How to spot bootleg arcade boards?

A

Amano Jacu

Charles Barkley
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I've been browsing ebay, and found a lot of arcade boards that look very similar to one another, basically 2 boards one on top of the other, linked. They don't appear to have any mark of its company.

Some examples:

Golden Axe
40.JPG


Dragon Ninja:
42.JPG


Shinobi (plus it has some wires coming from the harness, I guess to convert it to JAMMA, as originally it is a system 16?):
80.JPG


Black Dragon
89.JPG


So are those bootlegs and can I expect malfunction, right?
 
N

neo*geo

Mickey's Coach
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i have a bootleg boards and it hasnt caused me trouble

and before i get flamed its Street fighter2 rainbow edition

and i cant get that original
 
norton9478

norton9478

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are thos kwarner's auctions... If so I have bought untested boards from him before.....

most were very similar to them....

In my experiance, a tell tale sign that it is boot is if the jamma connector does not have pin #7 keyed...
 
A

Amano Jacu

Charles Barkley
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norton9478 said:
are thos kwarner's auctions... If so I have bought untested boards from him before.....

most were very similar to them....

In my experiance, a tell tale sign that it is boot is if the jamma connector does not have pin #7 keyed...
Click to expand...

The seller is kaweaver. I'm just wondering, did the untested boards you bought work? I assume they were all bootlegs as well.
 
norton9478

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amono, was it you that connacted be about kweaver via ebay?

My ebay ID is sepulturantula.... SOmeone recently contacted me asking about my past experiances with Kweaver... thought it might be you.
 
A

Amano Jacu

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No, that wasn't me, my user ID in ebay is amanojakyu. I just purchased 4 of that boards from kaweaver for a friend that has just bought a cab. I hope they work. Still, did the boards you bought from him have any problem other than being bootlegs?
 
norton9478

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I might have spoken to your friend then

I bought about 12

Some boards worked right away...

I had to put caps on some of them....

I couldn't test about 3 of them (IREM CLASSIC)

overall, of the ones i was able to test I got about 6 to work fine......

the two that drove me nuts was Xena D' Slena (Scrambled Graphics) and Top Secret/Bionic commando (Conttrolls didn't work). Man if they worked i would have been set.

I got working: Gang Wars, Passing SHot, Dragon Ninja, a few others....
 
A

Amano Jacu

Charles Barkley
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No, I'm sure you didn't talk with my friend, there's a reason it's me who is doing the bidding and the paperwork (he doesn't know English nor has any experience on internet trading).

Well, I just hope those 4 boards I bought work... They are Dragon Ninja, Black Dragon, Street Fighter 2 Turbo and Golden Axe. If the Golden Axe one is indeed a system 16 (is it possible that the bootleg version is JAMMA?) we won't be able to test it until we get some sort of adaptor.
 
Last edited:
Dragonfly

Dragonfly

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Bootlegs

yes these are all bootlegs ,
if you want to buy a original pcb: look on the pcb for the original manufacture
stickers or printed Marks , in your case : SEGA . original pcb`s looks much
more detailed and mostly have there marks on there romstickers , in some
cases they leave sound effects out of a bootleg and the pcb doesn`t looked
that detailed , they also are using cheaper components to sell there bootlegs
for a cheaper price then a original , a original pcb mostly looks much darker then
a bootleg .

indeed your shinobi is a system 16 and its not jamma , pretty stupid to
solder de wiring on the pcb instead of using a nice edgeconnector which
can be re used for other System 16 pcb`s , its easy to remove the solderd
wiring but watch out that you won`t pull off the pinouts ..

all the best :)
 
A

Amano Jacu

Charles Barkley
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Thanks for the reply, Dragonfly. :)

Yes, I was almost sure all that boards I posted were bootlegs, but I wanted to hear some opinions as well. Finally I didn't get that Shinobi one, but a Golden Axe one that shouldn't come with any type of adaptor, I'll have to figure out how to get one mysef.
 
Dragonfly

Dragonfly

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norton9478 said:
I might have spoken to your friend then

I bought about 12

Some boards worked right away...

