donkey kong TKG-CLK question

retjoegamer

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first time poster, just joined and donated
might be in the wrong sub cat. too.

anyways

i picked up a home made cabinet the other day
marquee said kong on it.

inside was a board donkey kong board TKG-CLK
i see info on TKG-2 but nothing on this model


is this a rare board

it has 4 pcb's

as of now, it is all jumbled, and i was wondering if its worth fixing , or just any old
donkey kong board
 

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It is worth fixing. It is not rare the 4 board stack were mainly used in the cocktail style cabinets as the original DK cocktail is smaller inside than the cocktail tables of a dk junior or popeye,thus it needed a smaller more compact board to fit the space.
 
Quite the contrary, darth. It appears to be very rare indeed. That is no typical 4-board...

I have owned dozens of Donkey Kong boards, and seen images of hundreds more - NEVER have I seen one labeled simply "TKG-XXX." They are always TKG2, 3, and 4. Even the "rarest" known Radarscope conversion boards were labeled TKG2 over the TRS labels. That would place this PCB's production before the Radarscope conversion PCB's, and would likely have been among the first dedicated Donkey Kong boards made. Possibly in Japan only... Game turns out well, sells decent in Japan during initial run, decision is made to convert exported machines, existing boards are used to save on shipping and remanufacture. Japan-only first revision boards never make it to USA, until now...

So, yes, it's incredibly rare. More pictures please.
 
Looking forward to seeing more pics :)

Lucky you scored Nintendo boards, rather than bootlegs.

There is plenty of knowledge of these on the forum, keep posting and asking, you will find what is needed :)
 
i attached some pics of how it looks on the outside, and how the screen looks now

i have 0 knowledge of how to restore cabinets


i picked it up at an estate sale, i was excited just to grab a cabinet with a screen that turned on.


i will unscrew the board and send more pics soon.
 

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This is really interesting. At first I thought this would be just another bootleg board, but the Nintendo branding on the PCB and the pics of the cabinet look like it could be a very early production DK! Incredible, if that's the case.

Looking at the pics of the cabinet, and noticing your comment about being excited to buy the game because the screen powered on -- it looks like the monitor must be beneath that gray box in the first picture? The screen is sunken so you have to lean over it a bit? (At first I was like "wait wait wait, where's the monitor?" The DK uprights we're all used to have the monitors mounted much higher at a different viewing angle.)
 
do you think the cab is real though?
i thought it was just home made
the control panel is basically a piece of paper

yea the monitor is sunk in
you have to look down on an angle


seems like its a cabinet within a cabinet too
like someone took parts and slapped it together

i just added some other pics from the back side
look at how it was wired
looks home made


the person had a huge house on the beach, so I assume money was no issue for them
so maybe it was imported or something


i will try to take more pics of the board from multi angles tonight
 

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Wow, interesting find. Yea I agree it does look slapped together...that's an odd wiring harness job there...wires all over and some look like they're soldered by hand...with what looks like an old piece of scotch tape stuck over the top.

There's no denying though, the board looks like some early prototype board like someone else said above...based on the number. Most boards in the US that i've seen are all TKG4-13 or TKG4-14. Yours has to be early production.

Who knows, maybe this belonged to a family member that worked at Nintendo in Japan long ago, and he/she brought it with them when they moved to the US. It would be cool to know the story behind this machine.
 
sorry took so long for pics
i picked up another dk cabinet, and have been messing with that

since this board is shot, i put it on the back burner

here are updated shots

if you need specific shots, let me know, i have the board at work with me
 

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Huh. It definately looks like a DK 4-board stack, not any sort of bootlegg. The insteresting thing is that TKG is PRINTED on the board. The early DK boards would have TRS printed on the board with at TKG2 sticker over the TRS print. In most cases, your boards are missing printing all together where the printing would normally be. Is the Clock board the only one with TKG printing on it?

