Are there different versions of the Midway Pacman board

[smac666]

Hi I have a Pacman PCB (picture to follow when I get a chance) and it does not appear to have any daughter boards on it. I know Ms Pacman had a daughterboard and most other picture of the PCB I have seen also have at least one daughter board.

Can some one tell me if there was actually a single board version of Pacman?

Thanks
Steve

[D_Zoot]

There were never any official single boards by Midway.   There are a number of bootleg boards that don't use the daughter card,   and there is a hack to run Ms Pac on a Midway board without the daughter card by using larger eproms and making a few mods to the board.

If your board says "Midway MFG CO" across the middle then it's probably got the large eprom hack.   If it doesn't say Midway across the middle then it's probably a bootleg.

If it's the modded Midway board, it's nothing to worry about or try to change, the mod works just fine.

D

[Q*Bert_OP]

pics please...If I recall correctly, a very small number of boards have custom ICs where the daughter boards go...

[D_Zoot]

pics please...If I recall correctly, a very small number of boards have custom ICs where the daughter boards go...

A very small number of original boards would have custom's in place of the VRAM addresser and Sync Bus controller.   But all original Midway Ms Pac boards would have the ribbon cable out of the Z80 socket to a daughter board.


D

[smac666]

As promised here is a picture of the board.

Its doesn't look to be missing any chips so it doesn't look like it needs a daughter board.

[Malenko]

looks like a bootleg, it says PACK MAN on the label


Maybe its a converted galaxian board with a sticker on it?

[smac666]

Just above the printed label (its not very clear) it actually has PAC MAN printed on the PCB itself with a serial number A082-91375-8000.

So I'm not sure the sticky label is correct.

Regards
Steve

[Pac-Fan]

looks like a bootleg, it says PACK MAN on the label


Maybe its a converted galaxian board with a sticker on it?

It's not a galaxian board. Galaxians have numerous chips perpendicular to the others (Graphics roms and some ram chips)

That's an authentic Bally/Midway Pac-Man board. It just has the Namco custom 284 and 285 chips in place instead of the daughter boards for the SBC and VRAM controller. (B/M switched to the daughter boards when Namco couldn't supply enough custom chips). Remember, Namco designed Pac-Man and simply sold the U.S. rights to B/M.

The reason the sticker says "PACK" is because B/M seemed to have horrible spell checkers. Every authentic cabinet I've seen with the original dip switch setting card also says PACKMAN and have seen this sticker on about 1/2 the boards.   In fact, as posted in another thread recently, they even frequently misspell GALAXIAN as GLAXIAN on their service bulletins.

You can replace the large daughter cards with these custom chips on any board, and you can order repro custom chips from JROK and others that fit exactly flush with the board if you dont have or dont want the daughter boards.

BTW--Some would think your board is a bit more valuable, as it's rare to find these chips, especially both on the same board. The custom chip for the SBC (next to the Z80) is more common. The VRAM chip is a lot less common.

However, most others would probably rather have the daughter boards, since namco custom chips are well known for having thin and brittle legs that tarnish and break off.  However it's a lot more likely to accidentially bump out a daughter board and then have someone put it in backwards and destroy it as well.

So in the end, it's just probably an earlier build of the board, nothing special at all. (look for the actual serial number imprinted on the top of the large rectangular ceramic resistor by the heatsink and 2 caps on the upper right of your picture..--some have it printed there, some have washed off or didn't have it.)   Actually I think I see it's either 0424 or 9424, either of which is low. Most boards I've seen are in the 15,000 to 45,000 serial range I think.

[Q*Bert_OP]

That board's 100% legit...

Don't worry about "Pack Man"...it's also spelled that way on the dip switch settings card stapled inside...

[smac666]

Thanks Guys,

I looked at the high rez image and the number says 6424 on the resistor.

I haven't been able to try it yet as I haven't got a +7v AC power supply.

Thanks for putting my mind at ease

Steve

[Pac-Fan]

You can feed +5V from a standard switch mode supply into it just past the AC->DC rectifier. Bob Roberts should have a how-to-page on how to do it if you don't know how (I wont retype it here). In fact, in a bind you can send 5VDC in directly on the 7VAC line but I wouldn't leave it running a long time like that.