"Dangerous" tricks on a system/game that were actually pretty cool

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

I've mentioned this before. Two things, pulling ATARI 2600 carts in and out without powering off OR flicking the on/off switch rapidly. Soemtimes this would have the weirdest effects, strange sound, colors or levels mixed up. Also running a bread knife edge along the circuit board of the Colecovisions expansion port with power on and game plugged in, also produced all kinds of weird effects...........

[retrorussell]

flicking the on/off switch rapidly.

 

Yes, it's called "frying". This can often yield crazy benefits.

I was able to trick some arcade games' coin mechanisms by dropping in a slug, or foreign currency.

 

And Random, I gotta concur with the others.. bumping the table has always been a part of pinball playing.. you don't have to do it if you don't want to, of course.. it just adds a cool skill element where you try to bump but not too much, else the classic TILT sign comes up and you lose a ball. If bumping were really discouraged, your game should flat out end, not just result in the loss of one turn.

I thought that was cool that the Atari 2600 version of Atari Pinball let you guide the ball with the button and joystick to act as a bump, and if done too much the screen would go red (tilt) and the bumpers/flippers wouldn't work, and you would eventually lose a ball (you could still guide it around and avoid the hole(s), but you couldn't score any more points that turn).

[Video]

Wow, I forgot about slugs, I used to go buy light fixtures from the local hardware store for $1, and it would have about 8 slugs on it, which were apparently the exact proper size of a quarter,so you got $2 in slugs (of course, inflation happened, and ended that, but still, and I still got to sell the boxes to junk dealers for about a quarter or so so )

 

As for bumping a Pinball machine, I'm pretty sure that was NOT intended...at least, not in the original machines, heck, some of the older ones didn't even have tilt mechanisms or they were added to them later. And I haven't really seen to many machines that didn't have a big sticker somewhere warning about the tilt. In fact, most of the machines I see out and out say that is cheating on the same lable (of course, in an arcade, often the lable is covered up as it is useually on the side, between two machines so who sees it anyways?)

 

The reason the "tilt" was added, was in fact, because people were bumping the machines, and as that wasn't intended, the earlier machines were easier to knock over and damage, and it happened regularly enough, that those devices have become an everyday part of life these days. But like Steroids in baseball, it's not right, accepted, or necessary, in fact, it's not an intended part of the game.

 

Personally, I've never seen a Pinball machine I couldn't master givven a few days, in fact, most of the ones around here, I play till I get bored, or the store owner runse me out (apparently people thinkyour breaking it when it lets off that loud crack, which I tend to make them do quiet regularly) all without bumping. To me, haveing to bump/jimmy or whatever the machine isn't a play mechanic, it's s display of your lack of skill as a gamer (just like useing gameshark on a modern game to make the games easier than they already are)

[potatohead]

None for me. I didn't even shake or shove pinball games.

Then you didn't really have an idea about how to play Pinball

Who thought up the idea that you were supposed to bash the crap out of a pinball game? Was it always an acceptable practice or did so many assclowns do it that it became part of the game? I don't like abusing machines. If I found out that I could get higher scores when playing Ms. Pac-Man if I hit the machine with a sledgehammer, I wouldn't do it.

 

Tilting, bumping, wiggling, etc... is part of the game of pinball. They have sensors on the machines so that you don't exceed the mechanical limits of the thing.

 

The reality is the physical element is there. I know if my ball is teetering on a pin, where one direction means lost ball, and the other keeps it in play, I'm gonna nudge! The best of the best when I was a kid all did it, and it is something to see.

 

Of course, nobody has to do it, and the sensor is there for those that get abusive. All good.

 

And, in other sports where the physical element is there, the good players use every bit of leverage they can, without running afoul of the rules. Either that is the way a person rolls, or it isn't, but it sure as heck isn't cheating.

