My Pac-Man trick patterns

Racetech

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I thought some of you might enjoy these original "trick" patterns for the original Pac-Man arcade game. All three grab all the points available and two feature live ghost run-thrus:







Eventually I'll get all my remaining patterns up. Eventually. Feel free to visit my hobby internet website for classic game restorations, etc...

http://pac-maniac.com
 
I really hope these work on my board. I tried some other ones, and I couldn't get the timing / turns / whatever good enough that they didn't break down pretty fast.

This quote from your website makes me feel good inside. "You are probably a Pac Master already or a least on your way to becoming one because you're here reading this."

/Turns ball cap around on head, sets jaw, steels nerves, inserts coin,
 
These patterns only work on the orginal Pac-Man arcade game with the original board and no mods. If it's a multigame (MAME) or some other, it'll break down fast. Also, you can't have any hesitations at the turns By the end, the exact way you eat all the blue ghosts will change too... just too many tiny little things start to add up.
 
I have used those and similar patterns to finish Pac-Man. They do work well - as long as you can maintain concentration for 255 mazes. As mentioned, they only work on the original board.
 
I really hope these work on my board. I tried some other ones, and I couldn't get the timing / turns / whatever good enough that they didn't break down pretty fast.

This quote from your website makes me feel good inside. "You are probably a Pac Master already or a least on your way to becoming one because you're here reading this."

/Turns ball cap around on head, sets jaw, steels nerves, inserts coin,

As I've *ahem become older, I've stayed about the same in ability to play Pac... my reactions aren't as quick but I also am more relaxed, know the personalities of the ghosts better, and make better decisions. Best game for me so far, 2,033,000. No Billy Mitchell, but I'm happy with it.
 
These patterns only work on the orginal Pac-Man arcade game with the original board and no mods. If it's a multigame (MAME) or some other, it'll break down fast. Also, you can't have any hesitations at the turns By the end, the exact way you eat all the blue ghosts will change too... just too many tiny little things start to add up.

I got bad news for ya...those aren't the original ROM's. You've got that "Atlantic City" upgrade chip on your board. That's why those patterns don't work on a Multigame (assuming you mean those 48-in-1 or 60-in-1's, which do use the original patterns). MAME has both versions (your version is listed as "Midway (harder)"). You can tell in attract mode by where Pac-Man gets killed, but once you get past the first board, you can also tell by watching Inky at the start. On an original ROM, he comes out right away. On the "Atlantic City chip", he bounces up and down a couple times before coming out. Starting at the peach, on an original ROM, Inky and Clyde come out together immediately. On yours, Inky and Clyde both bounce up and down a couple times, and don't come out together.
 
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I got bad news for ya...those aren't the original ROM's. You've got that "Atlantic City" upgrade chip on your board. That's why those patterns don't work on a Multigame (assuming you mean those 48-in-1 or 60-in-1's, which do use the original patterns). MAME has both versions (your version is listed as "Midway (harder)"). You can tell in attract mode by where Pac-Man gets killed, but once you get past the first board, you can also tell by watching Inky at the start. On an original ROM, he comes out right away. On the "Atlantic City chip", he bounces up and down a couple times before coming out. Starting at the peach, on an original ROM, Inky and Clyde come out together immediately. On yours, Inky and Clyde both bounce up and down a couple times, and don't come out together.

Gee Fred, nice knowledge of the game mate :D
 
I always paid attention to that stuff....cause I knew if I saw Inky bounce up and down a couple times before coming out, my patterns were useless. I just didn't know it was called "Atlantic City chip" until recently.
 
How is it, on the first video when you get Pacman up near the top left, you actually go through the red ghost? Is that a bug or what?
 
So are there only 2 flavors of the "original" Pac-Man rom out there? Let's ignore the ones that run on different hardware or are graphic / maze hacks.

I have an original board, no speed up chip. I was trying the patterns found here,

http://www.math.montana.edu/~hyde/pacman/

and my board behavior in attract mode matched what ~hyde up there said was an original romset. Tragically, I found out I suck worse than I thought, and even after a weeks worth of practice I couldn't reliably pull off even the first board pattern.

If anyone knows of a Pac pattern that is suitable for the Pac-ally Handicaped, I'd like to see it.
 
