So where did bootlegs come from BITD....?

[sblair]

were they ever advertised in trade magazines like replay?

I can't recall if they were in RePlay or not. I worked for a route company back in the mid-late 80's as a tech right around the time JAMMA came out. He would buy tons of shady gray-market kits. They were referred to as "parallels" at the time and the legality of them was the subject of a pretty big court battle at the time as well.

I always hated installing these kits cause they were always crappy and typically incomplete missing parts and info. Every time one came in to quote Forrest, "it was like a box of chocolates...."

There were distributers that were clearly dealing in them though.

 

[CrazyKongFan]

The Falcon version (Crazy Kong part 2) sorta has a copyright, it says "Falcon 1981" on the title screen (all the rest just say "1981" in the same place where the 1981 is on the Japanese DK ROM's). The Falcon boards do have a number sticker on them (which I assume is supposed to be a license), and KLOV'r Pleiades10 has a Pandora's Palace cab that was originally a Falcon CK, and it even has a Nintendo license sticker inside that says "This product is manufactured under the license of Nintendo TKS 03307" (I assume his cab was imported, if it was officially licensed overseas). From what I've read, Nintendo didn't even program DK, a 3rd party named "ITC" did. Nintendo only designed the gameplay. (Here's a link to ITC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikegami_Tsushinki ) So perhaps somewhere along the line of development, Falcon (or someone else) got ahold of early DK code (that's just a guess on my part).

 

[FrizzleFried]

How do people score weed? They're not scoring using the internet (for the most part). Yes... stuff got done pre-internet... it just took a little longer.

It's about knowing a guy who knows a guy.

 

[cnlmoore]

There were also advertisements in trade magazines to buy "kits". The kits weren't called bootlegs, just upgrades, or conversions...an op in the business would recognize them for what they were. I've seen a few ads in some of the more obscure trade magazines, not sure if they were in Replay or not. The ads kinda remind me of the stuff you can find in the back of popular mechanics.

The local op I scored over 40+ cabs from had dozens of bootleg pcbs. She was a firm believer that the money she made felt better in her pocket than in the bank of some major manufacturer. She told me that once she bought and paid for a couple "aftermarket" pcb's she was put on a mailing list and used to get all kinds of offers in the mail.

 

[parkway]

There were also advertisements in trade magazines to buy "kits". The kits weren't called bootlegs, just upgrades, or conversions...an op in the business would recognize them for what they were. I've seen a few ads in some of the more obscure trade magazines, not sure if they were in Replay or not. The ads kinda remind me of the stuff you can find in the back of popular mechanics.

The local op I scored over 40+ cabs from had dozens of bootleg pcbs. She was a firm believer that the money she made felt better in her pocket than in the bank of some major manufacturer. She told me that once she bought and paid for a couple "aftermarket" pcb's she was put on a mailing list and used to get all kinds of offers in the mail.

Interesting. Never knew they were actually advertised like that.

 

[Scott C]

I can't recall if they were in RePlay or not. I worked for a route company back in the mid-late 80's as a tech right around the time JAMMA came out. He would buy tons of shady gray-market kits. They were referred to as "parallels" at the time and the legality of them was the subject of a pretty big court battle at the time as well.

I always hated installing these kits cause they were always crappy and typically incomplete missing parts and info. Every time one came in to quote Forrest, "it was like a box of chocolates...."

There were distributers that were clearly dealing in them though.

I do recall reading a RePlay, etc. magazine many years ago and it openly advertised bootlegs. It was after I started collecting in the 90's and recall being surprised it was so open.

Scott C.

 

[Scott C]

Interesting. Never knew they were actually advertised like that.

I recall running into two ops that had an usually large # of bootleg boards. They also had tons of cabs and lots of conversions, so I have to think they bought a lot of these kits BITD. I have no idea so many bootlegs were made until I started collecting and buying game PCBs. The numbers are just staggering.

Didn't somebody create a web site years ago dedicated to nothing but bootlegs, and it showed pics?

Scott C.

 

[LaserFan]

I highly recommend reading...

You should read "The Ultimate History of Video Games..." By Steven Kent

Its great and talks extensively about the arcade industry, but mostly on the manufacturing end. Very interesting stuff..

According to the book the first "kits" created that could be considered a "bootleg" were for the original Missile Command machine. Doug Macrae and fellow friend, Kevin Curran, decided to build "PAL" boards that would fit onto the circuit boards of existing games and modify the game play. Their first project was to create a board that went on Missile Command. They designed a board that would mount on top of the Missile Command game and would overlay code that they wrote on the original Atari code. They called the new game Super Missile Attack. It was basically an accelerated version of Missile Command with a few new enemies, a laser shooting UFO, and new color schemes. The original started selling theses "enhancement kits" (as they had decided to call them that) out of the back of Play Meter Magazine and Replay. The kits retailed for $295.

