Stern Moon War

[TOK]

Picked this machine up last week. It was advertised as non working with scrambled video. Between when the ad was written and when I picked it up, the problem had changed from garbage on the screen to a ROM failure.
This is a really unusual game, and despite being an arcade rat pretty much completely through the 80's I had never seen one.

The game is in very nice condition. Its from 1981 and appears to be completely original except for the power supply.


It has the stenciled Stern sideart in very good condition.


Here is the control panel. It has a roller controller similar to a dedicated Major Havoc, except narrower.


The game has been dumped in MAME and is totally playable with a standard spinner. To be honest, I don't find the gameplay to be fantastic, but I consider this machine unusual and compelling enough to warrant not hacking it up. Plan is to get it going, play it for a while, then either trade or keep it depending on if playing it on "real" hardware wins me over.

[TOK]

Searched for a manual for this game with no luck. Best I could do was find out the hardware is similar to Super Cobra and Scramble, so I snagged the manuals for those.


Its two boards stacked, and the marked ROM was on the lower board. In a major stroke of luck, the ROMs were marked on the lower board. I'm not sure the Super Cobra schematics would have helped me. Even though the net info says they are the same, the layouts vs. the schematics seems quite different.

I removed the problem ROM and unzipped the MAME archive for Moonwar and found the appropriate ROM. I contacted someone who can burn the ROMs for me, and thats kind of where I'm at right now.


The other thing I'm going to be up against here is if the board checks them in sequence and stops upon failure. That means if there is another problem ROM, I won't know about it until the new one passes. I guess what I'll do is plan on getting just the initial failed ROM and if I run into another problem I will just buy a whole set.

Here is the back and side of the oddball roller:

[RayB]

  Very cool. A rarity for sure.

(rant: I never understood how Stern could get such cool marquee, bezel and control panel art done, but then settled for side-art that looked like it was designed by a 4 year old.)

PS: DId you check that the voltages are correct and stable?

[TOK]

When I first started really checking it out, I checked and cleaned the edge connector, ribbon cable and looked at voltage. The +5 was set at 4.1 volts. I gradually moved it up to 5 then even a bit over to see if the game would make it through the test, but no such luck!

I kind of like the Stern side art, but purely for the memories it evokes. They did nice stenciled side art on some of the Scrambles, but I've also seen other ones with the same Stern stencil that is on my machine. The KLOV entry actually shows both.

[uolarethian]

I loaded the rom up in mame and its feels like a cross between asteroids and defender. I had to upload the flyer, enjoy.

[TOK]

That chick winds up waving her ass at me everywhere I post about this machine. Too bad its probably hanging down by the back of her knees 30 years later!  

I got the ROM burnt, should ship tomorrow!

This is going so smoothly, I'm starting to get nervous.

[Spyridon]

Never saw that game before.  Interesting control panel.  Definitely unique.

[opt2not]

That Marquee artwork is gorgeous!

That's a neat looking dial on the control panel as well. I never heard of this game before, but it looks interestingly fast, and very hard!

[TOK]

I searched and also found that video before I had a chance to try it in MAME. Its not totally representative of gameplay, since it appears the guy playing doesn't have good control of his ship (its also stretched, making it look kind of weird). Maybe he was trying to play it with a stick.

I played it with a spinner and it worked, but I'm looking forward to trying it with the actual roller. Hoping the ROM gets here early this week and that turns out to be the sole board issue.

[TOK]

I replaced the ROM that was causing the error in the self test and the game now boots but sticks at the high score screen. Its behavior is actually kind of puzzling... In regular mode it won't coin up at all, in freeplay mode hitting Player 1 takes you to the diagnostic screen, hitting Player 2 takes it through the self test and dumps you back to the high score screen. The game never enters the attract mode like it does in MAME after about 20 seconds. Kicking myself in the ass right now for not just getting a full set of ROMs for it. 

[TOK]

It lives!
Still have an audio issue, but its totally playable now. I'm 90% of the way there.

[opt2not]

 
Nicely done!