PCB identification please, Defense Command bootleg love baby.....

You guys sure waste alot of time and effort on garbage. OP being the worst offender here ever. It doesn't matter if it works, what it's missing, who made it, or anything of the sort. Bootlegs are worthless. Always. They were worthless then, are worthless now, and will be worthless forever.

Strip them for anything socketed, and chuck 'em in the trash. Nobody is ever going to buy a bootleg PCB for any amount of cash worth your time. Might as well be 8-liners. They are ALL garbage IMO.

Guilty as charged, I guess....but something about this bootleg to me is not garbage and worth saving and keeping.

99% of the time, I would not waste a single second on a bootleg. Actually I discarded at least a hundred boots over the past while, but as you say, I do have a stockpile for parts.
 
MAME source code....
williams.c

Not that simple, unfortunately. The Defense Command ROMs in MAME are for a different board layout than the one we are talking about here. The one they have documented has a bunch of 2716's whereas this board has 2732's (with the exception of the sound ROM, which can be a 2716). I read my ROMs in ages ago and figured out how they were mapped. Just found my notes on it and whipped up some Defender white ROMs to go in there. I'll burn those now and give it a try. If it works, I'll post the ROM set.
 
You guys sure waste alot of time and effort on garbage. OP being the worst offender here ever. It doesn't matter if it works, what it's missing, who made it, or anything of the sort. Bootlegs are worthless. Always. They were worthless then, are worthless now, and will be worthless forever.

Strip them for anything socketed, and chuck 'em in the trash. Nobody is ever going to buy a bootleg PCB for any amount of cash worth your time. Might as well be 8-liners. They are ALL garbage IMO.

I think he knows that. Nobody trying to get rich off of 80's bootleg PCB's, but they were part of the arcade landscape. The value of the boardset wasn't part of the discussion. If it plays a solid game of Defender, it might be a cheaper alternative to getting a working original PCB set mailed to where he lives, and it makes for a good conversation piece. At the very least it is an interesting journey into one of the side alleys of arcade collecting, just like the guys who collect bootleg and aftermarket Willis art.
 
Guilty as charged, I guess....but something about this bootleg to me is not garbage and worth saving and keeping.

99% of the time, I would not waste a single second on a bootleg. Actually I discarded at least a hundred boots over the past while, but as you say, I do have a stockpile for parts.

I hear ya. I'm a sucker for anything Williams or Williams-related. Can't pass up a Williams cab even though de-converting can be more time and money than it is worth. If I came across a Williams bootleg, I'd be trying to get it working too.

On the other hand . . . Galaga & Pac bootlegs . . . couldn't give a damn about them :)
 
You guys sure waste alot of time and effort on garbage. OP being the worst offender here ever. It doesn't matter if it works, what it's missing, who made it, or anything of the sort. Bootlegs are worthless. Always. They were worthless then, are worthless now, and will be worthless forever.

Strip them for anything socketed, and chuck 'em in the trash. Nobody is ever going to buy a bootleg PCB for any amount of cash worth your time. Might as well be 8-liners. They are ALL garbage IMO.
While some of that is true, there are examples of the bootlegs being more reliable than the original games, so to an operator, that is a big deal. One example is the Galaga bootleg, GALLAG. It is far more reliable than a typical Midway Galaga board. With a ROM swap and a few resistors, it's gameplay is a 100% identical.

Further, whether you like it or not, bootlegs are a part of the video arcade game history. Having never seen a bootleg of any early Williams video games, I am glad the OP posted. For any of us that spent any amount of time playing games BITD, I suspect 99% of us played at least one bootleg and likely never knew. Further, knowing what is a bootleg vs. original is always handy when rummaging through piles of boards at old Operator warehouses. Even at auction, if I am interested in a game I try to determine if it contains a bootleg or original boardset. I also have this thing about checking out the Galagas to see what they contain and can usually narrow it down pretty quickly.

Scott C.
 
While some of that is true, there are examples of the bootlegs being more reliable than the original games, so to an operator, that is a big deal. One example is the Galaga bootleg, GALLAG. It is far more reliable than a typical Midway Galaga board. With a ROM swap and a few resistors, it's gameplay is a 100% identical.

