New Life Games Tech Forums

What is a boot?

Simple, it's a bootleg game. There have been hundreds of different kinds made over the years and this thread is dedicated to them.

Enjoy!

RJ

Game: Galaga
Maker: Seoul ? (says "SEOUL 2002" on the splash screen)
Symptom: Intermittently locks up or loses sound

This appears to be 100% a factory screw up. There was a solder blob on the bottom of the board on traces connecting to pins 14 and 15 of the sound CPU. Removed the solder blob and a chunk of the green trace coating on both traces came up with it. Checked traces to make sure the continuity was OK for each and that the short between them was removed.

Replaced 1 leaking and 1 bloated cap along with 4 more for good measure in the sound circuit. Resoldered the amplifier chip to finish repairing the audio issue.

RJ

Model: Pac-1 / Pac-2 Pac Man board set
Symptom: Dead. Audio amp chip gets VERY hot.

Board has 2 edge connectors. The smaller one had a homebrew JAMMA adapter connected to it.

Board had activity on the EPROMs but no video out. Checked the pinout of the board on the large connector, traced it over to the small connector, and found that the board did not have the video pinned out correctly to the adapter. Checked the pinout and found the adapter to be totally wired wrong.

Rewired the adapter and when pinning out the small connector I found that there was no Coin 1 input on it. Used an unused pin and wired it to the Coin 1 pin on the large connector. Tested the board when finished.

Model: Pac-1 / Pac-2 Pac Man board set
Tip: Pinout for small connector

1: Gnd
2: Gnd
3: Gnd
4: Speaker +
5: +12v
6: N/C
7: N/C
8: N/C
9: +5v
10: Player 1 Down
11: Player 2 Down
12: Player 2 Start
13: Player 1 Start
14: Player 1 Right
15: Player 1 Left
16: Blue
17: Green
18: Sync

A: Gnd
B: Gnd
C: Gnd
D: Speaker Gnd
E: +12v
F:
H:
I:
K: +5v
L:
M:
N: Coin 1 (Must be added! Connect to pin I on the large connector - across from pin 8)
P: Coin 2
R: Player 1 Up
S: Red
T: Player 2 Right
U: Player 2 Left
V: Player 2 Up

Coin 1 input is NOT available on the small connector. Use the unused pad at location N to add it. Run a jumper wire from Pin I on the large connector to the pad at location N.

Model: Pac-1 / Pac-2
Tip: Software ROMs

The ROMs aren't readily available for this board but, the Namco Pac Man code is what it uses. It's just divided into 2716 EPROMs instead of 2732.

I didn't test all of them, but the EPROMs I did check are coded as this:

Pac-1 CPU board:
6E: Lower half of namcopac.6e
6F: Lower half of namcopac.6f
6H: Not checked
6J: Not checked
6K: Upper half of namcopac.6e
6M: Upper half of namcopac.6f
6N: Not checked
6P: Not checked

I would assume the rest would follow suit as would the video EPROMs on the Pac-2 video board.

The ROM code was found in the puckman.zip file used for MAME.

Model: Pac-1 / Pac-2 Pac Man board set
Tip: Pinout for large connector

1: Gnd
2: Gnd
3: +5v
4: +5v
5: +7.5v Unregulated
6: 2 Player Start Lamp
7: Coin Counter
8: Coins 2 Switch
9: Service Switch
10: 2 Player Start
11: 1 Player Right
12: 2 Player Up
13: 2 Player Right
14: 1 Player Down
15: Gnd (Use for Speaker -)
16: Video Green
17: Video Sync
18: Speaker +
19: +12v
20: +12v
21: Gnd
22: Gnd

A: Gnd
B: Gnd
C: +5v
D: +5v
E: +7.5 Unregulated
F: 1 Player Start Lamp
H: Lock Out Solenoid
I: Coin 1 Switch
K: Test Switch
L: 1 Player Start
M: 1 Player Left
N: 1 Player Up
P: 2 Player Left
R: Gnd for Table Mode (Unconnected for upright)
S: Gnd
T: Video Red
U: Video Blue
V: 2 Player Down
W: +12v
X: +12v
Y: Gnd
Z: Gnd

Pinout courtesy of the Mowerman website. His site was down at the time I needed this but the Internet Archive had a copy. :D

Model: Street Fighter 2 bootleg (One large single board)
Symptom: Garbage on screen

Board had some strange RAM chips on it. They were surface mount 62256 chips on DIP carriers. Replaced 2 bad video RAM chips and tested board. Board had graphic glitches - it did not like the replacement SRAM chips for video. Swapped the video SRAM chips for the main CPU SRAM and played several games. The replacement SRAM chips functioned fine as CPU RAM.

Model: Shinobi
Symptom: No fire, jump, or audio

Cleaned the edge connector to fix the fire and jump issue. Replaced the audio output IC to fix the missing audio issue. Tested.

Model: King and Balloon (Galaxian Hardware)
Symptom: Dead. Garbage on screen.

Board had corrosion damage.

Cleaned board and replaced 2 2114 SRAMs and their sockets. Replaced a socket on one of the 2102 SRAMs, cleaned the pins on the SRAM, and reinstalled it. Recapped audio section of board and jumpered one edge connector contact to ground for the audio to work on a Galaxian pinout cab/JAMMA adapter. Tested.

Model: Ghosts 'n Goblins (bootleg)
Symptom: Dead. Garbage on screen.

2nd board was hooked up backwards.

Replaced 2 EPROMs, 1 LS273, 1 LS74, 6 2114 RAMs, 1 2116 SRAM, 2 6148 RAMs, 5 LS245s, 1 LS00, and 10 LS194 ICs on the 2nd board. Tested.

Model: Pac Man (Bootleg running on Galaxian hardware)
Symptom: Dead.

Board was missing a CPU. Installed CPU and board was still dead. Installed Galaxian character ROMs and the Galaxian test ROM. All tests passed, but there were numbers across the whole screen. Replaced 74LS245 at 9B to fix the numbers issue. Board would still not boot with the ROM daughter board installed. Installed missing jumper wire from the daughter board 74LS42 pin 14 to IC 7D, pin 7, on the main board, and the game booted but had no sound. Installed missing jumper wire from the solder pad for IC 8E, pin 14, to pin 2 of IC 8K and 9K to restore sound.

While the jumpers were missing, the stubs of the wire and the solder blobs remained behind. This allow for finding where the jumper wire points were through careful examination of the board.

Model: Ms Pac Man
Symptom: No sync, no sound.

Board was a bootleg Pac Man board without the built-in power supply section. It only ran on DC, but had a slightly different pinout from the real Pac board.

Jumpered a trace for a missing video ground connection. Cut 3 traces and jumpered 2 to move the speaker leads to the correct pins for a Pac/Ms Pac Man harness. Tested game.

Model: Pleiades (Labeled PRE-3)
Symptom: Will not reboot when warm

Reset signal was not rising to a logic high level. Traced down reset circuit and compared it to the original board schematics. The 10uf tantalum capacitor in the reset circuit was installed according to the silkscreen on the board but backwards when compared to the original board schematics. Reversed the cap and board would reset properly when power cycling the warm board.

Model: Monster Invasion (by Games, Ltd)
Symptom: Graphics corruption

Galaxian Bootleg boardset.

Player graphics were striped, missing rows. Cleaned corrosion spot on the board, installed new socket on the fast RAM, and jumpered a bad trace. Replaced 3 physically broken capacitors and jumpered the audio return line to ground so the boardset would work in a Galaxian cabinet.