I had to put caps on some of them....

I couldn't test about 3 of them (IREM CLASSIC)

overall, of the ones i was able to test I got about 6 to work fine......

the two that drove me nuts was Xena D' Slena (Scrambled Graphics) and Top Secret/Bionic commando (Conttrolls didn't work). Man if they worked i would have been set.

I got working: Gang Wars, Passing SHot, Dragon Ninja, a few others....
Click to expand...


Hello Norton

Xain de Sleena :Try to clean the Roms please , carefully whipe them out with a screwdriver and clean them with a very fine piece of sandpaper , mostly these dirty rom pins can cause a lot of trouble : WARNING !!: replace them the same way back!!!
if you replace them the oposite way : your rom information will be destroyed and you will have to find someone who will program you a new rom !!!.so be warned!!!
mostly if this doens`t work I`ll take a cup of Coffee and examine the board to spot a broken trace or burned IC`s or to any other things that doesn`t look ok , in 75% of my repairs the problem lies on a broken trace on the bottom of the pcb ,mostly the are not protected and so they are very sensitive :(

for Bionic Commando : thats an easy repair : lets say for a example the jump button doesn`t work (Bionic Commando is Jamma ) this pinout is located on pin 22 parts side : now follow that trace untill you`ll met the first IC : this one is responsible for not working , desolder or cut off this IC and replace it
with a new one or do a piggybag : solder a new IC over the faulty one : your Jumpbutton will work again :) , the same goes for Up, Down,Right , Left , Fire etc.... Good Luck !!

Best Regards Dragonfly
 
MKL

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xtoo_short20x said:
0f_1.JPG


B00t or not?
Click to expand...

I've seen that too. It's not an original C&D board but a conversion from SFIICE, despite being made of original Capcom parts. So it may be better than a totally unlegit board but it's still a boot. Furthermore an original C&D comes as a stack of 4 boards, the 4th one being for Q-Sound and a conversion cannot account for that. Also, an original C&D comes with the grey case with sticker (a la CPS changer).
 
SNKJorge

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MKL said:
I've seen that too. It's not an original C&D board but a conversion from SFIICE, despite being made of original Capcom parts. So it may be better than a totally unlegit board but it's still a boot. Furthermore an original C&D comes as a stack of 4 boards, the 4th one being for Q-Sound and a conversion cannot account for that. Also, an original C&D comes with the grey case with sticker (a la CPS changer).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info.
 
A

Amano Jacu

Charles Barkley
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Well, I just got that boards this morning just before going to the University and had only some minutes to try them. SF2 worked well, Dragon Ninja had graphical glitches (the sprites had some lines on them), Golden Axe didn't work (due to it being system 16, I'll have to get an adaptor) and Black Dragon had the screen flipped :eek: . There were no dipswitches that I could find in the board, so I can't understand what happened here... Now that I think of it, I put the Black Dragon board in the supergun right after the Golden Axe one, that was not jamma... Could that have damaged the video part of my supergun? I'll try some other boards later when I come back.
 
A

Amano Jacu

Charles Barkley
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OK, I just found the DIP switches in the Black Dragon board and now it works perfect.
However the graphical glitches on Dragon Ninja just got worse and now effect the background as well, it's like half of the lines (alternatively) are missing. Any idea what could be causing this and how to solve it? Also I noticed a small blue electronic part (capacitor or condensator?) was loose and it fell off, I guess we should replace it.
 
ttooddddyy

ttooddddyy

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Most (just about all Ive seen) legit boards will have the manufacturers logo screenprinted on the actual board set or stuck on a custom chip. Taito,Toaplan,Irem, SNK or whatever.
I have never seen a bootleg board, and I have over a dozen, claim to be something that it is not, they sometimes have no markings at all, not even component references. Also the start up title screen is a givaway, eg my R-Type plays exactly like the real thing without the Irem logo on the title screen.
My older classic arcade game boardsets are all boots (maybe its a regional thing)

1943
Moon Patrol
Galaga
Rally X
R-Type
Exerion

Saving grace is that I dont have any mvs cart boots ;)
 
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