Got a mystery PCB coming

Tornadoboy

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I just caved to temptation and bought a mystery PCB off of Ebay, I haven't been able to figure out what it is but it definately looks like something by Venture Line. The seller had it listed as GMBH but wasn't sure, and the EPROM labels he named didn't match anything I could find.

Thus far I've been able to rule out Looping, Spiders and probably Sky Bumper, and I seem to remember at some point seeing a Ponpoko board and it did not look anything like this. I'm hoping it's something rare that hasn't been MAME dumped yet like Xargon, Jubilee, etc which are on some Venture Line flyers.

Anyone have an idea what it is just from the picture?
 

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I just caved to temptation and bought a mystery PCB off of Ebay, I haven't been able to figure out what it is but it definately looks like something by Venture Line. The seller had it listed as GMBH but wasn't sure, and the EPROM labels he named didn't match anything I could find.

Thus far I've been able to rule out Looping, Spiders and probably Sky Bumper, and I seem to remember at some point seeing a Ponpoko board and it did not look anything like this. I'm hoping it's something rare that hasn't been MAME dumped yet like Xargon, Jubilee, etc which are on some Venture Line flyers.

Anyone have an idea what it is just from the picture?

My GUESS: Gremlin Astro Fighter
 
My GUESS: Gremlin Astro Fighter

Nah, the case is spot welded and not rivited together like Astro Fighter, and the boards don't have the plastic triangles at the corners to help remove them, not to mention it's not nearly as open framed.

The chassis is a dead ringer for my Looping boardset which is what makes me lean towards it being from Venture Line, the only difference is there's no evidence that it once had a power/audio board mounted on top and it doesn't have a smaller daughter board connected to the bottom board on the rack. Could be Sky Bumper I guess, but being that it's so damn simular to Looping I'd think they'd both use identicle boardsets, or at least it would have the power/audio PCB too.

Then again if it's some kind of bootleg all bets are off, whatever it is mystery grab-bags are always fun, just hope I can get it working.

Attached is a picture of a Looping set alongside the unidentified board:
 

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Ok I finally got them, see attached pics:

It seems to use a TMS9980 for the main processor and uses 2532's for the EPROMS, they're marked ST2/0, ST2/1, ST2/2, ST2/3, and ST2/4. I can pretty much rule out Sky Bumper now because I can't image a game so simular to Looping uses a boardset so completely different.

I'd dump the chips and use ROMident but I found out my my cheap F'n Willem 5.0c doesn't seem to support them. :(
 

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And a few more:

I cleaned them up as they were filthy, I even ran the board on the left through the dish washer. Interestingly enough that while the case is almost identical to the Looping set I have and seems to be made by the same manufacturer, it's slightly smaller in width by maybe an inch. The arrangement of the power connector and edge connectors seem to be the same so hopefully I should be able to figure out enough of it to power it up and, providing it works, get a title.
 

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If your programmer will read 2732's, you can build an adapter using a couple sockets by running jumper wires to flip the 3 pins that are different.
 
I've got a very similar boardset with a few more components loaded (NVRAM, XSTRs, buffers). One of the PROMS says 'Bingo' on it. They came in the same type cage but mine had no power supply board attached. On the set there's only 1K of SRAM, 16K X 12 DRAM (??!) and no obvious video generation circuitry (all discrete ICs). My set went on the 'Use For Parts' pile.
-Dave
 

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Judging by this image, it sure looks like Super Tank.

Super_Tank_-_1981_-_Video_Games_GMBH.jpg
 
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