SEASON 3 - Weekly Game Challenge #2 - Astro Blaster!

Can anyone comment on the emulations/multi-boards w.r.t AstroBlaster?

I'm confident I'm never going to resurrect a boardset I have much less find an affordable machine.

Whats the best solution out there for this game?
 
Ive played Astro Blaster on a traditional mame setup with a pc and as well I have it on the arpicade raspberry pi solution. I don't have a dedicated to compare side by side with but I have played one IRL and spend a fair amount of time on it each year when I go to grinkers. To me it *feels* like in emulation Astro Blaster plays a tick faster than the real deal. Which as the levels progress can make it slightly harder.
 
Ok, so the MAME/arcadepi AB version have good sound/speech in them?

I've been tempted to pull the *Pi trigger for a while. This might be the reason.

Thanks!
 
Just got mine up and running



Hey that looks like the revision 1 ROMs with the high scores displaying over attract mode. If you put one credit on the game does it start properly ? In MAME it does not, it starts the game and immediately says "zero ships remaining game over". It does work if you put in two credits but unlike the later revisions the initial "alert alert ..." speech plays in full before any enemies appear. It's currently unknown if these are MAME bugs or not.
 
I would love someone to come out with a Multi-AB add on so I could play the different romsets on my hardware. It'd be fun.
 
Hmmmmmmm.

Can I come over for a little while at some point this week to play it on an actual machine to put up a score for the tournament?

Pretty pretty please :D


I wish we had the time for a meetup! Have to get the house ready for something on the 9th!
 
Hey that looks like the revision 1 ROMs with the high scores displaying over attract mode. If you put one credit on the game does it start properly ? In MAME it does not, it starts the game and immediately says "zero ships remaining game over". It does work if you put in two credits but unlike the later revisions the initial "alert alert ..." speech plays in full before any enemies appear. It's currently unknown if these are MAME bugs or not.

I believe it is revision one. Not sure if the dip switch settings are working. If you put in one credit you get 2 ships if you put in another credit 4 ships. There are no extra lives
 
I believe it is revision one. Not sure if the dip switch settings are working. If you put in one credit you get 2 ships if you put in another credit 4 ships. There are no extra lives

What are the EPROM numbers ? The numbers are shown in service mode under EPROM TEST. Revision 3 numbers are 907-925, revision 2 numbers are 888-906.
 
I signed up for the site and registered a quick score, 13940. I love this game!! I don't own one, but it plays just fine via MAME.
 
I am absolutely blown away my the vocals... especially considering the time period of the game (1980!) ...

Now compare the vocals to say...

Gorf, Berzerk, or Wizard of Wor. While I love me some Golf, Berzerk and Wow vocals ... there is simply no comparison.
 
I am absolutely blown away my the vocals... especially considering the time period of the game (1980!) ...

Now compare the vocals to say...

Gorf, Berzerk, or Wizard of Wor. While I love me some Golf, Berzerk and Wow vocals ... there is simply no comparison.

Agreed.

I signed up for the site and registered a quick score, 13940. I love this game!! I don't own one, but it plays just fine via MAME.

Sweet!

....speaking of MAME, this is how I played Saturday night (too cold in the garage on multicade, lol). The ROM I have only has voice sounds - no sounds for shots, etc.

Is there a specific ROM set for that, or a setting that I missed maybe?

-GackAttack
 
Agreed.



Sweet!

....speaking of MAME, this is how I played Saturday night (too cold in the garage on multicade, lol). The ROM I have only has voice sounds - no sounds for shots, etc.

Is there a specific ROM set for that, or a setting that I missed maybe?

-GackAttack

You need the samples file which goes in the samples subdirectory under mame (samples\astrob.zip)
 
I am absolutely blown away my the vocals... especially considering the time period of the game (1980!) ...

Now compare the vocals to say...

Gorf, Berzerk, or Wizard of Wor. While I love me some Golf, Berzerk and Wow vocals ... there is simply no comparison.

Astro Blaster is Gremlin/SEGA's first video game with speech synthesis.

SPEECH SYNTHESIS BOARD
----------------------
The Speech Synthesis board contains a single-chip microcomputer (SCM), U14, an 8035 (see: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/8035/Intel-P8035.html ).
The SCM has all the basic elements of a computer, except for power, integrated in a
single package. There are 2 main sections to the Speech Board.

- Section 1, schematic sheet 5, is the speech generation circuit. U7 is the system EPROM
and contains all the basic programming for the 8035 CPU. The other EPROMs U3 thru U6,
contain the speech information for Astro Blaster. U2 is the actual speech chip (ST-32034)
which synthesizes human speech. It operates by receiving the data that compose speech
patterns, combines them and outputs the sounds to amplifier U8 and to U11.

- Section 2, schematic sheet 6, is mainly development circuitryl; but U21 is used in
latching the proper 8-bit word from the CPU to select the different speech messages.

http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arcade_Manuals_and_Schematics/Astro Blaster.pdf
 
Last edited:
I finally made it past level 3...


This is where I get stuck. I nearly got it by purposely destroying 2 ships so I could use the warp repeatedly to quickly get through 2 phases of level 3, but ran out of fuel just before the docking stage. So frustrating.

My current high is now 18070.
 
This is where I get stuck. I nearly got it by purposely destroying 2 ships so I could use the warp repeatedly to quickly get through 2 phases of level 3, but ran out of fuel just before the docking stage. So frustrating.

My current high is now 18070.

Yup... I've only ever manged to get by Level 3 twice thus far... one time I died quickly after and the other is my current high score ... 21,400 I think it is...
 
Back
Top Bottom