Just passed 200K for the first time ever in Donkey Kong! Settled in for a nice 234,600. 300K, here I come!

I’m really increasing my score now, as I am beginning to learn some of the skills and tips from other players. I hit 193,800 this weekend! BUT…just like Steve Wiebe has Billy Mitchell, I have jsquared (KLOV name) who has to keep one step ahead of me. He just sent me notification of his 208,400 score. I’m coming for you Jodey!

Here’s a great viral video from G4TV for those of you who have seen “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”

If you haven’t seend King of Kong yet, you have to see it. It really got me excited about making a run at my Donkey Kong high score. King of Kong is a documentary about a couple guys’ attempt to beat each others’ world record high scores in the original Donkey Kong arcade game. There are some “inaccuracies” and some supposed misrepresentation of some of the characters in the film, but overall it is an enteraining movie. If you watch it, make sure you Google some of the more recent information as well as some of the revealing truth behind the movie.

Click this banner to see more on The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Here are a couple links for more information, or more insight into KOK:

• The King of Kong Official Message Boards - Has some interesting debate on the validity of the movie. Some people are a bit “obsessive”!
• AV Club Billy Mitchell Interview - Great impromptu discussion with Mitchell about the facts of the movie
• TexasGeek.TV King of Kong “Director’s Cut” Clip - Nice video of further Wiebe exploits after Mitchell beat him yet again…

Just a quick note to mention that I received my replacement D2K kit. Tried it out, and it works perfectly. I’m going to play it for a week or so, then post a review of the kit and the game itself here on my blog.

I’ve only done one other Multi-game kit review so far, for Clay Cowgill’s Multi-Pac. Just reposted it on my site. Check back soon for more reviews, including D2K!

FINALLY beat my Donkey Kong high score tonight. I’ve had 115,100 as my high for the past six years. Now, I finally beat it.

As I continue focusing on one game in my collection each month, May is Donkey Kong Month! I picked DK because I just saw “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” and was inspired to make a run on my high score. My current high score is 115,100, which I’ve held for about 6-7 years. Tied it before but never beat it. Last month, I beat my high score on Phoenix a couple times. I expect nothing less this month.

Here are a few links to get you in the Donkey Kong spirit!:

• Donkey Kong Flash Game - Seems to be an emulation. Pretty cool.
• The King of Kong Official Site - Very entertaining “documentary”. Some misrepresentation accusations, but overall a great flick!
• G4 TV King of Kong Broadcast Announcement - Here’s the planned broadcast.
• Donkey Kong Wikipedia Page - Great history.

Just received my Donkey Kong 2 (D2K) kit last night from Arcadeshop. It is fantastic! For those of you that have not heard of the game, it is a new game programmed for original Donkey Kong hardware by Jeff Kulczycki, of Jeff’s Romhack. Jeff has done a fantastic job with this game. It is TOUGH! I’ve only completed the first screen so far, but will be spending some quality time checking out all of the screens.

The kit to add this to an existing Donkey Kong board is made up of a Braze Technologies High Score Save and Diagnostics Kit with custom programmed ROMS. The kit can be purchased exclusively through Arcadeshop. If you own a Donkey Kong, you MUST get this kit. The kit not only plays D2K, it still will play the original Donkey Kong. It also saves high scores and adds a Freeplay mode for both games. There is even a set of full cabinet artwork for this version of the game currently under production, so you will be able to make your own dedicated D2K cabinet! I plan to pick up some of this artwork and make one myself sometime soon.

I did have one problem with the kit. The diagnostics at the boot screen show that my high score save is ‘BAD’. I still have to call Arcadeshop to discuss this with them. I’m sure it’s either a chip reseating, or a replacement kit required from Arcadeshop. It still plays at this point, but doesn’t save my settings or high scores.

