Taito Spy agent real or fake?

[oregonarcade]

after looking at this thing for 3 months in my storage I think its a knock off but a cool knock off. If anyone thinks its the ultra rare only 6 made they can have it for the low rate price of only 12 made

 

[tingoes]

Found my reciept for spy agent, sorry you were sleeping Brian.

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Same Machine,

I sent the PCB to the Guru's rom dump news.
Original Taito 4 board with no CPU running unprotected roms used on the bootleg versions.
Anyone thought that maybe the bootleggers got access to Taito's unprotected romset.

I sent the PCB to the Guru, with a whole lot of other stuff I had laying around that was wanted for minor corrections in MAME. Color, sound, roms etc.

here's how it appears in MAWS.

# 29th December 2007: Guru - Elevator Action... this is a strange one, the dumped matches the 'elevatob' set in MAME, but this is definitely an original PCB, so I suspect the existing dump is really from an original PCB (4-board unprotected version) and the bootleg set is the same thing exactly.
# 21st December 2007: Guru - A huge box arrived today. That 19.75kg box looks mighty impressive, although I'm not sure that all of it is going to be useful. Some could be alt. versions but most don't work so I'll need to dump all of these before I can tell exactly what they are. It contains Elevator Action (Taito 1982, original SJ hardware without MCU!) and others. Thanks to Tingoes for sending these out.

I know what I read back in '84-85.

As I said I got the PCB from that machine,
I'm sticking to my story,
I tell the truth.

Thanks, Tingoes.

 

[MilitiaMan]

I believe you, Tingoes ...

Also ... I did get your PM. I will dig up some pics tonight and get you a price shipped to AUS.

Steve
MM

 

[Mylstar]

I have a couple of Spy Agent marquees here too. These were not prototypes. 100% bootleg.

 

[Pac-Fan]

Shoot, I had a Spy Agent marquee I could not give away to anyone interested in gaming. Think I finally got $1 for it at a rummage sale a few years ago. I don't recall if it had a Taito logo on it or not. Since I no longer have it, it probably did... if I still had it, it probably wouldn't. It was plexi and I suspect it was a copy since all of Taito's were on glass at the time, IIRC.

 

[VectorJunkie]

It is interesting to think that Taito may have come up with the Spy Agent concept and bailed on the name in favor of Elevator Action... EA certainly has a sexier sound to it in a Phet sort of way. The thought of someone bootlegging the original design that was abandoned is awesome if true. Why not bootleg a name you won't get sued for?

So both sides could be right. The bulk of what is out there is bootleg, but that Taito was the actual source of the bootleg materials... Best bootleg story out there anyway.

 

[DeLuSioNaL29]

I'm resurrecting this topic, because a buddy of mine came across the CP with the bootleg artwork on it.

Anyone know if this game exists or if a ROM dump was made for MAME. If true, it would be cool to swap the ROMs to make it so!

Del

 

[JaydenSilvers]

I'm resurrecting this topic, because a buddy of mine came across the CP with the bootleg artwork on it.

Anyone know if this game exists or if a ROM dump was made for MAME. If true, it would be cool to swap the ROMs to make it so!

Del

no rom exists with the spy agent name, it just uses the unprotected rom. Well-made bootleg, but a bootleg nonetheless

 

[cnlmoore]

Just to add to the story...the artwork was likely done by Magic Electronics. You can see the artist's little weird logo on the artwork. So the kit is probably from them. They liked to sell bootleg stuff.

 

[JaydenSilvers]

Just to add to the story...the artwork was likely done by Magic Electronics. You can see the artist's little weird logo on the artwork. So the kit is probably from them. They liked to sell bootleg stuff.

Nice, I completely missed the Glak logo on the marquee (Glak was the one selling bootlegs. Magic Electronics only sold official kits, but the artwork for all of their games was done by Glak).

 

[ArcadeTechGW]

I guess that's a good reason for a 15 year necro bump.

Nah.

The original Op who said he dumped the roms was last on here on March 10, 2024. @tingoes - do you have the ROM dumps?

 

[JaydenSilvers]

I guess that's a good reason for a 15 year necro bump.

Nah.

The original Op who said he dumped the roms was last on here on March 10, 2024. @tingoes - do you have the ROM dumps?

It has been in MAME since version 0.19

 

[DeLuSioNaL29]

I guess that's a good reason for a 15 year necro bump.

Nah.

The original Op who said he dumped the roms was last on here on March 10, 2024. @tingoes - do you have the ROM dumps?

Had never seen this version of Elevator action before. Quarter Arcade carries it though.

Curiousity got the best of me since this seemed unresolved. So thanks to the
Necro bump I now know who made it and found this Gem:

Is this mark the Glak Associates or Magic Electronics Logo? | Rotheblog - Arcade Game Blog

Its a little mark, an Eye nestled in the letter G, strewn across a number of bootleg arcade games and artwork. Today, we've drawn a connection to the origin of that logo.

www.rotheblog.com

Also, here's a pic of the CP we have which piqued my interest:

 

[cnlmoore]

Seems like they had their hands in a lot of stuff. And Jeff @rotheblog will need to update that list. I have an NOS cpo for Spy Agent, I'll need to dig it out so I can read that text.

 

[Dillweed]

I have a bezel I've been meaning to pick up from a friend. I picked it up yesterday. He likely has the board too, fingers crossed. I would like to build one of these.

 

[ReWrite]

I guess that's a good reason for a 15 year necro bump.

Nah.

The original Op who said he dumped the roms was last on here on March 10, 2024. @tingoes - do you have the ROM dumps?

the dumped matches the 'elevatob' set in MAME

Seems we all have them!

 

[DeLuSioNaL29]

I have a bezel I've been meaning to pick up from a friend. I picked it up yesterday. He likely has the board too, fingers crossed. I would like to build one of these.
View attachment 730401

I wonder if anyone repros the bezel...

 

[coinopper]

One of my friends from school showed me a magazine in around 1984 which had an article on Elevator Action.

Curious to know what magazine this was. I briefly looked through 1983 and 1984 issues of Joystik and Video Games, and the only thing I found was this review of the game in the May 1984 issue of Video Games.

The Cutting Room Floor had info on some early/prototype artwork:

Elevator Action (Arcade) - The Cutting Room Floor

tcrf.net

 

[HudsonArcade]

All klov says is that its a elevator action boot leg but why would tatio make a bootleg of its own game?

Elevator action has a security board.... the bootleg ROMs bypass the security so any other of the Taito SJ-series games can be converted.

That prob was an Alpine Ski.