Tron is an awesome game, but there's one major thing wrong with it: No freeplay mode. What a bummer! When you're having a party or having "arcade game newbie" friends over and you want to let them play the game without supervision, you probably don't want them fishing around inside the coin door and you don't want to have to run over and add credits every time it runs out either! Not only that but, when you do add credits, you can only add nine at a time and it sits there at the "press start" screen forever, burning the image onto your monitor. This is frustrating, so I decided to add a freeplay mode to the game.

Swap one chip, flip one dip switch, and you've got freeplay.
No permanent cabinet mods required.

Here's how it works:
Freeplay mode is turned on and off by setting switch 4 on the dip switch set SW1. When switch 4 is off, the game behaves as it always did. When switch 4 is on, Freeplay is activated. The game will display the word FREEPLAY where it formerly showed the number of credits and PUSH 1 OR 2 PLAYERS where it used to say INSERT COIN. The game will still run through attract mode to help avoid screen burn-in. Pressing one or two player start will start a 1 or 2 player game without any credits needed. If you have your "Allow Continues" dip switch set, when it comes time to continue, you can do it without adding any credits.

Installation of the freeplay chips requires replacing one EPROM on the CPU PCB (the middle one). No other modifications to your PCB or cabinet are required.

Download installation instructions here.

If you would like to yell at me, email [email protected]