What game was this?

[RetroBorg]

I am trying to remember an arcade game I played too many years ago and was hoping someone here would know it's name.  It was from memory a black and white game where you play a gunslinger or sheriff that is slowly walking down the main street of an old western town when some bad dude would run out from one of the buildings or side street and you had to quikly draw a light gun six shooter and out draw the bad dude. I've had a look through the game emulated in MAME and can't see it. Any idea guys?

[Magnet_Eye]

Boot Hill or Gun Fight maybe...

 

[shumph]

i know what this is but damned if i can remember i know it is in mame though cause its on my cab, when i get home ill run through game list.

[Scott84]

Wild Gunman?

[RetroBorg]

Definately not Boot Hill, Gunfight or Wild Gunman guys, thanks for trying though. From memory I reckon this game probably  be pre Space Invaders. In this game you couldn't control your character, from memory you hit a big flashing button to start and within a second the bad dude runs out into the middle of the street from the saloon or something so then you quickly reach for your six shooter from the holder on the machine and quickdraw the bad dude.  

I had to go to some expo with my parents one night because they were working on a stall there and I was left to wander around all night and I spent all night watching this game and going back to my parents trying to get 20c to play it, after about 4 hours of me nagging them they finally gave me 20c to play it. My game was over in about 10 seconds and I didn't get close to killing anyone.

I have never seen this game again, I've looked through Mame32 in year order and I'm sure it's not there and haven't had any luck looking through Klov either.

[Tiger-Heli]

Have a look here:http://www.mameworld.net/discrete/

No promises, but if it's pre-Space Invaders, it might not have a CPU.

[RetroBorg]

Have a look here:http://www.mameworld.net/discrete/

No promises, but if it's pre-Space Invaders, it might not have a CPU.

Unfortunately didn't recognize anything there either, thanks for the help though Tiger-Heli.

[Larry Smith]

I think the game remember is Outlaw. It had discreet logic so don't expect it to be emulated soon. The flyer is here.
http://www.arcadeflyers.com/index.php?page=flyerdb&subpage=thumbs&id=760

[SirPoonga]

If it used a lightgun get something that will filter out the lightgun games in mame and start looking:)  If mame.dk was up you could do a quick search and narrow down by the fact that it is an older game.

[RetroBorg]

I think the game remember is Outlaw. It had discreet logic so don't expect it to be emulated soon. The flyer is here.
http://www.arcadeflyers.com/index.php?page=flyerdb&subpage=thumbs&id=760

Larry, you the man, that's it. It's a pity it isn't emulated I would like a chance to kill at least one those bad dudes.

Thanks mate.

Retro

[RetroBorg]

I think the game remember is Outlaw. It had discreet logic so don't expect it to be emulated soon. The flyer is here.
http://www.arcadeflyers.com/index.php?page=flyerdb&subpage=thumbs&id=760

Hey Larry or anyone else,

Whats the story with discreet logic, are Pong and Monaco GP like this aswell?  Why is this a problem with getting these games emulated?

On another note, have you played this game Larry or anyone else, I worked out I must been 9 or 10 years old when I played this game just once. It's probably no good, but I'd like to play it again just for nostalgia sake.

[paigeoliver]

THe problem with discrete logic games is that there is nothing to emulate.

Most games use one or more computer processors. Those processors have instructions sets. When you emulate a processor you are basically just emulating the intruction set of that processor (simple explanation, it is more complicated of course).

Discrete logic games have no processor. They just have wires, capacitors, resistors, integrated circuits, and sometimes ROMS. They can be simulated, but never emulated.

To simulate one you would have to basically "write" the entire boardset in software. Not an easy task.

Really, with those discrete games it would probably be a lot easier to dump the graphics data from the roms (if it uses them, most after 1975 do), and then just carefully examine the game and then just make a PC program that does the same thing.

But, there are three major catches with doing it that way.

#1 It won't be exactly the same as the original game. (The Mame Pong driver is not the same as a real Pong). A really dedicated programmer given enough time could probably almost make it perfect though.

#2 Most black & white games are so incredibly ungodly rare (or completely extinct), that they just aren't around for a programmer to examine and then clone.

#3. It couldn't go in Mame because it wasn't emulation. Although if the "program" was written for an emulated processor, rather than for PC, then you could hack in a driver.

I know a bit about this subject because there was a time when there were only 2 known Shark Jaws boardsets in the world. One resided in the Shark Jaws machine at the Videotopia exhibit, and the other one belonged to me. I had it for years, and had no way to play it. I talked to a few game programmers, and one of them told me that the best he could do was to reimplent the game from the (rather detailed) gameplay descriptions in the game manual. But it simply wouldn't be the same.

Imagine trying to write the game Berzerk using only a set of screenshots and a detailed description of the gameplay. Sure it would LOOK like Berzerk. The robots would be there, and Evil Otto would come out, but it would be all wrong. Otto wouldn't move the same, the robots wouldn't have the same behavior. It wouldn't generate the same rooms, etc, etc.

[Tiger-Heli]

#3. It couldn't go in Mame because it wasn't emulation. Although if the "program" was written for an emulated processor, rather than for PC, then you could hack in a driver.