The best part of the story is that their next enhancement kit was for the original Pac-Man machine. It is what ended up becoming a full fledged game after a legal dispute with Atari. The game it ended up becoming......Ms. Pac-Man

Anyway...great book. Highly recommend it...

Jess

 

[MaximRecoil]

I think the operator who bought it paid something like $1,600 whereas an "official" DK would be more like $3,000 or so new. So, it was understanding that the lure of saving money was hard to pass up for some operators (but not many around here), not unlike those who gobble up the Chinese in-1 boards that are so popular these days.

I wonder how that worked out for him. If it had been a bootleg of DK that was an exact copy of the real thing, then that would be one thing, but Crazy Kong looks, plays, and sounds like a cheap knockoff, and I doubt its earnings would be as good as the real thing.

 

[Riptor]

Guy calls his distribitor for a new pac board. Salesman sells caller bootleg board because its cheaper for the buyer and more profit for the seller. You have to remember, these pcbs cost big bucks back in the day. I have heard numbers of over a grand for some boards. A grand in the 80's was a shitload of money.

Hey, boards are still being bootlegged! Didnt the Chineese do a knockoff of Arcadeshops programmable pcb? Its kinda like a bootleg of a bootleg in a sense.

 

[Level42]

The AS board isn't a bootleg. It's just a piece of hardware.

OK, with the right ROM files (of which you of course must own an original set, officially) it can run some games, but that doesn't make the hardware itself a bootleg.

However, the 48in1 boards ARE bootlegs that have been bootlegged.

But even that practice happened in the 80's too

I think one of the never bootlegged games was Star Wars....

 

[MaximRecoil]

I think one of the never bootlegged games was Star Wars....

I don't think Pole Position was ever bootlegged either, though there has been an ongoing project to do so for years (under the term "reproduction"), because the original boards are notoriously problematic and difficult to fix because of the custom chips it uses.

 

[ataritoobin]

I don't think Pole Position was ever bootlegged either, though there has been an ongoing project to do so for years (under the term "reproduction"), because the original boards are notoriously problematic and difficult to fix because of the custom chips it uses.

There was a lawsuit in Tokyo District Court between Namco and Arrow Electric Co. for their bootleg of Pole Position called Top Racer in 1983/1984.

 

[norton9478]

I'm sure that many came through Canada, but from east asia.

Bootlegs tend to be much more labor intensive. Just look at all the handiwork on your boards. Lots of hand soldering, Sockets, Ep-Roms, Daughter Boards, and wires.

Check this one:

All of those adapters are hand soldered.


The only way to make money would be to use near slave labor.
I'd guess that during the 70's/80's, most came from Taiwan and Korea. Then throughout the 80 and early 90's, Hong Kong.

Then by the end of the 90's most were manufactured in china, but distributed through Hongkong.

 

[SuperGunGuru]

I've always wanted to post this video if someone asks if a board is a bootleg. So since we're on the topic of boots....

 

[parkway]

You should read "The Ultimate History of Video Games..." By Steven Kent

Its great and talks extensively about the arcade industry, but mostly on the manufacturing end. Very interesting stuff..

According to the book the first "kits" created that could be considered a "bootleg" were for the original Missile Command machine. Doug Macrae and fellow friend, Kevin Curran, decided to build "PAL" boards that would fit onto the circuit boards of existing games and modify the game play. Their first project was to create a board that went on Missile Command. They designed a board that would mount on top of the Missile Command game and would overlay code that they wrote on the original Atari code. They called the new game Super Missile Attack. It was basically an accelerated version of Missile Command with a few new enemies, a laser shooting UFO, and new color schemes. The original started selling theses "enhancement kits" (as they had decided to call them that) out of the back of Play Meter Magazine and Replay. The kits retailed for $295.

The best part of the story is that their next enhancement kit was for the original Pac-Man machine. It is what ended up becoming a full fledged game after a legal dispute with Atari. The game it ended up becoming......Ms. Pac-Man

Anyway...great book. Highly recommend it...

Jess

I actually did read it, but it was a while ago. I read it at my old job, so I only kind of half payed attention to it. I should probably pick it up again and re-read it, this time, NOT at work.

 

[billybob]

bootleg boards

Some of them came from canada but a lot of others came from mamma top
company out of japan I used to buy them back in the day is the reason i
know this it was a way to get mine paid for buy 3 sell 2 get 1 free kung fu master
comes to mind and later on mortal kombat was a good one

 

[PublicSectorTech]

Some of them came from canada but a lot of others came from mamma top
company out of japan I used to buy them back in the day is the reason i
know this it was a way to get mine paid for buy 3 sell 2 get 1 free kung fu master
comes to mind and later on mortal kombat was a good one

e.e. cummings, arcade op

 

[parkway]

Lot of interesting info. Thanks, guys. I guess these are/were not as mystical and clandestine as I previously thought.

 

[viewsonix]

e.e. cummings, arcade op

LOL nice reference