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4,440 machines: 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Manufacturers | Top 100 Videogames | Visit The International Arcade Museum for 13297 coin-operated listings. |
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4,440 machines: 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Manufacturers | Top 100 Videogames | Visit The International Arcade Museum for 13297 coin-operated listings. |
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Manufacturer:
Gottlieb Year: 1982 Class: Wide Release Genre: Platform Type: Videogame Monitor:
Number of Simultaneous Players: 1 Maximum number of Players: 2 Gameplay: Alternating Control Panel Layout: Single Player Controls:
Sound: Amplified Mono (one channel) |
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Q*bert DescriptionA two-legged, big-nosed, orange creature jumps diagonally around on a pyramid, changing the color of the blocks he lands on. Avoid most moving objects and characters while luring Coily, the snake, to his demise by jumping off the edge of the pyramid onto one of the flying disks. The game has nine levels of four rounds each.Know anything more about this game? Cabinet InformationThe dedicated upright cabinets include a 'knocker' solenoid that activates whenever a character falls off the pyramid. The effect creates a rather loud "knock!" inside the cabinet whenever the device is activated. The solenoid is the same type that was used in many older pinball machines to indicate that a free game had been awarded.ConversionThe main PCB can be configured to play both Q*bert and Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert. This can be performed via a ROM swap with some basic wiring to a switch.Game IntroductionThe orange character who you control in this game is Q*bert. The purple characters are your enemies and their names are Coily (the spring-like snake), Ugg (the pig-like creature) and Wrong-Way (the sharp-toothed creature who moves upside down). The friendly green creatures are named Slick (the one with the dark glasses) and Sam (the one with the white bulging eyes).Game PlayYou must have Q*bert hop on all the squares of each pyramid and change them into the color that they are required to be. Everytime Q*bert is hit by something, he says "@!#?@!". You must be careful and be sure that Q*bert does not fall off the pyramid.As the attract mode explains, green is safe, nothing else is. There are three different green things that appear. Unless the enemies prevent you, you will want to make it a point to collect anything green. On each side of the pyramids, there are discs that Q*bert can use to escape from the bad guys. Everytime Q*bert jumps onto a disc, it will carry him back to the top of the pyramid. It is best to use a disc whenever Coily is close behind, so when Q*bert uses a disc at that moment, Coily will jump off of the pyramid. Killing Coily also clears the board of enemies (very handy). You must have all squares changed to the required color to proceed to the next round. After all four rounds on a level are completed, you will proceed to the next level. On the first level, you only need to jump on a square once to make it the correct color. At level two, you need to jump on them twice. At level three, you only need to jump once, but jumping on a square already at its target color changes it back! At level four, two jumps are required and jumping on a target color changes it to the intermediary color, requiring you to jump on it once more to change it back. At level five, jumping on a target color changes it back to the original color. It just gets harder from there as you may need to jump on a square three times or more. Also, as the game progresses, the pace gets faster. By about level six, you will be going about twice as fast as at level one. Level nine repeats infinitely. MiscellaneousThis game was licensed to Konami for Japanese manufacture and distribution.The game was also sold as a bootleg version by Jeutel in France. Some of the manufactured boards were simple conversions from Jeutel's Q*bert bootleg boards, with some very basic hardware modifications. One of the main differences between Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert and the original is that the flying disks on the sides of the pyramids change positions randomly throughout the game play. There is also a bonus round after levels two and five. VAPS Arcade CensusGAMES OWNED, WANTED, or FOR SALE BY MEMBERS OF THE VIDEO ARCADE PRESERVATION SOCIETYVery Common - There are 213 known instances of Q*bert owned by one of our 900 members. Of these, 181 of them are original dedicated machines, 3 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet, and 29 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired. Wanted - Very Popular - There are 33 VAPS members currently looking for Q*bert. For Sale - There are 11 VAPS members with Q*bert machines for sale. There is one VAPS member with an extra Q*bert circuit board for sale. VAPS members are totally independent of VAPS and the International Arcade Museum, and we are unable to recommend, endorce, or guarantee any person or company selling games or game parts. Rarity is NOT necessarily an indication of value. Some common games show up as very rare here because collectors don't want them (they are common because arcade operators might be sitting on tons of them in warehouses), while some fairly scarce games are grabbed by collectors every time they show up. Additionally, some games made in the last 5 years are still making money for operators and are thus not yet affordable to the typical collector. For a clue to value, compare how many people have this game vs. how many people want this game and then click on the eBay links to help determine an accurate price range. TechnicalThe Gottlieb design used for this game features an Intel 8086 CPU at 5MHz along with a Motorola 6502 at 894.886kHz to create sound effects via a DAC. Q*Bert and Reactor both use the SC-01 speech synthesizer, although in the case of Q*Bert, it is never used for any kind of coherent speech. All the speech is generated by making the chip play random sounds at a specific pitch.TriviaSeveral early units were shipped with "@!#?@!" on the marquee instead of "Q*bert". Part of this game's unique charm is the pure gibberish that comes out of the machine's speech synthesizer.There was an erroneous rumor going around that the designer of the Furby is the original programmer of Q*bert. This is untrue. The original Q*bert arcade game was designed and programmed by Warren Davis with graphics by Jeff Lee and sounds by David Thiel. The designer of the Furby may have been one of the programmers of a Q*bert conversion to a home system (such as the Atari 2600), hence the confusion. Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert never went into production and no dedicated cabinets are known to exist. FixesThe game suffers from a high sound chip failure rate probably because the LM379 audio amp is rated at 28 VDC and the power supply pumps 30 VDC through it. Replace the 30 volt Zener diode on the regulator board with a 27 volt Zener, equal to or greater in wattage. This should help prolong the life of the audio amp.eBay ListingsClick here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for the Q*bert Videogame machine and items related to it.Click here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for machines and parts made by Gottlieb. Alternatively, check out the IAM/KLOV custom report of the hottest coin-op machines on eBay, powered by Ace.com (updated throughoutthe day).
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