Here are some pictures:

New kit pcb before installation

New kit pcb installed

Boot screen showing save error

A couple shots of the game in action:

Description of game:

One of my all-time favorites! Restored this one from the original parts. Was originally a red Radarscope cabinet, which were all converted to Donkey Kongs at the factory since the game was a bust. I always like the “Donkey Kong Blue” so I painted it that color. Lately it has been more desireable to have them stay the original Red color. Oh well! Overall, has anyone else ever noticed how BAD Nintendo matches up their color combinations? The DK artwork looks like it would better fit the Red or Orange cabinets. The DK Jr. artwork would look better with this blue cabinet (see the marquee in the second photo on the left).

Different games that this cabinet plays:

I currently have a Donkey Kong PCB and a Donkey Kong Jr. PCB installed in the cabinet. I could also put my Donkey Kong 3 PCB in the cabinet (if it was working). I would to restore a DK Jr. so it will have its own home, but I need and empty cabinet. If you have one, please let me know.

How I got it:

This cab was given to be by Ron “Skygodd” Nagel. He was scrapping a couple Nintendo cabs and I couldn’t beat the price (free). Scott Elliott picked it up for me from Ron at an Indy auction, and I’ve slowly picked up parts for it over about a year. It was a red Radarscop cab. I have boards for Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, and Donkey Kong 3. I have the monitor, PCB’s, Marquee, CPO, monitor bezel, control panel, wiring harness, and power supply. Also have some instruction cards. Picked up a VERY nice set of Donkey Kong sideart as well, from Arcade Renovations.

Recent repairs:

Almost complete with the restoration, but have a few details left. Check out my Donkey Kong Restoration page for what I had to do to get this far. Also finally mounted the monitor in a more proper manner. Still should make a wooden monitor surround, but it fits great and is very secure in the correct position the way I have it now. Got the guts to install the side art finally. Went well. I decided NOT to use the windex trick since I have a friend that works with adhesives that did not recommend doing it. Supposedly would break down the adhesive over time. I just took my time and rolled it out with a wallpaper seam roller I had in the basement. Also printed some instruction and insert coin stickers for the cabinet. My wife scrapbooks for a hobby and has a great permanent sticker maker.

What it still needs:

Need new coin mechs to really make it look nice. Also would love a new CPO, but not really a necessity.

Final Thoughts:

One of my favorites. Love having it in my arcade!

Personal High Scores:

Donkey Kong - 115,100 (Finally beat my 108,200 that I tied twice and held for 3 ½ years)
Donkey Kong Jr. - 64,800

Donkey Kong Links:

KLOV Donkey Kong
KLOV Donkey Kong Junior
KLOV Donkey Kong 3
Twin Galaxies Donkey Kong Tips Discussion
Richie Knucklez Elevators YouTube Video - For those of you who have difficulty (like I do) with the third elevators and beyond, Richie Knuckles has a great video on how to get past them.

Screen Shots:

(Completed 9/2/2000)

Background:

Always wanted a Donkey Kong! This is one of my top 5 favorites. It’s also exciting that I can play Donkey Kong Jr, and Donkey Kong 3 in the same cabinet. I came about this project in a round-about way. About 5 years ago for some stupid reason I passed on a very nice Donkey Kong for $150. Money was tight then, and I wasn’t really entrenched in the hobby. Since then, DK’s have really jumped up in price, so I had to become more creative in a way to get one. Haven’t found one for sale locally, and Ebay is way too high, so I decided to build one.

Over the past two years I’ve quietly accumulated all of the parts necessary to build it. Got the boards for the games, marquee, and control in a couple small bulk buys. Got an old Radarscope cabinet from Ron “Skygodd” Nagel when he was just trying to unload old junk (that looks like it was a Looping at one point based on the control panel). I traded a Mach 3 joystick for the wiring harness. The rest of the parts I bought from a few reliable sources. The final piece, TIME to restore it, kind of fell into my lap when my family decided to visit my In-Laws. I had to stay home for work, so why not dedicate a few nights to getting it done. As I mentioned on my Donkey Kong page, my goal is to get the game up by Thursday, 8/22/2000. I’m hosting a Sunday School Men’s get-together that night, and would love to make it available for play.

