Sega System 16 & System 18 intercompatibility

aclbandit

Member
Joined
Nov 5, 2011
Messages
283
Reaction score
0
Location
Marysville, OH, Ohio
Hello, all.

TL;DR version: Are daughterboards of (System 16 + JAMMA adapter) and System 18 interchangeable?

Longer version:

Working on a Moonwalker PCB for a friend, and I'd like to know definitively that the Moonwalker daughterboard is OK before I start tackling the mainboard.

The simplest way I can think of to see whether the problem lies on the "Moonwalker" daughterboard or the main System18 motherboard is to swap it over to a known-good board.

Obviously there's some caveats, but if we assume for purposes of this conversation that we're running the decrypted program ROMs with a regular not-encrypted, no-battery CPU, then I think this would turn out just fine, even if the System 18 is from a different game.

I have heard from the Googles that Clutch Hitter could be used in this way (and that's the idea I'm considering right now), but that appears to come in both System 16 and 18 variants. As far as I can tell, the main difference between the two is the pinout (System 16 is Sega's pinout, whereas System 18 is JAMMA).


So (assuming decrypted ROMs and CPU), are daughterboards of (System 16 + JAMMA adapter) and System 18 interchangeable?
 
Either this is a question so dumb that no one wishes to deign it with a response, or no one has tried it.

Might try and post back... It's broke anyway, right? :p
 
You can't put a System 18 rom board on a System 16 main board, if that's what you are asking, or vice versa. It won't fit, the header layout and spacing is different between the two systems. You may be able to run a System 16 game by transplanting the ROMs and setting up the jumpers, and getting all the ROMs in the right layout and position in the memory map, but it would be very hit and miss. I'd imagine most games would fail outright as there are differences on System 18 to to the more basic 16.

You can swap ROM boards onto other motherboards of the same system and it will run as long as the CPU matches the ROMs i.e. encrypted or decrypted. You may need to move the the Intel MCU 8571 chip too if the game needs it, these are game specific too. Some titles have one, some don't, some versions of some games need it while other version leave the socket empty.
 
Last edited:
Gotcha. I appreciate the response. Makes this System 18 repair a little harder than if I could just borrow a System 16 to try it out on, but such is life.


You can't put a System 18 rom board on a System 16 main board, if that's what you are asking, or vice versa. It won't fit, the header layout and spacing is different between the two systems. You may be able to run a System 16 game by transplanting the ROMs and setting up the jumpers, and getting all the ROMs in the right layout and position in the memory map, but it would be very hit and miss. I'd imagine most games would fail outright as there are differences on System 18 to to the more basic 16.

You can swap ROM boards onto other motherboards of the same system and it will run as long as the CPU matches the ROMs i.e. encrypted or decrypted. You may need to move the the Intel MCU 8571 chip too if the game needs it, these are game specific too. Some titles have one, some don't, some versions of some games need it while other version leave the socket empty.
 
Back
Top Bottom