New arrivals - A couple of pre jamma PCBs

I just recently sold all of my older, pre jamma games or traded them for MVS stuff since I wasn't giving them much play. I prefer newer stuff. Mainly shooters. But the girlfriend has two particular games she adores. These are for her. On the left is Jr Pacman, on the right Ghosts 'n' Goblins. It's really Ms Pacman she'd like but this was a great price so I grabbed it while I could. Both are original boards.

I have some finger boards and stuff on order so I can solder up adapters for these. Jr pacman is supposed to be 100% working. GnG has a few rogue symbols on screen. Once I have the adapter for it I'll have a fiddle and see if there's anything I can do or if I need to ship it off for repair. The price was good enough that even paying for a prety expensive repair won't push the price up above what a worker would have set me back.

New arrivals - Pony III, aero fighters 2

Isn't it beautiful? This weekend a couple of friends from Arcade Otaku travelled up here from the deep south. They came bearing this beauty. I adore these cabs. I much prefer angular, metal cabs to the plastic bodied candies. I also prefer a 25" or 26" monitor to a 29" for playing shooters. This is pretty much my favourite candy cab design. It's also absolutely spotless. It's had a total overhaul. Powder coating, conversion to 240V, rewire etc. It's had it's original monitor replaced with a 25" toei from a U4. It's a beautiful chassis. I adore this thing. I have ibara in it now and will probably leave it as a dedicated SH3 cab. When they left (after a fantastic few days of gaming) they took away the second aero table. A trade I am very happy with. As is the other party I believe!

They also brought this along. That's 52 / 148 MVS carts.

New arrivals - ESP ra. de. and another MVS cart

I wanted to take advantage of the last of my free time at the end of my holidays so stretched my budget a little to buy this pcb now. normally I'd have waited til I sold a couple more bits or til after payday. I had nearly the full amount in my paypal account anyway from offloading a few more things. I tested it when it showed up but I'm waiting til this weekend and the arrival of a little something else to give it a proper workout.

I also got a lovely shock troopers 2nd squad cart with a lovely, minty hologram label today. That's 51 / 148 MVS games I own now. Fun game this one :)

New arrivals - Donpachi and NAC marquee holder

I got this parcel from my good friend FrancoB today (you should buy some of his repro marquee holders!).


It contained this lovely bit of shmup history. For those who don't know, Donpachi was released in 1995. It was cave's first release following the dissolution of toaplan and the formation of cave. There's a cool easter egg thing on the high score table I noticed. When it's first turned on and has the default names in the score table if you read the initials in the score table it says 'toaplan for ever'. I've had a fair few credits. I like it a lot. Gets pretty hard from the latter parts of L2 onwards.


I also got a repro marquee holder for the NAC. Looks loads better with it. It looked pretty squat and dumpy before in my eyes. I popped some repro progear no arashi art in there since that's what's in the cab still. I've also just bought an ibara pcb but that had been here for a couple of months on loan anyway. I love that game. Crushingly, unforgivingly hard. Totally awesome!

New arrivals - Last of the MVS

This is the last of the MVS stuff I've picked up in a little trading flurry over the last couple of weeks. The only thing I have in the post on its way to me is a parcel from Holland which appears to have gone astray. I really, really hope it shows up because it has some rare stuff in it I would really, really struggle to find again. Not MVS. You'll see what when it surfaces. I really, really hope it does.

I'm also on the verge of buying a couple mroe PCBs. I've sold a couple more games that weren't getting as much play as they should and am using the money to buy a smaller number of high quality games I know I'll play to death. Looking forward to those turning up in a week or so!

Once again these are all legit carts. I now have 50 different MVS games and 51 mini marquees. Unfortunately they aren't all paired. There are only 29 games for which I have the cart and the mini marquee. If you have mini marquees to sell please get in touch!

New arrivals - MVS and a bit of art work

I bought a couple of pieces of raiden art. There are instruction sheets / marquee for raiden 2 and nice cardboard POP for raiden fighters 2. I traded for the MVS stuff. 3 mini marquees from Sweden (traded other arts) and the carts from here in the UK (traded for pcbs I was getting no real play time out of). All the carts are original although two have repro labels. There are a few choice games there. Magical drop 3 I especially can't wait to play. I already had 3 of these carts but these copies were in much nicer shape than my old ones. I'll be seeling the lower condition duplicates or trading for MVS carts I don't already have.

New arrivals - MVS stuff again!!

That's right. Even more of it!



Two great shooters today. Last resort is a loose cart. Blazing star is almost a full kit. It's missing it's mini marquee though and has mismatched serials. I also got the last couple of bits to finish off doing up that other cab I got at the same as the New Astro City. That cab's now up for sale on Arcade Otaku and Jamma+. I'll copy and paste the description here for posterity! Can't be bothered embedding all the pictures though :)

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Ok baby for sale. But not just any OK baby. This one has been massively upgraded by swapping the monitor for a lovely, burn free, tosh tube MS9. The finest 15K monitor in the world ever.

