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atetris: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Tetris (c) 1988 Atari Games.

Face The Soviet Challenge!

- TECHNICAL -

Upright model

Game ID : 136066

Main CPU : M6502 (@ 1.789772 Mhz)

Sound Chips : (2x) POKEY (@ 1.789772 Mhz)

(Upright and Side-by-Side Cocktail models)

Screen orientation : Horizontal

Video resolution : 336 x 240 pixels

(Head-to-Head Cocktail model)

Screen orientation : Vertical

Video resolution : 240 x 336 pixels

Players : 2

Control : 8-way joystick

Buttons : 1

- TRIVIA -

Tetris is a CLASSIC; ranking with the likes of "Pac-Man", "Donkey Kong" and "Tempest"; and is still one of the most popular games today.

Inspired by a pentominoes game he had bought earlier, Alexey Pajitnov creates Tetris on an Electronica 60 in June 1985 at the Moscow Academy of Science's Computer Center. It is ported to the IBM PC by Vadim Gerasimov and starts spreading around Moscow. Pajitnov gets a small degree of fame for his program. Due to Soviet political structure at the time, the inventor, Alexey Pajitnov was not able to patent his game. This gave rise to many sundry Tetris clones for all manner of machines.

Here is the name of all tetrominos in Tetris (A tetromino is a geometric shape composed of four squares, connected orthogonally) :

* The 'I' (Also called 'Stick' or 'Straight') - Four blocks in a straight line.

* The 'Square' (Also called 'O', 'Package' or 'Block') - Four blocks in a 2x2 square.

* The 'T' - A row of three blocks with one added below the center.

* The 'L' - A row of three blocks with one added below the left side.

* The 'J' (Also called 'Inverted L' or 'Gamma') - A row of three blocks with one added below the right side (This piece is a reflection of 'L' but cannot be rotated into 'L').

* The 'S' - Bent trimino with block placed on outside of clockwise side.

* The 'Z' (Also called 'Inverted S') - Bent trimino with block added on outside of anticlockwise side (This piece is a reflection of 'S' but cannot be rotated into 'S').

Apart from being a fine game, Tetris is also a perfect mirror of the human condition. For a while the game is entertaining, and we seem to have mastered it and are having fun. Then, something goes wrong. A rash mistake, or an unfulfilled wish, and we're fighting to repair the damage, but we've been thrown off-balance, and the cancer is spreading. Blocks that were once orderly and harmonious are jumbled and filled with holes, and our cup is on the verge of running over. There's always a point at which we stop planning for the future, and realize that we don't have one - all we can do is cling to the present and concentrate, focus our minds on what it's like to be alive, to play the game, before it's all over. You were waiting for a four-by-one block that never came. Eventually we stare death in the face, and death will not spare us because we would warn the others to stay away and not play the game. Sometimes we resist to the bitter end, moving blocks left and right without thought or care, just to hang on, and sometimes we accept the inevitable and pull the blocks down to us, smiling inwardly at the great joke. The rest is silence. We admire the fox as it escapes from the hounds, but when the hunt is over we turn away, and go off and drink and be merry, and somewhere else someone or something is watching us as we watch the fox. But the fox knows it is being chased.

Tetris falls in the same class of tantalizing problems as the famous Traveling Salesman Problem or the Halting Problem. It's the intellectual challenge of coming up with heuristics to crack the game that make it so addictive.

A bootleg version was released by 'Video Games' in 1989 (See 'Updates' for more information).

- UPDATES -

The bootleg version (made by 'Video Games') shares a different 'Staff screen' (See Staff section for the original), here is the bootleg one :

Project leader : James Bond

Video Graphics : Tom Catson

Engineer : Ted Tedious

Technician : Log Dreaming

Audio : Bill Cody

- SCORING -

Placing a piece : 0 to 500 points

Filling lines across :

Single : 50 points

Double : 150 points

Triple : 400 points

Quadruple 'tetris' : 900 points

Starting on round 4 : 20,000 points

Starting on round 7 : 40,000 points

The end of round bonus depends on how many incomplete lines the player has at the bottom of the well when the round ends :

0 lines : 2,100 points

2 lines : 1,710 points

3 lines : 1,530 points

4 lines : 1,360 points

5 lines : 1,200 points

6 lines : 1,050 points

7 lines : 910 points

8 lines : 780 points

9 lines : 660 points

10 lines : 550 points

11 lines : 450 points

12 lines : 360 points

13 lines : 280 points

14 lines : 210 points

15 lines : 150 points

16 lines : 100 points

17 lines : 60 points

18 lines : 30 points

19 lines : 10 points

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

While on attract mode, if you pull player 1 joystick to the left and player 2 joystick to the right simultaneously the demo steps into its next phase. If you repeat it a few times the music will start playing...

