Atari's Tetris: The Alternate Music

Did I mention that video games are another one of my interests? That is absolutely true! And now here's my first YouTube video covering video games.

Back in 1988, Atari released their arcade version of the addictive puzzle game that we all know as Tetris. It had excellent Russian-style music (surely fitting in perfectly with the fact that Tetris originated in Russia in 1985) that was output by the ultimate source of beeps, blips, noises, and beats: the 4-channel Atari POKEY sound chip that was also used in their Atari 8-bit computer family (Atari 400, Atari 800, Atari XL/XE, etc.). Atari's version of Tetris was copy-protected, but a few bootleggers managed to get around this by reverese-engeneering the Slapstic protection thing and modifying the copyright (see set subtitled "(bootleg set 1)" in MAME, that one has the copyright changed to 1989 Video Games and the Tetris logo removed from the title screen, but still uses the sound chip), and even replacing the POKEY with a Texas Instruments SN76489 without modifying the sound roms in any way (see set subtitled "(bootleg set 2)" in MAME, that's the version that has the ear-raping music heard in this video). And speaking of replacing the sound chips without modifying the sound roms (which were designed for the POKEY and not the SN76489), the whole result is the terrible garbled mess of 8-bit noises that you hear in this video. You know, like the title screen music heard in a homebrew Sega Genesis game called "Crazybus" (you can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RnUAsUjPPU ). And oh yes, this will make your ears burn and squeak.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Atari
• Tetris
• Arcade
• BGM
• alternate
• music
• in-game
• bootleg
• bootlegged

[MitchZer0II]

Tetris: Waixing edition

[OldMusicOnVinyl1]

@MitchZer0II Or maybe Tetris: Yong Yong edition. :D

[ZEBASS]

This is so interesting! And scary as fuck, lol. I'm gonna download those bootleg roms to see if it works :D

[piccard1976]

@OldMusicOnVinyl1

Thanks for the tips , I managed to make it work too! The problem was you need to get bootleg set 1 as well, or else mame complains about some rom file missing. The rom needed is atetrisb (bootleg set 1), and then atetrisb2 (bootleg set2) works fine. Sorry for the conyness, but I confess that playing the game with the distorted music I remembered from my childhood almost brought a sentimental tear to my eye.

[OldMusicOnVinyl1]

@piccard1976 The one with the messed-up music in MAME is subtitled "bootleg set 2". That has the audio section replaced with 3xSN76496. I also used MAME .138 to record the sound in this video. I didn't want any ingame sounds to interfere, so I went into the test mode using F2 and went to the sound test.

[piccard1976]

@piccard1976

Also, is there a way to find a bootleged version with this botched music on mame? I've tried downloading all the roms of bootlegged tetris versions but they all have the audio corrected.

[piccard1976]

Now THIS is how I remember the music the first time I played tetris in 1989 and I thought it was me who didn't remember well lol.. So it was all because it was a bootleg version of the chip. Damn, I thought the music was so wacky by design. You have to imagine how I saw it back in the day : first new arcade, noone played it , all with russian stuff and some wacky music... I thought it was awesome and fell in love with it. Thanks to whoever posted this video.

[OldMusicOnVinyl1]

@TheSlimeWorkShop That's from the bootleg version without the messed-up music. The messed-up music comes from a different bootleg version that doesn't have the staff changed.

[TheSlimeWorkShop]

@OldMusicOnVinyl1: Meet the bootleg staff! Project Leader: James Bond Video Graphics: Tom Catson Engineer: Ted Tedious Technician: Log Dreaming Audio: Bill Cody

[OldMusicOnVinyl1]

@wilkes85 There'd be a very rare time of your life when you approach a Tetris arcade machine, insert a coin, and be like "WTF?" when you hear the messed-up music.

[wilkes85]

Whoa that's nasty! not just the high pitched tones, but it sounds very off key and horrible too lol