Emphasis on "hack in a driver",  no way official MAME will support "PaigeOliver's version of Outlaw running on Scramble hardware", for example.  Although it would be the type of thing to add to misfitMAME or PacMAME.

[paigeoliver]

#3. It couldn't go in Mame because it wasn't emulation. Although if the "program" was written for an emulated processor, rather than for PC, then you could hack in a driver.

Emphasis on "hack in a driver",  no way official MAME will support "PaigeOliver's version of Outlaw running on Scramble hardware", for example.  Although it would be the type of thing to add to misfitMAME or PacMAME.

Hee hee. If I was going to do it I would use Neo Geo, Vs. Unisystem,  Playchoice, Sac-1, Deco Cassette, or Jaleco Mega System 32 hardware. That way I could get a bit of a return on my time investment by making a few cartridges/cassettes of the game for sale on ebay!

[Tiger-Heli]

#3. It couldn't go in Mame because it wasn't emulation. Although if the "program" was written for an emulated processor, rather than for PC, then you could hack in a driver.

Emphasis on "hack in a driver",  no way official MAME will support "PaigeOliver's version of Outlaw running on Scramble hardware", for example.  Although it would be the type of thing to add to misfitMAME or PacMAME.

Hee hee. If I was going to do it I would use Neo Geo, Vs. Unisystem,  Playchoice, Sac-1, Deco Cassette, or Jaleco Mega System 32 hardware. That way I could get a bit of a return on my time investment by making a few cartridges/cassettes of the game for sale on ebay!

LOL, well if you did THAT, then I suppose it could accurately be considered a commercial arcade game, and maybe it would be added to official MAME!!! :-)

[paigeoliver]

#3. It couldn't go in Mame because it wasn't emulation. Although if the "program" was written for an emulated processor, rather than for PC, then you could hack in a driver.

Emphasis on "hack in a driver",  no way official MAME will support "PaigeOliver's version of Outlaw running on Scramble hardware", for example.  Although it would be the type of thing to add to misfitMAME or PacMAME.

Hee hee. If I was going to do it I would use Neo Geo, Vs. Unisystem,  Playchoice, Sac-1, Deco Cassette, or Jaleco Mega System 32 hardware. That way I could get a bit of a return on my time investment by making a few cartridges/cassettes of the game for sale on ebay!

LOL, well if you did THAT, then I suppose it could accurately be considered a commercial arcade game, and maybe it would be added to official MAME!!! :-)

At which point I would sue the developers!  

Ok, not really.

Wouldn't it be ironic if it ends up being one of those Mahjong games that gets Mame shut down?

[Larry Smith]

I've played the game a few times but not to many. I'm a few years older than you so I can remember a few more of those old discrete logic games (my Fave was Biplane).
Some of the other games I remember fondly from that time were F1, Indy 4, Breakout, Stunt cycle, and Night Driver (yes I know it's in mame).
The local amusement park at that time had all these games and more plus a lot of older analog coin-op games. Perhaps the reason me and my friends didn't play more of Outlaw was because if we wanted a gun game there was an analog coin-op game that was called (if my memory serves) The Stripper. Basicly you shot a light gun at a moving target mounted on a picture of a woman. Each time you hit the target the picture changed to a slightly more sexy one. If you hit it enough times it would be PG-13 material (What 12 or 13 year old boy is going to play Outlaw instead of that).

Don't Electrical engineers use sophisticated modelling software to 'emulate' circuits to test them? Is the problem with using this approach to emulate discrete logic games the complexity of the games (ie modern computers are to slow to run the game at a decent speed) or is the modelling software not good enough to emulate/simulate these games. I know that this has been asked before on other forums but I can't find or remember the answer; and don't want to start a flame war about what should/shouldn't be in Mame.

[RetroBorg]

Thanks guys for answering my questions, I too would have played "The Stripper" in prefence to "Outlaw" but I never saw that game, geez I would even play that one now if someone would emulate that.

[Tiger-Heli]

Don't Electrical engineers use sophisticated modelling software to 'emulate' circuits to test them? Is the problem with using this approach to emulate discrete logic games the complexity of the games (ie modern computers are to slow to run the game at a decent speed) or is the modelling software not good enough to emulate/simulate these games. I know that this has been asked before on other forums but I can't find or remember the answer; and don't want to start a flame war about what should/shouldn't be in Mame.

Neither one actually,

First off, Outlaw is listed at www.mameworld.net/discrete, although I can see how the IP missed it the first time around.  Second, Night Driver is not listed, so I have to believe it is just an early black/white arcade game, hence it is in MAME.

Complexity of the games - Do you really think a computer that plays Afterburner, or MK or NBA JAM wouldn't be able to handle Tank, or Outlaw, or any of the other discrete games?  That's not the problem.

And if you can reverse engineer a Z80 chip (like MAME has) I don't think reverse engineering Tank or Outlaw is a great challenge.

The problem is it was a design decision by the MAME dev team (actually, I think Nicola personally) that MAME was about emulation and not simulation and discrete logic fell under simulation.

The actual points on this are debatable, but I don't think the dev's will change their mind.

And that creates a new problem, in that someone might very well write a program to allow you to play these games, but if it's not included in MAME, many people will never hear about it.