that owns 1984 in Springfield MO has an early production Tron, and the patterns are all different from the regular ones. He said it was used in a contest when Tron came out, and most of the machines went back to Midway. The spinner acted weird on it too. Tron's arm appeared to go in notches when you turned it, even though the spinner itself was smooth. It doesn't do this in MAME though, which is set 4 (as labeled in MAME). One obvious difference is on level 1, the grid bug screen starts out at 1000 on the timer. The other 3 sets all start out at 500.
 
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Spoken like a true Leafs fans

[ Edit : for 90% of the board who don't follow Hockey, ....eh,
that was a poke at Toronto's farcical Hockey team known as the Maple Leafs
.... aka the "Make Beliefs"

... not that Ottawa's team is much better this year .... sigh.... ]

;-)

Steph

Hahaha so true but I am born and raised in MTL. GO Habs GO!
 
Hi All,

Sorry for the late reply i have been out of my office all morning. I'll upload the pictures of the board. If it turns out this is a Prototype i am not going to mess with it, i will buy another working board and put that in my machine. I'll store the other Prototype board away safley. I will either purchase a eprom burner or send Steph the prototypes that i have i am not sure yet what i will do. As for the questions about game play??? I am not sure to be honest. I have played TRON at many Arcades before and never noticed that mine was any different. That being said I have only played my TRON in the last 20 years or so and i probably wouldn't remember. I am going away this weekend on a hockey trip but when i return i'll take some video of the game play and post that up here as well. I am sure one of the TRON experts can tell me if it's the same game play or not. As for Numbers matching, yes it is 100% numbers matching. I have owned this TRON for about 10 years or so.

Here are some photo's of the board & cab:

trongorf1.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-jsIl4jwUM
 

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