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UPDATE: Based on what everyone says, looks like it's original, but I overpaid anyway! :)

Any idea about the weird wires on the back of the PCB anyone? Also, once I have the ability to check it out, I'll figure out what this "prototype" message meant. It could just have been Google Translate giving me bad Japanese to English though.


Fellow A-P'ers, some assistance please.

So I bought this from YAJ a few months ago and for some reason I keep forgetting people do conversions, or sell Korean "boots", and whatnot. I know, I know, it's my job as the buyer to pay attention, but damn, sometimes you slip up, you know? Public service note, Tequila and online shopping ONLY works for the wives out there...

Anyway, someone was talking about Charlie Ninja (maybe @undamned) and I checked it out and decided it would be perfect fit for my collection of "two-player so my wife will play with me" games and started to hunt it down. I think I paid about $350 for it, which seems high, but I couldn't find it cheaper anywhere I checked and I was in a rush to grab it (because I'm inpatient, that's all). Anyway, now of course I realize you can buy a cheap $60 game and convert it to this (and other much more valuable games), and realized I might have goofed up.

The main chips seem original, but there are two EPROM, some of the chips have their codes rubbed off (although this seems to be common with some legit games) and there is weird bridging of 3 chips on the bottom that looks aftermarket. Also no labels on the board and the seller sold it as a "prototype", whatever that means. Oh, wait, that usually means "I converted a cheap game to an expensive one and I'm ripping you off dumbass"!

Anyhow, I screwed up, mistakes were made. The question is, can you guys tell me how bad I screwed up? Conversion, boot, something else I don't know about?

Also, I just sold my two HAS', so I have no way to test this right now. I'll try to swing by my buddy's house later to test, but don't know when I'll have time, but I don't have any reason to believe it doesn't work, I just can't check it for version number or anything.

Thanks for the help team!
 

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I dunno... looks like a legit mitchell board to me. mask roms for the most part. I don’t think that’s a $350 game but maybe I’m thinking of the first one. Gonta the diver 2 could have been used but the masks would have been desoldered and replaced (I don’t see sockets). Lotta work for that.

Those bridges though... not on my MT5601. No continuity there. Super weird, I might take those off before I try it. Or at least check the chips on the other side and pull up a data sheet. Maybe they’re all just being grounded.

Anyway convert it to osman when your wife gets board with it! :evil:
 
I dunno... looks like a legit mitchell board to me. mask roms for the most part. I don’t think that’s a $350 game but maybe I’m thinking of the first one. Gonta the diver 2 could have been used but the masks would have been desoldered and replaced (I don’t see sockets). Lotta work for that.

Those bridges though... not on my MT5601. No continuity there. Super weird, I might take those off before I try it. Or at least check the chips on the other side and pull up a data sheet. Maybe they’re all just being grounded.

Anyway convert it to osman when your wife gets board with it! :evil:
Thanks for the info.

I like CN, so now conversion for it, but I did grab a cheap Gonta 2 for a conversion to Osman... but damnit, now I like Gonta too!

I need to find a cheap game I don't like to convert!

I'm not sure it's a $350 game either, but like I said, I couldn't find it. I did see a $100 one last month, but based on what you guys are saying, it's def a conversion since stuff seems to be socketed on the main board.
 
how is it definitely a conversion? Which ones are socketed? At the most it looks like maybe the sound and program roms are EPROMs, but the gfx are masks. That’s why I’d go with a region-switch at most, maybe one chip replaced.
 
looks original to me.

see those ROMs with the "MBR-0#" painted on them, those are original mask roms.
looking at other pictures of this PCB seems to indicate that the larger SMD chips typically have their numbers ground off of them.
and the socketed chips on yours are normally socketed.

even for an original you way overpaid though. I always considered charlie ninja to be a $100-$150 game only higher if it's super mint with arts.
 
how is it definitely a conversion? Which ones are socketed? At the most it looks like maybe the sound and program roms are EPROMs, but the gfx are masks. That’s why I’d go with a region-switch at most, maybe one chip replaced.
Sorry, to be clear, the $100 one I saw was clearly a conversion.

If I overpaid, I overpaid, it happens! ;P

If someone has a mint one with arts for $150 they would like to sell, you know where to find me!
 
even for an original you way overpaid though. I always considered charlie ninja to be a $100-$150 game only higher if it's super mint with arts.
Brother, if you can point me to one for $100-150 I'll give you a kiss on the lips!

I think the price has gone up a bit from what you remember. For example, here is an auction today for a non-working one (looks like bad corrosion) with no art, check out that closing price.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Charlie-Ni...m43663.l10137&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true
 
Any idea about the weird wires on the back of the PCB anyone?
It's a well known repairer trick: 6264 RAMs have been replaced by 62256 ones and since originally pin 1 isn't connected on the 6264s but is an address signal on 62256s (A14) it has to be driven to a known state. In your case it's been tied to Vcc which is a nonsense to me since tying it to pin 2 (A12) is easier and more discrete. This way A14 follows A12 but it doesn't matter since a RAM is a single dimension array, as long as you read back from the same place you wrote to it's fine.
 
This reminds me, has anyone done conversions of Gonta the Diver II to Osman/Charlie Ninja?? Would be cool you could do a 2 in 1 setup for the obviously better games.
 
party time 2 can be converted to osman.... a multi is probably doable, and all 5 of the games on there are worth playing.
Agree. Usually I only hear of converting Gonta to Osman, but it would be cool if a multi could be made with all the supported games.
 
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FYI everyone, I took my PCB to JNX's house and it seems to work fine and it shows a Japanese title screen. I have no way to tell if it is a "prototype" as the seller claimed. I may one day pull the ROMs and dump them to compare to MAME, unless someone has an easier way to tell?
 
They might have thought it was a prototype as it has factory bodge wires and all the customs are scratched off, both not uncommon on prototypes (though the added wires are usually never that clean)

This plus the fact yours has windowed EPROMs without foil labels suggests it's entirely possible.
 
took a look at the MAME driver: https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/simpl156.cpp

amazingly Chain Reaction, Magical Drop, and Magical Drop Plus 1; which are all the same game, all have different memory maps for some reason
and none of them are similar to Joe & Mac Returns either. seems like the biggest difference is likely in the PALs

meanwhile it looks like all of the Mitchel games: Charlie Ninja, Party Time: Gonta the Diver II, and Osman/Cannon Dancer are all the same and could probably be ROM swapped interchangeably.
 
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