Q and A with Tony - The SNK Years: 1992 - 1997

[Nightmare Tony]

Sensei: while I seen some Candy cabinets around, the reason I think they werent imported as a mainstay was cost. It was far cheaper to build fairly locally as compared to shipping costs.

Tonk: I had seen Ghostlop, Neo Mr. Do, Ironclad, some fighting games that I don't remember. For non Neo Geo, the candy cranes I was involved with re-designing. Thjere was also the novelty version of Irabou Densu which I wish did get released. A 20 foot wide game isn't for every arcade, though...


Orpheus: I can't answer your email until you clear out some message room. Thanks.

 

[rcantor77]

Like Tonk, I think it would be cool to shred some light about prototypes, specially if there are titles we never heard about! (and I'm pretty sure there are!)

Hey Tony,

Like other have already asked... but was there an internal game catalogue with their respectuve NGH numbers...? Can you confirm that the gaps that have been filled over NeoGeoProtos are correct or were there other games taking those numbers that never got released...?

These boards have needed a decent thread like this for a while.
So thanks mate.

 

[Nightmare Tony]

Mass, sorry I missed yours right after posting.

Japan tended to communicate through the higher ups in the offices. Faxes were more the order of the day. I was an underling in the technical division and occasionally was called in for couunication when needed. One example was working with Crystal Dynamics for their port of Samurai Shodown. they requested information and I would help get the stuff together for them.

On the prototypes, I didnt pay so much attention. I took those out to locations sometimes or the game testing division took them. Some I played and enjoyed such as Ghostlop or Neo. Mr. Do!. the rest poretty much faded out for me, I guess...

 

[Dion]

Hey Tony.

1. What modifications did you have to do specifically to the crane machines in California? Why was this required?

2. What was the most common, specific repair work you had to do as far as pcbs/cabinets?

3. Same as above for carts?

 

[Orpheus]

You highjacked my idea Mike, you prick

Q's for Mr. Nightmare:

- How old were you when you started with SNK proper back in 92'?

- Can you tell us about any "one off" revisions/modifications (such as overclocking, etc) that you guys did to neo geo hardware (Cart or CD)?

- You said that a Japanese head asked you to go to Japan. What was that like for you. How long were you there and how did they treat you in house?

 

[massimiliano]

Mass, sorry I missed yours right after posting.

Japan tended to communicate through the higher ups in the offices. Faxes were more the order of the day. I was an underling in the technical division and occasionally was called in for couunication when needed. One example was working with Crystal Dynamics for their port of Samurai Shodown. they requested information and I would help get the stuff together for them.

On the prototypes, I didnt pay so much attention. I took those out to locations sometimes or the game testing division took them. Some I played and enjoyed such as Ghostlop or Neo. Mr. Do!. the rest poretty much faded out for me, I guess...

Cool thanks a lot!

It's a pleasure hear even bit of info from people who lived such first hand experience!

One last question if I may:

You translated the manual and some game too, is there any detail about this task you would share, like the differences with the original text in some game!?

I assume your language skill is great (220pages!), are you still involved in translating projects!?

Thanks!

Massi

 

[Nightmare Tony]

Cantor: I do remember making a list of all the catalog numbers, I dont have it anymore, though I don't think.

Mitsurgi: the cranes used 2 buttons, an and then a right button. After you stopped pressing the right button, the crane claw would then drop. California state law requires a 4 way joystick and a drop button. The main motherboard didn't have enough inputs so I set out designing my own used a 65C134 processor.

2. the most common repair was blown out video rams at 8000. That was due to a power supply spike. If the power supply banged more, you got a nice bubble on the scaling ROM-L0 and any farther would also bubble the LSPC-A0 chip. 2 slots had a fairly murderous defect sometimes of coke spills. Those rotted away the traces and I would have to track down and repair them. sometimes, I would spend 2 weeks on a customer's board.

3. The carts would get burned roms.

Orpheus: around 29.

we also never overclocked as everything had its own clocking from the main one. since the toolbox relied on clocking, pulling an overclock stunt would mangle up a game so it served no purpose whatsoever.

