Donkey Kong PCB Inquiry

rifter99

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Hey there, i recently purchased a donkey kong arcade cabinet and upon purchasing it I was told that it contained the Four-Board version of the game. If/ when my old four-baord pcb breaks do I have to replace it with a four-Board PCB or can i replace it with the two-baord PCB? I'm not sure if the connectors are the same or if it's even possible and would really appreciate some help.
 
The 4-board PCBs that came in the early upright DKs are much rarer than the 2-board sets. If you look at the numbering on your PCB boards, they should read TKG3-06 or earlier (i.e. TKG3-05, TKG3-02). If you have a red Donkey Kong you may even have a TKG2 boardset, which is a Radar Scope board that was converted to DK at the factory. Check out this thread for lots info on early DKs http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=64571&highlight=red+donkey+kong

I'm guessing your serial number is lower than 4000. You may even have the "ladder cheat" on your game. Make sure to add your info to the above linked thread so Camo Murph can put it in the database.

Anyway, to get back to your question, you do not need to keep the 4-board set in there. A 2-board set can easily get swapped in (you can also put a DK Jr. Board or a DK 3 board in with very little hastle). The only important thing is that the 2-board DK set uses one less connector to the power supply than the 4-board set. I actaully have both versions (I bought a 2-board set so that I could install a DK2 without hacking up my rare 4-board set) and I like the way the original 4-board set sounds a little better.
 
What exactly is the "Ladder Cheat"?

That is where you can wait at the top of the ladders with one hand at the top and the barrels won't come down the ladder.
If the title screen says Nintendo 1981 instead of Nintendo Of America 1981 then your roms have the ladder cheat.
 
They also continued to make the 4-board sets for the cocktails even after they switched to 2-board sets for the upright cabs. The 2-board sets won't fit in the cocktail.
 
They also continued to make the 4-board sets for the cocktails even after they switched to 2-board sets for the upright cabs. The 2-board sets won't fit in the cocktail.

To add to this, the cocktail boardsets will typically be labeled TKG3-07 or later. These would not have the ladder cheat.

This is the program with the ladder cheat, it just says "Nintendo 1981"
Donkey_Kong_title_(arcade).png


This is the much more commonly seen program, without the ladder cheat (note the "TM" added and the "Nintendo of America Inc."
1181242103212.png


Nintendo took away the ladder trick to make the game harder so that OPs could make more money.

The early Donkey Kongs were made previous to Nintendo getting it's intellectual property (IP) legalities worked out. The first DKs had almost no IP identifiers. As the months went by you'd see IP identifiers added to the CPO, the bezel, the marqee, and the sideart. They went though various versions of the IP identifiers before finally settling on C or TM "1981 Nintendo of America, Inc." It's shows how small and inexperienced Nintendo was at that time.
 
Oh so close

To add to this, the cocktail boardsets will typically be labeled TKG3-07 or later. These would not have the ladder cheat.

There are TKG3-07's with the ladder "cheat" - I have 2 ;)

Also not accurate to say cocktails and "typically" when it comes to TKG3-07's. I have serviced half a dozen cocktails and it's been a split between TKG3-06's and 07's. Not to mention that the entire TKG3 family was used in uprights just as often, if not more, than TKG2/TRS2's.
 
If it matters, just checked my cocktail board, it's a TKG3-07, all 4 boards have matching serial #'s. I also have a 2nd 4-board set (source machine unknown) that's also TKG3-07, but that one has graphical glitches and doesn't work right. The one in my cocktail doesn't have the ladder cheat, I don't know if the other one does or not. (it doesn't really work good enough to test)
 
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