Space Wars

Cinematronics · 1977

by Daniel Ferrer

Details

Original hardware

Cinematronics CCPU

Romset

roms/spacewar.zip

Controls

Player 1: the stick turns, down is hyperspace. Button 1 fires, button 2 thrusts, button 3 inserts a coin, button 4 starts game 1. A game for two: player 2's ship stays where it is. On the web: Z, X, C, V and the arrow keys.

Analog controls

–

Last update

2026-11-08

Changelog

1. v1.12026-11-08
   • The romset can live in any folder of the card. The game looks in .roms/, then roms/, then searches the whole card, and remembers where it found it (.conf/<romset>.loc), so the next start goes straight there; if it is moved, it is searched for again.
   • Settings go in .conf/ and romsets in .roms/: the UVMC2's menu hides folders whose name starts with a dot, so the card shows only the games. A card set up before keeps everything: the old config/ and roms/ are still read, and nothing is written to them any more.
   • Without the romset on the card the screen says ROM FILE NOT FOUND and the name of the zip it wants.
2. v1.02026-11-05
   • First release.
   • Sound through the jack, which the game never had: MAME has no samples for it but models the board circuit by circuit; its explosion, shot, the two ships' thrust and its idle hum are recorded from that model, each started where the game starts it.
   • Fire and hyperspace are on the pad: they were on no button. Button 4 is the option key that starts game 1.
   • The picture is the arcade's 1024 x 768 screen, fitted to the tube, at the game's 38 Hz.
   • An options screen at start, after the Vectrex Studio intro: screen vertical or horizontal, refresh, brightness, controls (the buttons can be remapped, and the choice is saved) and calibration.
   • Brighter: 94% of what it draws is at the board's dim level, which MAME puts at half the bright one -- dark on the Vectrex's tube. Raised to three quarters, checked on the console; the bright level is unchanged.