I have one of the earliest serial # Taxi's, had it for around 15 years, it has proto roms, mine does the exact same thing on Joyride. So I would guess it is the software.

Regarding the bulbs, the bases will either be bayonet style (44/47) or wedge style (555). You can just look at the bulbs/sockets and see which type to replace it with.

The colored displays are LED replacements of the plasma displays. Couple different manuf. have them, but they aren't cheap. I recommend X-Pin.

1) cointaker - they likely have a set made up for Taxi.

2) it's a waste of money in my opinion unless your display is gassing. Even then, I would still go orange. They used to be around $130 for most sets from Rottendog, but now they are hardly found anymore and all these new displays are insane price wise.

Re: Joyride awarding Spot Passenger award: There is a "Jackpot Difficulty" setting (#34, value 1-6) in the game adjustments - maybe a higher setting on this would block spotting of passengers? I have not messed with this setting myself to know, but might be worth checking.

Mike B.

Finally... I was beginning to think that my Taxi was the only one on Earth never giving "Spot Passenger"! I've owned a Taxi for more than a year now, played the hell out of it, but never got the "Spot Passenger" reward. I never heard about rom prototype. I'll check my rom sometime, maybe it'll enlighten us.

uofmpuckhead : could you post a picture of your playfield, specifically the middle area? I'd like to check something that's been bothering me on mine, and that might confirm the prototype theory.

Here are some pics of my roms :

IMG_4242.JPG IMG_4243.JPG

Did you appreciate towne31's observation and try adjusting audit 34 (jackpot difficulty)?

I already reset the game to the factory setting once, and it didn't change anything.

I also tried to change the value of the "Jackpot difficulty" adjustment once. There's no specifics about what this adjustment does, and I found out that it changes the order of passengers and restricts the number of lit pickups (you can only pick one passenger at a time instead of two). Not sure whether it has an influence on "Spot Passenger" however, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I asked uofmpuckhead to post a picture of his playfield because mine has something I've never seen on any other Taxi (Marilyn or Lola) : above the green Airport inserts, the paint is white for about 2-3 centimeters. I looked at pictures of dozens other Taxis, and they all have grey paint on the same area (my playfield is far from perfect, I know ). As I was saying, if his playfield has the same particularity, it might confirm the prototype theory.

IMG_3378.JPG

I have gotten Spot Passenger from Joyride. Once. I don't know what softwre rev it was but I'll try to find out this weekend.

Mine has mylar in that area:

IMAG0680.jpg

I have two taxi playfields here, and have seen several taxis, I have never seen the white in that area.. you may have somthing there, or not, looks different for sure..

Yes... And it sure looks too clean to be something painted by a former owner. It's a real mystery.

Very interesting.

That Joyride shot on Taxi is quite bizaare. It's a pinball "mystery shot" handing out a "mystery" score as one of the awards. In addition to a 10000 points award. Quite pointless the way I see it.

And now it seems that the Spot passanger award is never paid. I never notised this. This is a design flaw no matter any difficulty setting. It should be paid once in a while.

I wise they'd given this some more thought and replaced 10000 and Special by airport progress, light lock, advance bonus x, carrie passengers or similar. Stuff with influence on your gameplay priorities. But I guess things like that was not in the mindset for pinball design as early as 1988.

My Joyride awards "spot passenger".

I had the same issue with "spot passengers" I upgraded to the latest software and that fixed the issue. I get spot passenger about 1-6 tries.

I love Taxi!

Jeremy Agema
Central WI

Yo Taxi.......hey!

PINBOT Stranded! I love taxi.

You give to me ride

When I come to think of it, the X'ed part of the bonus in Taxi is oddly low. Anyone aware of how it is calculated?

Anyway, it inspired me to start this thread.

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/go-for-the-tilt-pathetic-bonus-value-games