Return of the "96 in 1" Multi Pac with sub-$100 pricing

[Lamprey]

I have v2.0 of Mike Doyle's 96-1 and I can personally attest that there are a number of differences between the multipac kit and original midway Pac-Man. The patterns do work, but not consistently like they would on the original. For example, on the first level (the cherry maze) The cherry pattern has about a 50% success rate. The other half of the time you get killed by the pink ghost, under the monster pen where the fruit appears. The mid-fruit patterns seem to work fairly consistently though.

There is also a slight flaw in the ghost logic. They are able to move up through the t-handles above the monster pen. They cannot do this in the original midway version. Also the secret hiding spot in the cherry maze doesn't seem to work either.

There are a number of color issues, not counting the blue maze for paceman plus. If you do a side-by-side comparison, you'll see that the fruit are different on both Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. And you'll also notice that the color is off on the first Ms. Pac-Man maze. The color of the dots in Pac-Man are off as well.

That was version 2.0. I don't know if It's been fixed in 2.54.

<snip>.

I am curious about the 2.0 vs 2.54 as I think I have a 2.54 version.

If it hasn't been fixed then it's a bit of a bummer to me. I bought the kit thinking I was getting a perfect playing replica of Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man in a single cab, the other games were a bonus. If it has been fixed then great!

I'm not a professional player by any stretch of the imagination, so it probably won't affect me too much. But, it would be nice to practice on the "real patterns."

I might have missed it, but does it matter if the kit is installed in a Pac vs a Ms Pac as far as patterns matching the original patterns are concerned?

 

[treborlicec]

I am curious about the 2.0 vs 2.54 as I think I have a 2.54 version.

If it hasn't been fixed then it's a bit of a bummer to me. I bought the kit thinking I was getting a perfect playing replica of Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man in a single cab, the other games were a bonus. If it has been fixed then great!

I'm not a professional player by any stretch of the imagination, so it probably won't affect me too much. But, it would be nice to practice on the "real patterns."

I might have missed it, but does it matter if the kit is installed in a Pac vs a Ms Pac as far as patterns matching the original patterns are concerned?

From my RGVAC reading, patterns were corrected as of version 2.2. I'm not good enough to get to the 9th key to verify the other poster's info about his pattern not working. But with the 96, we can start the game on the 9th key and test, so that's good. Pac and Ms Pac boards are the same minus roms and daughterboard which are both removed during the process of adding this kit.

 

[Lamprey]

From my RGVAC reading, patterns were corrected as of version 2.2. I'm not good enough to get to the 9th key to verify the other poster's info about his pattern not working. But with the 96, we can start the game on the 9th key and test, so that's good. Pac and Ms Pac boards are the same minus roms and daughterboard which are both removed during the process of adding this kit.

Thanks for the info. That's encouraging that the fix is supposed to be in place!

 

[drksd4848]

I am curious about the 2.0 vs 2.54 as I think I have a 2.54 version.

If it hasn't been fixed then it's a bit of a bummer to me. I bought the kit thinking I was getting a perfect playing replica of Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man in a single cab, the other games were a bonus. If it has been fixed then great!

I'm not a professional player by any stretch of the imagination, so it probably won't affect me too much. But, it would be nice to practice on the "real patterns."

I might have missed it, but does it matter if the kit is installed in a Pac vs a Ms Pac as far as patterns matching the original patterns are concerned?

Good question about the pac/ms pac hardware install. I remember reading somewhere that installing multipac on a Pac-Man plus machine gave some interesting variations. I could be wrong, but I think all the mazes were green instead of blue!!

If you see the cute cartoon splash screen when you power up, you have 2.54. 2.0 goes right to the menu.

For the majority of "flaws" your average, garden variety pacman player isnt going to notice.

If you want a truely authentic pacman experience and the flaws in 2.0 have NOT been fixed in 2.54, I would actually steer clear of it - especially because of the maze/monster abnormalities. Bear in mind, I'm probably the only one that would actually say that.

And I say that because if you go through the trouble of buying an actual, real Pac-Man machine, you're going to want to play actual, real, authentic Pac-Man. Why stick something in it that's flawed?

If you don't mind the abnormalities, then I would say, go for it. It's a poop load of fun and it has a lot of really neat features. If all the abnormalities in 2.0 have been fixed in 2.54, then the decision is an absolute no-brainer. You buy it.

Now, what I want to know, and what I've been asking a number of times on this forum is, have the flaws in 2.0 been fixed in 2.54? I wish somebody could verify because I really want to buy 2.54.

 

[dbstallman]

Mike I've had a kit with 2.54b on it for several years and it has developed an issue.

If you allow Pac-Man attract to run, the game will reset before the end of the character introduction (plus the ghosts are missing in the introduction but fully present during gameplay) and the all the settings become corrupted. ie. Ms. Pac-Man starts on wave 180, Pac-Man starts on wave 63, etc.

The settings can be fixed by just going in them and restoring them to normal, and if you coin up and start a game of Pac-Man right away it plays perfectly normally. After they are reset to normal, they will stay that way until the next time I let Pac-Man attract run.

Ms. Pac-Man attract runs without issue, as does pretty much any other game I've left running on it.

I'm just wondering if I could get an image of the EPROM to verify that it isn't corrupted and if it is to burn a replacement.

Thanks for the help.

Brian.

 

[CameronMcC]

any plans to do another run of these?