Upgrading Gauntlet Legends Vegas board to run Blitz 2K Gold?

[Popcorrin]

I have a Gauntlet Legends board and I want to upgrade it to run Blitz 2K Gold instead.  Both games ran off of the same hardware (Vegas hardware).  I already have the Blitz hard drive so I was wondering what else I needed to do to get it to work.  What rom chips and security chips to replace?

[AmericanDemon]

I think you have to get more than just a rom swap out.  I was thinking that there was either a cart or a separate daughterboard required for these systems plus the hard drive.  I very well could be wrong, but I seem to recall that it was a 3 piece set up.

[FrankieFiero]

I have a Gauntlet Legends board and I want to upgrade it to run Blitz 2K Gold instead.  Both games ran off of the same hardware (Vegas hardware).  I already have the Blitz hard drive so I was wondering what else I needed to do to get it to work.  What rom chips and security chips to replace?

We need to talk...

I'm working on exactly the same thing here, a few things that I've learned...

-The Video Card used on Showtime/Blitz/Sportstation is not the same as the one used by Gauntlet:Legents or Gauntlet:Dark Legacy (Gauntlets used Quantum3D Obsidian boards, the Midway games used Quantum 3D Raven cards).  The game won't fire up with the wrong VC.

-You need the PIC chip (U37) and Boot EEPROM (U18) in addition to the hard drive.  I'm not sure, but you may also need to replace the sound chip (U44).

-The pinout from the CP to the Vegas board is completely different.  If you want to use the 49-way sticks, you need an I40 interface board.

-In addition to the I40, there is an "Aux out adapter board" that connects to the I40 and the sound module.

I bought a complete Showtime (Blitz '99 DIP selectable) board, but got a bum hard drive with it.  I'm working on a wire loom adapter so I can switch between the G:DL board I have and the Showtime one relatively easily.  I'm just waiting on a Blitz '99 or 2000 (Seattle) manual to see if there's any difference in the wiring between them and the Vegas ones before I make it since I have a Seattle Blitz 2000 Gold board as well.

[u_rebelscum]

-The pinout from the CP to the Vegas board is completely different.  If you want to use the 49-way sticks, you need an I40 interface board.

-In addition to the I40, there is an "Aux out adapter board" that connects to the I40 and the sound module.

Do you have schematics or other info on these two?  All the info I have is from the manuals (aka "not much").  AFAIK, the I40 is a multiplexer that combines the four 49way sticks axis info and sends the info serialized, right?


Mame currently does support the 49way inputs for those games because those two parts are not emulated, AFAIK.  Not that it's a hurry or anything to add the support, CPUs needing to speed up before it matters, but it would be cool anyway.  (And like you said, legends-etc don't need mame to emulate those two parts to supoort 49way.)

[FrankieFiero]

I don't have any specs on the I40, but the "AUX" board seems to be only a bridge between the 20 pin connector on the sound module and the 7 pins on the I40 (there's no electronics on the board).
So it's 7 pins on the I40, to a 15 pin connector on the AUX, to the 20 pins on the main board... makes absolutely no sense if you ask me.

[FrankieFiero]

Popcorrin:
You ever finish this project?  I finally figured out the last missing piece of the puzzle on my end.
Gauntlet:Legends and Dark Legacy actually had the 49-ways oriented differently than Midway had done on the I40 for Blitz/Showtime.  The 12 pin connector on the stick should be facing the monitor, instead of to the right as they were in my G:DL cab.

Just need to finish the wiring for the other 3 sticks, and I'm done.

[Popcorrin]

No, I never did finish.  I actually gave up and sold the board.  Glad to hear that you got it to work.  Just curious, what did you all have to do to get it to work?

[FrankieFiero]

No, I never did finish.  I actually gave up and sold the board.  Glad to hear that you got it to work.  Just curious, what did you all have to do to get it to work?

Oh, it was lots of fun...

Basically, the Video Card, PIC chip (U37) and Boot EEPROM (U18) needed to be swapped.  I managed to end up with another complete Vegas boardset which already had a Showtime Gold sound ROM on it, so I just left that there.  Installed the hard drive, and the game fired right up.

Next was wiring up the sticks to the I40.  The hardest part of all this was getting the necessary parts (the connectors).  Panduit made the connectors that were originally used, but they're not making them anymore.  I found out from a local electronics store that they sold that business to ITW, which now makes them under the name ITW Pancon.  Part numbers for the connectors are CE100F-22-xxy, where xx is the number of circuits and y is either not there, or D or C depending on where you're searching (when ordering from ITW you can only get them in either packs of 100 (C) or 500 (D).  So if you want the 15 pin connector, it would be CE100F-22-15 (or CE100F-22-15-C/D).  You'll need a couple of 15's, 12's, 7's and 5's.  The terminating tool MMIT-100F is basically a must for this project (cost about $40).  You'll also need a couple of "wire-to-wire splices" to connect two female connectors together.  I ended up getting a couple MWWS100-36 since they're breakable and I was able to make 2x15 and my 1x5 pin adapters from one piece.

I have the 39" 'Deluxe' cabinet (YMMV with a 25" cab or other that doesn't use the extension harness), so my modifications are done on either end of the extension harness.  The extension on the CP end has 4x15 pin connectors that lead to the 4x15 pin connectors wiring up each player's controls (there are other connections hanging off the harness, but they're not relevant). 

Basically, the 15 pin from the CP is split off to two connectors.  Another 15 pin to handle the buttons, and a 12 pin to the I40.

On each CP 15 pin connector, there's the key, +5V, ground and 12 control wires (8 for the stick, and 4 buttons).  For P1 and P2, the buttons are inputted on the JAMMA connector on SportStation as opposed to the "Gun1" connector for the Gauntlets.  So the button wires need to connect back on what used to be a stick wire (since Gaunts used the JAMMA for P1 and P2 joys).  P3 and P4 buttons can map back to the same positions, since I modify that from the other end on the Gun2 connector.  The +5, Ground and 8 joy wires connect to the I40.  The 8 joy wires map pretty much exactly to the I40 (pin2 to pin2, etc), just watch for the key and skip over that position.

The 15 pins coming from the mobo connect to the new connector you made coming from the CP.  P1-P4 should have only 4 wires on each connector so far (the buttons).  On P1 and P2, connect up the +5 and GND (pins 1 and 15, red and black wires) to a 5pin connector for the I40 power.  I also used 2 unused wires from P3 to connect to the grounds on the AUX board.  The 8 remaining positions on P4 were used for I40 input and output.

On the mobo side of the harness, Gun2 was connected to two 15 pin connections for P3 and P4's buttons.  Additionally, the 4 input wires from P4 were mapped to the up/down/left/right connections on the P4 header.  The 4 output wires coming from the CP were put on a separate 15 pin going to the AUX out board.  The two ground wires from P3 were also put on that 15 pin).

Last but not least, the joysticks themselves need to have the optical board assembly rotated so that the 12 pin connector faces the monitor (when the CP is closed).  I couldn't rotate the whole stick since the metal CP won't line up the posts with a different orientation.  So by removing the 4 black screws you can remove the optical assembly and rotate it.

Once you connect everything up to the mainboard you should be able to test everything out.  Since the coin door et al. has exactly the same connection, you should still have access to the service/volume/credit buttons on the inside even before you start playing with I40 connections.  I spent a lot of time in switch tests making sure I had all the wires going to the right places.

It's been an interresting project, frustrating at times, but I think I learned quite a bit from it.