Well yes, this was a stupid but honest mistake, and I already apologized for it. Those pictures were taken a long time ago, the game had always been in storage and was switched on once, for the purpose of taking those pictures and selling it. It may be possible that even back then I did not realize that it was Ms Pac Man instead of Puck Man, because I did not care.
That's ok, anyone makes mistakes, me too.
And since you seem to really discuss that matter objectively now, I will try my best also. ;-)
How do you back up this claim? Have you seen each and every Puckman PCB Namco ever made? Where you there when they were manufactured? It is not uncommon that manufactures switch to replacements when they run out of their cusotm chips (Konami boards are known for this). Just because no example is known does not mean anything.
Of course I have not seen all Puckman PCBs. But with this argument you can claim anything you want, without having to back it up. The argument "Everything is possible as long as no one can prove the contrary" does not mean anything either. You could claim "some Puckman PCBs were red" and if anyone objects you just come up with "That you have not seen a red one does not prove anything". See what I mean? ;-)
I think we can agree on this: If you want to sell an original Puckman PCB and want a collectors price for it, it has to be as original as possible including the original custom chips and ROMs. Otherwise it could be a bootleg (and as far as I know it is). Other experienced users also backed that already in this thread (look above).
Now it would be a different story if someone has original(!) Namco documentations of PCBs with daughter boards, like real service manual updates etc.. But so far, nobody has and all info you can dig up in Japan about the original Namco PCBs has the custom chips. With Midway that is another story, also with NSM: There you can actually find original factory documentation about the daughter boards, but from November / December 1980, so very late models. But then again, no collector is considering the NSM Puckman PCB as an original Namco one, although it is licensed.
Yes, one would think that custom chips would not be available for bootleggers, but there is an Atari Tetris bootleg PCB that has in fact 2 original Atari Pokey custom chips on it instead of the microcontroller (?) that most Tetris bootlegs use. That is weird, but it obviously is possible.
These boards are 40 to 50 years old and usually went through many hands, so many things are possible. Chips can be switched: I could also take a bootleg Namco PCB, pull the bootleg daughter boards out, put the original custom ICs from a (cheaper) Midway Pacman in it and say "Hey, look, this is an original Namco board"! And probably, most people would believe it. You are never safe when it comes to possible fraud.
So if your point here is to say "even if it looks legit, it does not have to be", I actually agree.
How do you back up this claim? Have you seen each and every Puck Man PCB that NSM ever made? Where you there when they were manufactured? Maybe there was a pre-production run where they had hand-written labels, or what if back in the day a label fell off and an operator replaced it with a handwritten one? Is it not an original board anymore?
Ok, I will try to explain what I meant. I did not mean to say, that all PCBs ever made have the same Eproms. But this is how an NSM puckman PCB looks like, when it is not tempered with at all. Of course I have seen not all of them, but many.
The original Eproms are from the same series (on that board!) and have the spare parts numbers on them. NSM is a very correct manufacturer, when it comes to this. It is the same with their other products. Now compare this:
Do you really want to say, that this Rom rack, with different (and bigger) Eproms / wrong and replaced numbers all over the place, looks authentic to you and that NSM might have delivered that from the factory? Seriously? Now of course you can make up all sorts of stories to explain modifications (like a used car dealer) and can always say "prove me wrong", but again: No person with common sense would believe that or even pay for it. In this special case I think, we finally agree, that these ROMs are definately not legit, as it is Midways Ms Pacman and not Namcos Puckman.
If a board was repaired, or some Eproms replaced (we all know they can break), then I personally would still consider it as original, as long as it was not modified in an unoriginal way. That is why I said in post #26, "that it would be worth to revert this board to its original Puckman". Other collectors might see that differently. Some might be even more strict evaluating a PCB, others not at all.
Regards,
Ekki