If you tap the 'rotate' buttons when the guy in the doorway is doing his 'victory dance' a hook will reach out from the side and drag him away by the neck. If you do it when he is just dropping down to do the 'Cossack Kicks', he'll dodge the hook the first time, but get caught by it on the return.

- STAFF -

Project leader : Kelly Turner

Programmed by : Norm Avellar, Kelly Turner, Ed Logg

Video graphics by : Kris Moser

Engineer : Doug Snyder

Technician : Glenn Mcnamara

Audio by : Brad Fuller

- PORTS -

* Consoles :

Nintendo NES ("Tengen Tetris"). This port was not licensed by Nintendo and was only released in North America.

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

MAME Info:

0.31 [Zsolt Vasvari]

SETUP:

- To start a game, press the ROTATE button.

Artwork available

WIP:

- 0.146: Couriersud improved sound emulation for POKEY chip. Changed audio emulation to emulate borrow 3 clock delay and proper channel reset. New frequency only becomes effective after the counter hits 0. Emulation also treats counters as 8 bit counters which are linked now instead of monolytic 16 bit counters. Fixed high pass filters for POKEY. Added POKEYN device based on modern device. Fixed random lfsr generation. Consolidated polynom code. Removed legacy left overs from pokey code. Added a internal pokey_channel class. Convert all remaining drivers to use the modern pokey device.

- 15th May 2011: Mr. Do - One simple update, that you can just grab the LAY file for is Atari Tetris, I added a view for the cocktail version, which has a vertical screen.

- 6th November 2010: f205v dumped Tetris (bootleg set 3).

- 0.133u1: Renamed (atetcktl) to (atetrisc), (atetckt2) to (atetrisc2) and (atetrsb2) to (atetrisb2).

- 0.123u4: RasnAckeR improved dipswitch definitions, added DIP locations and simplified input ports in Atari Tetris. Added dipswitches 'Freeze Step' and 2x 'Unused'.

- 0.122u6: Svante Gerhard added save state support and Aaron Giles fixed up memory maps and clocks according to schematics in Atari Tetris.

- 22nd April 2007: Mr. Do - One more artwork from the BYOAC purchase and vectored by Jcroach: Tetris by Atari.

- 0.114u2: Aaron Giles and Couriersud added more accurate video timing to most of the Atari 68000-era games. The parameters are from published specs, not derived. The board uses an SOS-2 chip to generate video signals. Changed VSync to 59.922743 Hz.

- 6th June 2006: Guru - Tetris (Atari Games 1988) bootleg arrived from Korea today. Thanks to GP-Lee.

- 0.79u1: Kevin Eshbach added clone Tetris (bootleg set 2). Changed description of clone '(bootleg)' to '(bootleg set 1)'.

- 31st January 2004: Kevin Eshbach submitted an addition of a new Atari Tetris bootleg.

- 0.76u2: Some input fixes in Tetris (Atari) [HowardC]. Changed 8-way Joystick to 4-way.

- 0.53: Aaron Giles fixed the remaining issues in Slapstic emulation, Tetris now uses the slapstic code. Changed M6502 CPU1 and the 2x Pokey clock speed to 1789772 Hz and fixed cpu1 rom ($0) address to $10000.

- 2nd September 2000: Brad Oliver abstracted the dirty handling from Centipede and sped up Atari Tetris.

- 0.34b8: Zsolt Vasvari added Tetris (Cocktail set 1). Changed description of clone 'Tetris (Cocktail version)' to 'Tetris (Cocktail set 2)'. Renamed (atetcktl) to (atetckt2).

- 0.33b7: Changed description of 'Tetris (Atari)' to 'Tetris (set 1)' and clones '(Atari) (alternate)' to '(set 2)', '(Atari) (Cocktail version)' to '(Cocktail version)' and '(Atari) (bootleg)' to '(bootleg)'.

- 0.31: Zsolt Vasvari added Tetris (Atari) (Atari Games 1988) and clones (alternate), (bootleg) and (Cocktail version). Control: To start a game, press the ROTATE button.

LEVELS: 99 (endless - game stops counting levels after 99th)

Other Emulators:

* JAE

Recommended Games (Tetris):

Vs. Tetris

Tetris (Atari)

Tetris (Sega)

Tetris (Mega-Tech)

Tetris (Mirrorsoft bootleg)

Tetris (System E)

Tetris / Bloxeed (Korean System 16 bootleg)

Xyonix

Bloxeed

Tetris (Photon System)

Final Tetris

Hot Blocks - Tetrix II

Magix / Rock

Tetris (D.R. Korea)

Tetris Plus

Tetris Plus 2

Magical Tetris Challenge

Tetris The Grand Master

Tetris the Absolute The Grand Master 2

Sega Tetris

Tetris Kiwamemichi

-

Block Out

Welltris

Romset: 128 kb / 2 files / 49.5 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Tetris (set 1)</description>

<manufacturer>Atari Games</manufacturer>

</input>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</game>

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