Pandora Box 3 Multi-Game 520-1 PCB

[saran]

I just started working on this.

The PB4 SD card can be cloned with no problem. Unline the Game Elf the PB's have no unique serial number nonsense. You can interchange SD cards between machines without alternation to the original image. I mentioned my PB3 dying eariler when my 4 arrived, really the SD just blanked itself for whatever reason. I'm in the process of downloading an image of the PB3 SD from a fellow member here to raise it from the dead.

The PB3 has a wad of hot glue on the end of the card holding it in place. The 4 doesn't have anything like that.

Interesting part: a 4 SD loads and fires up on a 3, but doesn't work properly. CRT video is scrambled & VGA video appears but is shifted to the right with all kinds of weird aspects ratios going on. When you pick a game from the menu it goes to the loading screen, plays it's little loading song, then freezes at the loading screen. Purely speaking out of my ass I assume this is an issue with the way the PB 4 displays CRT/VGA versus a 3. If you hook VGA up to a 4 with CRT simultaneously, you get scrambled video on the CRT, same scrambling as being displayed here when CRT *only*. On a 3 if you hook them both up at once you get video on both outputs, although the VGA will have aspect ratio issues on vertical games.

If the file structure of both cards are the same, it might be as simple as copying over new files on a PB3 card; but the developers went farther out of their way to obfuscate what is going on than they did with a Game Elf.

The next question is would a simpler matter be the King of Air SD card work in a PB4 with no alterations? I'm sure the hardware on those are much closer to a 4 than a 3, especially if they're VGA only.

I guess the file '3a' in partition 1 is the signature file, it's generated with the cpuid of a13



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[mikemann]

The next question is would a simpler matter be the King of Air SD card work in a PB4 with no alterations? I'm sure the hardware on those are much closer to a 4 than a 3, especially if they're VGA only.

I can tell you for sure this will not work. I ordered both of them under the pretenses they would work on CGA. The King of Air would not, so I swapped the SD cards around it would not even boot in a PB4 pcb. I have pics of both PCB's and there is small section on the board that is different between the two -

PB4 PCB -



KofA PCB -

 

[saran]

I can tell you for sure this will not work. I ordered both of them under the pretenses they would work on CGA. The King of Air would not, so I swapped the SD cards around it would not even boot in a PB4 pcb. I have pics of both PCB's and there is small section on the board that is different between the two -



PB4 PCB -







KofA PCB -

Hi
you have koa and pb4 board, it's great

i did some experiment, i can play pb4 sd card in my koa board. and unlucky, only vga works,.

do you see the white paper sticker on the pcb, this sticker has 4 digital, every board is not same, we can consider these digital is the pcb id .

disclaime: the following experiences will probably risk your board. so make sure backup your sd card. i am not guarantee it will work on your board.

a. copy entire sd card of pb4 board.
b. replace 3a file on the first partition of copied sd card with the same file of koa board.
c. boot koa board with copied sd card.
good luck



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and, at first time, you will see only 51 games, don't worry, tried to restore factory configuration . the board will reboot, and you will see all 645 games.

 

[Linear]

Good info saran. Would anyone with a PB4 SD
be nice enough to take an image of their card and upload it somewhere? I'd love to test out the pb4 emulation on my KofA board (even if it is only VGA) before buying one.

 

[nam9]

Anyone seen this video?

 

[Yodd]

You guys should check out forum member lantus360's video review of the Pandora's Box 4:

 

[kuze]

Very good video, pretty much sums up my thoughts on the PB3 (since not much has changed).

 

[Electric Grave]

PB3 has no filters on CGA...based on all this info PB3 still the better piece of hardware, better reproduction of the games, if only the vertical shooters were tated I'd be so happy, even so, the PB3 is pretty cool for the price.

 

[RAZO]

After sitting around and going through all 30 pages and watching the video reviews I think I'm going to pass. Yea, it's only $70 and you get what you pay for but I would much rather play the arcade games I don't own through Mame. I know I'll buy this and after a few weeks put it away or sell it. The loud sound I could probably live with but the screen tearing, bad sound effects, and frame skipping especially in fighting games and beat'em ups is a major let down. My old psp does a better job than this thing. I'm all for Multi-Game boards, still love my cps2 18-1 and my Neo 161-1 but have been disappointed in the past with others like the Blue Elf. This one is just a more powerful blue elf that suffers from similar issues.

