Mortal Kombat 1 Hack Encyclopedia

zenomorp

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Decided to write one of these up since (as far as I know), there isn't one. Here's the scoop. Shortly after MK1 hit the arcade in 1992 and blew people's minds, a company called "Kombosoft" began developing a series of hacks that sped up the gameplay, made it easier to get to Reptile, levitate your opponents when they are frozen or hit with the spear, changed the attract mode screens, and various other things. They were available for operators to purchase, although it's not really known if Kombosoft peddled them over the phone or how exactly they advertised the hacks to the operators, but they have been out there since 1992. They are relatively rare and it's not really known in which order the hacks appeared, but here is a list of all the current known ones...

(Y-Unit hardware only)...

-) 3.0 Turbo
-) 3.1 Turbo (Early Release?)
-) 3.1 Turbo
-) 3.2 Turbo
-) Turbo Kombo 3.5
-) Super Kombo
-) Nifty Kombo
-) Nifty Kombo 666
-) Nifty Kombo 666 Rev. B
-) Nifty Kombo XXX
-) Reptile Man

(T-Unit hardware only)

-) Turbo Ninja

As for the hardware, there was a little daughter board that mounted on the main board in the U89/UG12 location that housed a GAL security chip which was necessary to make the hacks work with the boards. If you tried to install just the roms themselves, the hack wouldn't work. Some of the hacks (not all of them) have been dumped to Mame and the security functionality of the daughter board's GAL chip has been cracked to allow them to be played in Mame, but if you just burn the rom images from the Mame roms and try to install them in your board, it won't work. However, Turbo Ninja for the T-Unit and 3.1 Turbo for the Y-Unit have successfully been modified so they CAN be burned and played on the actual hardware without the need for the daughter board, but the files are not in the public's hands. Only a few select people have them.

There are three different versions of the daughter boards but they both perform the same function. They are known as "Kombo Board," "Nibble Board," or "Marc." Here is a visual account of them for reference...









The Kombosoft people even made up special stickers that operators could advertise the fact that they had a new version of the game installed...

 
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With so many different versions out there (and maybe even more undiscovered ones), I'm not going to go into too much detail about each one since a lot of them are basically the same, only with different attract mode images/screens, but some of them have sped up gameplay, others don't. Some of them give characters moves that will levitate the opponent when they get hit by them, some don't. I will post some pics of each version so you can get an idea of which one you have if you ever come across one. The one awesome thing about most of these hacks (the ones that say "Fatality Is The Key) is that you are no longer required to have a double flawless victory and be on the Pit stage to battle Reptile. You can battle him on EVERY stage as long as you don't press block during the final round and do a fatality. You don't have to be on the Pit and you don't need a double flawless victory. Personally, I think that's the coolest part about these. There are a LOT of infinite combo possibilities with the hacks that feature the speed up, so the sky's the limit with them. They can be a lot of fun and offer a nice change of pace for the gameplay. So here we go with some pics of the different versions so you can see which one you have if you ever come across one of these hacks...

3.0 Turbo





3.1 Turbo





3.2 Turbo (Fixed the "Wariors" mispelling)



Turbo Kombo 3.5



 
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Nifty Kombo 666 Rev. B





Nifty Kombo XXX





Reptile Man

(Newly discovered and not much known yet but here is a video courtesy of bulldawg)...



Turbo Ninja



 
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I love to hear about all the versions of MK's out there as well as the little secret stuff that's discovered over the years. Thanks!
 
Bumping this because ANOTHER hack has been unearthed. A fellow KLOVer was sold an MK1 board that had rom labels that said "Turbo Ninja." The problem was that it was a Y-Unit and the TN hack is exclusive to the T-Unit. So bulldawg was able to get in contact with the new owner and had him send the roms to him to dump and see what was up with them. Turns out, it appears to be an early version of the 3.1 Turbo hack. I say this because it still calls itself 3.1 Turbo, but it's obviously based on the official 4.0 prototype revision and it has a totally new "Insert Coin" screen, as you can see below along with a short video of the gameplay. So thanks to bulldawg for pointing this out to me and we have yet another new one to add to the list...



 
I'll have to pull mine out and see what versions I have. Would be fun to tinker around with all of them and see how they play.
 
If anyone has one of these daughter boards and rom sets for sale I would buy them. Me and my son have been interested in a speed up version of MK since watching some online tournaments. Are there versions of MK2 and MK3 that have these hacks from Kombosoft?

Thanks
Blake
 
After reading closer it looks like I could just have someone burn the files from mame if its a revision that's already been hacked and that would allow for plug n play without the kombosoft daughter board?

Thanks
Blake
 
After reading closer it looks like I could just have someone burn the files from mame if its a revision that's already been hacked and that would allow for plug n play without the kombosoft daughter board?

Thanks
Blake

I think this is only possible with Mame in which they were able to crack the security of the daughterboard. If you have an actual physical pcb I believe you need the actual kombosoft daughterbord in order for it to work.
 
I think this is only possible with Mame in which they were able to crack the security of the daughterboard. If you have an actual physical pcb I believe you need the actual kombosoft daughterbord in order for it to work.

Ok well that stinks. I really want this. My son keeps asking if we can get the "speed versions of MK". We have monthly tournaments where I think it would be a blast for people to step up to MK1 thinking its nice and slow and just get obliterated by my son. He beats about 99% of the people who come over anyway but they usually feel they have a chance in the slower MK's.

thanks
Blake
 
If all you want is the gameplay sped up, I believe you can burn the hacked roms and put in there. I remember when I had my old cabinet I had some hacked roms I could swap in which made MK1 play more like MK2 speed. I think it was called turbo ninja or turbo 3.1 or something. Those are direct swap the roms and will work in your case.
 
If all you want is the gameplay sped up, I believe you can burn the hacked roms and put in there. I remember when I had my old cabinet I had some hacked roms I could swap in which made MK1 play more like MK2 speed. I think it was called turbo ninja or turbo 3.1 or something. Those are direct swap the roms and will work in your case.

Yea that's what I was talking about, I probably wasn't clear. I thought you said it would only work if playing through mame? For me it would be on original hardware. I like the idea of the freeze and spear lifting opponents too as I really enjoy the juggling aspect.

thanks
Blake
 
I recently received an MK1 board that has this little daughterboard and the kombo roms.

My friend is currently reproducing that little sticker graphic to be printed.
 
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No. The dumped version of the hacks will work in Mame because they cracked the security that requires the Kombo board, but you'd still need the Kombo board if you wanted to run them on real hardware.

After reading closer it looks like I could just have someone burn the files from mame if its a revision that's already been hacked and that would allow for plug n play without the kombosoft daughter board?

Thanks
Blake
 
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