Mario Bros. Weirdness

zork40

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Hey there,

I have a Mario Bros. widebody that has been running fine. I have the default DIP switch settings, A-G are OFF, H is ON. According to the manual that should give you a free guy at 20,000.

I've been playing this for a couple of years now and get a free guy at every 20k interval - 40k, 60k, 80k, etc....

I just installed the high score save kit, and now I only get a free guy at 20k and no more.

I ran this by Scott Brasington and he's looking into it. When I play in MAME with the same settings it does the same thing - a free guy ONLY at 20K.

1. Is it normal for Mario Bros. with my DIP switch settings to only give a single free guy per game regardless of your score?

2. If yes to #1, does anyone have any idea why mine gave one in 20K increments? Possibly a ROM hack of some kind?
 
If you know the answer to this and don't reply, Ronald is going to kill you.
4320223860_1b230278c7_o.jpg

(bump)
 
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the Braze kit ignore the physical dips and use settings in the Braze kit software instead?
 
No, according to Scott it does not do that (though some other of his kits do). It should use the DIPs as they are on the board. I pulled the cabinet back out yesterday to make sure the DIPs didn't get moved somehow. They were OK. I moved the one for H back to OFF and then ON to see if it would change anything and it didn't.

It does bypass the ROMs that contain the game code (not sprites, music, or background), so the programming is going to be the same for everyone using the kit. If I had some kind of difference in my programming it would explain it.

Do you have a Mario? If so, do you get a free guy at every 20K or just the first 20K?

I'm going to open it back up and move every DIP a few times to make sure they are all making a good connection and see if anything changes.
 
That's why it changed for you. You've got the easy ROMset...most Mario Bros romsets only give you 1 free guy, which is most likely what the code on his high score save kit does.
 
That's why it changed for you. You've got the easy ROMset...most Mario Bros romsets only give you 1 free guy, which is most likely what the code on his high score save kit does.

So you are saying there is a different ROM set with a different code revision that does this? I can't find any info anywhere about that but it would make sense as to why it's different now.
 
There's 2 sets in MAME that do this, one is Rev. F, and you get one every 20K. There's also a Japanese set, that gives you one at 20K (default setting), then every 30K afterwards. Did yours say "1983 Nintendo of America", or "1983 Nintendo" on the title screen? The Rev. F set was just recently added to MAME.
 
There's 2 sets in MAME that do this, one is Rev. F, and you get one every 20K. There's also a Japanese set, that gives you one at 20K (default setting), then every 30K afterwards. Did yours say "1983 Nintendo of America", or "1983 Nintendo" on the title screen? The Rev. F set was just recently added to MAME.

It reads only NINTENDO in the bottom left, with no "1983" or "of America". You can see it right around the 1:00 mark in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEmCbDYD2CE&feature=player_embedded

So...can you tell what ROMs I have by that? I'm going to move it and see if the ROMs are labeled at all.
 
Sorry...I see you meant the opening splash screen now. I don't have a picture of that. I'll have to remove the kit and try it without it to see...stay tuned.
 
I had to really push on the HS save kit board to get it seated in the socket because of the size of the pins. Rather than trying to get it out, I think I can go by this old pic:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17948214@N00/1875630759/sizes/o/in/set-72157594580846266/

That has to say Nintendo of America. You can see where "Nintendo" is and there is definitely quite a bit after it.

As for the ROMs, here's what I have on the main board:
mario-bros-roms.jpg

See that hand written F on each one? I'm guessing I have the Rev. F ROMs? That would certainly make sense.
 
I now realize I'm not nearly as good at Mario Bros. as I thought I was!

Heh, especially looking at the top scores. TG ref Tom Votava got over 4.6 million on the machine at Funspot last November, and that was with just 4 men (3 to start, 1 at 20K)...that's just insane! :)
 
My highest score before was about 207k. I just got 149k last night with the HS save kit installed so I'm not too far off now. Man, I can't imagine breaking 300k let alone 4 million!
 
It appears I have this same issue without the high score kit. When all DIPs are off, I get extra guy at 20K only. When I change H to on, like twin galaxy settings, the difficulty changes and I start getting extra guy every 20K. My Roms are not labeled though like yours
 
I wanted to add to this thread something I noticed tonight.

If I have everything off but H, boot the game I get extra Mario at every 20K. However, if I go into service mode then back to the game, I only get the first extra guy at 20K. Can someone else having this problem confirm? Let me know if I found something :)
 
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