Donkey Kong arcade machine questions

[pacman]

Hi,

I have been playing DK at my local arcade on a Burger Time 60 in 1 machine and now have the opportunity to purchase my own dedicated DK standup arcade machine. I was wondering what I should be looking for? Are there certain serial numbers on the board that are regulation? (don't want to end up with a bootleg board), should the cabinet be stamped to distinguish it from a reproduction, are there certain things I should inspect as far as the monitor is concerned?

Right now I only get to play a few games every Sunday but hopefully having a machine at home will let me practice more and boost my hi score (currently 301K). The selling price is quite hi ($800) so mostly want to make sure it is original and regulation. Thanks in advance for any help or advice anyone can give.

[mikegmi2]

Make sure the board is original by looking at the top and seeing TKG4-XX (should be -13 or -14 most likely) printed in white on both the video and CPU board. Then look at the large ROMs (6 on each board) and they should all have factory faded orange/brown stickers on them that have black printed letter/number combinations on them to denote their position on the board.

The back of the cab should have a rectangular metal serial number plate near the top.

Basically look at pics of DK machines online and recognize what an original looks like inside, the power supply, the monitor, etc...and you should be good to go.

$800 is fairly high price, not sure where your location is, I bought mine for $400, and only needed to change out 2 couple ROMS that werent original, and I was up and running.

[JCHarrist]

Squiidux posted some really good pics here of his machine that you could use for reference:

https://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=246.msg5497#msg5497

Welcome to the forum! 

[Jonesy]

Hey there,

The original monitor would normally be a Sanyo EZ20, very easy to identify from the protective metal case surrounding the neck of the monitor, there is also an adjustment board to the left of the main chassis with 5 adjustment pots attached.

As for the cabinet, there are two types.....the more desirable of the two is the Japanese Ply type which is made of 9/16" Ply( if the cab is 3/4" then you can bet your life it's a reproduction cab) The other type is American, made of 5/8" particle board that tends to crumble away if it's got damp and tend to fall to pieces. The easiest way to determine which cab is which is.....the ply cabs are sprayed black to roughly half way down on the inside of both sides, the chipboard cabs are black right down to the base. Both cabs are finished in a very thin coloured formica on the sides and front.

Good luck

[pacman]

Thanks for the quick reply guys. That info and the link to the pics will help immensely. I am located near Portland Oregon and these machines are hard to find and expensive. Luckily it looks mint from the outside but will check it thoroughly on the inside in person. I got to look at a machine about 2 months ago for $600 and it was a little beat up but the big problem was it had a bootleg board (the barrels would never fall down the ladders if you hang on them).

My baby bro just landed a teaching job in Colorado Springs so I now have the motivation to lift my game and try make a wildcard spot in Denver sometime in the future.

BTW if anyone has a machine in my local area and wants to sell please hit me up.

[Scoundrl]

I dont have a machine to sell but I am in your basic area (Hillsboro) and have a fair amount of knowlege as it relates to these machines. My game room is also a Twin Galaxies location so if you dont find a game and want to shoot for the record without all the recording requirements hit me up and I'll get you on the invite list when we do game nights.

Let me know if I can help
-Ken

[pacman]

Well thanks again for the great info guys. I got to finally take a look at the machine tonight and it looks to be in very good condition. The boards have the correct serial numbers. It is spray painted black halfway down on the inside. The only question I have is on the back of the machine there are two metal plates. One appears to be the regular DK plate top center but then to the right of that there was another plate stamped  MGS-UP-US. Does anyone have any info on what the extra plate means?

The owner is not quite sure he wants to sell it but I will find out tomorrow if I can get it or not.

Thanks for the offer Ken....I may have to hit you up after alot more practice if this deal falls through!

[JCHarrist]

The MGS-UP-US plate means it was converted to a VS. Unisystem at some point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_VS._System

[pacman]

OK I have some more questions and I hope this is the right spot to have them answered. The seller with the original DK cab flaked so I ended up buying a cheap DK Jr cab. Unfortunately it had been completely gutted and an xbox was added running mame as well as a 15" lcd. On the outside the original control panel has been removed. Everything else on the outside is original and the cabinet is in pretty good condition for its age. I was planning on buying a reproduction DK Jr control panel from mikesarcade, adding a 20" 4:3 lcd monitor, I-Pac decoder and run mame off a spare PC I have laying around.

I was wondering if anyone had some input on this idea. One day I would love to get it completely restored but do not have the extra time at the moment and would like to get up and running playing some DK.

[Exodus]

I'm sorry to here the deal didn't fall through, was that the DK cabinet on craigslist? (I live in your neck of the woods) so to answer your question(s) first off:

Cab is gutted but looks ok, is there anyway to post pics to see what we are working with? At first you wanted the DK machine got the DK jr so your not set on a specific game but want to restore it?
Now think about these two things its very important to know what it is you want to achieve with the cabinet before spending any money cause you want to make this cost effective as possible. If it were me I would ask do I really like DK Jr to invest 4-7 hundred in a full restore, or is there a different Nintendo game like, DK, DK3, Mario Bros, Popeye I would like more.

Now the next step is to when restoring how thorough do you want to be? Do you want this to look like the truck dropped the machine off at your house in the early 80's before it ever saw an arcade or do you just want it presentable enough to keep the gf/wife off your case? If you are doing a complete restore "Donkey Kong" Re manufactured pieces of high quality are easy to get a hold of, if you are just looking for used pieces such as Marquee/Control Panel Overlay/Bezel that are acceptable keep an eye on Ebay and the Arcade forums and start collecting early that way by the time you get to it you will have them available.

I don't really care much for the price of Mike's remake control panels, that's $100 in the toilet on the project right off the bat, but i guess it depends what you have and what you don't. Making the control panel is a very simple process but if you don't even have the CPO/Buttons/Joystick/Control Harness/ Or lock latches then Milkes is your best bet, if you have some of that equipment then we can help you rebuild one from scratch with pics & Measurements.

On to the stripped cabinet, what is your experience with Arcade machines? do you have the experience to fully wire in a Jamma harness with a switching power supply? If so I would take the opportunity to do so and with good detail, this will help you in the future plugging in any of the games you want most recommended for the vertical screen is the 60 in 1 PCB. I understand it has an LCD in it now but if your going to do a restore why not find a Sanyo EZ monitor rather than buying a different LCD then later on buying the Sanyo EZ if you decide you want the machine more authentic.

I thinks its great you want to do a restore on the cabinet and there is lots of resources all over the net on doing so but ultimately what I wanted to do was throw some ideas out there for you and help you grasp a little more of "Exactly" you want to do, if you don't have your mind made up you will waste time and money so in the meantime setting up mame is a Great idea till you got it figured out, though if I remember you stated the guy had an Xbox with LCD so... that tells me VGA JPac would be needed if there were an arcade monitor you needed to connect to, I believe you would need the Ipac to wire up the joystick and buttons to the PC

Anyways hope that gives you some insight! Good luck and let us know if there is anything else you need!