Mingy Jongo

Oh, I forgot about Colony 7! One of my favorite arcade games and incredibly underrated.

Thanks for the info! That is slightly incorrect; this one definitely has 8-way control also and as far as I can tell through directly comparison, runs the exact same program as the original Namco TV Games unit, and diagonal flying in Bosconian works. I have one connected to my TV right now: I suspect that whoever programmed the game wasn't aware of the hardware choice of the original model that limits movement to four ways, so it wasn't until this model came out that 8-way movement in Bosconian could be utilized.

Like I said, I know that they aren't emulations and as ports are nowhere near close to the arcade versions -- I just really like their difficulty balance and fun factor. Bosconian supports 8-way even on the original release -- it's just that you cannot physically press two directions at the same time without modification. There is a lesser-known and rarer "pocket" version containing the exact same program where you can go 8-way, and as it is a directional pad and not a joystick the other games still control excellently. Upon noticing the relatively high-framerate scrolling without artifacts on Rally-X though I agree that it probably isn't an NES rom.

Thanks, PM sent. I'm kinda surprised the Radica Taito and Tetris ones have been dumped and are already implemented in MAME, but not this one. If anyone that knows how to do it needs one I'd be happy to send one their way.

I'm taking about the one with Pac-Man, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Rally-X, and Bosconian, originally released as a yellow/purple color-schemed 4-way joystick and later as a "pocket" edition with an 8-way directional pad (which makes Bosconian all the better). Does anyone know if this is an NES-on-a-chip or something different, and if it has been dumped to an NES rom or MAME? Despite not being arcade accurate and the sound being way off, the gameplay of most of the five titles on it are among my favorite ports of those games, and I noticed that MAME supports a couple later, rarer plug and plays like the Radica Taito one and wondered if this one, one of the most common units of them all, had been dumped despite having difficulty finding anything online.

Rally-X Bosconian Time Pilot

That's because you couldn't on the original arcade versions. Most early arcade games were like that until 1980, though Namco was a little late and didn't really start allowing initials and more than one top score for many of their games until 81. BTW, apparently some of the units have a four-way blocker and a more robust "clicky" joystick for better (pretty much every game...) or for worse (...except Bosconian and Xevious). Does anyone know anything about those and if you can tell which are which? I got one when they first came out and never knew they changed it.

Funny that I come across this topic during the few times a year I remember to visit this site, as I was one of the first people to discover that secret and submitted it to a bunch of different video game code websites lol. Suffice to say, the 99 lives option is definitely real; I even erased my ps1 file over and over again just to verify how I unlocked it when I first noticed I could change my lives to 99 on everything. I dont remember having too much trouble with it, though Super Cobra is definitely the toughest of all of them. Just shoot and bomb as much stuff as you can and with a little bit of practice youll get it.

Super Breakout for the 2600 is the first thing that comes to my mind here.

The P2 car theory is debunked fairly early in the TG thread, though I can't remember exactly where -- a search should bring it up. I read a couple hundred pages of it a few days ago and had to wade through a loooooot of crap to find the nuggets of explanation and genuine questions/answers in it.

There is a big difference between thinking 5.51 is possible in the affirmative sense, and between not being sure if it is possible or impossible. It is clear from this interview that he falls into the latter camp, being extremely careful to not say anything for certain: http://www.twingalaxies.com/feed_details.php/87/dragster-designer-without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt-about-todd-rogers-record That said, programs can be complicated, and if you think what the programmer says about what can happen in their program should be held to such a high standard of authority, then you should be extremely surprised at how plentiful software bugs are.

You left out the important part of Thomas's post: Re-read the first three sentences again. 5.54 was the maximum achieved by ignoring fiddly parameters that would only further negatively affect the time. WITH those extra parameters included to match the real code, the best possible time is even slower. This is analogous to your own Barnstorming example where something that could only make you slower was removed and a perfect run still wasn't fast enough. The scenario Thomas made changes certain parameters to be more favorable than they could possibly be during normal operation in return for a model that could be analyzed completely, and it STILL wasn't fast enough. I will admit that I overreached and retract my claim that 5.57 was proven to be the fastest -- apparently there is still potential wiggle room in certain areas, but after months of people and computers running through different strategies, it still has yet to be beaten. THAT SAID, given that the lowest time that can be reached in the simplified model is 5.54, and adding/adjusting additional parameters can only hurt your time, we can say that on an unmodified game, 5.51 is impossible, 5.54 might be possible (though people that know both know way more than I do on the specific mechanics of this game and have spent dozens of hours analysing different scenarios tend to think it's impossible), and 5.57 is the lowest score that has been reproducible. In short, the fastest possible time is either 5.54 or 5.57, with statistical evidence and expert opinion heavily favoring the latter.

As for the argument stemming from the two other 5.51 scores published, Bayes's Theorem makes swift work of that hypothesis -- The odds of nearly any other coincidence or chain of events involving mistakes or cheating leading to those scores being printed is far likelier than the idea that something in the way the game's code was executed got jiggled in a way that altered the mechanics of the game without glitching anything else, but only a few times in the early 80s and has never been able to be replicated since, which is the only other explanation that doesn't involve breaking the laws of physics given the mathematics involved.

Just because the math is slightly complicated doesn't mean it can't be proven. It has been explained over and over by many people that have looked into the game's code on the TG forum alone, let alone probably dozens of other places where this has been discussed, that given the parameters of the speed/distance/time/acceleration and inputs that the game recognizes, the optimal time is 5.57, just like how one can use calculus to prove or disprove that the dimensions of a solid of a specified shape and volume minimize surface area. Your claim that "No computer can conclusively prove one way or the other anything because it's not capable of recreating every possible scenario." is patently false -- one can prove that specific inputs/strategies will always be sub-optimal by looking at the math behind it (for example, the number of wheelies needs to be 3 or less), and of the options remaining, their results when various combinations are used can be calculated.

My favorite is the Odyssey 3000 because of its unique case and controllers.