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tapper: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Tapper (c) 1983 Bally Midway.

Taking on the role of an overworked bartender, the player must serve beer to the ever-thirsty patrons that populate his bar. All customers must be served before they work their way up to the beer kegs. Empty glasses must also be collected before they slide off the end of the bar and smash to the floor. Extra points are awarded for collecting tips, while bonus rounds involve locating the one beer that has not been shaken, and serving it. The game features 4 different levels :

1. Cowboys

2. Athletes

3. Punk Rockers

4. Aliens

- TECHNICAL -

Game No. 0A11

Bally Midway MCR 3 hardware

Main CPU : Z80 (@ 5 Mhz)

Sound CPU : Z80 (@ 2 Mhz)

Sound Chips : (2x) AY8910 (@ 2 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal

Video resolution : 512 x 480 pixels

Screen refresh : 30.00 Hz

Palette colors : 64

Players : 2

Control : 4-way joystick

Buttons : 1

- TRIVIA -

Released in December 1983.

There were 2 other versions of Tapper: "Root Beer" (January 1984) and "Suntory" (Japan, Game ID : 834-5385 / 834-5387). The Suntory version was a Sega board, Suntory is a Japanese beer (see "Updates" section for more information).

The main character in the game (as well as the main character of two other Bally Midway games; "Domino Man", and "Timber") is based on a Marvin Glass employee called Mike Ferris, who had the same distinctive mustache and bald head and reputedly wore a red T-shirt all of the time.

The music for the third stage (the punk bar) was loosely inspired by new wave music group Devo's song 'Workin' in the Coal Mine'.

Tapper was play tested in a Chicago-area Rush Streetbar called 'The Snuggery' and received much positive feedback from the bar's patrons. Digitized belches were originally going to be used in the game, but, perhaps thankfully, they never made it into the final version.

The cabinet is designed to resemble a real bar - replete with a brass foot rail and two brass drink or ashtray holders (one on each side of the control panel). The cabinet and gameplay on the beer version features the Budweiser logo. The pour spouts have mock-up Budweiser handles that closely resemble the Budweiser taps that appear in real bars throughout the world.

Approximately 3300 Tapper uprights were made and around the first 100 or so were released with colour side art. About 300 cocktail machines were also made.

- UPDATES -

* Suntory version has different graphics and most likely different music.

- SCORING -

Serving a cowboy/girl patron with beer : 50 points.

Serving a sports bar patron with beer : 75 points.

Serving a punk patron with beer : 100 points.

Serving an alien patron with beer : 150 points.

Collecting an empty beer glass : 100 points.

Collecting a tip left on the bar : 1,500 points.

Guessing the correct can on the bonus screen : 3,000 points.

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* Easter Egg : In the attract mode, wait until the word Tapper is filling up with beer, and hold down the joystick, both taps, and the player 1 & 2 buttons. You will then see the names of the game designers.

* Take your time in the first few levels. You can make a high score by leaving one person and waiting for more people.

* The last guy in the row will almost always leave a tip.

* If a person leaves the bar in the first level you get 50 points but, if you let them get close to the end of the bar, they will drink the beer and stay. It's 100 for getting the empty mug.

* The longer you stay in the level, the faster the people and mugs move.

- STAFF -

Designed and programmed by : Steve Meyer

Graphics by : Scott Morrison

Sounds by : Rick Hicaro

Support by : Elaine Ditton

- PORTS -

NOTE : All ports released in 1997 and later feature the 'Root Beer' version.

