List of known conversions through simple ROM swaps

Tornadoboy

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I've been doing research lately on converting Exidy boards into other games so I thought it might make an interesting thread to list which boards can be converted with simple ROM swaps, not including hacks, or conversions that require additional hardware like daughterboards or protection chips.

The list so far:

Confirmed:

- Venture / Pepper II
- Two Tigers / Tron / Spy Hunter (with control panel re-wiring)
- Elevator Action / Jungle King (or Hunt) / Alpine ski
- Stargate / Joust / Robotron / Alien Arena
- Double Dragon / Dangerous Dungeons
- Rally X / New Rally X
- Targ / Spectar
- Non-daughter board dependant Nintendo VS games
- Pole Position / Pole Position II

Unconfirmed and/or may require additional hardware hacking (IE jumpers, etc):
- Venture / Teeter Torture
- Crash! / Circus / Rip Cord
- Kangaroo / Funky Fish
- Star Fire / Star Fire II
- Jungle Hunt (or King) / Pirate Pete
- Looping / Sky Bumper
- Color version of Space Invaders / Steel Worker
- Radarscope / Donkey Kong
- Lost Tomb / Mighty Monkey (major hardware hack) / Scorpion / Strategy X / Port Man / Turpin / Anteater / Scramble
- Video Pool / Dig Dug / Pengo / Puckman / Mine Field / Frogger / Crazy Kong / Bagman / DK JR / Jungler / Galaxian
- Tempest / Tempest Tubes
- San Francisco Rush / San Francisco Rush - the Rock
- Defender / Mayday!!

Again, I left out anything that required custom components and/or protection chips which by chasing them down you might as well find the original board.
 
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Crap, I always thought they were, but then again I've never actually tried it myself. <removed from list>

Is it because of a protection chip? I thought the hardware was indentical?

Pinout is the same, hardware is similar... sound hardware is completely different.

Most of the Taito SJ boards are rom swappable (other than the ones with the protection).

There's all kinds of shit that'll play on pacman, galaxian, and scramble boards.

MCRs in a given conversion class are mostly swappable, but the FAQ has more details.
 
I've heard rumors that the ROMS for Crazy Otto are about to make it out to the MAME community, it would be a real treat if those could be plugged into a Ms Pacman board! Taito's Steel Worker has also been dumped and supposedly is due for emulation soon, I'd love to take a crack at that rare gem too.
 
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I've heard rumors that the ROMS for Crazy Otto are about to make it out to the MAME community, it would be a real treat if those could be plugged into a Ms Pacman board! Taito's Steel Worker has also been dumped and supposedly is due for emulation soon, I'd love to take a crack at that rare gem too.

Unless something changed, Crazy Otto won't be, but Steel Worker has been in MAME for several versions now (since 133 I think)
 
Just a quick response to say this is a great idea for a list / thread.
 
Just a quick response to say this is a great idea for a list / thread.

Thanks! Personally I'd love to see some of these extremely rare, one of a kind prototype games make it out to the world as actual hardware rather than surviving only as emulated games.

Did some poking around on Steel Worker, apparently it uses a standard color Space Invaders boardset, in fact one MAME'r describes it as being just a ROM swap. Hmmmmm...

Unless something changed, Crazy Otto won't be, but Steel Worker has been in MAME for several versions now (since 133 I think)

Figures, I guess it's destined to forever be the phantom ROM set like Ms Gorf and Marble Madness II, so close yet so far...
 
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There is a ROM swap to convert a DKjr to a 8-Ball Action. I think there was a set to do the same to DK, too...
 
Assuming you include the security chip, most SEGA Pre-System 16, System 16a, and System 16b games can be swapped within their respective classes. Seems like that is also true of System18, but can someone confirm?

Clearly, there were countless games that ran on Pac-Man hardware and were simply a ROM swap, such as Big Buck's Trivia.

If you include laserdisc games, where the laserdisc is also swapped, then you can include Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Astron Belt and Galaxy Ranger (technically Galaxy Ranger included a larger soundboard, but it runs fine with the AB soundboard, minus some sound differences).

Weren't there some Konami or Stern games that were ROM swaps?

Scott C.
 
Figures, I guess it's destined to forever be the phantom ROM set like Ms Gorf and Marble Madness II, so close yet so far...

Don't believe ms gorf was ever made into a dedicated board but from what I've heard they are slowly working on making this one playable. My guess would be in MAME but I hope someone might make a dedicated board. As for Marble man I don't expect to ever see that available but anything's possible I suppose.
 
Killer Instinct II can be run on a Killer Instinct 1 board but not the other way around. Requires rom swap, HD swap and a HD interface pcb. So, not a simple rom swap but still only takes a couple minutes and its all plug and play.

No need to list everything that will run on a pac board, we would need its own thread for that topic.
 
Super Bike i believe is a straight ROM swap on a Donkey Kong board. i don't know if it's specific to the 2-board or 4-board set, or could be used on either.
 
I'll have to turn all this conversion info into a FAQ later, assuming one doesn't already exist.

Don't believe ms gorf was ever made into a dedicated board but from what I've heard they are slowly working on making this one playable. My guess would be in MAME but I hope someone might make a dedicated board. As for Marble man I don't expect to ever see that available but anything's possible I suppose.

Last I heard about Ms Gorf is that the were still working on dumping the data off of old 8" floppies and after that they were going to have to figure out how to compile it, which they suspect is written in Forth. As long as the data is still good one way or another we'll see it emulated, it must be like a holy grail to MAME programmers right now, and with any luck it's designed to run off some off the shelf hardware from Midway. Wouldn't that be awesome, making a complete Ms. Gorf dedicated cab from scratch? :D

The problem with Marble Madness II is that the one surviving original boardset had no ROMs and the owner had to promise Atari that if they gave them to him he would only use them for fixing his game and nothing else, so I certainly won't fault the guy for keeping his word. I guess the only thing to do is to try to talk the actual copywrite owners into releasing them or at least giving the cab owner permission to... in other words don't hold our breaths. :( I think the best we'll be able to hope for is someone making a freeware attempt to recreate the game from scratch, kind of like someone did with Teeter Torture before the ROMs went public.
 
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