TAITO Defender

I've never seen Smash Tv before. It has a Robotron look about it?

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And disagree is good. I'm just out to give the pluses and minuses of what I saw and others may see things differently.

 

I enjoy hearing others perspectives and if he wants leafs, that's fine by me. I was never a real fan of videos myself however, I did have a few and Defender was one of my favourites but never in the arcades, only when I had it in a cocktail in my lounge room.

 

It was set as factory settings as I like to keep all my machines so I think that is 3 men and one smart bomb I think and a new smart bomb every 10,000.

 

I had that machine for about 9 months before I sold it to my mate and his wife, he died, and she has it to this day and won't part with it, I have tried.

 

Now if I remember correctly my high scores were around 225,000 at one stage but I actually think that went up to around 850,000 shortly before I moved it on but don't quite me on that. The 225,000 mark I most definitely got regularly.

 

Probably a better way to judge what score seeing as you are still very familiar with it was the main reason I did move it on was because one game was lasting around two-3 hours.

 

What score is most likely at a game time like that?.

 

I'm sure you are well aware after you start getting multiple stars or pods I think they call them, if you go through and shoot each one once filling the screen with swarmers after the star is broken I think they call them, you reverse back through them a couple of time to concentrate there numbers and then smart bomb the screen and pretty much get a smart bomb back immediately if not two so up in the high levels you are basically playing using smart bombs and just tidying up the few remainders by shooting them.

 

Well that was my major strategy but shit, that was over 20 years ago now.:)

I don't doubt that you were a good player Autosteve but I think your memory of the game is possibly a bit hazy, default is 3 men and 3 smart bombs with extras every 10k. A score of 225k is very good especially on a cocktail which is much harder to play than an upright cab, I don't think any of the masters play on cocktails. To progress from 225k to 850k takes massive dedication, even players with the fastest firepower and twitch skills would take many months of playing an hour or more every day to hone the skills to do that, it took me nearly two years to get to 1mill. But perhaps you did it much faster, if so then big kudos to you :)

As far as your strategy above, it is impossible to score 20k using one smart bomb, pods are worth 1k to break and you get 4 of them max per round. Most people smart bomb the pods at the start of the stage when they are grouped for maximum points and to make the stage easier. Shooting the pods first is a strategy to save smarts, but not used to maximise points and it makes things harder, yep you can group the swarmers as you describe that is correct.

I don't know of anyone who has scored that high (850k) on a cocktail, I guess some people have and it's an interesting question that I will pose to WDPU. (I will post the answer here later)

It takes about an hour of play (depending one how many humanoids you save on average) to clock Defender at 1 million points so to play for 3 hours you would be clocking it three times in one game which generally only marathon players bother doing. When you get to 990k you enter the "goldilocks zone" where you get a free man and smart bomb for everything you shoot, when you smartbomb a pod at this stage the game will "scream" as it struggles through the multiple extra man sound effects, a very cool sound :) Then after the score goes back to zero you don't get ANY free men until you actually earn all the ones you just got, which normally takes you back to about 200k before you get any extras thus making managing your deaths and points per ship just as important as it was before clocking. Is that sounding familiar?

I will never forget the first time I saw someone clock Defender BITD which inspired me to strive for the same goal MANY years later.

To most people clocking it is a very real and hard earned gaming achievement, I celebrated by getting a Williams tattoo :) I only managed to clock it a couple more times and didn't reach the skill level required to do it every time I played. I still enjoy the occasional game but as soon as I stop playing regularly (at least 3 times a week) my skills drop to the point where 500k is a good game for me.

If you clocked it without even remembering then you must be an all round awesome player who just takes such achievements in their stride, if that's the case I tip my hat sir :cool:

I've never seen Smash Tv before. It has a Robotron look about it?

 

 

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We had one which was rare. Normally we would take about 10 of everything. It earned good money because it had a continue ability Defender didn't and it was $1 a game, not 20c, 40c a game like Defender.

Midway did a game obviously using the same game board..Total Carnage

Your right about sitting and standing when playing machines @Rat, but I think it depends on which one you learnt on. I learnt to play pacman and scramble on sit downs and find it hard to play them standing up. So @Autosteve might have learnt to play Defender on a cocktail. I was surprised to hear how much practice it took you to get that good, that makes me scared that when I get mine fixed I might never get good again.[emoji25]. When we were teenagers it was just another machine to learn and get good at. Most of my mates were good too, but we were continually moving on to the next new machine, because at that time from space invaders onwards, the public were smashed with new titles and not enough paper run money to play them all. Ha.

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Time flies, it was 3 years ago now that I clocked it so I was 46yrs old then and yes it's harder for us to play at that level than when we were teenagers, that said my Defender high score was about 100k then and I found it chewed through my coins too fast so I focused on other games that I could get much more value for my money on.

