Sinistar lithium battery mod - sinimmortals lost, settings kept

80scoinops

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Sinistar lithium battery mod - sinimmortals lost, settings kept

Finally got around to pulling the AAA battery holder and adding the lithium battery. The game doesn't save the "sinimmortals" scores any more. The sinimmortals section just has ... in place of where the score entries should be. It did previously save them with the AAA batteries installed.

It also still saves the custom attract message and general game settings. I thought they were all stored via the battery, is that incorrect? Either way, what might be causing the issue with the lost scores? Game is all original aside from the battery mod.
 
Finally got around to pulling the AAA battery holder and adding the lithium battery. The game doesn't save the "sinimmortals" scores any more. The sinimmortals section just has ... in place of where the score entries should be. It did previously save them with the AAA batteries installed.

It also still saves the custom attract message and general game settings. I thought they were all stored via the battery, is that incorrect? Either way, what might be causing the issue with the lost scores? Game is all original aside from the battery mod.

Did you try resetting the high score table?
 
Try pulling the battery (when it is off), wait a couple minutes and then power it up. This should force the ROMS to restore everything to factory settings, including the high score table. Then while it is powered up, replace the battery.

I have seen this a couple of times with Sinistar and this always fixes it (at least it has always fixed it for me, your mileage may vary).

The restore high score table doesn't always work, especially when the scores are '...'. I am not sure why. I think it may have to do with the algorithm they used to determine if the CMOS was corrupted or not.


ken
 
Try pulling the battery (when it is off), wait a couple minutes and then power it up. This should force the ROMS to restore everything to factory settings, including the high score table. Then while it is powered up, replace the battery.

I have seen this a couple of times with Sinistar and this always fixes it (at least it has always fixed it for me, your mileage may vary).

Worked like a charm, thanks YD!
 
Worked like a charm, thanks YD!

I used to know the reason why that would happen. I think it has something to do with the CMOS validity checking. It was either Sam or RJ that were playing with the POST routines and changed the CMOS test from the one that Joust stole from Robotron to something they cooked up and it can get confused by certain patterns in the CMOS. The only way I know to get everything back is to do a full restore factory settings by letting the CMOS power off.

This is also why Sinistar is more susceptible to the CMOS corruption from switchers.

ken
 
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