For hardware mods, I had designed a ticket redemption system for the Neo Geo and implemented it that it wenton test and showed at trade shows. The same applied to steering wheel for the driving games (got pictures of that one, will post eventually).

Was never asked to Japan, nor have I ever been there, sorry. That was probably mistaken from when I mentioned spending a week at a designer's house back in the Romstar games. that was for a board wizard named Doug who designed the original arcade system used by Taito for Qix and he designed our Tera system. I spent a week at his house up on Northern California. Was a great time all around. (my first lesson that week involved why a pinball wizard should NEVER bet the designer of a pinball on his own game! I lost 50 bucks that night...

 

[massimiliano]

my first lesson that week involved why a pinball wizard should NEVER bet the designer of a pinball on his own game! I lost 50 bucks that night...

:epic awesomeness:

 

[Dion]

How involved was the steering wheel? Is it something that could be reproduced? Did it require a modified bios or i/o pcb?

 

[Nightmare Tony]

The main translator was Tanaka or Takara (I forgot her name exactly) in accounting. My part was correcting up ambiguities in the tech side, making sure it all still made sense. T%hat took some faxing fun back and forth as well. That project was around several months.

In the planning section, there is the different text morality setup. That one is 100% mine. Marty liked it after reading it so it stayed in.



My present job does involve technical documentation at times but it is an interdepartmental thing and fairly rare.


And no need for a last question, feel free to holler anything in at any time.

 

[Lite]

What got you working for SNK? What were you doing before all this?

 

[Nightmare Tony]

Before SNK, I worked for Romstar for 6 years. Thanks to Capcom, they exerted their partial ownership and decided to pit Capcom USA against Romstar so they moved romstar up north. Me and He Kyu went to SNK. We literally left Romstar one day and started SNK the next. I stayed at SNK for years until they moved as well. Of interest, Romstar used to be SNK usa until SNK decided to shut down the US division and Mr. Yasuki got funding from Capcom and Taito to open Romstar.

 

[Nightmare Tony]

And frankly, both were the best jobs I ever held in my entire life.

 

[Pro_Gear]

In your experience, is there any truth to the belief that the 6 slots were more troublesome than the others? Any particular board worst/best of the bunch as far as reliability?

 

[Nightmare Tony]

Not to me. It was a tad harder to troubleshoot the 2 board systems for graphic issues on the bottom board. They were all fairly reliable. The only bugaboo was with 2 slot sthat had coke spills. That is because the 2 slot memory connector was mounted on the board so it had to sir under the control panel. Any liquid spills on the control panel tended to corrode the board something fierce. Later on, a 2 slot utilizng the memory card slot and cables like the MVS-1 was introduced but was never popular.

Other than that, they were pretty reliable...

 

[NEO-GEO man]

Hi Tony, is it possible to add backup memory to the AES that is simular or the same as the MVS to save the high scores??

Thanks in advance mate

 

[Nightmare Tony]

mitsurgi, sorry I missed your question. The circuit was fairly simple and not CPU based. I am toying with making and selling it so you can mod your own games with it. At most, it would be in the 20-30 dollar price range. It connected to the left and right joystick inputs. No bios change needed. The ticket dispenser was far more involved and I lost my coding, sadly. I used an Apple 2E to intercept data for memory locations and work from there.



Neo Geo man: I dont see why not. It would be involved as it is a memory mapped block. It might actually be simple to create a smaller 8 bit NOVRAM module with a modified bios. Wait, a satellite board for the 68000....hmmm....if anyone else wants to roll that project for the community, go for it, the dev manual should help on the memory mapping. (much ewasier as a 68000 intercept unless you want to run a mod board with about 47 wires all over the place)...

 

[rcantor77]

Cantor: I do remember making a list of all the catalog numbers, I dont have it anymore, though I don't think.

Thats a shame. Woiuld be great to try and fill in some of those gaps.


There have been a few discussions on here latel around the Neo Geo Deck 'Hotel' Unit and the SNKG carts.