Well, here’s what I’m starting with:

Not a bad start, but notice that the color of the cab is Radarscope Red. Thought long and hard about leaving it the original color, but since I need to repair the wood, I’m just going to do the Donkey Kong Blue. The following steps are needed to get this project completed:

• Disassembled the cabinet
• Strip all existing cabinet paint
• Repair all bad spots in the cabinet
• Repaint cabinet Donkey Kong Blue
• Blast and Paint all black metal parts
• Reassemble the cabinet hardware
• Install the Monitor, marquee light, power supply and wiring harness
• Install the control panel, marquee, sideart, and monitor bezel.
• Install the PCB.
• Install new T-Molding

Looks like a lot, and it is! I’ve got to start somewhere!

Disassemble cabinet/Strip Paint/Repair Cabinet:

I have to admit, I’ve been working on these steps for months. I disassembled the cabinet quite a while ago. Lots of parts, but not hard to figure out what went where. Stripping the paint off of the cabinet proved to be the most difficult step by far. Just completed that on Monday, 8/21/2000. The paint was incredibly difficult to remove. Tried 3M’s Safest Stripper first, since it was less irritating. Left it on overnight, and it didn’t even dull the gloss on the paint. Tried a heat gun, and I was able to remove the paint. However, this was taking WAY too long to do. Finally bought some full strength solvent paint stripper. This pulled the paint right off, but it smelled terrible! After lots of scraping and touching up with the heat gun, it was ready for some repair. Had to do some random nailing of the carcass to make it a little more solid. There’s not much to the cabinet, and the small screw they used for assembly were really stripped through. Next, I used some Rock Hard Wood Putty to fill in nicks and dings in the cabinet, and also to repair some of the damaged corners. The following pictures show the cab after repair is done:

Paint Cabinet:

Painted the cabinet tonight. I did four coats of Glidden semi-gloss. Their Amsterdam color was recommended by someone for a good color match and I have to agree with them. Also painted some black along the inside edge of the front, the back of the cab, and the inside around the monitor area. Check out my progress below. Tomorrow I’m going to sandblast the metal coin door, marquee support and bezel support, then paint them black. Should look really nice!

Teaser!

Couldn’t wait any longer, wanted a sneak peak at what the game will look like nearly complete. Check out my teaser photos below!

Assembly:

Actually one last painting update…I’ve finished the coin door and marquee brackets and they look fantastic. Nice glossy shine. They were a real pain to sand-blast the paint off.

Started assembly today. First up was the monitor. Now, how exactly is the monitor supposed to be mounted. As you can see by the inside shot of the game below, I really had no idea what to do. I really need someone to send me some digital pics detailing the entire inside of the cabinet. Just when I thought the monitor was hard to figure out, I got to the wiring. I’ve got bits and pieces from at least two harnesses, and still didn’t seem to have enough parts. I finally just connected individual jumpers to the pcb itself and it seems to work fine. Later on I plan to rewire a new harness. Depends on if I can figure out how to do it. I’ve got four different manuals, and none of them clearly indicates how to do it.

Well anyway, here’s where I’ve ended up tonight. The game works, and should work fine for some time. However, I’d like to re-wire the inside to make it easier to swap boards, and remount the monitor. I also need to fabricate a cardboard monitor bezel for inside the game. Can’t really tell there is not one, but still need to do it to make it more finished. Also need to add the sideart, a new CPO, and a new plex monitor bezel. Got some nice scratches in the one I have.

Overall, not a bad project. Still wish I had more time to understand the details of the wiring. Will address that soon enough I’m sure. Now on to play…

Final:

I rewired the cabinet tonight, and it works great. I also took the time to mount both the DK and DK Jr. PCB’s into the cabinet so I can just swap the wiring harness connector between them. Pretty happy with the game, and all I need now is some sideart and t-molding!