JAMMA adapters

Raven

New member
Joined
Apr 30, 2006
Messages
3,539
Reaction score
37
Location
Argyle, Texas
Sometime in the next several weeks, I'm going to be building up some hand-wired JAMMA adapters. Is there anything specific that people are looking for (and would actually pay for) that I should consider. I'm mostly just making things for myself and Channelmanic to use to test boards, but I can do others as I have time.

There is no need to do ones that are out there as pre-made commercial ones since I probably wouldn't be any cheaper.
 
Depending on how much you want for them, I would like one for Universal's Space Panic.
It also needs an external amp for the sound.

Bob Roberts has a great tutorial on making them with the amps but I suck at soldering....
 
I also make them for myself - after buying my first two pre-made. I have about 15-20 right now. Q*Bert was a fun one, since I had to do a sync combination mod to get it to display properly with a JAMMA wiring setup. I also built a little stand-alone sound amp for use with those boards that don't have it already (like Centipede or Missile Command - which I also built adapters for) but it also doubles as a good audio probe. The Nintendo ones I made (for Donkey Kong and Jr) had to have video inversion connected to them to work with my bench monitor, too....
 
I need to make about 7-8 different ones for random boards I have laying around. I built a Falcon adapter for RJ because he has a couple of boards I want to see myself.

I doubt I'll mess with anything that needs a sound amp as I don't have any around here, and that ends up looking all sloppy anyway. I guess I could just leave the audio wiring open ended and allow for that later though.....

Anyway, no promises, just thinking right now.

Yeah, Mod, some of those get complicated. I had a DK adapter someone else built that did not have inverted video or an amp, so I assume it was really for a bootleg board. I've got a real Ninty JAMMA adapter, so that one got recycled. I'm thinking of doing myself a Vs to JAMMA adapter, but might not bother since Spaeth sells one. However, nobody has a single monitor PC-10 adapter, so I'll probably do that at some point. Same parts as the VS, so they could interchange like my cabinet does.
 
I doubt I'll mess with anything that needs a sound amp as I don't have any around here, and that ends up looking all sloppy anyway. I guess I could just leave the audio wiring open ended and allow for that later though.....

Radio Shack (believe it or not) sells a little project kit for about $20 that is a sound amp. I just hooked up a connector to my bench switcher to power it, then put a couple audio jacks on the adapter. Then I just use a shielded cable to connect the adapter to the amp then back for the speaker output. Works just fine. Not necessary to build the amp into the adapter.

Yeah, Mod, some of those get complicated. I had a DK adapter someone else built that did not have inverted video or an amp, so I assume it was really for a bootleg board.

For my Nintendo adapters, I just connected about 6" wires to the video pins on each side with connectors, and I hook up an original Nintendo inverter board. I use the same inverter for all the adapters, and just move it between them...
 
Last edited:
Oh, I've got an amp for my bench. I meant to add into an adapter for someone else. I've got Nintendo inverter boards too, and a complete factory Vs in a PAC cab conversion kit.

I actually like to use amps robbed out of old PC speakers. I've done that many times over the years.

I think I'll throw together an extra Taito one, probably 1942, Choplifter too.
 
Choplifter too.

A while back I had two seemingly identical Choplifter boards. One would only sync negative, and the other would only sync positive. Good thing I built a sync selection switch into my bench so I could switch which pins the sync signal goes to on the video connector...
 
Well, if you decide that you could do me up a Space Panic, let me know please.
That is correct as well, the audio amp wouldn't need to be attached to the jamma adapter.
I could just hook one up to the audio wires.
 
Back
Top Bottom