 

Another analogy is poker. It's all about the cards right? WRONG! What is said at the table, how it is said, when, with what bets, etc... all is a factor. Get somebody pissed, or drunk, or nervous, then take their chips, while trying to make sure you don't end up in the same state!

 

I can think of lots of examples where that kind of thing comes into play. It just happens, and if somebody wants to compete, they've got to step up and be aware of it.

 

That said, nothing more than a simple nudge is all it takes. No slamming, no abuse, no nothing. Many sensors don't allow any more than that anyway, rendering the point moot. To me, playing a game for a bit of fun means PLAYING the game. All elements considered, maybe even figuring out new ones. Patterns, tilts, funky control combinations, bugs, etc... A game is a simple experience. It really is what you make of it. I never went for the high score board as much as I did just pulling off fun stuff, whatever it was.

 

LOL!!! I would have never thought pinball nudging would bring out this conversation! It's great.

Edited May 27, 2009 by potatohead

[potatohead]

A friend of mine was frying his Sears 6 switcher and lost the sound on it forever. I think it was the Frogger cart at the time. Pulled it out, then shoved it back in, wiggling the power switch to get goofy shapes and game states. Once the sound was gone, it was GONE. Not even a peep from the pins on the chip itself!

 

That is the only incident though.

 

Everybody knew the hold down reset and turn on the system trick for double shots.

 

A few times, I got very dark purple invaders by flicking the power switch. It's a cool color that I've not seen very often. Always wondered about that. Haven't the guts to try it on the machine I have now.

[bust3dstr8]

I used to like to go balls deep into my SegaCD once it warmed up. That little door would flip open and.........

[BDW]

Frying 2600's, Yeah, I suppose you can hurt it, but howmany ever killed one?

 

Also, who doesn't remember the "blowjob"? The only quick and easy way to get the games to work on so many cart based systems. I'm sure some could be hurt if you drooled in the cart and turned it on with all the contacts shorted out or something, but I've never in person heard of it (of course Nintendos died, but that's cause the cart edge connector is shit, not the fault of anything people were doing to it)

 

And of course, every "not liscensed" products ever made, Game Sharks, Game Genie, video carts, multipurpose carts, and illegal rom carts

 

The blowjob? Hey, what ever you can do to get the game "turned on"

[awace]

Wow, I forgot about slugs, I used to go buy light fixtures from the local hardware store for $1, and it would have about 8 slugs on it, which were apparently the exact proper size of a quarter,so you got $2 in slugs (of course, inflation happened, and ended that, but still, and I still got to sell the boxes to junk dealers for about a quarter or so so )

 

As for bumping a Pinball machine, I'm pretty sure that was NOT intended...at least, not in the original machines, heck, some of the older ones didn't even have tilt mechanisms or they were added to them later. And I haven't really seen to many machines that didn't have a big sticker somewhere warning about the tilt. In fact, most of the machines I see out and out say that is cheating on the same lable (of course, in an arcade, often the lable is covered up as it is useually on the side, between two machines so who sees it anyways?)

 

The reason the "tilt" was added, was in fact, because people were bumping the machines, and as that wasn't intended, the earlier machines were easier to knock over and damage, and it happened regularly enough, that those devices have become an everyday part of life these days. But like Steroids in baseball, it's not right, accepted, or necessary, in fact, it's not an intended part of the game.

 

Personally, I've never seen a Pinball machine I couldn't master givven a few days, in fact, most of the ones around here, I play till I get bored, or the store owner runse me out (apparently people thinkyour breaking it when it lets off that loud crack, which I tend to make them do quiet regularly) all without bumping. To me, haveing to bump/jimmy or whatever the machine isn't a play mechanic, it's s display of your lack of skill as a gamer (just like useing gameshark on a modern game to make the games easier than they already are)

[awace]

damn i typed a whole lot of stuff and it got deleted cause cookes expired .