 

[Electric Grave]

I've played ST and Alpha 3 with fellow members here and everything went without a hitch, we played on a PB3. We also played some Neo fighters, the only problem with those is a slight pixel miscount which ends on some scrolling but you have to look at it with judging eyes, after a match or 2 is all forgotten. This thing does very well for the price, I'd buy it all over again if I didn't have one already. PB4 not so much.

 

[ArinoSeb_GccxQc]

When you load a game on the PB4 does it have the intro and attrack mode or it jumps right to the title screen ready play. All the video I've seen on youtube seem to be like that or it might be a setting in test mode for that.

 

[Xian Xi]

Anyone seen this video?

Did people miss this video? So he added Windjammers to his PB3? Oh man, this could be awesome.

 

[nam9]

Did people miss this video? So he added Windjammers to his PB3? Oh man, this could be awesome.

No idea how they did this. Watch this space..?

 

[Yodd]

Adding games to a turd hardware... ZZZZzzzzz


Wake me up when this stuff doesn't suck.

 

[opt2not]

Wait, you guys don't have Windjammers on your PB3? It's installed on mine...

 

[Xian Xi]

Adding games to a turd hardware... ZZZZzzzzz


Wake me up when this stuff doesn't suck.

I think it is referring to the bootleg PB3 that is a repurposed blue elf and not the PS4 one. Damn.

 

[ryosnk]

Hi, who does not sell bootleg PB3?

 

[GohanX]

The link in the very first post is the real deal.

 

[nam9]

They've put up a Blog if anyone wants to follow their progress:

http://www.openthepandora.ovh/

 

[GohanX]

That is fantastic, I wish them luck.

 

[casefresh]

Hi There,

New guy here. I have an original, mint Killer Instinct cabinet, never modded I would like to put the Pandora 3 or 4 into to make more use of it. Is this really plug and play? Meaning disconnect JAMMA from main board, plug it into Pandora 3, screw it down and turn the machine on? Here are my questions:

1)It looks like the Pandora 4 now has a free play setting, from another person’s video review on this site. That’s a big plus.

2)Does the JAMMA connector fit only one way onto the Pandora 3 or 4?

3)Somebody mentioned that the CRT signal is filtered and doesn’t look that great with the Pandora 4 and not the Pandora 3. Is this true?

4)This blue elf adapter. Would its only advantage be to give me the 3 extra buttons for player 1 and 2, using their kick harness thing on their adapter?

5)Somebody said disconnect -5V on JAMMA before you hook up Pandora to the cabinet. Really, why? What is -5V used for inside the original KI Cabinet?

Thanks in advance for everyones help.

 

[Xian Xi]

So the first thing I noticed about the PB4 is that you can't use two outputs at the same time. It only supports either/or whereas the PB3 you can run both at the same time. Centipede plays pretty decent, kinda weird with a stick though. Free play is irritating as fuck, basically just throws in 9 credits and then when you hit start again it throws in another 9 credits I'm assuming. The menu return setting is different now. Before you had to hold start for 5 seconds then get back to the menu, now if you hold it for 2-3 seconds you go back to the menu/game list.

 

[munchiaz]

I really want to hear more on the king of air. practically no info online for that thing

 

[raziel2001au]

Hey can someone with both PB3 and PB4 do me a favour? I'd like to know how wide horizontally the PB4 picture is compared to the PB3 on a CRT. In other words, if you switch from the PB3 to the PB4, is the image wider if you don't adjust your monitor's settings?

See, my PB3 is cool and all, but it needs a lot of monitor adjusting to be decent after using my CPS2 or NeoGeo boards. I'm hoping the PB4 has a wider output than the 3, thus not needing that sorta adjustment.

 

[pipes]

I really want to hear more on the king of air. practically no info online for that thing

+1