These could be really rare. Maybe a prototype, or maybe just a japanese boardset that nobody in the States is used to seeing. In any event it would be nice to have good high res pitcures. There were modifications made to the 4-board stack that are documented in the early schematics and we should be able to figure something out about its age by the way the board components are laid out.
 
i took pics at 2mb each but posting them made me size them down big time

i do not see any other printed model numbers anywhere

the boards do seem like they were from the same factory though, same color and letters for ABC etc where the chips go

what should i take better pictures of?
 
A few questions:


  1. Are all of the board connectors mounted at 90 degrees on the standoffs?
  2. Pic 3: what does it say on the label on the upper right corner?
  3. Do any of the other boards have any screen printing on them to identify board model? (like TKG-CLK)
  4. Are there any modifications on the back side of the boards?
  5. Do you have an eprom reader/burner?
  6. On the sound board (small board) can you identify the CPU chip and eproms? Are they 2708 eproms, or 2716?
  7. Did you get any noise at all out of the game when you powered it on and off?
  8. Does the jumble of images remain static with each power cycle, or does the image change each time the power is cycled?
  9. Can you supply pics of the monitor, and the wiring used to hook the board up to the monitor? (not power, I can see that, rather video)
  10. What does the writing on that card edge connector adapter say?
  11. Is the Dunkin' Donuts thermos for sale?
  12. Would you be willing to ship out the boards so we can dump the roms?
  13. On pic 4: on that CPU board, are both of the processors in row C and E socketed, or are they soldered directly to the board?
  14. Is the ribbon cable connector in the lower left corner of pic 4 (CPU board) broken? It looks like the locking tab is missing.
  15. How do the ribbon cables look? Do any of them have any nicks/cuts? Any spots where they look folded or crimped?
  16. I see Mitsubishi logos on the eproms on the CPU and sound boards, but nothing on the eproms on the video and clock boards. Are there any labels on those chips? Are they Mitsubishi chips?
  17. Are the board standoff bolts metric or American threaded?
  18. Do you see any corrosion on the boards, front or back? How about scrapes, nicks, cuts?
  19. On pic 4, position L5: was there ever a socket there? Or does it appear that the spot has holes that are factory closed? Is the solder there disturbed at all?
  20. Can you tell what brand capacitors are on the board(s)?
 
answered to best of my knowledge. any other info please ask.

1. The ribbon connectors? They are all the same facing out the side of the board
2. Chinese symbol followed by 1/26
3. No other board has screen printing, but all the letters on each board look like the same font
4. On the back of the boards, I see wires soldered from 1 point to another ( I will take more pics)
5. No eprom reader , want my mailing address? Lol
6. Longer one is NEC X0X016-042 D8035LC
Smaller chips are mitsubishi 2716k followed by another line of writing
7. I think I remember hearing sound, that pop like my other dk machine
8. The image stayed the same after power cycle. After my buddy resat the chips, thinking that maybe one was loose, the image changed, but remains static and jumbled
9. That will have to wait, its at home. Its not a sanyo one, I saw the name this morning but cant remember it
10. The adapter was home made, it just has labels for pin 1 and 18(home made printed circuit board)
11. No I thought it was cool looking, so for now its staying on my shelf
12. I would be willing, would I get it back? I don't want to get hosed on it. Seeing that its rare.
13. Socketed C is a sharp chip. E say Copywright 1978 AMD
14. Yes locking tab is busted off,well its there but the tab snapped off, it still locks with a little help
15. Ribbons look good.
16. What pics and lettering? I am not too sure of the board names
if it's the one with the TKG on it, then its NECx3 and 1 mitsubishi 2716
17. Board standoffs were just any old screw I believe, had a phillips head and they came right off
18. Im looking, I really don't see anything, it looks pretty clean
19. Doesn't look like a socket was there, no holes in the board, I can zoom in if needed, let me know
20. Caps are light blue right? Some say unicon..dark blue says elna

also some of the areas have labels or masking tape. some say kong#3002 3003
 
Yeah, I'm going to go with Japanese Kong board. Nothing terribly special, but I'd still like to compare the data on the eproms with RomIdent. I'd bet its the Japanese roms.
 
I just got the board back from a friend. He tried to fix. Now Im gonna try. He never got to it after 2 years
 
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