[Museum-bound #1!] Nintendo Punch-Out!! Restore & Deconversion

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[Museum-bound #1!] Nintendo Punch-Out!! Restore & Deconversion

Hey guys. My grandma's house is getting sold by my crazy aunt (who is essentially the devil in our lives now - she took control of my sick grandma's assets and screwed my whole family over in a years-long mom-tear-filled kind of debate, bleh - just happy it's coming to an end) where my whole collection happened to reside, so I had to buy a trailer and move all my games to a warehouse in PA that is being loaned to me. Still in progress, but our deadline is at the end of January. This isn't really relevant to the restoration but I wanted to give an update on my personal situation to those here that know me - I no longer base my operations out of NJ whatsoever, now out of PA where I've lived most of my life anyways. ANYWAYS. . .

Completely separate (I suppose having the games local now fueled the fire a little bit but isn't the cause whatsoever, my love for these games is and this has been in planning forever!), I am starting a museum and arcade with my girlfriend later this year in PA so I am really hunkering down on getting games and getting them going.

I work very hard for a guy who runs a business that includes games and in return he's given me many many many free games and also loans me the warehouse space I need to store my collection for the meantime which is where I will be doing this restore. I used to work for him for pay but now I tend to his selection of games in return for said things. He's a good guy.

One of the games he recently just gave me after I inquired was this UN Squadron in a Nintendo Playchoice (probably?) cabinet. I like the game and it's actually a fairly expensive CPS1 games, but I know Punch-Out is big in the hearts of gamers everywhere as well as mine so I want to make it one for my museum.

I got this game for free so so far I am in it for $0. I bought the K.O. button so I am now it for $42. (groan! lol)

It has a working 20-EZ inside which needs a cap kit but the other monitor was removed.

I can't afford a complete control panel ($300-$400 madness) so I'm going to drill this one or check if the holes are correct for PO or PC10. I'm keeping UN Squadron in my arcade for sure, but since it's going to be in a different cabinet of course the control panel is probably a worthy sacrifice nonetheless.
 
I realize I haven't taken any photos of it yet so I'll grab some when I head down to my storage tonight to drop some more of my previous collection off. Cold AF outside, grr....
 
A neat thing about Punch-Out is Nintendo bought the Knock-Out buttons from a manufacturer called Omron. It's really like an emergency-stop button. It's neat because... they still exist (unlike most businesses involved in the decades-old arcade world), AND they still make the exact same button!

I ordered one from Mouser for $42 shipped to start off this restoration.

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$42 for a button feels like a knock-out blow to my bank account, but alas...
 
The second thing I am doing to save money is using my own skills to make cheap things work.

I will be wiring the cabinet up to JAMMA "Otaku version". (aka custom, brand new ;)) As you all know the pinout the unique, and buying an original harness would set me back far too much as Punch-Out stuff is stupid expensive for some reason.

As you all know Punch-Out has two monitors (5 pins of the harness each) and two sound outputs (2 pins), so we gotta get craftyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

I'm going to utilize some things like the extra button wires for using with the second monitor. Since Punchout doesn't need all these extra outputs, I'm going to use my skills to wire up these necessities through these supplied wires to allow this to work. I'm going to have a build a converter regardless, so adjusting this to my own specifications is no problemo!

Stay tuned...
 
Starting to graph out how I am going to molest JAMMA...

I started with graphing all the things Punch-Out needs to operate 100% (well almost, I don't care about the coin counter or the +24 required to supply it, which is each one pin (2)), and putting them all in one line/section. Just plotting out what I need.

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And with that, I am done.

Two benefits to mapping this out correctly according to JAMMA rather than just placing what you want wherever.

1) If I want to test a one-player JAMMA board in this cabinet, I can. You'd need to ensure that the ground going to the positive terminal on lower monitor's sound input would not cause problems, and 5~ volts from Player 2 controls going up the second monitor's signal wires sounds like a recipe for disaster. Nevermind. I forgot these were not passive. Well, they might be on some boards, but you can't assume they'll all be like that. (normally accepting power rather than constantly providing power to a ground)

2) My wire gauges are correct. For instance if I put the power lines going through the player control wires and put the monitor colors going up the original power lines, I'd have wires that were too thin to handle power well and possibly cause an issue with the monitor too depending on how it would like the heavier gauge wires. JAMMA harness makers make sure the first few pins of the harness are thicker gauge, as those are meant for the power. Even in a custom application like this, I made sure to ensure that the power goes where it normally would on a JAMMA installation.

After quickly considering my options, I decided to place the second monitor wiring on where the P2 controls would normally be. There was a multitude of different places I could have mapped this (even all over the damn connector, if I wanted!) but found it nice that there was one block of pins/wires that were completely unneeded. In addition, the wiring was the correct gauge for the application. If I had chosen to use the unused -5v and 12v lines (4 pins out of 5 needed) which were the first unused pins going down the line, they would have been thicker gauge which could potentially cause inconsistencies especially in delicate video signals.

Red, Green, Blue, Sync, and Vid. Ground took up 5 pins: Up, Down, Left, Right, and Button 1. I am expecting the harness to arrive with connectors for buttons on the ends of these wires (for convenience in a standard JAMMA installation) but those can be easily cut off and I will wire the video signal connector to these bunch, as you would do to the raw wires anyhow.

Lower Sound took up Speaker (-), hence the red backing. This are both positive signals but noting the lack of sound ground on the Punch-Out pinout, I'm guessing that's either handled through a standard ground wire or elsewhere in the configuration, thus Speaker (-) would be unused in my custom application. Audio across from audio on audio designated wires sounds nicest :)P), so of course naturally that's where it landed.

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