• Is there any information that you could pass on about either, that you may have heard whilst you were at SNK.
  
• What was the Decks units actual purpose... was it for Rental Companies, Shops, Hotels or all of the above?
  
• Was there any talk about the units being distributed in the US or Europe?
  
• Are the White SNKG carts linked to the Deck unit in any way?
  
• Lastly, is there any docs/flyers or any other material that you may have about either?

Thanks again Tony.
This thread is a great read.

 

[Nightmare Tony]

Forgot about the hotel unit! I dont recall seeing an actual unit, just the idea of game rental in a hotel with the carts locked in

Will have to dig for paperwork, plenty is in boxes all around. Still cleaning up out here... did find a bunch of pictures, so I will scan those and post them sometime...

one itneresting item not SNK related, if you dig the original Bubble Bobble, will give the secrets to how to get every item out and how they work....

 

[rcantor77]

Tony, this is great.

Now I am running with both the NeoGeoSoft and hardMVS websites any interesting peices of info you can provide would be a great asset for them.

Keep me posted mate.. you have my email.

So do you think the White SNKG Rental Carts were linked at all with the Hotel unit or perhaps just used for Rental to Amusement Arcades?

Was the unit ever discussed by you and colleagues at SNK...?

 

[hyper]

hey tony,
asked this question in teh trollbox a day or so ago, thought I'd post here.. Can SSRPG actually be translated into English? (or is Deuce just messing with us).. Could [translated] SSRPG be ported to MVS like ironclad/zintrick? If so, what tools would be required?

 

[Nightmare Tony]

Rcantor: I hope to be able to scan scheamtics as soon as I can get them out of storage. (sick as a dog right now, so it isnt the time though). Please feel freer to use anything I posted in the tech forum to help others.

Hyper neo: the chat conked out on me but I answered in chat. I dont see an issue about translating except that it is best to work directly from the source coide. That way, you can relocate and adjust text spaces as needed.

And for making it for the MVS, why not use bank switching for more massive program work?

 

[NEO-GEO man]

Thanks for the reply mate

 

[cyriades]

Nightmare Tony - what was it like getting the job at Romstar, and at SNK? How hard would you say it is to get into the industry? Do you have any opinion on whether then or now was/is a better time to work in the industry?

 

[Nightmare Tony]

Fun story in itself, actually. I was doing arcade repairs right out in college. College arcade. Ended up working a nice little arcade out in Montebello, a chain called The Electric Planet. (there I met and still know a very wonderful friend who holds a world record of being the world's first videogame champion, she was one of the founders of Interplay Productions, and I wrote music for some of her games such as Dragon Wars, Ultima 1 and Castle Wolfenstein 3D) Attended DeVry while still going. Other side jobs with a pay one price arcade called Miami Mice and a game company called Videoware. Had talked to Darryl Williams during that time on Romstar games and repairs. Was going for a gas station job interview in Torrance that day, I told Darryl I would be in the area to interview that day. Got invited to check out Romstar. I remember Audrey in RMAs asking if I was a tech, would I be interested in working there. I mentioned the gas station interview and all. Got the invite to try out working there for a week. Ended up staying there 6 years and it is still my favorite job of my entire life. The day came for a meeting that crushed us all, when I mentioned Romstar moved up north. We could be given assistance in moving or they would help us in placement. I had previously did the interference issue with SNK. Heh Kyu and I went to SNK, we literally started the next day. That job lasted 5 years until SNK moved up north as well.

These days, it is definitely tougher. My last major job was doing circuit board layout for telephone intercom systems. It took me 7 months to find the present job I am at, over 2.5 years ago. But then, tis rough in the inland empire, period.


For game companies, new ones do spring up all the time. There are larger teams and more creativity and platforms. The home hacking scene of homebrew games did not exist back when I was doing my thing. It provides a great training ground for getting into any company.

Honestly, I might have a tougher time getting into a company. I cannot program a Windows application to save my life, nor do I know C++ or JAVA or other modern languages. I was raised on assembly and plain old C back in the day in what would be embedded programming.