While the Gallag example is true, it is still also worthless. You'll be hard-pressed to sell ANY bootleg for more than it costs to ship it, Gallag included.

Outside of monetary value - which you all seem hung up on - they have no collector value, either. Nobody wants a bootleg PCB (even to play), but they'll take it for free until they can get a real one. Notice the 'FREE' qualifier, and the fact that it would be replaced by real hardware at the first opportunity :D

Does anyone 'collect' Chinese multiboards or modern Korean bootlegs? No. No, they do not. Because only original hardware has any value at all to arcade COLLECTORS (which is what this place is for, btw) - monetary or otherwise.

Total newbs and bottom-feeders might keep them around, but vets know better and dispose of them appropriately.
 
Total newbs and bottom-feeders might keep them around, but vets know better and dispose of them appropriately.

Thanks for letting me know! I would hate to be associated with total newbs and bottom-feeders. Is there a special club for the vets?

Have a great weekend, and as a Veteran, I salute all of the arcade veterans. Thank you for your service. You make the world a safer place.
 
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Outside of monetary value - which you all seem hung up on - they have no collector value, either. Nobody wants a bootleg PCB (even to play), but they'll take it for free until they can get a real one. Notice the 'FREE' qualifier, and the fact that it would be replaced by real hardware at the first opportunity :D

Disagreed re: value to collectors. I've been collecting since the early 1990s and, with a few notable exceptions, am typically more interested in bootlegs these days than original machines. The near-zero monetary worth of the majority of bootlegs doesn't escape me, but they are a part of arcade history and as such have intrinsic value.

Does anyone 'collect' Chinese multiboards or modern Korean bootlegs? No. No, they do not. Because only original hardware has any value at all to arcade COLLECTORS (which is what this place is for, btw) - monetary or otherwise.

While I am generally the first to call out x-in-1 boards as being completely crap, if someone wants to collect them then I don't believe that that makes them any less of a collector. Their tastes may not mesh with mine, but I don't recall there being a written rule that collectors can only be considered collectors if they have certain games or types of games.

As an example: on the video game floor at Arcade Expo in Banning, CA this year there was a Duramold Bubbles running the game from a 60-in-1 (IIRC). Now, I'm not going to debate the originality of the game; it's pretty clear that running off of a 60-in-1 and not an original PCB pretty much makes the game non-original. But does doing that make the owner any less of a collector?

Total newbs and bottom-feeders might keep them around, but vets know better and dispose of them appropriately.

Well, if for no other reason than enlightened self-interest, those same collectors should probably be keeping them around. Let's say someone's Galaga dies and it's going to take time to obtain an original PCB. What's closer to the original as a stop-gap solution: a dedicated Gallag PCB or Galaga on an x-in-1?

This also opens up the door to debating both the worth and value of things like JROK's FPGAs, multigames on dedicated hardware (Multi-Pac, etc.), and DEXTER. Are people using these or similar items in their games no longer considered collectors?

I realise that much of the above has no hard-and-fast answers and never will. But to my mind the types of games that someone chooses to collect doesn't make them more or less of a collector.
 
Gallag

While some of that is true, there are examples of the bootlegs being more reliable than the original games, so to an operator, that is a big deal. One example is the Galaga bootleg, GALLAG. It is far more reliable than a typical Midway Galaga board. With a ROM swap and a few resistors, it's gameplay is a 100% identical.

What are these modifications you speak of? Links? I have 2 or 3 Gallag boardsets.
Thanks!
 
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Thanks, and I was thinking about the benefits to making things more integrated compared to the separate boards that Williams used. Many early Williams games problems are because of interconnect issues. On the other hand, being able to easily swap out a Rom or sound board makes "troubleshooting for dummies" (myself included) easier.
If they had made a robust monolithic PCB that did it all, would that have been better? Cheaper then? Easier now?
I look at the 4 feet of populated PCB on my Paperboy and think "Wow. Would be easier if it was broken up a bit"
 
I remember back 20+ years ago seeing bootleg boards like Crazy Kong being stripped and tossed by the dozens.... Nobody wanted them. Now (with all the DK craze) people actually seek out Crazy Kong and pay decent money for the boards. So "nobody wants a bootleg PCB" is just wrong. And don't try to tell me that Crazy Kong is not a bootleg. Here in the states it certainly was. You bought your Crazy Kong boards from the same shady dudes that sold you "Defense Command".

