Last modified: 2021.02.09
| 1. | List of Settings |
| 2. | Extended Information on Options for Each Setting |
| a. In-Game and Scoring Options | |
| b. Pricing Options | |
| c. Maintenance Options | |
| 3. | Resources |
To access the settings for Robotron: 2084, the machine will need to be powered on and in the Game Over state. It will not work if the machine is still starting up or if the machine is in the middle of a game. Pressing the service button, located on the inside of the coin door of a real arcade cabinet and usually mapped to "F2" in MAME, will usually advance through various diagnostic screens before reaching the bookkeeping totals. After the bookkeeping totals are the game settings. The left joystick is used to move up and down between the different settings, while the right joystick is used to move up and down through the different options for the selected setting.
| Setting | Value Range | Description |
| Extra Man Every | --- | The score interval at which a bonus life is awarded. Depending on the selected option, players can earn an extra life every 20,000, 25,000, 30,000, or 50,000 points. This setting can also be set to 0, which will not award bonus lives at a given score interval. 25,000 points per bonus life is both default and recommended. |
| Turns Per Player | [1,20] | The number of lives given to players at the beginning of the game. 3 lives is both default and recommended. |
| Pricing Selection | [0,9] | Determines the amount of currency required for a credit or credits to be given. Option 0 allows for custom values to be used for the Left Slot Units, Center Slot Units, Right Slot Units, Units Required for Credit, Units Required for Bonus Credit, and Minimum Units for Any Credit settings. Options 1 through 8 will use default values, listed in a later section, for pricing the units. Option 9 will set the machine to be free play, meaning no credits are required to start a game. Option 3 is the default. |
| L/C/R Slot Units | [0,99] | The number of units to give to players based on what coin slot, Left, Center, or Right, was successfully used to pay for said units. |
| Units Required for Credit | [1,99] | The number of units required to earn one credit. |
| Units Required for Bonus Credit | [0,99] | The minimum number of units required in order to receive additional credits. These are usually given for inserting more money into the machine than would otherwise be necessary as a means to boost the amount of money a customer is willing to put into the machine in one go (in essence, spending more for a "better value"). |
| Minimum Units for Any Credit | [0,99] | The minimum number of units required in order to receive a credit or credits. |
| Fancy Attract Mode | Yes/No | This option will determine whether RAM-to-RAM operations will occur. When the machine is in the Game Over state, one of the many screens the game can show is the Robotron title screen. Here, the presence or lack-of the multicolored Williams logos circling the title screen is the most visible difference between the enabled and disabled options. This is enabled (set to "Yes") by default. |
| Difficulty of Play | [0,10] | Adjusts the difficulty of the game, with 0 being the easiest option and 10 being the hardest. Difficulty 5 is recommended on all versions of the game and is the default option on the Yellow ROMs. Difficulty 3 is default on all versions of the game after Yellow. |
| Letters for Highest Score Name | [3,20] | The number of letters that the player who earns the highest score can enter as their name. Setting this value to 4 on the Tie-Die ROM set prevents high score table entries (see Section 2a for more info). 3 letters is both default and recommended. |
| Restore Factory Settings | Yes/No | If this option is set to "Yes" when the service button is pressed to return to the game, all settings will be restored to their factory defaults. |
| Clear Bookkeeping Totals | Yes/No | If this option is set to "Yes" when the service button is pressed to return to the game, the bookkeeping totals will be wiped. |
| High Score Table Reset | Yes/No | If this option is set to "Yes" when the service button is pressed to return to the game, all entries in the high score table will be replaced with default values stored in ROM. |
| Auto Cycle | Yes/No | If this option is set to "Yes" when the service button is pressed to return to the game, the screen will alternate in a predictable pattern between "carpet-pattern" screens and screens comprised of colored vertical bars. According to the instruction manual, the machine will "sequence through ROM, RAM, and CMOS RAM tests repeatedly," and an error code will be displayed if an issue is detected. The only way to stop this mode once started is to power off the machine and power it back on again. |
| Set Attract Mode Message | Yes/No | If this option is set to "Yes" when the service button is pressed to return to the game, the message that is displayed on the Robotron title screen can be changed to something else. By default, this message is set to "Presented by Williams Electronics Inc.", with the first two words being placed above the other three. |
| Set Highest Score Name | Yes/No | If this option is set to "Yes" when the service button is pressed to return to the game, the name of the highest scoring player can be changed. |
The following sections contain additional information about some of the settings. Not every setting will have information here.
