Well finally, the current lineup works! I did a few minor fixes to the games that are currently in my gameroom and they are all working. Those of you who collect games know that there are always a game or two not working 100% at any given time.

The following fixes needed to be done tonight to get there:

• Space Invaders Deluxe had a graphics glitch in the ships. Reseated the socketed chips and all wiring harness connectors.
• Berzerk’s Player One start button didn’t work. Followed the wiring harness through the boards, reseating each connector involved.
• Mr. Do (48-in-1) had some monitor issues. Messed with the convergence and actually got it tuned in clearly! The convergence is very tough to get right. I got lucky!

Now I wish I could get that Tron to work 100%. I’ll post more on it later, but I’m struggling with the power supply issues.

Here’s a quick layout of how it looks right now. I have enough room for the Tron (barely) but I need room for two more games: Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong 2!

My other shipment I received last night was my new 48-in-1 Jamma Board. This is a great board that plays 48 different classic arcade games in any vertically oriented monitor Jamma cabinet. Jamma is a wiring conversion from the late 80′s. It was developed to help arcade companies and operators to be able to swap out game boards in existing cabinets when the old game boards no longer made enough money to justify the space the game took up in an arcade. Before Jamma, when a game was changed in a cabinet, it usually required a totally new wiring harness to be installed in the cabinet with the new board. With Jamma, just the board needs changed.

New 48-in-1 board fresh out of the package!

The board comes with a really nice color manual, which includes screenshots of each game.

I decided to convert my Mr. Do cabinet to use the 48-in-1 board, because the cabinet was already a conversion. It had a Jamma cable already installed, which I used to play Mr. Do through a wiring harness adapter. To switch games into the cabinet, I would remove the old board and place in a new board. Now with the 48-in-1, I just select games from a menu. Since Mr. Do is one of the games, it works out great. Arcade collectors should be comforted to know I did not destroy an original, dedicated Mr. Do cabinet to install this board!

I installed the 48-in-1 board by taking out my existing Mr. Do board and the Jamma harness conversion adapter for the Mr. Do. I mounted the board on the side of the cabinet, since I will no longer be changing it out with other boards. I had to wire up a Test Switch and Service Switch to navigate the on-screen setup menus within the 48-in-1 board. This is crucial, since you need to be able to adjust the board settings (the default volume is WAY too loud) and individual game settings. I still need to compile a list of default dip switch settings for each of the games on the board, so I can set them to accurately match the original arcade versions. Next, I removed the old switching power supply from the cabinet, and replaced it with a computer AT power supply. The 48-in-1 board comes with connectors to allow the board to be powered by a computer power supply, use a computer VGA monitor, and even extra speakers. Since I have been having some alignment issues with the monitor mounted in the cabinet before this install, I may yet try out using an old 19″ computer monitor. From there, I cleaned out everything else not needed, including the custom screen inverting switch I added for the original Mr. Do boards. And last, I installed a new 8-way leaf switch joystick I just received from Bob Roberts!

Here are some pictures of what I did:

Board and Power Supply mounted.
Very clean installation!
One of the test screen shots.

Description of game:

Jamma converted Rockola cabinet. I converted it to a Mr. Do cabinet because I don’t care much for Heavy Unit. It was a very well done conversion before, so it ended up being pretty clean when I was done. I chose Mr. Do since it was one of my favorite games of the past, and I had some good artwork for the cabinet.

Different games that this cabinet plays:

Wired as a Jamma cabinet. I use a Universal to Jamma converter to play Mr. Do, Ladybug, Mr. Do’s Castle. Can also play any vertical display Jamma game or other vertical game with appropriate Jamma adapter.

How I got it:

I got this game as part of a bulk buy in February 2003. They were in an old movie theater that went out of business. Game worked fine, but I planned to pull out the guts and turn this cabinet into a MAME cabinet. It is in great shape. It is a Rockola cabinet, but I am not sure which game. Their cabinets are pretty generic. Whoever converted this game over did a nice job with woodgrain laminate on the sides. I decided to convert it to a Mr. Do instead because I had a cabinet that was not in good shape.

Recent repairs:

Worked when I got it. Since I wanted a Mr. Do cabinet, I had to rotate the monitor to be vertical. It was very difficult to get it to fit properly. Had to experiment with different angles. Finally had to swap the guts of the monitor into a Sanyo vertical frame to get more clearance. That was pretty difficult. The cabinet was originally a vertical cabinet, but the ways it was modified made it too difficult to go back to the original setup. Installed a new Jamma harness. Also had to drill out the control panel to match a new control panel overlay I got from Eldorado Games on ebay. Took a few weeks to get complete, but you can see that it looks nice and was worth it. Then I made a few wiring conversion adapters for some of the games to meet the Jamma harness. Then came the problem. I read that Mr. Do rotates its display the wrong direction compared to other vertical games. To make the cabinet work, I would have to swap out the yoke wires on the monitor or rotate the monitor itself. I wanted to do something that would allow me to play other vertical games, so I had to come up with a simple way to change it when I changed games. Did some research on RGVAC and decided to try to make a switch box to swap the wires. Tried to make it so I could do it from the coin door. Turned out perfectly and I can swap the orientation by flipping a couple switches. Check out pics below.

Bought a Mr. Do Jamma adapter from Arcadeshop.com. Works great and now I can turn the sound amp on and off for other Universal games. Also traded my Yankee Do PCB for a real Mr. Do PCB.

Monitor and Inverter Switch:

Cabinet as purchased:

What it still needs:

Would love to get a set of sideart to put on the cabinet.

Final Thoughts:

Didn’t care for Heavy Unit. Glad I can play some great games in the cabinet anyway! Ironic that it was “Heavy Unit” since this is one of the heaviest game cabinets I’ve owned.

Personal High Scores:

Nothing worthwhile to post yet!

Links:

KLOV Mr. Do! Page
KLOV Mr. Do’s Castle Page
KLOV Yankee Do! Page
KLOV Lady Bug Page
KLOV Heavy Unit Page

Screen Shots:

Yankee Do!

Heavy Unit screen shots taken from Raine Page (Raine screen captures)