Hi all

I’m going to be spending a week in Frankfurt with work at the start of December.

Is there anything arcade-related for me to see (Sunday to Thursday evening)?

Thanks for any information 

The colour difference may have just been because of a different colour PROM, but I’ve never seen the bases that fire and also move. As if Super Cobra wasn’t hard enough already!

Fantastic find 

I can programme them, I just don't have any.  Is it DIP or PLCC style?

Can you send me the .JED file your technician has used and I'll compare it to the file I have?

This is my final high score save mod of the year (and I won't be doing any more for a while as I've some far more interesting projects on the go).  So following on from the Super Cobra free play mod I posted on UKVAC a couple of weeks ago, here's the high score save (with initials) mod

Just like Scramble, Super Cobra has a high score table, but it lacks the ability to save it on power-down, and there isn't the facility to add initials to the high scores.

As the code is remarkably similar to Scramble (no surprise there), it's only taken a few hours to produce.  There are some differences (including the memory map) that I had to sort out, but I'm fairly confident I've got all the bugs out of it.

Like Scramble, Super Cobra has an odd bit of code in its existing high score table routine, so that if you get the same score as one that's already in the table, it throws it away.  This mod again does away with that "feature".

The high score code is specific to the Konami version of the game.  The high score save code is available on request, and is released free of charge (*and without warranty...).  You will need to reprogramme 3 of the ROMs.  Source code may be available on request but won't be released publicly.

Saving the high scores on power-down needs the programme RAM 2114'S 1G, 1H, 1J & 1K replacing with an NVRAM equivalent, or of course it works with my single ROM/RAM board.

The high score save mod provides the following functionality:-

- Free play mode (DIP switch selectable)
- Full attract in free play mode (doesn't sit there at "Press P1 or P2 start")
- 10 position high score table, saved to NVRAM
- Enter 3 initials per HST position
- Duplicate scores & names allowed in the high score table
- Maintains checking for coins etc. when in "enter initials" mode
- "Game Continue" works correctly in freeplay or coined mode
- Reset high score table by holding down fire and right on power-up (for some strange reason, if you hold down P1 on power-up, the game detects it and deliberately locks up)

Photos (from Mame) show the high score table (with the same guest names as my Scramble high score mod), initial entry screen and a couple showing attract screens in freeplay mode.

The ROM daughterboard doesn't look original so it's probably just a different ROMset.

Can you post a better photo of the game board. And possibly ROMident the ROMs?

Pin 40 of the CPU is reset. what happens to that pin when you press the reset button?

And can you tell me what the address and data bus lines on the CPU are doing?

It looks to be an equivalent PROM to what's used in Williams games as decoders (7641).

There are a lot of write-ups on how to use EPROMs in their place, http://arcarc.xmission.com/Tech/Replacing%20Williams%20Decoder%20chip%20with%20a%202732%20EPROM/Replacing%20Williams%20Decoder%20chip%20with%20a%202732%20EPROM.htm and this should work for Circus too.

Failing that, I can programme them, and have some blanks, but getting one to you won't be cheap.