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How is it, on the first video when you get Pacman up near the top left, you actually go through the red ghost? Is that a bug or what?

That is a bug, or at least an exploitable feature. Your timing has to be dead on if you are following a pattern that uses it, or you have to just be lucky. I have gotten lucky maybe 5 times in the 25+ years I've played.

I play mostly Ms. Pac, but it happens for her too. It comes from how the game locates and moves the player and ghosts. IIRC, it comes down to Pac and a ghost changing places on a grid simultaneously. They never occupy the same square at the same time, so they go right through each other.
 
There's a pattern someone developed (I think it was a 9th+ key) that goes thru the ghosts 9 times! SeanMcL's description was right on. It happens on both (they pretty much use the same basic code, since Ms Pac-Man was a hack of Pac-Man). It also happens on Jr Pac-Man.
As to original code, the "Atlantic City" chip is not official, and was not released by Midway. The only upgrade they released for an original Pac-Man board was Pac-Man Plus. Everything else was an illegal bootleg/hack. The site SeanMcL posted describes the differences between the original and "Atlantic City" chips perfectly. You can test this in MAME, and it does exactly the same. I haven't tried any of the patterns on that site though, I have my own that work from the strawberry-8th key (with just a slight modification starting on the 1st apple) I've used since I was a kid that I got from a book, and a 9th key pattern I developed recently. They don't get me all the ghosts though, it just clears all the dots except the 4 corners with the energizers. I haven't hit the kill screen, but I have had a nearly 2 million point game.
 
I got bad news for ya...those aren't the original ROM's. You've got that "Atlantic City" upgrade chip on your board. That's why those patterns don't work on a Multigame (assuming you mean those 48-in-1 or 60-in-1's, which do use the original patterns). MAME has both versions (your version is listed as "Midway (harder)"). You can tell in attract mode by where Pac-Man gets killed, but once you get past the first board, you can also tell by watching Inky at the start. On an original ROM, he comes out right away. On the "Atlantic City chip", he bounces up and down a couple times before coming out. Starting at the peach, on an original ROM, Inky and Clyde come out together immediately. On yours, Inky and Clyde both bounce up and down a couple times, and don't come out together.

Well... I have two different Pac-Man machines and four working Pac-Man PCB's. If you look closely, you'll see that the first two videos were I posted were taken of my lastest Pac and the 3rd was my older one. I've played all four and they all play exactly the same. What would be the odds of four boards from four different sources all having the AC upgrade? I guess it's not impossible but, as far as I can tell, they all have the original ROMs in them with the Midway decals and numbers. Don't know what to tell you. I could take and post photos--are those Atlantic City upgrade chips Midway and would they have different part numbers on them? Not a big issue anyway.
 
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I can't say what the actual EPROMs look like. I don't actually own any Pac-Man boards (except for a bootleg Pac-Man on Galaxian hardware PCB). I just know from playing, which version is which. My patterns work on an original Pac-Man, Namco Classics Vol 2, Ms Pac/Galaga class of 81, Pac-Man/Ms Pac/Galaga 25th anniversary, and on those 48-in-1/60-in-1's multiboards, but they don't work on those "Atlantic City" roms.
edit: Was looking for some youtube videos with the original set, here's one from the guy who currently has the record for the fastest perfect game. If you notice, when Inky and Clyde exit the monster pen at the start of the board, they exit immediately and together. As I mentioned before, that's not what happens on the "Atlantic City" roms (which is what your 3rd video shows, and the 2nd one with Inky)

Either way, no big deal...just was pointing out the differences :)
 
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I can't say what the actual EPROMs look like. I don't actually own any Pac-Man boards (except for a bootleg Pac-Man on Galaxian hardware PCB). I just know from playing, which version is which. My patterns work on an original Pac-Man, Namco Classics Vol 2, Ms Pac/Galaga class of 81, Pac-Man/Ms Pac/Galaga 25th anniversary, and on those 48-in-1/60-in-1's multiboards, but they don't work on those "Atlantic City" roms.
edit: Was looking for some youtube videos with the original set, here's one from the guy who currently has the record for the fastest perfect game. If you notice, when Inky and Clyde exit the monster pen at the start of the board, they exit immediately and together. As I mentioned before, that's not what happens on the "Atlantic City" roms (which is what your 3rd video shows, and the 2nd one with Inky)

Either way, no big deal...just was pointing out the differences :)

Interesting. Oh well, all those lower levels are so easy to clear anyway without patterns. Dunno what's up but maybe I'll get an answer someday. One of the boards I bought did behave differently--because it had the increased difficulty lugs soldered together. [url="http://pac-maniac.com/gamedif.html]link[/url] That mod displays the cherry as the 1st pattern but is actually playing the Peach pattern. I have a chart on my site there with all the other differences.