I watched heaps of gameplay tutorials from the masters on WDPU and used their tips to tweak my own style of play. I struggle to isolate the the fire and thrust buttons and keep a fast flutter on the fire independant of what my other finger is doing on thrust if you know what I mean. My over all firepower speed is also a bit lacking compared to many of the masters and I can't fire fast enough to create game slowdown usually. I would say that is mostly what keeps me from being able to reach the skill level of being able to clock it consistently.

From what I have read most people who clocked it BITD find they can regain their skills after practice, it's players like me who never reached that level BITD and try to do it now that struggle much more. I think that is due to the difference in having to lay down new synapsis in an older bain that has lost some synaptic plasticity vs retraining a brain that has done it before.

I hear what you are saying about cocktail vs upright but IMO pacman and scramble are MUCH easier to play on a cocktail than defender.

Good to hear there are still Defender addicts out there actually. Not many video games had legs longer than a few months and most that did were fighters.

As for my score, I never got to clock it in fact I saw no reason why a video wouldn't just add another digit. You surprise me saying it actually clocked.

I never got to see anything special like what you described so I guess my score recollection is incorrect probably the fact it was close to 20 years and many bongs ago.

I will say your practice though doesn't sound like an that of a die hard addict. What dedication is an hour or two every couple of days?.;)

From the time I got that Defender and put it in the lounge room, it never stopped. Mates would come over, ( before I was married), and it was always being played. Practice for me was coming home from work and getting in a couple of hours practice before anyone came over solely to give me the edge but that was every day and many games per day.

I do like the idea of the Defender tat though, very cool.

Worthy of noting, mine was actually a Defence Command board. The Defender boards in the tables were just to difficult to maintain and we had lots of issues plus the Defence Command board was a simple one dip setting to change from upright to table where as the Williams, Taito boards required another board to enable flip required for a table.

The Defence Command board is also a one board deal, not multiple with ribbons connecting them. Ideal for tables.

 

I will say your practice though doesn't sound like an that of a die hard addict. What dedication is an hour or two every couple of days?.;)

 

Nahh that is the minimum I need to play to keep my skills somewhat consistent, any less than that and I start going downhill and it will take me a few weeks to get back on track. I just play casually for fun now :)

I was MUCH more obsessive than that during the two years I trained to reach my goal and I played every day I was home before, after and sometimes during dinner time. If I wasn't playing I was thinking about it and my strategies, writing notes about skills to work on while I was at work, talking about Defender constantly to my poor wife and son, reading online forums and facebook groups to learn about Defender and spending hours watching Youtube clips. We even went and stayed at one of the Defender masters @virtualgaz house in Queensland when we went up for a holiday and I watched him clock Defender on his cab and months later he came to my place and clocked my cab.

I was totally consumed by my dedication, sometimes I wondered if I would ever get there and thought I would need to give up one day, but luckily I plugged on and on.

My level of obsession is difficult to fully explain and I have left some details out to save me from embarrassment ;)

As I said earlier some people would achieve this goal easier than me no doubt, but I was the first to do it on WDPU that had not done it BITD, for me it was right at the very upper limit of my physical and mental ability.

Here are a few videos I have watched too many time :)

Mike, arguably the worlds best modern day player getting 909k on HARDEST settings. I struggle to get 20k on these settings, I had to stop watching this one as it is not possible for me to emulate his skills.

Gary's marathon tutorial, he is the player I visited, mostly I tried to play like this to clock it and practiced his style, now I play to save the humanoids and enjoy that more.

Gary's inspirational video LOL :D

Me playing.....LOL.....watching this again now I can feel how frustrated, despondent and close to giving up I was :)

I've knocked up two panels for Sams cab, one for original Taito buttons which will be drilled at 38mm (when I get a bit from Bunnings), the other I'll leave blank or can drill at 28mm for standard buttons.

Let me know @Sam J.

I've knocked up two panels for Sams cab, one for original Taito buttons which will be drilled at 38mm (when I get a bit from Bunnings), the other I'll leave blank or can drill at 28mm for standard buttons.

Let me know @Sam J.

 

Nice work @Kaizen . That is exactly what he needs especially the all important routed out slot at the bottom to lock onto the metal plate.

Just make sure you leave index marks for the lockdown clamp screw locations. They are an arse to work out. Much easier if you know exactly where they are placed.

Nice work @Kaizen . That is exactly what he needs especially the all important routed out slot at the bottom to lock onto the metal plate.

 

Just make sure you leave index marks for the lockdown clamp screw locations. They are an arse to work out. Much easier if you know exactly where they are placed.

