JAMMA and JAMMA + compatability

[mmonte4]

Hello, I was wondering if these are compatable- specifically Wrestlefest (JAMMA+) and Captain America (JAMMA).  Does the (+) make a differece?

[tristan]

The JAMMA+ tend to have more buttons than JAMMA supported. Wrestlefest is 4 player, and requires seperate molex inputs for players 3 and 4 as stated on pages 9 and 10 of the manual:

http://www.arcadedocs.com/vidmanuals/W/wrestlefest.pdf

[mmonte4]

does that mean that i cannot simply plug and play cap america??

[fredster]

Jamma + means it's a full Jamma cable, but it's got extra stuff.  That extra stuff isn't standardized. It just means there are more buttons on the machine than typical Jamma will support.

Jamma will handle two players  - 1 joystick and 3 buttons each.  The standard has positions for two more buttons, but I don't recall ever seeing them used on the Jamma harness itself.

Jamma Plus can also mean that they have modified the jamma cable itself.  Like with a trackball connection where the joystick should be.

What you have to do is look up the pinouts for both the games you have and figure out what connectors go to what buttons.

It's not easy sometimes. Even between the Mortal Kombats the pinouts are different on the + side.

[tristan]

If you only need two players, the JAMMA connector should work fine for Wrestlefest. This is not always the case with JAMMA+ games.

Catain America appears to use seperate connectors for Players 3 and 4 as well, and the manual shows a standard JAMMA pinout. So for two players only, you should be able to swap them out.

[mmonte4]

my wrestlefest is a 4 player game and is jamma + according to KLOV.COM.  Other 4 player Jamma + games include the SIMPSONS, and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.  Captain America is 4 player but it is JAMMA, not JAMMA +. 

Are you telling me modifications would have to be made when switching from wrestlefest to captain america?  I assume mods wouldnt have to be made when switching from wrestlefest to TMNT or SIMPSONS

[SuperGunGuru]

my wrestlefest is a 4 player game and is jamma + according to KLOV.COM.  Other 4 player Jamma + games include the SIMPSONS, and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.  Captain America is 4 player but it is JAMMA, not JAMMA +. 

Are you telling me modifications would have to be made when switching from wrestlefest to captain america?  I assume mods wouldnt have to be made when switching from wrestlefest to TMNT or SIMPSONS

You can play all of those games fine by just swapping them as long as you only want to play with 2 players, but as others have said, you would have to do some moding to play using players 3 and 4.

[fredster]

You might be surprised.  See what the Jamma plus really means is it takes extra cabling. That's all.

I have a Dahioh (?) that had six buttons.  MkII and MK1 took 5 buttons, and MK3 took 6.  They are all "Jamma" plus, but the "plus" was Game specific with game specific connectors.

You can plug and play ANY jamma game with the main harness, but you'll not be happy to find out that the buttons are in different places on the "plus" side from game to game.

But if you are creative, you can get some extra connectors between the PCB lines and the buttons, like a 9 pin Molex with a couple of extra Female ends that you can customize to your pinout.  That way you can easily swap out games.

But as for just taking off the connectors and swapping without modifications, well, I think you are out of luck.

[mmonte4]

wow...ok, as you can tell im not exactly technically savvy.  I read this and thought it was easy as 1 2 3 :  http://quarterarcade.com/Content/Articles/BoardSwapping.aspx

[fredster]

For the most part, yes you can swap games with 1 joystick and 3 buttons in and out.  No problem. But what you are talking about is a little more complicated than that, because the games you are talking about have More than 3 buttons. 

Jamma by itself doesn't support that. It can support 5 buttons, but the good folks at Midway didn't design MK to be that simple.

It will produce video, coin up, start, and use the joystick just fine and dandy.  But it will only have 3 buttons per player.  The PCB has a harness that goes to the other buttons.  That's the problem.

Check out this page - http://homearcade.org/BBBB/plus.html

It may help you.  Read the other pages and this may explain some of this to you.

Read this next - http://homearcade.org/BBBB/jh.html

And then this, it's a step by step on the whole game - http://homearcade.org/BBBB/buildit.html

What you are trying to do isn't real technical in that you have to have a calculator or an ocilliscope to work on, but you have to know your basic components to figure out what you want it to do.

You may also download the manuals for the games you want here - http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF%20Arcade%20Manuals%20and%20Schematics/?M=D

They have the original manuals scanned to help you figure it out. 

Really, I was where you are a few years ago. My first game was a MK and I was scared to death to touch the inside of it.  I spend two days trying to figure out how to convert it to MK2 with my son tapping his foot behind me. So I understand.

The only advice that I can give you is to not be afraid to jump into the game.  Read up on what the components are and try and figure it out.  Take a look at what you have and identify it.  You are NOT going to destroy it.

Take the opportunity to learn it. Everybody starts out with the "black box" idea, thinking it's hard. But it's just a bunch of wires.  Once you go through one of them, you can pretty much figure the other ones out. 

Be strong, have faith, and have no fear. It's only money

[mmonte4]

thanks for the advise fredster!  Im forwarding it to my friend thats helping me out, hes an electrical engineer.  But Im not dealing with mortal kombat here.  I am dealing with wrestlefest- which is 4 players and there is two buttons per player.  And I am wanting to swap other 4 player, 2 button games (Simpsons, Ninja Turtles, Cap America) into my wrestlefest cabinet.

[fredster]

Same Principal, different machine.  I have a wrestlefest board here, I never tried to actually get it to work.


I'm a shoot'em up kinda guy, not a fighter kinda guy. 

Good luck