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/3871/018vt.jpg

The cab's in lovely conditon. Nice and clean. Tiny amount of nibbling to the edges of the side art

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/4410/019vy.jpg

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/6671/025kl.jpg

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/6589/023yp.jpg

A little damage to the coin door is about all that needs reporting Comes with locks and keys for all of them except for the coin door I think

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/4145/024xl.jpg

The coin mech and all associated bits (e.g. coin tray) are missing. This was presumably to create room for a MAME pc. It certainly is roomy in the base. At the back you can see an extractor fan. Disconnected currently as unrequired for pcbs but great if you were running a 360 or PC in there

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/163/017ybr.jpg

The inbuilt pcb holder is a great touch. One I wish more cabs had

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7718/014kkl.jpg

It has an internal 240 2 pin socket which could be used for a MAME PC. The socket with the lead in supplies the 100V for the monitor. The empty one is 240V

http://img807.imageshack.us/img807/4533/015kc.jpg

Also comes with a stereo amp. The pins in the top left can be placed where they are now for mono sound via the jamma edge or scooted over to the right to provide stereo sound run in through the RCA jacks from a CPS2 board or PC

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/9540/016lif.jpg

BTW, this cab features a mighty impressive THREE on / off switches. That's not including the one at the plug socket!

Wiring for the new monitor was done pretty nicely I'd say. not a bodge tape and spit job.

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/7802/013mh.jpg

2L 12B panel with all new sticks and buttons (sanwa throughout)

http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/458/020lc.jpg

There's one scratch to the CP but that's about it. Nice shiny ashtray or key holder or whatever
Comedy CP sticker from several owners ago remains

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/6346/021qe.jpg

Has nice bars to keep the front open and (another genius touch) big handles on the monitor frame. This makes it much easier to rotate the monitor. It weighs 40kg or so but I can comfortably lift it in and out and what not, The monitor rotates very quickly and switching the bezel round only takes a minute too. Very quick process

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/9134/022fj.jpg

Dimensions shown here are accurate. At 74 cm wide it will fit through internal doorways (at least mine which are too slim for several other cabs) with no disassembly at all required. One of those three on / off switches makes a cameo in this pic.As you can see this cab also runs off UK mains voltage so no stepdown required

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/4663/028wsq.jpg

As I said the monitor has been massively upgraded to a tosh tube MS9. It doesn't quite sit flush with the bezel but there's very little light leakage and it isn't really visible since it's under a tinted front pane. The monitor has a few very light surface wisps but zero burn in and, as with all MS9s, a great picture

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/5011/031jm.jpg

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/2599/033fi.jpg

New arrivals - MVS stuff again

I really am on an MVS kick at the moment. I have some more stuff in the post that I've traded for. I've let go of a few boards I haven't been playing much in exchange for a few carts. For today though I got:
over top cart
top players golf JP cart
two empty kit boxes
tecmo world soccer 96 mini marquee and dip sheet
pop 'n' bounce full art set
blue's journey mini
robo army mini
samurai showdown mini

New arrivals - MVS mini marquees

With these I now have mini marquees for 1/3 of the MVS games that came with them. Of the 148 MVS games only 133 came with minis according to the info I've rustled up. The majority of those had different versions - often JP / English / Spanish. I'm only interested in having one for each game really although if a JP one comes into my hand and I have an english one I'll hold onto it. Just not actively hunting for all the language variants.

I'll looking for english and Japanese ones but am avoiding other languages.

If anyone out there has any MVS mini marquees, kit boxes or flyers for sale then let me know!

Today's arrivals:
fatal fury 2
cyberlip
league bowling
world heroes 2 jet
burning fight

MVS boot

I got this in the post. It's a boot unfortunately. The seller has kindly refunded me but I thought I'd show you how you can tell.

As you can see the label looks good.

But as soon as you peek in the side it's obvious. You can spot that eprom from 30 paces

Bottom PCB

Top pcb. Try comparing them to the legit ones on mvs scans. You'll see discrepancies in chip placement, text placement and all sorts


The bottom PCB is pretty interesting. They've sacrificed a legit world heros 2 board for this (top board is fully boot). You can see it still has some of the world heros 2 chips in there among the eproms and boot crap. BTW if you see an MX Taiwan chip like the one in the top of that pic your cart is a boot. These are on loads of boots but not a single legit cart

New arrival - Couple of freebies

I got two parcels today, both freebies from friends. A little handful of mini marquees from New Zealand and a decased Derby Owners Club naomi cart from within the UK. I'll have a little play with the naomi cart tomorrow. Has to be worth at least 10 minutes.

New arrival - Waku Waku 7

I love the sprites in this game. Been told the gameplay isn't all that awesome. Will give it a look see. I'm not really into fighters but I'm a sucker for a bit of eye candy and the price was right. I also got a big bundle of MVS mini marquees and flyers etc today but I muddled them up with all my others checking for stuff I had doubles of before I could take a photo.

With this I now own 38 different MVS games and mini marquees for 37. I'm not fussed about region for carts really, or whether it's a JP / english mini. I don't really want any of the spanish, italian or portuguese arts though I see every now and then though. I have a couple more carts in the post and a few more mini marquees too. Since I picked up my U4 I've been playing a lot more MVS stuff and started try and grab mimi marquees where I can to pop in the U4's header.

Identifying legit / bootleg MVS carts

There is already a fair bit of info on this out there but this is the way I check carts to see if they're legit or boot.

You can look at the shell and label by all means, but a boot cartridge case or repro label doesn't mean the boards inside aren't legit. Bootleg cases tend to have a slightly different shape or texture than real ones, sometimes they're the wrong colour too. If you go back a month or so on here you'll see where I picked up a bundle of 5 carts, one of which was in a boot case. That's blue but a different shade to the legit blue cases. It's also a little chunkier than a real cart. The boards inside that are real. I've since aquired a legit cart case to pop them in. The only boot cart I still own has a black case but it has a matte texture, not smooth and glossy like real carts.

Anyway, boards can be moved between cases, labels can be mutilated or removed or replaced. That doesn't mean the boards aren't legit.

The only real way to tell is to look at the PCBs. What you want to do is compare them to the ones you find here:

http://mvs-scans.com/index.php/Main_Page

it's an awesome resource showing legit PCBs and labels and also some boots. The problem is that opening up the case to look properly at the boards can damage the label. Not something you want to do if it can be avoided. So here's what I do.

First I find out the unique identification code for each neo geo game; it's NGH number. On a legit board the ROMs (generally toshiba) will have that code printed on them.

Check here for the NGH number http://www.neogeosoft.com/?section=mvs

If the chips are in the right place (check the scans page). Are proper mask ROMs not EPROMS, and have the right number on then the cart is almost certainly legit. Luckily you can get that info without opening the cart.

You want to turn the cart so that it has the insertion arrow down and the edge connectors towards you


Then peek through the bottom set of vents. Chip placements change a little by cart but normally you'll be able to see two ROMs and look for the NGH number.


If you look through the vents there you can see 224-P1. 224 is the ID for twinkle star sprites. Good. Legit cart. And no damage done to the minty label that's on there!

How to strip a New Astro City

Of the two cabs that turned up the other day one will be staying with me. That's the subject of this little entry, a Sega New Astro City.

Unfortunately it's 4cm too wide to fit through the internal doors in my place and, unlike an E2 for example, the CP box can't just be removed to allow it to go through sideways. That means I had to strip the cab down and bring it inside in pieces. I thought I'd document the steps here. It may come in handy for someone down the line.

First you need to remove this panel behind the flourescent tube. On my cab it was attached with phillips head screws but I'd guess perhaps originally it had security torx.



Then round the front, open up the CP and remove these screws holding on the monitor surround.


You also need to take out this AMP connector which leads to the speakers in the surround

You can then lift off the monitor surround.


Next you need to disconnect the monitor. You need to remove the 15 pin AMP in the bottom left of this pic. You also need to do something with the remote board. You could disconnect the ribbon cable from the chasssis but I left that there and just unscrewed the remote board inside the CP.

Then remove the bolts attaching the monitor to the frame


And lift it out


Almost there. But this last step's the worst. You need to separate the two halves of the base section. There are screws around the bottom at the back and also running up the sides as shown here. These can be extremely stubborn. You'll need a large, quality screwdriver or bits. I battled with some of mine for over an hour using a range of tools and brute force. In the end I had to resort to cutting the last two.


You also need to remove these screws attaching the monitor framing to the other half of the cab. You can then just separate the two halves of the base.

Here are the bits inside and ready to be reassembled

After following all the steps in reverse here's what you end up with.


I swapped the monitor that came with the cab for the beautiful burn free tosh tube MS9 I picked up a month or so ago. It has pretty good geometry (one corner's off, as with pretty much all MS9s I've seen). Perfect convergence. Great image.

Here's a peek under the hood.


You can just see the stereo amp under the PSU. Very happy to have that. I haven't yet tracked down where the issue is (I think dodgy pins in an AMP connector) but currently when playing in stereo I'm only getting audio through the left channel. The test and service buttons on the PSU aren't working either for some reason. I'll sort that sooner or later. For now I'm having too much fun playing progear to mess with it.

The cab has had a working life in the UK I believe. It's 220V with a sega internal stepdown. That's not an aftermarket mod, it's sega labelled as 220V on the power rating sticker round the back.

The shell's a little worse for wear but it's purely cosmetic. The paint has been worn in a lot of spots down to the black layer below. Once I have some spare funds I'll get it preofessionally resprayed. The side art's OK so I'll just mask that off and leave it. There aren't any cracks or anything. With a through scrub inside and a coat of paint it'll be pretty minty.

New arrival - MVS stuff again

I had these two dropped off by my friend Richy yesterday, Mutation Nation and Shock Troopers full kits. We bought a bundle of four kits together and split them two each.