Tempest Cab

[Fuseball]

That poor StarWars cab. A fate worse than scrap.

You're not kidding. Those yoke controllers are a bastard to get hold of. Combined with the lack of vector monitor, gameboards etc. and he shouldn't really be allowed to sell it as anything other than a shell. The 32X and controller butchery are buried away in the relatively small print. He's listed it as an Atari Star Wars arcade game, when it clearly isn't anything of the sort.

The game it has init at the moment is STAR WARS arcade.

Talk about misleading...

[Deckard]

Bump - I honestly never knew this till I read it today in a very Joystick mag -

TEMPEST
The secret techniques that can be used to achieve high scores in Tempest are among the most powerful we've found. Not only will these techniques improve your score, but they can be used to earn free games, which can be used to practice these techniques, which can be used to earn free games, which...
Here's how it works: First, you must complete Level 8 (the red level) and earn the 188,000 point bonus. Then carefully shoot spikes (worth one point apiece)
until your score ends in one of the two-digit combinations listed below. After reaching the combination you want, use up all of your remaining turns by running into enemies. Then wait for the effect listed below to take place.
00 - freezes screen
01 - access to bookkeeping totals
05 - allows playing during attract mode
06 - 40 free credits
11 - 40 free credits
12 - 40 free credits
14 - credit sound without actual credits
15 - credit sound without actual credits
16 - 40 free credits
60
17 - 40 free credits
18 - 40 free credits
41 - last two digits of score switch
42 - score increases quickly
46 - allows following game to start at green level
50 - player moves by itself
51 - player moves by itself
60 - objects drift down
66 - objects drift right
67 - objects jump
68 - objects drift up
70 - objects drift up
The most useful combinations are those that earn you 40 free credits (06, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18) and the combination (46) for the
"secret jump to green" (de-scribed in the April 1983
JoyStik Winning Edge).
Another good trick is to stop at 05, which allows you to play the attract mode, and then pause at one of the other combinations while you're playing— its effect will take place in-stantly, as if you had ended a game with that score.
Two additional combinations work only in the attract mode: 46 will generate a random-colored level with the wrong enemies for that level (e.g., a dark blue level with fuseball tankers), and 48 will award you 255 extra turns.
Atari has provided a modification that will prevent these tricks from working, but most of the Tempest machines we've tried do not have the modification.

I wish i had known that back in the day !

[Dio]

It was available back then. If I remember it right C&VG had an article on it in 1983ish. Tempest machines were rare as hell in the UK, though.

[Misfit]

Bump - I honestly never knew this till I read it today in a very Joystick mag -

I wish i had known that back in the day !

That sounds pretty crazy, was it common to have this kind of exploit in other cabs?

Now you need to find a cab to play on.

Not even sure I saw one enough to ever get to level 8.

[Deckard]

It was available back then. If I remember it right C&VG had an article on it in 1983ish. Tempest machines were rare as hell in the UK, though.

Yeah only ever saw one at Weymouth - my local bath arcade which had all the rare stuff including Defender 2 - Stargate didn't have one.

Funny never really read Joystick before but downloaded all of them a few years back onto Dropbox and now just started reading them - they have real proper in-depth guides to games....

[F-ZeroOne]

I've never seen a "Tempest" in the wild in the UK other than at retro videogame exhibitions, and I've played an "I, Robot" in an actual arcade from back in the day. "Star Wars", or occasionally "The Empire Strikes Back" (and even "Red Baron") seemed to be the most common Atari vector games that I recall.

[Whiteball]

There was a Tempest machine in the arcade on the campsite we used to often go to for our holidays when we were young.
I loved it becuase they always seemed to have the latest things instead of the same ones every year (apart from a couple of classics which were always there).

Trouble was being young and seeing (and hearing) this thing was really intriguing but it always had a crowd of older people around watching it and I was loathe to put my 10p pieces in and get beaten in seconds as I would have no clue what was going on. People would have laughed I'm sure but I wouldn't have, so I just stayed playing my usual favourites.

[Deckard]

I never saw another Stargate cab anywhere else in the Uk bar my local Bath arcade but the owners son Mark Edwards loved Williams games so we had them all literally the week after release.....

[tufty]

Hah. First cab in the local pub was Tempest. That was replaced by a Defender, which was itself replaced by a Stargate.

[Deckard]

3 Total classics. Worth about 10k for the 3 now too !

[tufty]

3 Total classics. Worth about 10k for the 3 now too !

Yeah. There was a Bomb Jack and a Legendary Wings later, as well. And then it moved to those bloody awful quiz machines.

[Kelloggs]

Never seen a Stargate. Saw two Tempests, one in Barmouth in '85 or '86 (but we were in a rush so I didn't get to play on it, and it was raining because it was Barmouth) and one in New Brighton in maybe '83 (but again in a rush, so didn't play it). Have seen two I, Robots in the wild, one in Tenby in '86 or slightly before, in an arcade that's long gone, and one, again, in New Brighton in about April '87 next to a stand-up Star Wars (this latter I can be fairly confident at the timestamp, because it would coincide with a GCSE Geography fieldtrip to New Brighton - so, it turned out to actually be useful for something...).

If it helps, I can pin a sit-down Spy Hunter to Scarborough in summer '84, so that would have been effectively brand new, and a stand-up one in Llandudno for a number of years after that. A lot of the games I've played, it turns out, I've made a mental note of where and when, so these are braincells that will never perform any useful task!

Oh, and a Gyruss in Slovenska Plaža in Budva in the former Yugoslavia (now Montenegro) in Summer 1987. Well, my brother and I had to find something to do for a fortnight...

[tufty]

Never saw anything much more exotic than he stuff that was at the pub. The local arcade had an asteroids and a super asteroids, and a stand up star wars. I did see a full on sit down3 screen TX-1 (and played it a lot) somewhere at the seaside when on holiday, but I forget where.

[JMX]

I feel like I have been lucky in life with old arcades. I always thought living in Eastbourne meant i missed out on so much gaming stuff back in the 70's and 80's. But it seems I was in the best place. Eastbourne pier and about 3 other amusement arcades back in the day had all the games we talk about here now. Only slightly sad that if i was a few years older i could of bought them when they chucked them out. I still remember now a back room with old cabs that were waiting to be dumped

[Deckard]

Yeah same here with my old bath arcade - could have the whole Williams line....