Tetris (Arcade, System 16)

Tetris
Developer: Sega AM1 Publisher: Sega Platform: Arcade (Sega System 16) Released in JP: December 1988 This game has unused music. This game has revisional differences.

The arcade Tetris was Sega's first take on the massively popular puzzle game, which introduced a number of gameplay rules that still survive in some form to this day.

Unused Music

Sound code 91 is a short tune which is never heard during normal gameplay. Purpose unknown, although its length might fit with some form of continue screen. The fadeout is actually part of the track; it does not loop in-game.

ROM Revision

Four different System 16 ROM sets are available in MAME; for the most part, the only known difference between these is that they are each made for slightly different hardware/board configurations, but are otherwise the same.

However, more interestingly, sets 3 and 4 are identical except for exactly one difference - set 3 intentionally re-initializes the machine's backup RAM every time it is powered on. This erases all bookkeeping information, but also allows you to see the well-known power-on pattern after every boot without having to manually erase the backup RAM each time.

(Source: Original TCRF research)