Recline of the machines: Terminator felled by dodgy battery
- Reference: 1767783609
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/01/07/terminator_felled_by_dodgy_battery/
- Source link:
Spotted by The Register's very own US editor in a New York arcade, an elderly Terminator Salvation arcade game is struggling to boot and reporting what is likely to be a borked motherboard battery.
[1]
In days of yore, arcade hardware relied on exotic custom silicon – this writer has a particular fondness for the Sega System 16 and OutRun chippery, for example – but the borked screen here indicates that Skynet runs on some decidedly prosaic PC hardware. The Phoenix BIOS message on boot will be familiar to many, and the battery error suggests that whatever is keeping the BIOS settings alive is not long for this world.
While the game itself uses light guns as its primary mode of user interaction (so hitting F1 or F2 to deal with the Terminator's problems is not really an option), the "Raw Thrills" on offer will likely come from attempting to change a CR2032 battery on the motherboard without attracting the ire of the arcade manager.
Then again, perhaps this is indeed a sign of an impending takeover by the machines, with the battery alert there to lull the foolhardy into a false sense of security. "Oho," a would-be player might say, "if the Terminator can't even get past the BIOS boot screen, humanity is likely safe from the perils of artificial intelligence."
[2]Welcome to Wendy's! Before your order can be taken, you must first reset this kiosk
[3]Banksy's Limitless limited by Windows Activation
[4]We will be cruising at 35,000 feet and failing to update our Apache HTTP Server
[5]Seville: Famed for blue skies and now Blue Screens of Death
If the majority of the world's tech bros are to be believed, such confidence is misplaced. Terminator Salvation debuted in 2009, and things have moved on apace in the intervening years. OpenAI had yet to become a thing, and Nvidia's chips were boosting game frame rates rather than market performance. 2025 was a different story.
As such, a bit of wobbly voltage from the battery of a Terminator arcade game is a reminder of days past, when a leaky battery or aging hardware could bring down the machines. Popping a quarter or two into the slot was enough to bring the hardware to life temporarily.
[6]
Today's artificial intelligences have their own power problems, which are unlikely to be solved by a fresh button battery.
[7]
Considerably more than a pocketful of quarters will be needed to sustain the current AI revolution. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2026/01/06/bork.jpg
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/01/bork_wendys_kiosk/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/30/banksys_limitless_limited_by_windows/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/30/update_apache_http_server/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/28/seville_bork/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aV6RLCxKUgfwiUgmI0y5hQAAAlM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aV6RLCxKUgfwiUgmI0y5hQAAAlM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: I used to like
Old enough to have actually experienced this in real life.
Re: I used to like
I seem to recall it even saying "Keyboard missing - press F1 to continue"? Maybe that's a false memory, though. (Though as I recall, memory errors were just loud beeps in certain sequences?)
Re: I used to like
It wasn't that stupid really.
If set to halt on all errors, the press F1 was to indicate a keyboard was now attached and working.
My machines were normally defaulted to "halt on all errors except keyboard" from the makers (gigabyte 486/pentiums boards) and so would sail though regardless if you hadn't connected the keyboard.
Re: I used to like
I remember having that error. Unfortunately, on that machine. it was a PS/2 keyboard, which would only be recognized at boot - connecting one after the error wouldn't work, and you had to reboot anyway.
I'll be back ...
... but only on the replays.
This is confusing
The Phoenix BIOS message on boot will be familiar to many, and the battery error suggests that whatever is keeping the BIOS settings alive is not long for this world.
But we know (as we see The T800's own view) that The Terminator [1]runs on a 6502 , and such BIOS's are not used by 6502 bases systems.
[1] https://www.pagetable.com/?p=64
Re: This is confusing
As does [1] Bender
[1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/the-truth-about-benders-brain
Re: This is confusing
Read a bit of the text there - interesting.
If I recall correctly, doing sloping lines without multiply/divide is called a DDA (Digital something something). I recall descriptions and comparisons in an early graphics textbook.
But, did you know you can do *circles* without mul/div? And no lookup tables. I did one for my "Explore" system on a CP/M S-100 graphics card. It's probably possible to modify that to do ellipses, but I didn't need that, so didn't try.
Fun times. Now I need the old geezer icon again!
Re: This is confusing
I think a lot of us of that age either worked out from first principles how to draw lines and curves (mine was using Z80 on an Amstrad CPC64), before finding out later in life that Jack Bresenham did it all way before many of us were born, or out of diapers.
TIME CRISIS IS COOL
Trying to one up a DOLLY BIRD what is the point. Just the hired help.
Better to explore what was made available and the why. :)
MINNIE THE MINX :)
Generic PC in an arcade game case? Yawn...
I was never really an arcade fiend as a kid in the 80s. But I do remember being blown away by OutRun and that arcade game graphics in general were almost always so much better than anything domestic hardware or consoles were capable of back then.
From what I've read, the reason they went into serious decline from the mid-90s onwards is partly because the domestic consoles that were coming out then were dramatically narrowing the gap between themselves and dedicated arcade machine hardware.
I mean, I know it's common nowadays, but seeing an arcade machine that's obviously little more than lightly-modified (at best) generic PC hardware in a fancy case- and probably no better than what many people have at home- isn't really inspiring, is it?
I used to like
"Keyboard error - press F1 to continue".
Or is this a fake memory, and the BIOS was never that stupid?