“My Tetris are a werewolf” or nostalgia from childhood

Dear habrovchane, I want to tell you about the game console "BRICK GAME E 118 T" or, in common, just "Tetris". And about how I learned that he was a werewolf , miraculously, turned into "BRICK GAME E 1997 T". I don’t think I’ll tell you something completely new in the IT field, but if anyone is interested in hearing about the werewolf Tetris from the past, stock up on tomatoes and ask for cat.


The article is more detailed, but for those who are too lazy to read the video review:

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Amid a pile of trash of my things, a werewolf was sitting in one of the boxes ; I could barely escape, I found my old Tetris. Once told about it to several friends and few of them believed me. And who will believe in a werewolf?
My acquaintance with Tetris began with the fact that I once gave a classmate to play with him when I came to him from a book (the school issued several books for two, due to their lack). Since then I have been a frequent guest with him (then they bought him a computer, and on it I also played Golden Ax with him, and a few more games, but that's another story).
When my dad asked the question “We buy tetris or collect further, to the console?”, I thought that before the console to collect and collect, he can change his mind, plus you need a TV for the console. We had two television sets: color and black-and-white. I was not sure that I need it. As you might guess, it was precisely black and white that gave me a “tearing apart”. It is cheaper than color, and the prefix “sits a kinescope” (I think we all remember this myth, and this is indeed a myth). Without even thinking that it would not have been possible to play in black and white, I was worried that these TVs were constantly breaking down (the televisions were tube). If one breaks, dad will watch his “news” and any nonsense on the other, and I will just admire how my console looks beautiful on a shelf. And still TVs “ate” a lot of electricity and I would constantly be expelled with the words: “winding up electricity, I’ll beat!” Considering that with Tetris I would get complete autonomy, I decided that we were buying a computer and buying it. That was done.
We bought Tetris, as I mentioned, the model "BRICK GAME E 118 T" and I immediately began to be disappointed in it.

Here is a list of shortcomings that were not possessed by all Tetris, with whom I dealt with this:

- After shutdown, the game was not saved. After you put the game on Tetris pause and turn off when you turn on the start screen saver was played. And he also turned off himself, if for a long time nothing was pressed on him. All this forced me to take him even to the kitchen and, sorry, even to the toilet, so as not to lose all the game "achievements".
- There were few games in this model, a lot of them are just trash. By little games, I mean their diversity (on tetris I played was even less, but the variety was much better).
- There were no games that I liked in all tetris that I had seen before. These are races with shooting and walls, this is a “building” in which there were specific figures (for example, a single-cell flashing cube that could go through the whole building and complete the building from the bottom) and rules (for example, a line with a flashing cube, filling in which led to completion level) and more.
- The buttons quickly wore out, despite the fact that I played less on him than on a friend's Tetris, and he undoubtedly played on it, and before me, and after me, and nothing broke in him.

An example of a rubber band with a contact and a button:


As we can see, in the middle of the button there is a rack for the elastic.
As a result of poor construction, gum was often torn, and there was no place to take new ones, if not from a new Tetris, but in that case I would throw this away - what's the point of buying a new one and rearranging everything to the old one. So he contrived in different ways.

A typical rupture of the gum (I would say that this more or less “fate spared”):


The on, off, and reset buttons were better. The logic of the Chinese is simply “iron” - after all, they are least often used. They are also smaller than others (apparently, these “racks” were invented to save plastic).


Surprisingly, the “rotate / shooting / select” button was of the same poor quality, but less often failed. All due to the fact that the contact area was larger, the button was pressed easier and, of course, less wear out. The other buttons, leaving behind, due to poor attachment, got worse and worse, and as a result, the rubber “chewed” faster. Strong keystrokes, except for rubber bands, also tore off the fastenings of the keyboard board (one leg of the board fastening remained directly on the board - you can see it in the photo).


Board in the screwed form (it is clear that screws of different “caliber” are my work):

The only self-tapping screw, which more or less holds, is, if not strange, the lower right. All the rest can be removed without twisting.

The photo is completely (the speaker is not his native, I once soldered my own to a small radio receiver):


With poor-quality buttons and started my torment with its repair and all sorts of tricks forcing them to work. Than I just did not glue them. Not that it did not hold, it just broke and broke very quickly. I probably took it over a thousand times (a year several times a day). It literally began to fall apart, the screws stopped holding, after which I replaced them several times, with more, and more size, and the latter simply scrolled through.



