Title: Space Invaders

Manufacturer: Taito / Midway

Year: 1978

Hardware:

Main Processor: 8080 (2 MHz)

Sound Hardware: SN76477; Discrete Logic

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Description

A primitive spaceship shoot'em up, created by Taito and released in Japan on June 16th, 1978. There is also a later US version
manufactured and distributed by Midway in the US.

This is one of the most famous arcade coin operated video games ever, a massive number of later arcade games were all
inspired by Space Invaders.

The Space Invaders series

Space Invaders (1978)
Space Invaders Part II / Moon Base / Space Invaders Deluxe (1979)
Return Of The Invaders (1985)
Majestic Twelve / Super Space Invaders '91 (1990)
Space Invaders DX (1994)
Space Invaders '95 / Akkanvader (1995)

Clones and alternate versions: There was a great number of variants of the original Space Invaders, in some cases the game remained the same, and the differences were merely the monitor overlays, while in other cases the game itself was very different, like in the Midway table version called "Space Invaders II" that featured simultaneous multiplayer capabilities. Space Ranger has gameplay where the player shoots down instead of up, and there don't seem to be any shield barriers. The names of some of the variants & clones of Space Invaders are Alien Invasion Part II, Cosmic Monsters, Jatre Specter, Space Attack, Space Attack II, Space King, Space Ranger, Space War, Space War Part 3, Super Earth Invasion, and Super Invaders.

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Emulation Status

Emulator: MAME

Playable: Yes

Sound: Yes (with samples)

Benchmark system: Intel Celeron - 433 MHz; S3 GX2 4 Mb AGP Videocard; Soundblaster 16; Win98; MAMEi686 v0.36RC2

Benchmark results: 60 fps with triple buffer on, vsync off, no frameskip; full screen interlaced mode

Emulator: Retrocade

Playable: Yes

Sound: No

Important: MAME does not support an artwork file for this game, but Retrocade does; on the other hand, Space Invaders has no sound support under Retrocade (verified for the latest release v1.2b2) while MAME does... so take your pick...

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Screenshots

Screenshots from the Retrocade emulator

si-01.jpg (13558 bytes) si-02.jpg (15973 bytes)

si-03.jpg (15939 bytes) si-04.jpg (12529 bytes)

Screenshots of Space Ranger from an Ebay auction

spcranger-01.jpg (10111 bytes) spcranger-02.jpg (10868 bytes)

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