Weird Taito F3 Cart with Riser Boards (???)

[Pr3tty F1y]

So I ran into a Taito F3 cart with a non-standard (bootleg?) board a while ago: https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/what-is-up-with-my-bubble-memories-japan-board.34576/

However, I just picked up another cart and, to me, it's just crazy. The amount of effort that went into creating three dual-DIP32 sub-boards (two of which are for dual 27C4001 512kb chips and the other is for dual M27C801 1mb chips) as well as 3 DIP40 sub-boards (all for 27C4002 512KB chips) ,in place of the 27C160 2mb chips that you'd usually expect to find, is INSANE to me.

And all of this, and it's just a bitrotten Puzzle Bobble 2 (which isn't bad, but I wouldn't think it would be all that desirable for this level of effort... it's no Elevator Action II).

I'm thinking this is a vintage bootleg and perhaps 27C160's were cost prohibitive at the time (???), otherwise, I can't fathom the investment into all of the sub-boards.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

 

[pierpa86]

So I ran into a Taito F3 cart with a non-standard (bootleg?) board a while ago: https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/what-is-up-with-my-bubble-memories-japan-board.34576/

However, I just picked up another cart and, to me, it's just crazy. The amount of effort that went into creating three dual-DIP32 sub-boards (two of which are for dual 27C4001 512kb chips and the other is for dual M27C801 1mb chips) as well as 3 DIP40 sub-boards (all for 27C4002 512KB chips) ,in place of the 27C160 2mb chips that you'd usually expect to find, is INSANE to me.

And all of this, and it's just a bitrotten Puzzle Bobble 2 (which isn't bad, but I wouldn't think it would be all that desirable for this level of effort... it's no Elevator Action II).

I'm thinking this is a vintage bootleg and perhaps 27C160's were cost prohibitive at the time (???), otherwise, I can't fathom the investment into all of the sub-boards.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Its just a "nice" bootleg, If it were me, I'd start unsoldering everything and do a clean conversion of some other game of my choosing.

 

[Ape Cosplay]

I'm thinking this is a vintage bootleg and perhaps 27C160's were cost prohibitive at the time (???), otherwise, I can't fathom the investment into all of the sub-boards.

The romboard itself is original with bootleg daughterboards mounted on it.
Also 3 of the 160s were replaced by 322s, so I guess bootleggers actually didn't have 160s handy.

 

[Pr3tty F1y]

Its just a "nice" bootleg, If it were me, I'd start unsoldering everything and do a clean conversion of some other game of my choosing.

That's the plan. I'll shoot up some additional photos of the sub-boards. A LOT of work went into it.

 

[tovar]

In my opinion, they had a large stock of these memories, possibly salvaged from other PCBs, and it was more cost-effective for them to make a few daughter PCBs and use their stock instead of buying the correct memories. Throughout my time in the arcade industry, I've seen "pirate" manufacturers destroy unsold game PCBs to recover all the ICs, all without leaving Europe. This is a minor issue in comparison.