Once on a warm sunny day with a bunch of semi-dead batteries, I went outside to sunbathe, get some fresh air and play Tetris. I covered the grass on the grass, in the garden under the tree, I began to pick up the batteries in Tetris. Sometimes Tetris hung with an incomprehensible pattern on the screen, but once he gave such away that it shocked me. The number 1997 was highlighted on the screen, instead of 118, which meant the number of games.


After that I couldn’t sleep peacefully. Tetris turned into a terrible beast, howled at the moon and didn’t let me sleep , waiting for the next day to play again in new games for me. But there was a problem - after turning it off and on, it became the same “E 118 T” and I had to contact and decontaminate batteries for a long time, so that it would turn into a terrible beast “E 1997 T” and get the cherished 1997 games. Moreover, the tetris turned off by itself, if nothing was pressed for several minutes and again it became “E 118 T”.
After the painful methods of reconnecting the batteries to get a super upgrade of Tetris in “E 1997 T”, I thought: “Are there any other methods?” In search of the unknown, I once again opened Tetris and began to randomly close, with something metallic, everything that can only be done on the board (after all, I understood that something tethered Tetris, if it reacts like that to reconnecting the batteries). Not immediately, but only after carefully examining the main board, I found three jumpers, two of them were closed. The jumpers were like a place under the SMD resistor.


Unfortunately, there is no way to make a photo, because I poured all the rosin when soldering, and then with nail polish for insulation. Do not judge strictly - I was 10 years old and even though I was a little versed in electronics but did not understand the differences in nail polish from insulating varnish. But I will say that he perfectly coped with the task.
It began with the fact that I closed the last jumper. She was the only one who was not closed. Holding it closed, turned on Tetris and got "9 in one". I immediately realized that on the right track. Experienced to understand that the opening of all jumpers and gives the effect of "1997 in 1". In this form, I collected it back, but the happiness did not last long. After several hangs, I realized that everything was not so simple ... When I achieved the “1997 in 1” effect, by reconnecting the batteries, there were no hangs, but it was painful and inefficient, therefore I realized that if I “disconnect” all the jumpers ( If the 1997 in 1 mode was turned on), and then connected as it was from the factory, then there will be no glitches. I did not dare to do this with a soldering iron (unsolder and solder), because all this had to be turned with the tetris turned on, and it would have burned almost certainly (more precisely, it was necessary to unsolder two jumpers to turn on the tetris and solder them back without turning it off), and there was no desire to do that. Whoever said something, there is some tension on the soldering iron and it could easily kill the microchip.
One could not understand then - why the price of different Tetris was the same, because 1997 is better than 9? I think it is not difficult to guess what idea came to my mind later - I decided to build three switches into Tetris and turn on the “Tetris” that I want. I searched for three identical switches for a long time, and when I found it, there was little left of Tetris. I didn’t bother with him for a long time - I soldered three inaccurate holes with a soldering iron, installed three switches there, soldered them to the cherished jumpers, filled the place of soldering with varnish and attached the switches to Tetris with a wire. In general, the brutal work, tetris, I did not regret, and what else I could do - I was about 10 years old then ... Well, it does not matter, we look at the photo:




But the photo board with jumpers:

I damaged the train a little when I was glaring at the case under the switches. Unfortunately, when I started to write, I did not know that the board was covered with varnish, so excuse me ... And I don’t know how to remove it without descending while Tetris, and most importantly there is no desire to mess with it.


Universal instruction from Tetris, and now Tetris is universal. Funny, isn't it?

Experimentally, I found out what combination of switch positions to which "Tetris" belongs, which I wrote down with a pencil on the same instruction. As it turns out, there are three switches, for each two positions (on, off): 2 in 3 degrees is equal to eight. A total of eight different combinations - eight “tetris”: “9 in 1”, “38 in 1”, “118 in 1”, “256 in 1”, “338 in 1”, “500 in 1”, “668 in 1 ”,“ 1997 in 1 ”.


I think everyone understands where in the tetris there are jumpers: it is cheaper to manufacture universal devices in production than to “sharpen” factories for each device. Then, by setting the necessary “jumpers” from the “universal” product to make a “special”, it is also a good opportunity to cancel a marriage, say in the “1997 in 1” mode does not work, and in “9 in 1” it works. We have a marriage, put jumpers on “9 in 1” and, instead of a defective product, we have a “fully working” device (these are not only Tetris, but also processors, video cards, etc.).

Well, that's the whole story about the werewolf , thank you, all the readers, for your time. I hope it was interesting.