anyway i used to flash atari all the time

http://www.eeggs.com/tree/563.html

pinball machines are subposed to be nudged our 1936 kennys clover pinball machine w nickel slot and 5 balls no flippers had a tilt and the only way you could get it to do what you wanted was to nudge it since it didnt have flippers the tilt prevented it from being jostled to mutch..

there were two tilts one hanging one witch we disabled and a nother w a ball that rolled up to hit tilt .

dkong could be chomped w a straw thats what probably was jammed in that bowling alley.

atari 400/800 dkong you could walk to edge of girder on 1st level and jump off and bounce back in.

on rivit level all dkong versions even 2600 version and all other ones I havent tried on nintendo .

but most even arcade dkong you can walk from right to left not crossing rivit and go back and steal girder..

atari800/400 pathfinder you can make pattern like this

------------------------/_____________________

-----------------------/_____________________

and where the / is go the opposite angle and break out of boarder wall and see memmory in action its cool.

on some pinball machines BALLY like mr and mrs packman pinball and some eightball deluxe you could bend plunger into right flipper switch leaf switch causeing a spark witch would produce credits..

and on eight ball deluxe you coud push start button exactly to the same sound as match and sometimes 70% of the time make a match even if it wouldnt match it woud produce a credit. I think this screwed with the proccess of the match confusing the cpu.. giving false match., although you would never know because you matched! and started game witch starts game.

on g 13 on missile command atari 2600 you get an rf if you dont get points to show http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Fulop

programmer.

on frogger 2600 you can turn on and off dificulty switches and you wont die going threw wall but if you turn it on you hear a crack between wall.

here is easter egg for 20 reunion mspac galaga

The "start" screen will display, allowing you to choose Ms. Pac-Man or Galaga. ... UP, UP, UP; DOWN, DOWN, DOWN; LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT ... Press either 1 player or 2 player Ms. Pac-Man button to play regular Pac-Man

 

also if you watch galaga demo on any galaga and shoot down tracktor beam bee you can shoot all bees down..

[retrorussell]

I used to like to go balls deep into my SegaCD once it warmed up.

who doesn't remember the "blowjob"?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

:ponder:O ____ o TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!!

[SnapCraft]

Yes, it's called "frying". This can often yield crazy benefits.

 

I accidentally found "Stage 0" on Miner 2049er (Atari 800) by frying. I was only able to bring it up only a few times. I remember writing the company and they acknowledged it and said it was supposed to be taken out, but it comes up every once and a while.

[Video]

damn i typed a whole lot of stuff and it got deleted cause cookes expired .

anyway i used to flash atari all the time

http://www.eeggs.com/tree/563.html

pinball machines are subposed to be nudged our 1936 kennys clover pinball machine w nickel slot and 5 balls no flippers had a tilt and the only way you could get it to do what you wanted was to nudge it since it didnt have flippers the tilt prevented it from being jostled to mutch..

Wow....People that don't know the difference between flipperless pinball (yeah, that's what they were called, and how they were played) and flippered pinball, and the fact that they are played differently are kinda interesting.

 

Bet your one of those who also doesn't know the difference between Football and Rugby, or Pool and Nine ball (or any number of other games that have the same roots but are different games)

[brojamfootball]

Right or wrong, nudging a pinball machine is a "dangerous" trick, and obviously "pretty cool" for folks to be so amped up about it.

 

Sooo, can we move on now please and get back to this interesting thread?

[retrorussell]

Right or wrong, nudging a pinball machine is a "dangerous" trick, and obviously "pretty cool" for folks to be so amped up about it.

 

Sooo, can we move on now please and get back to this interesting thread?

Sure! Back to Atari 2600 frying..

A good one from Cosmic Ark; frying can cause all the meteors to come from the left. How easy is that?

On Dragonfire, fry until the castle is black and white. The dragons shoot much fewer fireballs and if you touch a treasure and don't move you keep collecting points nonstop.

In H.E.R.O. fry till there's only a spider and miner showing, then let the power run out. You will have hundreds of extra lives.

