Astro Blaster freeplay / high score save

[philmurr]

I started work on this over a year ago but happy to say the Astro Blaster freeplay (maintains attract mode) and high
score save is finally working. Finished the test loom this morning and fixed some bugs so all works as it should. Uses my latest Z80 HSS board which saves the high scores to serial EEPROM, and another board I
designed to bypass the Sega protection chip (which gets removed).

No fancy menus, just select freeplay with one of the otherwise unused
DIP switches, 10-position high score table saving permanently enabled, clear the high score
table by holding fire on power-up. Displays "FREEPLAY" at the bottom of
the screen in freeplay mode but other than that everything is identical to the original.

The game code is encrypted which delayed things a bit but is now decrypted with the additional features and on a single ROM meaning you can also remove the ROM board from the stack

 

[edwoodjnr]

Well done Phil, a great game and cool hack

 

[Funhouse71]

One of my favourite games back in the day...great work...keep them coming

 

[Kingpin]

I just want to say a really big thank you to Phil for taking the time and making this happen (I was at least one of those people letting Phil know every now and then that this kit was much needed

).

Now me and some friends have this installed in our Astro Blaster cabinets and we enjoy free play and highscore saves and, not only a "ROM saver" but a whole "ROM PCB saver" which is good for the heat and power requirements (and if you have a faulty PCB or (E)PROMs/sockets).

Astro Blaster - a great game and now combined with a great kit!