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Author Topic: Old Nintendo Cabinet Compatibility  (Read 1470 times)

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Loderunner

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Old Nintendo Cabinet Compatibility
« on: April 29, 2004, 06:06:10 am »
I'm not sure if this is the right kind of forum for this post. If not, can someone re-direct. Anyway, I recently bought an old VS. Super Mario Bros. machine. The game itself is inside a cabinet originally built for VS. Hogan's Alley. Does anyone know what games I use with it with little modification (i.e. adding light guns, etc.)? If you could either post the list or suggestions or E-Mail them, that'd be great. Once again, if I'm at the completely wrong forum/site, could someone tell me a good website that deals with old arcade machines? Thanks. -Lode

Tiger-Heli

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Re:Old Nintendo Cabinet Compatibility
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2004, 06:54:02 am »
I'm not sure if this is the right kind of forum for this post. If not, can someone re-direct. Anyway, I recently bought an old VS. Super Mario Bros. machine. The game itself is inside a cabinet originally built for VS. Hogan's Alley. Does anyone know what games I use with it with little modification (i.e. adding light guns, etc.)? If you could either post the list or suggestions or E-Mail them, that'd be great. Once again, if I'm at the completely wrong forum/site, could someone tell me a good website that deals with old arcade machines? Thanks. -Lode
You're in the right forum - but the question isn't specific enough.  First question, are you maming this machine, or using as is?

If maming, you can do pretty much anything to the machine, but it will be a pretty extensive mod.

As is, I think you can plug any Nintendo VS. system PCB in and play that game, and add any of the accessories (light guns, etc.) that THAT GAME used, but you would need a PCB for each game you wanted to play, have to unplug/replug boards to switch games, etc.

I'm much more familiar with the MAME option, though.
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Loderunner

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Re:Old Nintendo Cabinet Compatibility
« Reply #2 on: April 29, 2004, 07:28:59 am »
Hmmm..  ic ic. What would be nice is if I had the option to buy a "How to MAME it up" book and/or some sort of Nintendo technical book (E-Bay calls). Anyway, sorry I didn't specify. What I meant was as-is. And what I truly want to know, is if I bought a playchoice 10 cage and wires and figured some way to rig the cabling, is it possible for me to make a playchoice 10 game out of a VS. cabinet. Thanks.

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Re:Old Nintendo Cabinet Compatibility
« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2004, 07:43:10 am »
Hmmm..  ic ic. What would be nice is if I had the option to buy a "How to MAME it up" book and/or some sort of Nintendo technical book (E-Bay calls). Anyway, sorry I didn't specify. What I meant was as-is. And what I truly want to know, is if I bought a playchoice 10 cage and wires and figured some way to rig the cabling, is it possible for me to make a playchoice 10 game out of a VS. cabinet. Thanks.
Check back later this month when Project Arcade - The book hits the shelves (written by the owner of this site).

In the mean time, AFAIK, this would be possible, although it's also possible the cage and cabling required would cost you more than a working Playchoice 10 cabinet :-(((.
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paigeoliver

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Re:Old Nintendo Cabinet Compatibility
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2004, 08:04:16 am »
Vs. is not the same wiring as Playchoice. Using Playchoice in that cabinet would require finding the rather uncommon single monitor playchoice hardware.

Also, your cabinet was likely originally a Donkey Kong (or Popeye, or Radar Scope) of some sort, as dedicated Vs. machines only came as those double cabinets (either double uprights, or double cocktails).

I would personally just stick with the Vs. stuff for your cabinet, it is plentiful and cheap. You can get the Vs. stuff as chipsets that plug into your main PCB, or (just as common) as entire PCBs that will plug into you wiring harness.

If you planned on Maming that cabinet you would need to either replace the monitor, or come up with some solution to the problem that Nintendo cabinets use inverse monitors (any non-nintendo thing is going to look like a photo-negative on that monitor).
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Gumby

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Re:Old Nintendo Cabinet Compatibility
« Reply #5 on: April 30, 2004, 03:36:55 am »
As I have 8 nintendo cabs, two of which have been converted to Single Monitor Playchoice 10s, I'll chime in a bit...

Finding single monitor PCBs and the carts to plug them in is fairly easy...ebay has them quite often.  Finding a cage isn't hard either.

The wiring harness from a VS. is pretty close all in all to a PC10 single mon, however its missing some wires so you will have to be comfortable adding them yourself.  Finding an actual Single mon PC10 harness intact is quite hard...in 2 years I've found one.  The last one I saw go on ebay was in a NOS Single Mon kit that went for like $450 or so.  If you would like the pin outs for a single mon PC, toss me a message and I'll send them to you.  I've got them color coded to match the CPs

The hardest thing to find is an actual single monitor control panel.  It took me close to a YEAR of hard searching to find my two, at a cost that I would rather not discuss (amazing how fast money goes when you are frustrated).

The solution I recommend would be to just keep it VS.  Finding VS. boards and chips are rather easy, they all (for the most part) use the same control panel, and are fairly inexpensive.  You can find things like Super Mario Bros, Tennis, Hogans Alley, Castlevania, RBI Baseball, Dr. Mario, Excitebike, Goonies, etc. PCB board with chips for about what just the PC10 carts cost.  And they released for VS most of the games that came out for the PC10 (and some that didn't).  The only difference is that you have to swap out the board each time you want to play a new game, rather than just hitting a button.

Either way, Nintendo cabs are a labor of love, they are alot of work but in the end are fantastic to have, play and love.

-Gumby
(edited to fix mispelling)
« Last Edit: April 30, 2004, 02:20:01 pm by Gumby »