Let's Copy Their PCB Design To Make A New, Dedicated Game???

Scott C

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Let's Copy Their PCB Design To Make A New, Dedicated Game???

Anyone have a sense of how many legitimate, dedicated games were made by copying another manufacturers PCB design? I am not talking about conversions, but rather one company that copied the PCB hardware design, then put another game on it. For example, William Make Trax was made in dedicated cabinets and the PCB was clearly based on a Midway Pac-Man PCB, but slightly altered for Williams. Seems like Piranha was the same. Again, I am not talking about bootlegs or conversion kits. Dynamo Lil' Hustler is another that comes to mind (the PCB), but I believe that was a conversion kit only and Dynamo may have worked with Konami on that (if not, it's clearly a PCB copy).

Scott C.
 
A famous quote from Ferris Buehler comes to mind... :)
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What, was the question too hard? :)

Scott C.
 
I don't think too many games did this as the original manufacturers often used encrypted or custom components that couldn't be made into a cookie cutter pcb.
 
The main CPU/driver board in many Data East pinballs very closely resembles the CPU/driver board from Williams System 11 pins. Early 80s Bally and Stern MPUs are extremely similar. I have heard unsubstantiated reports of them being interchangeable (with a ROM swap).
 
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