NBC Showtime

[yukonblaze]

  I am at the planning stage of a cab and was wondering if anyone was familiar with the Showtime pcb.  If I purchased the board and hard drive and outfitted a NBA JAM cab with clays multi jamma, would this be an easy plug and play or would I have some major rewire.   I am just thinking about a JAMMA cab but if it worked out I would like a JAMMA+.  Any info would be helpful. 

[Chemixtry]

Showtime used a med res monitor and 49-way joysticks. I'm not sure if there is a option to switch the board to standard res and 8-way joysticks. If you can it would not be to much trouble since they have same number of buttons per player.

[BobA]

JAMMA+ is not a standard.  What it means is that the PCB has a jamma connector (56pin) and needs another connector to connect extra buttons.  These extra connectors vary from game to game and there is no standard connector. 

Clays multi jamma controller board has an aux connector for 4 extra buttons but I am not sure what you would need on the switch boards to connect your jamma+ kick harness to.  Its probably in the switchboard documentation.

[MonMotha]

Showtime runs on Vegas.  Vegas is the evolution of the Seattle hardware that Blitz ran on, and the options seem simlilar.  I know Blitz supports both standard and medium res as well as 8-way and 49-way sticks.  There is an identical bank of DIPs on the Vegas hardware, but I don't have a manual to verify that the assigned functions are the same (they certainly need not be).  It's certainly something worth checking.

The wiring for the extra players has been standardized on Midway boards for a long time.  You could chuck modern 4-player Midway stuff into an old NBA Jam cabinet and the wiring would still match up.  The only thing I've seen them add is the "I/O40" board for using 49-way sticks with 4 players.

[yukonblaze]

  As far as the monitor going, could I go with a multi sync moitor??  I was hoping to create a cab with NBA Jam, JAM TE, Hangtime, Maximum Hangtime, NBC Showtime, NFL Blitz, 2 on 2 Open Ice, and/or Golden Tee Complete.  I wasn't sure if possible or if it was a pipe dream??

[MonMotha]

Multisyncs are great for swapping games like that.  I have one of the Betson ones (made by Kortek) and run it in standard res for PS2, MK2, and the Neo-Geo, and I run it medium res for Blitz.  I also have been known to use the VGA and 800x600 capabilities for PC gaming.

[yukonblaze]

  So it would be possible to just add the Showtime board into a NBA Jam cabinet and add 49 way joysticks.  The I/O40 board for the joystick is that an aftermarket board or did it come with Blitz and Showtime boards? 

[MonMotha]

The I40 board was distributed with 4-player Blitz and possibly Showtime cabinets (and possibly 4-player conversion kits, if any were made).  They're almost impossible to come by separately from the main board.  The I40 is necessary if you want to use 4 players with 49-way sticks only.  It is not required for 4 players with 8-way sticks, nor is it required for 2 players with 49-way sticks.

If your cabinet is a 4-player NBA Jam cabinet with 8-way sticks, Showtime should be a drop in conversion: all the wiring is identical, but you wouldn't get the 49-way control.  Using 49-ways would require additional wiring  .he old joystick wiring becomes unused, but there's no need to rip it out, and I'd say leave it to make it easy to convert to other 4-player Midway games not using 49-ways.

Note that you would not be able to easily swap back to NBA Jam without putting the old 8-way sticks back in.  I'd say just keep the 8-ways in place if you plan on game swapping unless you want to make swappable control panels, since changing out 4 joysticks is rather time consuming.

[yukonblaze]

Monmotha do you just switch your games or are you using some sorta multi jamma card?  I would like to be able to switch from CP but if that doesnt pan out I guess I would have to just switch the Jamma connector. 

[MonMotha]

I have a set of custom-built shelves that I have all my boards mounted on.  I can get about 3-5 boards in the cabinet at a time (depending on how much stuff sticks off the board) plus the PS2 which resides more or less permanently in there.  I just move the JAMMA connector manually.  Swapping Neo-Geo games requires that I mess around back there anyway, so it's not a big hassle, and the back is pretty much always off.

I also have semi-modular control panels since I often play various Bemani games on the cabinet.  The CP that's used for normal arcade boards just connects up at the CP area with a couple of 0.062" Molex pin/socket connectors.