So, I was playing Robotron, when suddenly...

[big10p]

...it crashed!!!

Screen turned a funny colour, then it did the multi-coloured screen wipe you get when the game boots, then I got text saying factory settings restored and Hi scores reset! NOOOooooooooooo! 

Anyone else had Robotron crash in MAME (think I have before but it didn't reset everything)? Is this something to do with MAME or a known 'feature' of Robotron?

[mgb]

check this out. May help
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=108889.0

If it were a real Robotron board Id say the CPU batteries are leaking.

[big10p]

I'll take a look. Thanks for the link.

[8BitMonk]

check this out. May help
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=108889.0

If it were a real Robotron board Id say the CPU batteries are leaking.

Yep, sounds like the Enforcer Bug.

The enforcer bug is when an enforcer is in the lower right corner and you shoot it diagonal there is a 1 in 3000 chance the game will reset.
The reason for the game resetting is there is a bug in the diagonal explosion code for enforcers.  The memory below the screen hold the
stack and an unclipped pixel can get 'drawn' into the stack cause the game to lock and the watchdog to kick in and reset the system.

Didn't know there was a patch for it, cool.

I play a lot of Robotron on my cab and have had the reset happen many times though I don't think it ever wiped my high scores. Never fails to happen to me in the middle of an epic game where I'm kicking ass though.    

[big10p]

check this out. May help
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=108889.0

If it were a real Robotron board Id say the CPU batteries are leaking.

Yep, sounds like the Enforcer Bug.

The enforcer bug is when an enforcer is in the lower right corner and you shoot it diagonal there is a 1 in 3000 chance the game will reset.
The reason for the game resetting is there is a bug in the diagonal explosion code for enforcers.  The memory below the screen hold the
stack and an unclipped pixel can get 'drawn' into the stack cause the game to lock and the watchdog to kick in and reset the system.

Didn't know there was a patch for it, cool.

I play a lot of Robotron on my cab and have had the reset happen many times though I don't think it ever wiped my high scores. Never fails to happen to me in the middle of an epic game where I'm kicking ass though.    

Interesting. Overwriting the stack will never end well. 

[8BitMonk]

They say the chance is 1 in 3000 but I swear if you're having a great game the chances quadruple.

[mgb]

They say the chance is 1 in 3000 but I swear if you're having a great game the chances quadruple.

That explains why it's never happened to me.
I'm always sucking at it.

[8BitMonk]

They say the chance is 1 in 3000 but I swear if you're having a great game the chances quadruple.

That explains why it's never happened to me.
I'm always sucking at it.

  l I used to hate it in the arcades cause the games were over too quick. Now that I have my own machine I'm getting decent at it.

[big10p]

Yeah, I didn't play it much in the arcades because of the short games. I love it now I can play as much as I want, but I'm still pretty bad at it. Think my hi score (before it got wiped) was a bit under 400k