Mario bros machine

[M.Schrock]

I found a guy near me selling a Mario bros arcade. When I talked to him he said the cabinet was originally a donkey Kong. He also said that if I wanted to make it a donkey Kong cabinet I just had to put a dk chip in. Does anyone know if this sounds right? If I could buy the chip cheap all I would have to do is replace the control panel and
Marquee and I suppose I would have a dk machine.

[TheSunshineFund]

He also said that if I wanted to make it a donkey Kong cabinet I just had to put a dk chip in. Does anyone know if this sounds right?

It does not.  Just for starters, one is horizontal, one is vertical orientation.  There are other hardware differences as well. 

[YesAffinity]

MB also uses a 2-way joystick.  No guarantee that the cab in question has a 2-way, but just one more thing that could need to be replaced to make DK work.

Now, it could be possible that he has MB running in a DK cab, with the monitor rotated.  My blue cab (and most blue cabs) have brackets on the side that allow the normally vertically oriented monitor to be rotated horizontally (Sanyo 20 EZ's are actually horizontal monitors which are technically rotated for vertical games like the DK series).

However, I'm not sure that the cab wiring is the same for DK and MB board sets.  Does anybody know that for sure?

It might be worth checking out, but with a bit of educating yourself before going to look at it.

Here are the manuals for MB and DK, which could give you some better insight if and when you check the machine out.

http://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-videogames/M/MarioBros.pdf

https://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-videogames/D/dk-tkg4u.pdf

[TheSunshineFund]

I think the edge connector harness will work but not 100% sure.  Without seeing pics it's also possible there's some JAMMA adapter in there or something, who knows.  I'll defer to those with much more hardware knowledge than I but regardless of setup, I'm fairly confident it will be more than a rom swap.

[Jonesy]

However, I'm not sure that the cab wiring is the same for DK and MB board sets.  Does anybody know that for sure?

No DK uses a different set up to MB. Donkey Kong uses the small black connectors, MB sits in a cage and uses an edge connector, a completely different loom altogether. I think there are also PSU voltage differences.

[YesAffinity]

Edge connector pinout is identical on MB and DK:

https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=pinout&page=Nintendo_Classic.html

The power supply, if you look at the part number in the Mario Bros manual, is a PP-7B.  Same as used in DK, Popeye and others.

In fact, if you look at the majority of the part number in the MB manual, they are DK, DK jr and Popeye part numbers.  The TMAU part numbers are new for MB, but spot-checking those parts, they appear to also be identical, just with a new part number (like the 44-pin edge connector).

So, the big things to check for:  Is it truly a DK cab, with a 4-way joystick and with the ability to rotate the monitor to vertical orientation?  Other than that, sounds like you would need to be prepared to buy a DK 2-board set to swap in (usually around $200 - $250, from any number of sources).

[maximumsteve]

MB definitely sits in a cage. Most MB cabs are converted Popeye or Donkey Kong Jr. cabinets actually. Blue is Popeye and Orange is DK Jr.
You need to have both a MB and a DK and enjoy and learn them both imho.

[YesAffinity]

^Agreed.

Also, DK cabs are blue or red.  There should be a metal plate above the back door identifying the part number.