Pandoras Box 160-1 jamma to mvs

Hi all,

My friend had a spare Pandoras Box multi bootleg CPS-1 game cartridge thing knocking around and we decided to try and see if we could get it working on my MVS cabinet.

We disconnected the MVS board from the Jamma harness and plugged in the multi-game cart but when we powered up, the screen was all garbled. We had music playing but nothing on screen that would suggest it was reacting to the joystick/buttons or otherwise working properly other than a green light on the boot cart.

As far as I have read, these carts are fully mvs compatible barring some sound niggles.

Now there is a few possible scenarios here;

1. The knock-off cartridge thing is duff.
2. We didn't know what we were doing. (we didnt)
3. Some kind of incompatability with my cab for whatever reason (was originally a 4 slot, modded at some point to a six slot)
4. Aliens
5. Any combination of the above.

Any thoughts would be appreciated

Love Specs.

Superspecs said:

Hi all,

My friend had a spare Pandoras Box multi bootleg CPS-1 game cartridge thing knocking around and we decided to try and see if we could get it working on my MVS cabinet.

We disconnected the MVS board from the Jamma harness and plugged in the multi-game cart but when we powered up, the screen was all garbled. We had music playing but nothing on screen that would suggest it was reacting to the joystick/buttons or otherwise working properly other than a green light on the boot cart.

As far as I have read, these carts are fully mvs compatible barring some sound niggles.

Now there is a few possible scenarios here;

1. The knock-off cartridge thing is duff.
2. We didn't know what we were doing. (we didnt)
3. Some kind of incompatability with my cab for whatever reason (was originally a 4 slot, modded at some point to a six slot)
4. Aliens
5. Any combination of the above.

Any thoughts would be appreciated

Love Specs.

Click to expand...

MVS wiring standard is not JAMMA wiring. you'll need an adapter for jamma games to work in your MVS cabinet.

Additionally, the Chinese bootleg boards usually have non-jamma wiring standards (using the two ground pins on the end of the connector for additional buttons instead of ground).

Lemony Vengeance said:

MVS wiring standard is not JAMMA wiring. you'll need an adapter for jamma games to work in your MVS cabinet.

Additionally, the Chinese bootleg boards usually have non-jamma wiring standards (using the two ground pins on the end of the connector for additional buttons instead of ground).

Click to expand...

Ive heard as much, I have actually ordered one of those adapters just to give it a try. I thought they worked without them but it just affected the sound?

Superspecs said:

Ive heard as much, I have actually ordered one of those adapters just to give it a try. I thought they worked without them but it just affected the sound?

Click to expand...

it's true, sound will be effected.

The bootleg boards are rarely 100% jamma. if it's not grounded properly you can have all kinds of problems. You'll need to pull up an Edge pinout diagram to confirm.

Hi all,

Okay so I ordered one of those Jamma to MVS adapters and hooked up the bootleg multiboard but it still doesn't work. It powers up, I get music playing but the screen is a garbled mess. The only thing I can think of doing is going to go round my mates house and test the adapter and multiboard on his cab and see if that narrows anything down.

Any ideas?

What type of cab does your friend have and have you confirmed it works on his cab?

If its a PC based multiboard, it is probably just due to the output settings.

LegoSlug said:

What type of cab does your friend have and have you confirmed it works on his cab?

If its a PC based multiboard, it is probably just due to the output settings.

Click to expand...

My friend has a 4 slot Candy cab, I havent tried it on his setup as of yet though but hoping to do so one night this week.
This is the multiboard I have, if thats any help.

According to this seller you may need to adjust some sort of sync setting on your monitor's chassis. The garbled screen certainly sounds like it could be a sync issue.

Also, if you are getting no indication that it responding to the controls, then you may have a ground issue. Pins 27 and e are ground pins on standard JAMMA and MVS, but they are used for button 6 on the Pandora's box. If your controls' common ground is wired to pin 27 or e, you will need to move it over to another ground pin (such as pin 28 or f) in order to get the controls up and running.

You can get one of these:

http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/jamma-adapters/30-blue-elf-redbox-to-jamma-adapter.html

Xian Xi said:

You can get one of these:

http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/jamma-adapters/30-blue-elf-redbox-to-jamma-adapter.html

Click to expand...

I have one of these

http://www.jammaboards.com/store/jamma-pcb-to-neogeo-mvs-cabinet-adapter-jamma2mvs.html

is that not the same thing?

Vigormortis said:

According to this seller you may need to adjust some sort of sync setting on your monitor's chassis. The garbled screen certainly sounds like it could be a sync issue.

Also, if you are getting no indication that it responding to the controls, then you may have a ground issue. Pins 27 and e are ground pins on standard JAMMA and MVS, but they are used for button 6 on the Pandora's box. If your controls' common ground is wired to pin 27 or e, you will need to move it over to another ground pin (such as pin 28 or f) in order to get the controls up and running.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the information buddy, however I must admit I know nothing about electronics or how to do any rewiring myself so if it comes down to making modifications to my cabinet I will probably just leave it as it is. Il look into it but I dont want to fuck up my cab just to see if I can get this multicart working.

Il have a play with the sync settings though as I know how to do that.

Cheers!

Superspecs said:

I have one of these

http://www.jammaboards.com/store/jamma-pcb-to-neogeo-mvs-cabinet-adapter-jamma2mvs.html

is that not the same thing?

Click to expand...

That one is to allow you to put a jamma board into an MVS wired cab. it corrects things like the audio and test switch wiring.

