Just curious as I work on dimmensions for my supergun case, what are some of the largest game boards and what size are they? When I first got Street Fighter II' I thought it was big. But it proved to be nothing compared to my NeoGeo 1 slot. And I'm sure there are larger boards. I seem to recall Mortal Kombat being rather large not to mention having a seperate sound PCB. I'm sure there are other huge boards for games i've heard of.
Well, it really does depend on the games you want to play. If you want a full Naomi GD-ROM setup, you are going to need a hell of a lot of space. CPS2 A/B boardsets are rather bulky. If you look at Gauntlet Legends, it is comprised of three boards (motherboard, video card and Jamma adapter board) chained together. Your best bet would be to go to www.system16.com and just look through the "museums" for PCB pictures. The Midway section is pretty complete and has a lot of board pics. You should be able to judge the size based on the appearance of the Jamma connector.
If you think the Neo Geo MV-1 board is huge, wait till you see how big the 2 and 4 slot models are! If I recall, Primal Rage used one of the largest Jamma PCB's that I've ever seen and that was also a multi-piece board. In my personal collection, my Alpha Denshi "Gang Wars" board is my largest board while Snow Bros is humorously tiny...about the size of a PCI card. There is no standard size, but that's part of the appeal of collecting PCBS I guess.
Err, define "large". Are we talking depth, width, height, or a mixture of all three? 'Superguns' don't generally contain the board for this very reason. They have an external connector to connect to the PCB. Anything that holds a game internally is more an arcade machine than a test rig! 6 slots are bigger than 4 slots, though. And the biggest board I've seen was a Continental Circus, IIRC. A HUGE cage containing the game. And I mean REALLY huge! I think some cabs wouldn't be able to accomodate it. Oh, by the way, a LOT of boards are multi-layer, as you describe with the MK, two or three layer boards are commonplace.
The vertical dimmension means nothing to me really, It's the X/Y dimmensions for placing the board on the top of the SG case that matters to me. Aren't CPS2 boards about the size of CPS1 boards? I don't plan on my SG containing PCB boards, though I might devise a sort of semi housing on the top with the jamma edge connector side open and the top hinged to fold open/close to protect the PCB from dust/crushing. Then anything larger could sit ontop that or to the side. Multi layer, all Capcom System 1 games are. They have A, B, and C boards from what I've seen. For Mortal Kombat, I've seen them as 2 seperate PCBs, and I've seen bootlegs being multi layered. I know one I saw was a bootleg, the other I'm confident that it was as it didn't have a JAMMA keyed edge connector. I think that's right that part of the collecting appeal is to haev and see some of these interesting games and their real hardware.
cps1 games have a cpu/sound board and a romboard. the later romboards have an additional small security board. cps1 dash games have an additional qsound board and are missing the ym part on the cpu pcb. that means they can have anywhere from 2 to 4 boards. sega model 2 and 3 pcbs are quite large, but not the largest. the hugest boards ive ever seen were bootlegs of cps1 games.
CPS bootlegs can be big, but the board I described is WAAAY bigger! I may actually have a photo of one WITH a CPS bootleg! CPS2, good luck if you're going for them! Suicide batteries can be a pain. Still, if you know what you're doing, it isn't too much of a problem. Collecting boards is indeed appealing. Nice to preserve the actual hardware, and run it 100% as was intended!
Yes indeed! collecting arcade pcbs is so much more fun than collecting cds or whatever, imho. i think pcb-size, hardware that was absolutely state-of-the-art when it came out and exclusivity of playing something that wasnt meant to be played at home are the most important factors to me. well, these reasons aren't exactly convincing... let's just say i like collecting arcade pcbs.
i think it was the original rampage PCB thats as big as your average house door.. its split up into several smaller PCBs you have to connect with static connections (no wires or other flexible solutions here :110: ).
Rampage isn't all that big (see here), and multi-layered PCBs are very common. I have a photo of that racing game somewhere. I'll have to dig it out.
Pretty much anything made bye Atari through the 80's use very large boards, usually 2 or 3 actually [ system1/2 ] Some of the largist I have seen. My A.P.B. uses two boards linked that when hung in place take up about 60-70% of the left side board. You should checkout system16 They have PCB pics of pretty much everything they have listed. Neo 1 and 2 slots are about the same size as the majority of the Jamma boards in existence, but the 6 slot is a monster.
beastbusters on hyper neogeo 64? although the metal casing and cartridges look like they were built to survive world war 3, the system is pretty small imho.
