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I've never plugged in a JAMMA harness backwards...

Any JAMMA harness or cab with a harness I own gets a key before it ever gets used, period. It honestly doesn't much effort, literally just take some edge cutters and trim down a piece of a failed 3D print (or even some junk plastic housing from something) and shove it in the pin slot ... job done.

For bootleg PCBs without a notch, I take a Dremel and cut a notch, and I have an adapter I use to test boards without a notch before I cut one, or for the extremely rate non-bootleg PCB without one that I don't want to modify.
 
I did this to a bootleg Strikers 1999. It fried one of the 74LS245 chips for inputs. I replaced it with a socket and put a new 74LS245 and it works fine now. I don't care too much about this board since it's a boot, it's my "test pcb" so to speak, when I want to test whether a cab or supergun works.

Sorta related but I powered on a Darius PCB without -5V, which ended up magic smoking one of the amp components in the audio module. I replaced the component and it worked fine. Lesson learned, this PCB needs -5V to operate. Most modern PCBs don't need the negative voltages.
 
Ya I felt like a real idiot I didn't put a tooth in my jamma harness. Live and learn, wont be doing that again.
 
This happened to an op friend of mine back in Canada in the 90s. We'd done some trading and he was digging through their stack of old PCBs to find some that I wanted. He tested them on their 1943 cab, and when we were done, he wasn't paying attention and plugged it in the wrong way. Instantly popped holes in a couple of ICs and the board was dead. He was horrified, 'cause it was one of their best earners at the time.

So I gave him my bootleg 1943 board, his boss would never know, and I got another game out of it (Aurail - a fave).

I have been cautious about this ever since.
 
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