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Clearly there's a market interest for the boards that were offered, as they are now sold / selling.
There's a lot of us out here that want these exotic games, and don't have the money to pay the CAVE mafia holding them.

Personally as a CAVE collector myself, I welcome this 1:1 bootleg offering, BUT it needs to be stated whether its real, conversion, or 1:1 fake like we're all used to now.
I do agree that if it's a conversion, be at LEAST it needs to be a real board converted to a specific title and offered at a price that reflects that.

Lastly, If boards like these offer an opportunity to make a multi out of these CV1K boards without damaging authentic hardware, then please OPEN THAT FLOODGATE.
 
Didn't the last person trying to make a multi for CV1K get a strongly worded letter from CAVE?
 
When did this happen?
I seem to remember a thread here, with pictures where someone connected ribbon cables to the flash footprints, followed by "they stopped when CAVE asked them to".
 
I don't understand why it's 1:1. There's a very real market for these even without trying to dupe the buyer.



@mypinballs

That's awesome.
Very very nice!! I would love tackling something like that.

I wonder at what point reproing certain 80's boards, especially the bootlegs or using their methods / parts to avoid customs, will be more viable than sourcing them. Like, I've built an entire Apple-1 clone, and other than a couple unobtanium ICs it's mainly just very time consuming. I can't imagine for example that a lot of 68k/z80 arcade boards, or especially just 8 bit boards like z80, can't be entirely recreated in this same fashion, but the desire and passion required is akin to this Mr. Do project.
 
I expect you can do most early boards up to the point where budgets were high enough for custom ASICs or Gate Arrays. Then you can do bootlegs for a while, or hope to use customs from corroded/damaged PCBs.
 
I seem to remember a thread here, with pictures where someone connected ribbon cables to the flash footprints, followed by "they stopped when CAVE asked them to".

I find it more likely that it was either a licensee of Cave's arcade property (three letters, starts with an 'e') or it was made up.
 
I expect you can do most early boards up to the point where budgets were high enough for custom ASICs or Gate Arrays. Then you can do bootlegs for a while, or hope to use customs from corroded/damaged PCBs.
I'd concur, just something I had not thought about from this perspective / yet.
 
yup, boards are the easy part, its the customs or any NLA chip that makes certain repros just "blanks" etc. i have done several.
 
yup, boards are the easy part, its the customs or any NLA chip that makes certain repros just "blanks" etc. i have done several.
One other random vent that kills me is missing datasheets, for example the RGB DAC on the system12 iirc had its datasheet destroyed by the company that took over the IP.
 
If someone has the ways and means to make them and is afraid of heat from cave, I'll sell em. Idgaf about a c&d. C9me get me.
Not a great country to live in to do that, just saying.

I worked in web hosting abuse for over a decade, partly processing incoming legal demands and subpoenas. I have seen preliminary injunctions issued by US Courts that completely freeze the counterfeit goods sellers bank accounts, all titled assets, etc., before the court case even starts. You can't use your bank account, buy or sell a house or car, none of it until you show up in court and answer. And the suing company puts a serious deposit up with the court to make this happen. They'll do that over a bootleg purse, I promise you, so you probably don't want to mess around.

IANAL ;)
 
One other random vent that kills me is missing datasheets, for example the RGB DAC on the system12 iirc had its datasheet destroyed by the company that took over the IP.
Sucks. What company? That is why decapping things have become so important.
 
I find it more likely that it was either a licensee of Cave's arcade property (three letters, starts with an 'e') or it was made up.
No idea, I didn't have any luck finding the thread, and I don't remember if it was an embedded image or a link to a blog.
They basically desoldered the TSOP flash chips and put connectors for flat-flex on the pin rows, which then went to a custom PCB. Maybe I'm mixing that up with another project as well...
 
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