[darthkur]

Yes, it's called "frying". This can often yield crazy benefits.

 

I accidentally found "Stage 0" on Miner 2049er (Atari 800) by frying. I was only able to bring it up only a few times. I remember writing the company and they acknowledged it and said it was supposed to be taken out, but it comes up every once and a while.

 

 

This is the first I've ever heard of that. What is it like? Is there any more info about this anywhere? I did a search but didn't come across anything. I would love to see this but there's no way I'm going to risk killing my 800 over it.

[Video]

Yes, it's called "frying". This can often yield crazy benefits.

 

I accidentally found "Stage 0" on Miner 2049er (Atari 800) by frying. I was only able to bring it up only a few times. I remember writing the company and they acknowledged it and said it was supposed to be taken out, but it comes up every once and a while.

 

 

This is the first I've ever heard of that. What is it like? Is there any more info about this anywhere? I did a search but didn't come across anything. I would love to see this but there's no way I'm going to risk killing my 800 over it.

Out of curiosity, is stage zero actually beatable?

[+FujiSkunk]

I added memory to a Macintosh once.

 

Seriously, the manuals used to tell you that only authorized Macintosh repair shops should add memory to a Mac.

[Lauren Tyler]

On the original Playstation, you could insert a pencil eraser into the hole that held the disc lid sensor. That would allow you to get the system to boot partway, and then swap discs to a burned copy or a foreign game to get that to boot, the machine thinking the disc lid was closed the whole time. It was kinda tricky but worked.

 

Really? What kind of eraser? The pointed ones that you attach to pencils, or just a standard pencil eraser?

 

Also, do you need to load another game first?

[SnapCraft]

Yes, it's called "frying". This can often yield crazy benefits.

 

I accidentally found "Stage 0" on Miner 2049er (Atari 800) by frying. I was only able to bring it up only a few times. I remember writing the company and they acknowledged it and said it was supposed to be taken out, but it comes up every once and a while.

 

 

This is the first I've ever heard of that. What is it like? Is there any more info about this anywhere? I did a search but didn't come across anything. I would love to see this but there's no way I'm going to risk killing my 800 over it.

Out of curiosity, is stage zero actually beatable?

 

Yes. It was easier (possible?) than Stage 1. It is absolutely true. I still have the letter. I'm doing some summer cleaning, if I come around to it I'll scan it and post it (I was happy they responded even though it was only 2 sentences).

 

It was very difficult to repeat. I remember sitting for a long time ON-OFF-ON-OFF waiting for it to come back.

 

Of course I don't remember the details of the stage, but it was there. Is it possible to emulate it?

[mos6507]

Who thought up the idea that you were supposed to bash the crap out of a pinball game?

 

It seems reasonable to me. If you don't do this the trajectory of the ball is much too deterministic. Being able to nudge the cab just right, but not so much to trigger the tilt sensor, is a real technique.

[brojamfootball]

On the original Playstation, you could insert a pencil eraser into the hole that held the disc lid sensor. That would allow you to get the system to boot partway, and then swap discs to a burned copy or a foreign game to get that to boot, the machine thinking the disc lid was closed the whole time. It was kinda tricky but worked.

 

Really? What kind of eraser? The pointed ones that you attach to pencils, or just a standard pencil eraser?

 

Also, do you need to load another game first?

The kind that comes on a standard yellow pencil, or anything for that matter that will fit. Break it off and shove it in the disc lid sensor hole. Boot a game, it'll show splash screen, then disc stops spinning for just a few seconds--that is your chance to quickly swap discs. A little dangerous but it works. Only for the original full sized gray Playstation--PSX.

[Video]

Cool to know about Miner (I'm still not real sure the first level is even beatable, is why I asked. People apparently love it though, so it must be, just not sure what to do...