Another one that I think has "value" is the single-board Pac bootleg. Small, runs on DC, and you can add a multi kit like the 96-in-1. Great way to play a bunch of classics on real hardware.

As for the Defender bootleg here, I think it is a very interesting board. Pretty cool how they condensed the Williams system into a convenient standard-sized boardset. Not an engineering marvel by any means, but neat to see.
 
This made me chuckle.... You realize you are the only one who brought up money? There was no talk at all in this thread about cash value until you chimed in.

I noticed that too. Just didn't want to feed the fire.

I remember back 20+ years ago seeing bootleg boards like Crazy Kong being stripped and tossed by the dozens.... Nobody wanted them. Now (with all the DK craze) people actually seek out Crazy Kong and pay decent money for the boards. . .

Don't forget "Congorilla"! My friend had to surrender a truckload of money (possibly around $60K+ in earnings) and the pcb's from those bootleg cabs to Nintendo. At least he got to keep the cabinets. A few of them ended up in the trailers of doom, and some of the others are still stacked in the warehouse. Very, very solid cabinets. I've got a marquee and bezel around.
https://www.google.com/search?q=con...JuCE0Q_AUIBygC&dpr=1.25#imgrc=gmpXujrBNQDbEM:

There is always a market for the "forgotten treasure" or underappreciated classic. Look at the SNES game Earthbound. At one time, you could get the boxed game on clearance for $10.... Wish I had bought the entire stack and put them in the parents basement. :p
 
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Not that simple, unfortunately. The Defense Command ROMs in MAME are for a different board layout than the one we are talking about here. The one they have documented has a bunch of 2716's whereas this board has 2732's (with the exception of the sound ROM, which can be a 2716). I read my ROMs in ages ago and figured out how they were mapped. Just found my notes on it and whipped up some Defender white ROMs to go in there. I'll burn those now and give it a try. If it works, I'll post the ROM set.

Just to follow up, I finally burned these ROMs and tried them in my board last night. It does boot up and run through attract mode fine, but there's something wonky about the controls. You can't fire or control the ship... it acts like the down and thrust buttons are stuck. Which seems very familiar... I'm pretty sure this is what I saw 10+ years ago when I tried converting it. So getting this to work is going to require digging in and patching the input mapping changes.... Ugh. Has someone already done this?
 
Matt, you have to ground a pin on IC23 or IC24 which are 74LS240's. I haven't worked out which pin as yet but ArcadeKing from the AA forums has worked it out.
 
Matt, you have to ground a pin on IC23 or IC24 which are 74LS240's. I haven't worked out which pin as yet but ArcadeKing from the AA forums has worked it out.

Thank you! That was easy enough. You need to ground pins 1 and 19 on IC23. Mine was actually already socketed, so it was just a matter of bending those pins out and connecting them to ground (pin 10).
 
Thank you! That was easy enough. You need to ground pins 1 and 19 on IC23. Mine was actually already socketed, so it was just a matter of bending those pins out and connecting them to ground (pin 10).
Oh that's easy enough. Thanks for sharing this info. Have next week off to try this. Have the roms mapped but haven't been home to try and upload. Cheers Dave
 
The Defense Command ROMs in MAME are for a different board layout than the one we are talking about here. The one they have documented has a bunch of 2716's whereas this board has 2732's (with the exception of the sound ROM, which can be a 2716). I read my ROMs in ages ago and figured out how they were mapped. Just found my notes on it and whipped up some Defender white ROMs to go in there. I'll burn those now and give it a try. If it works, I'll post the ROM set.

Here are the Defender (white) ROMs that will work in this board.
 
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