Barrel freezers, internal difficulty, 6th girder stuck fireballs

[Sock Master]

and not so fast about no way to control this

True.  I meant from a normal human-speed input perspective.   From a tool-assisted perspective, one could watch attract mode in frame-by-frame motion and wait for a double-frame-long fireball animation (or whichever animation frame triggers preferable bonus randomness) and start a game then.. or wait for the correct frame before moving that last pixel towards completing a stage (but even this is complicated by the fact that it sometimes takes several frames before Jumpman's movement is initiated.)

The whole idea is conjecture at this point and not necessarily actually the case.  Seems worth looking into to find out, but there isn't necessarily much a (non-super-human) player could do to take advantage of it if it turns out to be true.

And even if true, It's also possible that each fireball's individual animation counter is not necessarily kept in sync with the other fireballs.   Then it would only be possible to 'game' one of them, not all simultaneously.

[SpiderWaffle]

but there isn't necessarily much a (non-super-human) player could do to take advantage of it if it turns out to be true.

Can P1 start be held down while hard booting to start first possible frame each time, if so maybe that's a good frame, for 1-1 at least, otherwise humans still time things well, might be a large enough window of good frames in a row (like 3-5 frames) for a human to press a timely P1 start button.

[Sock Master]

We don't even know for sure if that fireball animation / fireball movement synchronization leads to any statistically significant advantage or disadvantage.  And if it did, whether it could be gamed that easily or reliably.

You would still have to perform the action of inserting a quarter and then pressing start.   Just holding the coin button down during boot up should not give a credit.  I haven't tested this, but from my understanding of the circuit, it won't.    Holding the Service Switch down, though, probably does.    Try holding service + start during power up.  The game might start immediately... with predictable random seed at start, and predictable fireball sync at start.

[edit] Nope.  Holding the service switch down during power up does not give an immediate credit.

[2nd edit] Only a free-play kit would allow this sort of immediate start scenario.