I have plenty of reference images and I'll mark them on the panes before sending them.

Nice work @Kaizen . That is exactly what he needs especially the all important routed out slot at the bottom to lock onto the metal plate.

So the routed slot sits on a metal plate that bolts to the inside of the upper front part of cab? Ive never seen this on action and probably have to fab one up....

So the routed slot sits on a metal plate that bolts to the inside of the upper front part of cab? Ive never seen this on action and probably have to fab one up....

Yep and without it the panel can be ripped forward breaking or at least unclipping the lockdown brackets.

I have seen small children hanging off the joystcks and without that simple piece of metal, the panel clips don't stand a chance on there own.

Thanks for that.

The generic cp that came with this cab has a front hinge that bolts straight to the inner cab, so I kinda overlooked that one.

Anyone have a picture of the original metal plate, on or off the cab?

From what Steve says its a kind of locator plate that the control panel slots onto at the front.

This is my first Taito so I can't compare, but know a few people with spacies so I'll check it out.

Thanks @Woody

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Forgot the standard ID tag shots.

Looks Defender all the way.

Anyone have a picture of the original metal plate, on or off the cab?

 

From what Steve says its a kind of locator plate that the control panel slots onto at the front.

This is the one on my Spacies but should be the same.

260mm x 35mm x 2mm zinc plated steel, hole centres are 10mm up from the bottom, 160mm apart and 6mm diameter (M5 carriage bolts).

Taito Defender PCB pics...

CPU PCB - D71R

ROM PCB - D72R

I/O PCB - D73R

Sound PCB - D74R

Auxulliary PCB - ZZO 1066 (not 100% what this does) @Autosteve??

Taito Defender PCB pics...

 

 

Auxulliary PCB - ZZO 1066 (not 100% what this does) @Autosteve??

 

 

There was one extra for static suppression, ie, reset machine if a kid with a static gun tried getting free games and there was one for rebooting the machine should the machine fail to boot on original turn on.

Seeing as the one you pictured has a terminal marks "ANT", I would say it is the static suppression one.

The "ANT" wire just hangs off that board and is not connected to anything. It is working as an antenna.

Some more reference pics...

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There was one extra for static suppression, ie, reset machine if a kid with a static gun tried getting free games and there was one for rebooting the machine should the machine fail to boot on original turn on.

 

Seeing as the one you pictured has a terminal marks "ANT", I would say it is the static suppression one.

 

The "ANT" wire just hangs off that board and is not connected to anything. It is working as an antenna.

That's what I thought it was but no one else could conform.

Thanks.

 

That's what I thought it was but no one else could conform.

Thanks.

It's actually a generic Taito part used on many Taitos and wasn't limited to just Defender.

Prior to installing them, a static gun would cause the unprotected machine to max credit usually 99 credits no matter what it was set at max by the operator.

It was also pot luck as to whether the board would max credit or simply blow up. A lot of early unprotected boards died this way.

You could go in an arcade and see 1/2 the machines with crap on the screen, blank screen requiring a reset or massive unrealistic credits on them. A sure sign some kid had been through with a static gun.

Other companies come up with some form of defense against static like sirens etc because it was a massive money robbing problem but Taitos simply rebooted the machine before the credits could be excepted and hopefully, before the mother board/ boards got damaged.

It's actually a generic Taito part used on many Taitos and wasn't limited to just Defender.

 

Prior to installing them, a static gun would cause the unprotected machine to max credit usually 99 credits no matter what it was set at max by the operator.

 

It was also pot luck as to whether the board would max credit or simply blow up. A lot of early unprotected boards died this way.

 

You could go in an arcade and see 1/2 the machines with crap on the screen, blank screen requiring a reset or massive unrealistic credits on them. A sure sign some kid had been through with a static gun.

 

Other companies come up with some form of defense against static like sirens etc because it was a massive money robbing problem but Taitos simply rebooted the machine before the credits could be excepted and hopefully, before the mother board/ boards got damaged.

Hmmm... I believe I was one of those kids...

@Autosteve My Defender actually has a "zap it" box or something similar named, that's in the loom.

I assume that's what these were for?

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Edit - It's "Zap off". Here's a pic

Like a spark arrestor?

My Defender actually has a "zap it" box or something similar named, that's in the loom.

I assume that's what these were for?

Yep more than likely. The reset type usually just send a high or low signal momentarily to the CPU's rest pin and that would let the machine reboot fresh like turning the machine off and back on without killing the power.

Put the coin door back together (thanks again Steve for the 20c tiles!). The whole front will be repainted, including the coin door frame which shouldnt be black.

But for now I had some hammered effect paint left over and was sick of looking at a pryed open old mess of a door.

Before:

After: