12 replies to this topic

[tillenterprises]

May 8, 2004 marks a day I've dreamed about my entire life (or at least since 1980)- I finally bought an honest to goodness real arcade machine, and a Pac-Man, nonetheless (well, actually Pac-Man Plus)!!!! My question is- does anybody else have one of these machines, and is there anything interesting you can tell me about it - like is there a way to switch dipswitches to bring up the original Pac-Man, etc? Any advise or tricks would be appreciated, since it didn't come with the owner's manual. Here are some pix:

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[tillenterprises]

Oh- one other thing- when I was at the arcade auction yesterday where I bought the Pac-Man, there was also a multicade machine with about 6 or 7 games on it, and although it was in a Namco Ms. Pac-Man cabinet, it had non-Namco games on it, as well. It was a screen driven menu that let you choose from Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man Jr., Frogger, Donkey Kong, and I think Centipede. I was toying with the idea of converting my Pac-Man Plus, and was wondering if I would need to buy the board for this Multicade machine, or just replace chips or roms (bear with me, I'm new at this arcade machine stuff). One last question- are the monitors pretty much universal? In other words, can I mount more than one set of boards in the cabinet, and just plug the monitor into the board I want to play?

[tantone56]

$?

[jim]

Someone probably changed the ROMS to Pacman+. No you can't just plug other boards into the machine. The harness is different. Among other things the connectors for controls, and PS voltages will be different. You can plug a Ms Pacman boardset into a Pacman cabinet as well as Galaxian (but some of the controls won't work). The monitor connection is usually the same on most boards although sometimes you have to swap a couple wires around. There are ROM sets available that will allow you to swap yours and play various versions of Pacman. Do a search on the Web. I downloaded my Pacman manual free years ago from a site.

Jim

[Saikyo]

PS Im sure one of those multicades were being sold on e-bay and in another
thread around here (forget which one) we decide that it was a MAMED bootleg.

So you were wise not to buy it!

[Dav]

to convert to pacman you need the 6 eproms, 2 color proms and a z80. Or you could get the 2 color proms and a multi pac.
http://home.everestk...le/multipac.htm

As mentioned the connector is different than most games so you can't just swap boards w/o some work.

[tillenterprises]

tantone56 said:

$?

$300 plus auction fees and sales tax- altogether around $358.

Thanks everybody for your help! I like the Pac-Man Plus game, but I think I might get bored with it after a awhile, so I'm thinking more and more about converting this. If you can steer me to any websites that might have a mulitcade board that will work with this monitor, I'd appreciate it! I'll probably have to drill a couple holes to add a couple fire buttons, too...

Also- I looked at klov website for a downloadable manual for Plus, but there was just a conversion manual. It looks like the hardware is close enough to the original Pac, that I could just look for a Pac-Man manual to download.

Last, but not least, when I was cleaning inside the cabinet today, I noticed a smaller circuit board, about 7 x 5 inches, that was just connected to the board on the floor (power supply?) by a yellow cord that I assume was a grounding wire. This board was just inside the cabinet loose, and only connected by this yellow wire, and not actually plugged into the mainboard. I hope to post a picture tommorrow, but, in the meantime, does anybody know what this is, or know what I'm talking about?

Thanks!

[Dav]

Look for a pac to jamma converter as the multicade boards will likely be jamma. The converters usually include voltage regulators to convert the voltage to dc. You'll still have to do some soldering to add buttons.

Before you drill any holes you might look for a junk control panel on ebay and save your good one.

I'm not sure what the extra board is, credit multiplier maybe?

All pacman plus boards are pacman boards with the z80 removed. An epoxy block with a ribbon cable is attached to the z80 socket. These days you can skip the epoxy block and use decrypted roms. So yes, use the pacman manual.

[Cassidy Nolen]

Quote

I noticed a smaller circuit board, about 7 x 5 inches,

Its an RF Filter board. Leave it in the game for completeness sake, but don't bother using it. They were installed to make them FCC compliant, and I highly doubt you would ever find someone who knows what good they really ever did. Best I can figure, its one more place for bad connections.

Very nice find. Congrats! Pacs in bad shape have been getting 450 lately. Everybody is sticker-siding them into Ms. Pac's, and off to ebay they go....

I remember the first night I brought an arcade home. I did/could not sleep that night. Centipede captivated me, and I can remember the glow it put off down the hallway. I turned the volume down all the way and played it all night I hope you have gotten at least a little sleep since this?


Cassidy

[tantone56]

350 is a good deal

[tillenterprises]

Cassidy Nolen said:

Quote

I noticed a smaller circuit board, about 7 x 5 inches,

Its an RF Filter board. Leave it in the game for completeness sake, but don't bother using it. They were installed to make them FCC compliant, and I highly doubt you would ever find someone who knows what good they really ever did. Best I can figure, its one more place for bad connections.

Very nice find. Congrats! Pacs in bad shape have been getting 450 lately. Everybody is sticker-siding them into Ms. Pac's, and off to ebay they go....

I remember the first night I brought an arcade home. I did/could not sleep that night. Centipede captivated me, and I can remember the glow it put off down the hallway. I turned the volume down all the way and played it all night I hope you have gotten at least a little sleep since this?


Cassidy

Thanks, Cassidy- now that you mention it- I do remember seeing RF Filter printed on the board. Yes, it was pretty exciting bringing it home. Interestingly enough, I went to the auction, hoping to score a Centipede, since that is probably still my favorite game of all time, since the first time I saw one at a Bonanza steak house in 1981. However, Pac-Man is a perfect first arcade to own, being the most popular game of all time!

Well, last night I enlisted the help of my brother and dad, and tried to get this baby in the downstairs rec room. Unfortunately, the sides of the unit are about 2 inches too wide to fit in the doorway to be able to turn it around and head down the stairs! We tried for a couple hours, with no luck. The only way I'm going to get this in my house is to take the cabinet apart and reconstruct it in the rec room, a task I am dreading. (That kind of puts an end to putting the even bigger Millipede machine that I'm supposed to be getting soon in the house ) Does anybody have experience with this- any advise you can offer to make it as simple as possible? Thanks!

[Cassidy Nolen]

Don't laugh...

Don't rule out windows. I have gotten a few machines in and out of some strange places, so be creative. Drywall can be patched, and I have even seen door frames removed for this stuff...seriously. Just be sure you are going to be there a while.

I would really not recommend taking it apart. Most likely you could do it, but I have never seen one go back "right"....always seem rickety. Those old plywood Midway cabs dont like stress. A Millipede with those big security screws would be a much better candidate for disassembly.

Cassidy

[tillenterprises]

WE GOT IT IN!!!! Before I gave up completely, and hacked the cabinet to pieces, I took out the monitor and glass, and joystick (to cut down on weight and to prevent damage to the unit), and I tried using our front door, which has roughly about the same area to maneuver as the back door, and we were able to get it in! Getting it down our basement was another story... we have a real tight squeeze and turn at the bottom of the stairs, and we had to keep it upright, and walk it down step by step until we could pull the bottom of the cabinet out onto the basement floor. I am dreading moving it again when we buy a new house in a couple years! When we got it down, I cleaned and reinstalled the monitor and joystick, and for a final touch, removed the Pac-Man Plus marquee, and swapped it with a Pac-Man one that I had hanging on the wall of my rec room. (BTW, the white parts on the Pac-Man sign had several places where the "white" background was blotched or scratched off- I used liquid paper to touch up the background, and when I turned the light on the unit, you can totally where I touched it up- Is there any way to touch up a marquee sign where the original printing might have worn off?)

Also- thanks for the referral for the multi-pac adapter kit- I think I will order one, but where can I get the color proms that I need?

Thanks for all your help, guys!

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