History

Namco released Galaxian in Japan in 1979, with Midway licensing it for North America. Arriving in the wake of Space Invaders, it advanced the fixed-screen shooter with a multicolour display, a moving starfield and enemies that broke formation to dive at the player. It became the foundation for Namco’s later Galaga series.

Controls

Press 1 or 2 to start, Left/Right to move, and Space to fire. A Switch Joy-Con can be held horizontally: use its stick to move and its right-hand button to fire. Press C for the coin input and F for fullscreen.

Original configuration

The default DIP settings are upright cabinet, one coin per credit, three lives, and a bonus life at 7000 points.

About this port

Each load or reset starts with 99 credits. One-player start spends one credit; two-player start spends two. Start does not insert coins. Press C to insert a coin.

This runs a literal address-specialized translation of the original Z80 program. Graphics, scrolling columns, stars, sprites, bullets, inputs, and frame scheduling follow the original Galaxian hardware boundaries.

The original boot sequence runs visibly at maximum speed, then normal timing resumes.