The first relevant setting in this category is "Extra Man Every", which controls when extra lives are given out. There are five options that can be chosen for this setting, which are listed below along with their description.
| Award Life Every (Points) |
Description |
| 0 | No Extra Men |
| 20,000 | Liberal |
| 25,000 | Recommended |
| 30,000 | Conservative |
| 50,000 | Extra Conservative |
Next is the setting for the number of lives given at the start of a game, which the game refers to as "Turns Per Player." This can be set to any number between 1 and 20 (inclusive). The game has descriptions for three of the settings. 2 lives is described as being for "high volume arcades," 3 lives is the "recommended" option, and 4 lives is described as being "for weaker players."
Skipping down a few options on the screen is the "Difficulty of Play" option, which should be fairly self explanatory in terms of what it's for. Each of the eleven difficulty options has one of five descriptions.
| Difficulty Values | Description |
| 0, 1, 2 | Extra Liberal |
| 3, 4 | Liberal |
| 5 | Recommended |
| 6, 7 | Conservative |
| 8, 9, 10 | Extra Conservative |
The last one to bring up in this section is the "Letters for Highest Score Name" setting. According to information posted on the Robotron: 2084 Guidebook website, setting this value to "4" on the Tie-Die ROM set from 2015 is part of the process for triggering the free 99.9 million point boost that puts player one into the "Goldilocks Zone." This term is used to refer to the range of points where the "Extra Life Bonanaza" glitch occurs, causing an extra life to be gained whenever any amount of points are scored. This is important to note, as Tie-Die is programmed to not allow high-score name entry if this setting is set to '4', regardless of whether or not the points were given.
The most important setting related to pricing is the "Pricing Selection". There are many settings that control how currency gets registered as credits, and this can be used to set them to pre-determined values. Option 9 is free play, Option 0 is for custom settings, and Options 1 through 8 have the following settings:
| Option | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| Left Slot Units | 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Center Slot Units | 4 | 0 | 4 | 16 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Right Slot Units | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| Units Required for Credit | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Units Required for Bonus Credit | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Minimum Units for Any Credit | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
The settings under Option 9 are identical to those of Option 3, even though '9' sets the machine to free play mode. The service manual also contains a few examples of what to set each pricing setting to given certain other configurations of coin doors and desired units per credit (not listed here).
Choosing to use the "High Score Table Reset" will cause both the scores and the initials in the high score table to be set to default values stored in the ROM. Interestingly, the default entry for first place has the name "Willy Elktrix," despite the fact that three letters is the default and recommended length for the highest scoring player.
![Default High Score Table [Yellow ROMs]](2084yellow_highscore_defaults.png)
Using the "Set Attract Mode Message" is mostly the same as entering a name for a high score entry, but there are a few differences. The message can span two lines, each consisting of up to 25 characters. After completing a line, adjustments can be made to the horizontal position of the text with the "Fire" joystick and confirmed with the service button. There is also an extended character set available for the attract mode message. This is listed below in the order that the characters occur when pushing the "Move" stick up:
| Char | Description |
| Space | |
| ! | Exclamation Mark |
| , | Comma |
| . | Period |
| : | Colon |
| - | Hyphen |
| [A,Z] | The English Alphabet, from A to Z |
| < | Less Than |
| > | Greater Than |
| / | Forward Slash |
| <- | Delete (Only available after the first character has been entered) |
| [0,9] | All numbers from 0 to 9 |
Permalink: pummelator.com/jump/2084set
Most information was collected from the game itself (Yellow ROMs).
Materials Referenced:
: Robo2K15 - The Tie-Die Romset. Robotron: 2084 Guidebook. Originally Posted 2014/12/9. Last Modified 2017/1/31.
: Robotron: 2084 Instruction Manual for Upright and Compact Games. Williams Electronics, Inc. 16P-3005-101. May, 1982.
Robotron: 2084 and all related images and materials are the copyrighted works of WMS Industries, Inc. (formerly known as Williams Electronics, Inc.)
Please send corrections to inaccurate or incorrect information on this page to me through Twitter or to my email address, both of which can be found in the footer of this site. If sending by email, please begin the subject line with "2084 Settings Correction"