 

On the original Playstation, you could insert a pencil eraser into the hole that held the disc lid sensor. That would allow you to get the system to boot partway, and then swap discs to a burned copy or a foreign game to get that to boot, the machine thinking the disc lid was closed the whole time. It was kinda tricky but worked.

 

Really? What kind of eraser? The pointed ones that you attach to pencils, or just a standard pencil eraser?

 

Also, do you need to load another game first?

The kind that comes on a standard yellow pencil, or anything for that matter that will fit. Break it off and shove it in the disc lid sensor hole. Boot a game, it'll show splash screen, then disc stops spinning for just a few seconds--that is your chance to quickly swap discs. A little dangerous but it works. Only for the original full sized gray Playstation--PSX.

 

I remember the importer devicees all had a spring and plug that went int he hole, the only real difference afaik, is that the import device stopped the drive untill you pushed a button, rather than relying on a quick swap.

 

One of my friends had that, but lost the spring, so I just jammed a wadded piece of paper in the hole and broke off the lids tab we played it for years that way untill the power supply died.

[yuppicide]

One time when I was in highschool there was a kid who had a jar full of quarters. I asked where he got them and he got them from the dollar bill machine. It seems you made a notch in a dollar bill in a certain slot and really crumpled up the bill you'd get your dollar plus 4 quarters back. Only worked on certain machines. Could never get it to work myself and I tried a few.

[retrorussell]

Tricks that give you extra money are the best tricks ever invented!

[awace]

damn i typed a whole lot of stuff and it got deleted cause cookes expired .

anyway i used to flash atari all the time

http://www.eeggs.com/tree/563.html

pinball machines are subposed to be nudged our 1936 kennys clover pinball machine w nickel slot and 5 balls no flippers had a tilt and the only way you could get it to do what you wanted was to nudge it since it didnt have flippers the tilt prevented it from being jostled to mutch..

Wow....People that don't know the difference between flipperless pinball (yeah, that's what they were called, and how they were played) and flippered pinball, and the fact that they are played differently are kinda interesting.

 

Bet your one of those who also doesn't know the difference between Football and Rugby, or Pool and Nine ball (or any number of other games that have the same roots but are different games)

I hope u wernt pointing that at me i was talking about nudging pinball is part of playing.

I was refering to the fact that flipperless pinball had a TILT the tilt was inventet to be nudged. you know even on a new machine there is a tolerance for tilt the hanging tilt no longer insta tilts it electronicly gives you three shorts of the tilt before actually tilting so in a sence there is MORE LEWAY in the way a pinball machine tilts I dont know why someone would bitch about a pinball machine tilting unless they were half joking like i am just to spark cool conversations about pinball witch I love I always played the ATARI Hurculese pinball at the state fair even though it was expensive I probably would have just handed TODD a $20 just to play 4 games of huge pinball and a couple of mrs pacman credits but i just paid the the normal way . I did spend $2 dollar coins on golden tee golf this was the last year that sumit amuzement ran the arcade this sucked cause the next year the arcade was almost empty and there were no more outside on the SAND pinball machines in a tent witch to me was the greatest pinball machine experince of my youth to goto the state fair and play pinball with some of the best players around plus those machines were so old but they were cool .

I also am confuzed about youre question about how to play flipperless pinball I had one machine ok my dad had it it was called KENNYS CLOVER it was cool my dad got rid of it cause he thought i was going to electrocde my self whell i was merely waiting to find a place to get the cloth wire to fix it WHELL HE THREW THE WHOLE THING AWAY we kept the back glass I wanted the whole machine .

to bad now i know i could have gone to a LAMP REPAIR shop to get the wire needed to rewire every single wire in it hmm I think i need PIZZA AND A solder gun a vom and some masking tape cause i think im going to fix that pinball machine in hopkins I know the place to get the jumper wire i need..

oh YES LAST NIGHT AGAIN i was up almost all night at least i got 4 hours the night before 2 hours but today is the 3rd day so ill be back to normal again had to work till 4am saturday again last week and this week it made me HYPER.