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.

Sega's arcade Tetris is one of the most popular versions of the game in Japan. It introduced a number of gameplay rules that still survive in some form to this day and influenced other Tetris games including Tetris Plus and Tetris: The Grand Master. A Mega Drive port was planned to release in 1989 but went unreleased until 2006 when it was included in Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 28 for the PlayStation 2.

This page covers the System 16 version. The game was also released for the System E.

Unused Music

Sound code 91 is a short arrangement of La Cinquantaine 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; it is featured on the SEGA SYSTEM 16 COMPLETE SOUNDTRACK Vol.2 soundtrack compilation, as EXTRA (La cinquantaine).

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)