Have you tried my patterns on yours? Maybe they'll work...they have on every Pac-Man machine I've played lately--but that's not very many! I guess it is possible that every machine I've played and every board I bought has the Atlantic City chip in there. But I'm thinking that there has to be more to this story.
 
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Yeah, I've played a few that had the difficulty jumper set...I wonder why they didn't just make it a dipswitch, so operators didn't have to go soldering their PCB's? ;) Anyway, I tried the peach pattern on the regular Midway set in MAME (playing your video side by side with it), and at about 39 seconds in on your video, when you're going down the long vertical channel, on the Midway set, you're following Pinky and Clyde comes up at you, making a left turn under the tunnel, but you run into him there. On yours, Pinky is behind you and Inky and Clyde are up above the monster pen. I tried it a couple times to make sure I wasn't doing it wrong and it did the same thing every time. Here's a screenshot at the death:
attachment.php

Here's the same spot using your pattern on the "Atlantic City" ROM:
attachment.php

Also, it looks like they may have messed with Pinky's AI in that Atlantic City ROM...I notice when I put it in the hiding spot right above where you start on the Midway set, if I face up, he circles the pen, if I face left, he circles around the rectangle to the left and above where you start...on the Atlantic City one, he goes around the bottom T with Blinky no matter which way I face.

Oh, checked out your site...looks good!
 

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Yeah, I've played a few that had the difficulty jumper set...I wonder why they didn't just make it a dipswitch, so operators didn't have to go soldering their PCB's? ;) Anyway, I tried the peach pattern on the regular Midway set in MAME (playing your video side by side with it), and at about 39 seconds in on your video, when you're going down the long vertical channel, on the Midway set, you're following Pinky and Clyde comes up at you, making a left turn under the tunnel, but you run into him there. On yours, Pinky is behind you and Inky and Clyde are up above the monster pen. I tried it a couple times to make sure I wasn't doing it wrong and it did the same thing every time. Here's a screenshot at the death:
attachment.php

Here's the same spot using your pattern on the "Atlantic City" ROM:
attachment.php

Also, it looks like they may have messed with Pinky's AI in that Atlantic City ROM...I notice when I put it in the hiding spot right above where you start on the Midway set, if I face up, he circles the pen, if I face left, he circles around the rectangle to the left and above where you start...on the Atlantic City one, he goes around the bottom T with Blinky no matter which way I face.

Oh, checked out your site...looks good!

I really appreciate this input! I have no doubt now that somehow, my boards all have the "Atlantic City" chip. When I get a chance this weekend, I'll make it clear on my site that the patterns I posted are for that version only.

For now, my working theory is that many vendors figured it would be a good move to change the game play so that people weren't executing patterns from books and playing endlessly on a single quarter. That would make sense and I can see why many Pacs would wind up with that mod (or the solder lugs connected).

The game seems no more difficult to master in the AC mode (I played mine to 2,033,000 and only died because of a balky joystick that I should have adjusted first). It's just different and maybe that's all the game vendors felt they needed to gather more quarters.

Thanks again for your input!
 
For now, my working theory is that many vendors figured it would be a good move to change the game play so that people weren't executing patterns from books and playing endlessly on a single quarter. That would make sense and I can see why many Pacs would wind up with that mod (or the solder lugs connected).

As a kid when I found a Pac that didnt play nice with the patterns I used I wouldn't play it anymore. So theres also a down side to operators installing this mod. All of my friends had the same feeling about the game. We would go hunt down the pacs that we could use our patterns on.

Back then the games werent manufactured to give the players a certain amount of game play, now they are and its really lame. In my opinion if a player is good at a game he/she should be able to go as long as they can, not as long as the game will let them.

This coming from a current operator too...
 
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