Anyone out there familiar with Konami System 573?

Just curious as I am trying to learn a bit more about an area I know very little about. It was actually my love of arcade machines that led to my parents buying me my first home computer back in the 1980's, but I maintained a fascination for various arcade units despite their best efforts to steer me away from the sins of spending my holiday money (yep, I'd be stuck in the arcades playing Gauntlet and Sega Rally whilst everyone else waited for me to stop so we could go to the beach or something).

A lot of my late nights at Uni were spent in the company of the odd arcade unit in the lobby of my then g/friends halls of residence waiting for her to finish up at the library. I was a very easily distracted student!

Anyway, I stumbled across the Konami System 573 thanks to Barc0de mentioning it was related to the Sony PS1. I had never heard of it, never seen it and looking at the list of titles I could find online I don't think I have ever even used it. Anyone own one, know anything about them?

I am tempted to obtain one as an entry level arcade machine as I have had the offer to purchase one relatively cheaply.

What pitfalls am I likely to stumble into? Baring in mind until tonight my ONLY experience with arcade units has been slotting in hundreds of 10,20 & 50p into them since I was a kid!

Thanks in advance.

 

I have two 573's. I know a little bit about them. http://smf.mameworld.info/

Most of the games are dedicated cabinets, DDR, DrumMania, Guitar Freaks etc. Probably the only standard JAMMA game that I've played that is worth getting is Konami 80's arcade ( and those games can be played in an emulator on pretty much any PC out there ).

Bishi bashi games are fun, but none of the cd's have been dumped yet.

Things to watch out for:

You need the security cartridge ( or in some case cartridges ) & the CD to run the game.

Some of the games require additional I/O boards and some also require a special PCMCIA flash card ( only one expensive card is known to work, the more common ATA drives do not work ).

The games that use the digital I/O board ( newer bemani games ) have a serial number that gets written to the security cartridge the first time you install it & you can't then install it on any other machine.

smf

 

What he said.

I looked into it a bit myself, and like smf said, most of the games for the 573 seem to be dedicated cabinets with complicated custom controls that would be a huge pain in the ass to play...They don't seem to be the most practical boards to buy...espcially without at cabinet.

I'd really recommend just picking out a JAMMA game that you want and buying it. Some super desirable games are expensive...but maybe theres some undesirable game you love that nobody else wants. You could buy a supergun to play it...or build one pretty easily thanks to the fact that you have those Neato SCART connectors in the UK.

 

if you need an entry level arcade setup, go naomi. Not overly expensive (could build a full naomi setup for $500 or less depending on cabinet) and tons of games avalible.


smf,
how complicated is Zinc src? I've always wanted to see soul calibur (sys12 ver) running on my psp. I just don't have time to insted strip it out of mame.

 

In my opinion, Naomi is still relatively expensive. Neogeo or cps2 are probably a better system to start with. Or just buy JAMMA boards.


Soul Calibur doesn't work in ZiNc or MAME at the moment, so it's a moot point. However I wouldn't use either as the basis for an emulator on the PSP. ZiNc doesn't include any rendering code & the only one with source available is a software renderer. You'll need to write a dynamic recompiler with a MIPS backend instead of x86. At this point you've lost any advantage of using ZiNc. There are many disadvantages, due to the style of the code.

MAME is in the same position, it works fine on a c2d but the PSP is a little bit less powerful than that.

You could start from one of the open source PlayStation emulators for the PSP, however Soul Calibur is a little too memory hungry. The roms are 44mb, ram is 4mb and vram is 2mb. Also the System 12 board uses an uprated revision of the chipset that is clocked higher than the consoles, so you might struggle getting full speed.

smf

 

Damn I missed a Naomi board on eBay a few nights ago! It went for about $50 (£26.00) and I only missed it because I was called out to do something away from the house at short notice.

A friend of mine told me the Atomiswave(ware) is a system worth looking at, but that it had a limited number of titles available for it.

I normally collect consoles & dev kits, so arcade units are an entirely new vein for me. The console tie-ins such as the TriForce and Chihiro are of most interest to me, but I want to learn to walk before I attempt to run as the outlay for something like that is much, much higher I would assume. Probably harder to find too.

As regards to the Konami System 573. How closely based on the PS1 is it? I have read that for instance the Chihiro is so close that the software file systems are almost identicle (again I may stand corrected). Can the system be coaxed into running anything other than the official System 573 software (not necessarily illegal copies) just any PS stuff?

 

I will only talk about the atomiswave, it has some good games but the latest/best ones are expensive, metal slug 6 costs me a PS3 60g american version more or less.

The best aw games have been released on the ps2 yet, hokuto no ken will be soon.
The few specific games are a bunch of 2D or 3D beat them up, a ms6 clone (dolphin blue) with severe framerate slowdown from time to time (a thing I spotted in various dreamcast games when there are big explosions around the screen), some racing games wich need a special IO add-on for the steering wheel, some shooting games and of course a horse race "thing", I really can't call that a game, too weird for me.

The good thing about it is that the system itself is not very expensive, as are the early games.
Another good thing about it, it has a vga port so you can hook up to your lcd/crt screen and play in "hi-res" mode although some 2D games support it badly like kof neowave, the sprites are ugly in this mode...