* Consoles :

Colecovision (1983)

Atari 2600 (1983)

Atari XEGS

Sony PlayStation (1997, "Arcade's Greatest Hits - The Midway Collection 2")

Nintendo 64 (2000, "Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits Volume I")

Sony PlayStation 2 (2003, "Midway Arcade Treasure")

Nintendo GameCube (2003, "Midway Arcade Treasure")

Microsoft XBOX (2003, "Midway Arcade Treasure")

Microsoft XBOX 360 (2007, "Root Beer Tapper" - Xbox Live Arcade) [Retired in 2010]

* Computers :

PC [Booter] (1983)

Commodore C64 (1984)

Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1985)

Atari 800

Apple II : unreleased

Amstrad CPC (1987, "Tapper - Official Arcade Game")

PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (1997, Arcade's Greatest Hits - The Midway Collection 2")

PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (2004, "Midway Arcade Treasure")

* Others :

Palm OS ("Midway Arcade Classic")

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

MAME Info:

0.28 [Christopher Kirmse, Aaron Giles, Nicola Salmoria]

Artwork available

WIP:

- 0.145u7: Moved Sound Board prom 5784 to midssio device set.

- 0.141u2: Changed description to 'Tapper (Budweiser, set 1)' and clone 'Tapper (alternate)' to 'Tapper (Budweiser, set 2)'.

- 6th September 2010: Mr. Do - Almost four years ago, Rohan had loaned me a bezel for the Bud version of Tapper. Nightvoice took care of this long overdue piece.

- 0.117u2: Ernesto Corvi fixed incorrect implementation of SSIO volume controls in the MCR driver. This fixed missing sounds in the bonus round. Aaron Giles fixed sprites drawing.

- 10th December 2006: Mr. Do - We have a Root Beer Tapper bezel, vectorized by Zorg.

- 0.85u3: B.S. Ruggeri fixed sound board error in Tapper. Added dipswitches 'Demo Sounds', 'Cabinet' and 'Coin Meters'.

- 0.56: Added 'Coin Meters' dipswitch.

- 0.53: Changed palettesize from 128 to 64 colors.

- 30th December 1999: Aaron Giles fixed some compilation bugs and removed a minor Z80-related kludge from Tapper and Timber.

- 0.36b6: Aaron Giles added clone Tapper (alternate).

- 12th February 1999: Juergen Buchmueller has made the ASM Z80 core even better. Speed improvements range from 25% (Galaga) to 45% (Tapper). It's still far from complete, and daisy-chaining doesn't work.

- 0.35b2: The hang in Tapper should REALLY be fixed this time [Juergen Buchmueller].

- 0.34: Juergen Buchmueller fixed bug in the Z80 emulator which caused crashes in Tapper and Tron.

- 0.33b7: Aaron Giles fixed hangs in Tapper, and hopefully other MCR games as well.

- 0.31: Paul Sommers and Ruben Panossian added Tapper (Suntory). Changed description of 'Root Beer Tapper' to 'Tapper (Root Beer)' and 'Tapper' to 'Tapper (Budweiser)'.

- 0.30: Brad Oliver added clone 'Root Beer Tapper' (Bally Midway 1984).

- 0.28: Added Tapper (Bally Midway 1983). Press F2 before initial screen to configure. Christopher Kirmse, Aaron Giles and Brad Oliver provided a MCR I/II/III driver, supporting: Kick, Solar Fox, Tron, Two Tigers, Domino Man, Satan's Hollow, Wacko, Kozmik Kroozr, Journey, Tapper, Discs of Tron, Demolition Derby, Timber, Spy Hunter and Rampage. New osd_modify_pen() function, proposed by Aaron Giles. It allows drivers to dynamically modify the palette. WARNING: Since this feature can severely reduce performance on some systems, it must only be used when necessary - that is, when the emulated game dynamically modifies the palette. The other games should continue to use the static palette as before. Many games already use this feature (e.g. Crystal Castles, the Gottlieb games, Tapper, Bubble Bobble, and many others). There's also osd_get_pen(), which is used by usrintf.c to dynamically pick the pens used to render menus. Control: Press F2 before initial screen to configure. Arrows = Move around and CTRL = Tapper

LEVELS: 13 (endless)

Other Emulators:

* Retrocade

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Romset: 232 kb / 18 files / 80.4 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Tapper (Budweiser, set 1)</description>

<manufacturer>Bally Midway</manufacturer>

<device_ref name="midssio"/>

</input>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</game>

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