Shorty after I got my Star Castle up and running I picked up a busted Ripoff boardset and an Armor Attack control panel. By swapping sound boards, ROMs, and control panels I was able to play Ripoff on my Star Castle machine! Cinematronics used similar hardware in 14 or so Vector games they made. As a result, it's possible to play many of their games using a single cabinet.
I've been collecting sound and CPU boards for a few months now. I've managed to convert my machine to play Solar Quest and Space Wars. I don't have the 64 Level Intensity board that makes the display on Solar Quest so cool, though, and I don't have an 'authentic' sound board for Space Wars. I've actually been getting doubles of some of the Cinematronics boards - just 'cause I enjoy fixing them, but because I'm hoping to use them as 'trade bait' for some of the boards that I don't have!
Control panels are a bit problematic, too. Although Ripoff and Armor Attack share the same CP's, the controls for the three other games that I can play on my machine have little in common with each other. I've gotten around this by making a couple small 'adaptors' that go between the Armor Attack panel and the CPU board, remapping the keys from one game to work with another. This works well, but sometimes there just isn't a button where you want one to be! As a result I'm building a 'generic' control panel that has more buttons than I need for any single game, and has 'em laid out in an arrangement that's more to my liking. Combined with my adaptors this should result in an 'ideal' control arrangement for several of the Cinematronics games using a single panel!
Copyright © 2000, Larry
Dworsky. All rights reserved.
Last revised: April 05, 2000.