The one Xian Xi posted at Paradise Arcade Shop is to convert the button and ground issues mentioned above for the Blue Elf Boards to standard jamma.

It should take both adapters to correct all the wiring differences, if that is how the pinouts are:

Board -> Blue Elf adapter -> Jamma to MVS adapter -> cabinet harness

Fortune said:

That one is to allow you to put a jamma board into an MVS wired cab. it corrects things like the audio and test switch wiring.

The one Xian Xi posted at Paradise Arcade Shop is to convert the button and ground issues mentioned above for the Blue Elf Boards to standard jamma.

It should take both adapters to correct all the wiring differences, if that is how the pinouts are:

Board -> Blue Elf adapter -> Jamma to MVS adapter -> cabinet harness

Click to expand...

Ah ok, that is good to keep in mind... I dont know if my multicart is a blue elf though.. worth a try I guess. Cheers

Pandora's box uses the same non standard Jamma setup as Blue Elf - pins 27 and e are for button 6 instead of grounds. The Blue Elf adapter should work with it.

The blue elf adapter takes the last 4 pins on the connector and goes to a kick harness with ground while at the same time routing ground to the usual pin 27 and 28 on the jamma side of the adapter.

Does your pandoras box have any dips on the side. The blue elf i know uses sw 1 on the dip to switch between VGA and CGA res. You will get all garbage if running in VGA mode on a CGA display.

Namnuta said:

Does your pandoras box have any dips on the side. The blue elf i know uses sw 1 on the dip to switch between VGA and CGA res. You will get all garbage if running in VGA mode on a CGA display.

Click to expand...

It has a VGA out port, a volume knob and an LED. I also has a little button on the side which when pressed, changes the music playing and the garbled mess on the screen changes (same garbled mess, just different coloured garbled mess). I assume this is the bios menu for the board where you can change settings and such like you can on the service menu on an MVS system. I might be able to change the output in here but without being able to see or use the stick/buttons, that might prove difficult.

Vigormortis said:

Pandora's box uses the same non standard Jamma setup as Blue Elf - pins 27 and e are for button 6 instead of grounds. The Blue Elf adapter should work with it.

Click to expand...

Cheers for the help buddy, I might just try that.

Lemony Vengeance said:

The bootleg boards are rarely 100% jamma. if it's not grounded properly you can have all kinds of problems. You'll need to pull up an Edge pinout diagram to confirm.

Click to expand...

I scanned in the manual if it is any help to you guys? The only bit in English is the pinout diagram on the left page.

Try hooking up the board using the vga output to a computer screen. You may be able to access the settings menu that way.

Sry was thinking of the blue elf. I have one of these as well, ill look at my manual for ya, its in English.

I have similar boards to this coming for my non standard jamma stuff. Makes wiring easy. The price on this listing is a little much though, but i thought i would show you for reference.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Universal-JA...702?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item23299be80e

Cheers,

Any luck with getting the video to display? In addition to a seller's advice to "adjust the sync", I just found this post from a thread on jammaplus.co.uk which mentions adjusting the horizontal hold setting on the monitor. I currently have one of these boards en route from Hong Kong, so I'd like to learn as much as I can about getting it to work before it arrives.

sf78 from jammaplus.co.uk forums said:

I have, but only got it working today. Took a long time to figure out the grounding problem as grounding pin 27 wasn't enough. Also adding credit during play works only from P2 start. Not sure if that's how it should be or if it's another grounding problem, but it's obviously a bit of a problem in single player mode. I haven't really had time to check out all the games, but sampling them I'd have to say they were 'decent'. I also had to tune Horizontal Hold to get a proper image with Astro City, but I presume it's quite a common problem with these.

Click to expand...

Bare with me guys, had a mad few days at work and I wanna sit down properly and take my time if I am jeffing around with my monitor settings as I have heard they are a pain to get back how they were before.

I might try hooking it up to a PC monitor first. Thanks for all the help

MY manual has no monitor info. Mine boots fine into the menu in both cabs ive tried. But in both cabs i have grounding issues and controls do not work. Once my pcbs arrive and properly wire ill let you know. Not going to rewire my cabs for a multi board lol.

Well, my pandora's box v2 came in, and the video worked out of the box on my Neo 25 cab. The horizontal width fell a little short even at the maximum setting, but it's not terrible. The grounds, as expected, caused problems. The start buttons wouldn't work until I moved the ground wires from 27 and e to 28 and f.

Most things seem to be running at full speed with the exception of CPS3 and PGM, which seem to frameskip to 30fps. CPS 1 & 2 games look great - the Pandora's Box V2 seems to run at the native resolution for CPS games - 384x224. Any game which runs at a different resolution is scaled to 384x224, which causes a sort of shimmering jagged effect. This includes all Neo Geo games unfortunately. Another video issue is that there is no vsync, so you can see screen tearing when things flash or scroll. However, the games are very playable at full speed and negligible input/audio lag.

Sound seems good on Neo Geo and CPS2 games. I haven't tried a lot of the other stuff, but I did notice that Turtles in Time has an issue with some sound channels being too quiet. It makes the music sound really unbalanced.

Overall, I'm glad I got this thing. It definitely adds more variety to what I can play on my neo cab, and it works best with CPS1 & 2 games, which were what I was really after anyway. It's certainly no MAME PC, but it's very convenient to swap into my cab - no need for a second power supply and it's smaller than a Neo Geo cart, so I don't even have to move anything out of the way for it.