The bad thing is that it's a dead system, no more games will be released on it, the next snk/playmore games will be released on the next taito hardware and the values of the current games drop, it would be hard to resell it for the same amount of money without "consolize" it, a thing you could do easily I guess.

You should check the list of games on the http://www.system16.com website, and for a pricelist go at http://www.coinopexpress.com, their prices are a bit higher than elsewhere but at least you have an idea of what you might pay...

I don't have a cabinet, I'm using a supergun bought on ebay and a pair of neogeo sticks, although the lack of a fifth button can be annoying, I should rewire my supergun sometime...

I also have a 2-slots mvs and a system 246, the mvs is a good choice if you don't have an aes system already, the games are way cheaper.

 

I'll second (or third?) the MVS route.

First: Single Slot MVS boards are pretty much straight JAMMA....with the additional buttons on the JAMMA Harness. Really easy to wire.

Second: You can use AES controllers if you're using a supergun.

Third: Huge Library full of great games.

Fourth: Relatively cheap games and hardware.

Fifth: Has huge following if you need help.

 

You can connect the aes controllers directly on the 2-slots type, as well as the memory card and speakers/headphones, and the bios is not soldered, you can easily replace it with the unibios.

 

Lots to think about! I have bought the System 573, more out of PS curiosity than anything else. It was a good price so I am losing nothing by having a look at it. I am going to be looking for a System 245/246 soon (Unclejun I should have KNOWN you'd have one ;-))

I will also look at the MVS route. Thanks folks! I shall return no doubt!

Incidentally the System 573 comes with your favourite title Unclejun "Dark Legend" (horse racing). It's a cart, but I imagine I'll need some other stuff to be able to use it.

If it is complete, if anyone IS interested let me know. I'd be happy to trade / swap for something else.

 

Hi the unit arrived this morning, but just in time for me to be away with the kids on holiday!

It seems fine, but until I get the correct connectors I can't really do anything. It has the cart inserted (GX706 JA "Dark Horse Legend")

No power, no testing, so I hope it is in good condition as described.

Anyone have a manual for this (pdf)? Otherwise can someone explain the dip settings (4 switches all set to OFF), a curious USB port (?), and 2 x RS232 sockets entitled "Option 1" & "Option 2" (?)

If the Jamma card can provide power, why is there a built in PSU socket?

thanks!

 

The DIPS vary depending on game, 4th one sets boot device from cdrom to flash on almost all titles. Off the top of my head thats all i know sadly.

 

IIRC it's a JVS connector, which uses a USB connector but a different protocol. The dip switches are mostly unused, I think konami 80's arcade might use one for flipping the video. Otherwise it's just the boot from cd or flash ( and most games can boot from either ).

System 573 is like lego, different games add on different things. You need a manual per game really.

smf

 

Okay, never heard of JVS until you mentioned it. Just had a look for it on Google and now understand its function. Not got enough spare cash for a Cyber Lead cabinet, so I think I'll go the Jamma route!

I've opened the unit and given it a good clean. The CDrom was inserted in the drive, plus I have the cart key (I assume that's what it is).

Interesting that the system changes with each title it is expected to run. I did notice that this particular machine was fitted to run Dark Horse Legend. Any good? Not into horse racing, but is it a decent enough game?

Any idea of the uses for the two internal connectors? There is a little blanking plate on the rear of the unit that allows access to the main connection, but the other is halfway up the board. I can load images later.

 

I think you really have to be in to the arcade horse racing games to even consider dark horse legend a game. However I'm sure it's worth a laugh.

There are connectors on the motherboard where other I/O boards can be plugged in. The fishing games have a "mouse" decoder chip on a board which the reel is connected to. The Dancing games have alot of outputs for the lamps & the later ones have an mp3 decoder on the I/O board.

smf

 

I am sure you probably figured this out but JVS is esentualy Jamma 2. It's the new standard used that supports a more universal setup on input (usb port) as well now supports a 31hz display output.

I've yet to fully test this but some newer boards have JVS to Jamma converter (Naomi/System246). I've yet to fully test but I assume you probably could use a capcom JVS->Jamma IO on any JVS board (providing the game supports 15hz).

...
Man all this arcade talk makes me want to get back into it. I saw a Ridge Racer V System 246 board on ebay a few months back that did not sell. I so want to nab that up.

 

Finally got the unit stripped and cleaned - nice item, weird in a way as not what I expected at all. Quite an attractive casing for something locked inside an arcade cab.

For those who have not seen one:

 

Pretty.

That board is duel JVS/Jamma. Quite a nice setup there.

 

I noticed an eBay item which was a Jamma connection board. Not knowing precisely what I was going for I asked the seller (who makes them) whether the PCB would work with the System 573 and if so, I'd buy one. He replied with "No, it won't" so is there a specific type of Jamma PCB I am looking for?

Subbie, yeah it's not a bad looking bit of kit. Not sure what I can do with it as I assume there is no way I can run anything other than the Dark Horse Legend title as it looks like all CDr have to work with a ROM dongle. Even if I can find other titles, it's unlikely I'll find the controls or ROM with them.

 

What kind of jamma connection board are you looking for? Are you looking for out to tv?