MVS 6 slot cabinet control panel question. Prototype cabinet?

I'm working on restoring my six slot big red, and noticed something really peculiar. The holes in the metal part of the control panel look to be off, with some of them missing. The old CPO artwork had two holes drilled on the side so it would attach to the holes in the metal, and jutted out of the bottom with about an inch of space on top.

Got a repro CPO from Szabos arcades and, naturally, it doesn't fit because of this. The old one didn't either.

Has anyone else seen a 6 slot control panel with this issue? As far as I can tell it's a completely original piece, but it just seems odd to keep that it would come from the factory that way. Just paid a bunch of money to get it professionally powder coated too.

Attached is a picture of the old CPO, and the new one on the metal.

Perhaps it might be a prototype or a first release? Note the similarity between the old side art it had, and the original Neo-Geo promo cab from 1990. The holes on the CPO also match the placement on mine.

I'm not sure they had 'prototype' cabs? They just had plans and commissioned a manufacturer to produce them afaik

Question is then, why do the cab in the flier and my cabinet look exactly alike, whereas all the other 6 slots I've ever seen conform to the design of the other v3 big reds?

Oooh, something interesting is happening there.
Can you find any date codes? Is the 6-slot original, if it is, can you see any "old" date codes? What does the BIOS look like?

I'm not seeing anything with date codes written on the inside of the cab. There's these numbers written in the top above the serial sticker though. I think they may just be written there from the Able Amusement vendor.

Cab is definitely original. BIOS looks like a regular US one to me. Is there anything in the BIOS I can look for that might be different?

Took apart the coin mech to do some repairs and saw this dated label. Another indicator it's a very early model, assuming the coin mech that it came with is original to it.

Also, one thing I forgot to mention, the credit button is bigger and red, and entering the BIOS is done with a switch rather than a button. Is that common to 6-slot cabs, or another indicator of it being different? Definitely different from my 4-slot rev 3 cab.

I don't know anything about cabs, there are pretty much none like this here in France. February 1990 is extremely early. I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of the first one made, but I can't find any precise launching date for these cabs.

If Wikipedia is accurate, August 22, 1990 in North America.

There you have your proto It would be even better if it had the original board in... white SNK sticker-ed EPROM BIOS...

I'll have a look. Was going to plonk a Universe BIOS chip into it anyways, so I'll let you know.

I'll also take pictures of the boards just in case there's anything else that's curious about it.

I don't think the coin mech is really indicative of much.
Coin mechs aren't unique to the MVS and could have been replaced or just been sitting in a warehouse before going out (maybe both?).

Definitely possible. In 30 years of time, who knows where that coin mech could have originated from.

That said, if it was something that was in a warehouse and was put into the machine for service, I would think they'd cycle out enough inventory to not have too many older coin mechs laying around with that date. All we can do is speculate, but when considering everything else with the machine, it's an interesting clue nonetheless.

Found out the monitor isn't original to it while getting it re-capped. It came from a Golden Tee cab.

Here's a picture of the BIOS chip. Hope this helps.

Here's a closeup pic. Looks like an EPROM chip with the circle in the middle under the label.

Also, another weirdo thing. The top has no wooden back to mount the EL panels or marquee card holder.

There's slits on the side that the panels and card holder slide into. The EL panels are taped together to stay in place.

Was about to mod it with an LED kit, but thats a non-starter with no backing board. Will need to make one.

Bumping this to see if anyone has any further input or connections to get more info.

Unfortunately I've gotten nothing but dead ends over the past two years.

Another bump.

Huge long shot, but would anyone have any kind of contacts with anyone at ye olde SNK USA of the early 90s?

Do you have any photos of what your control panel looks like? It's probably just not original. Otherwise they made a different one for some odd reason. But I think the chances of you finding someone from back in the day with any information is basically zero.

I'm pretty confident it's original because the hole placement matched the promo poster above, and it had the red-only headphone jack sticker as well. I'll get some better pics of it as it is now, but the red sticker is gone as it was beat to hell and replaced.

Lithy recently got a first-run MVS 4 cab and posted some details on it here, which inspired me to revisit this.

Hey, some more thoughts as I have them and some additional info on my cab as I put it all together...

It might be worth measuring the control panel if you had someone with a later 6 slot to compare to, it seems like it must be shorter from the top down the the rounded edge. After looking more closely at the flyer you posted, besides for the different locations for the bolt holes, you can also see the large "1 Player" and "2 Player" text by the start buttons (which coincidentally also use the little 1 and 2 person icons on them instead of blank white buttons like all the other machines) that does not appear on the later 6 slots.

But more importantly, it also looks to me, although I can't quite tell for certain, that the overlay shown on the flyer cuts off right around the bottom of the red instead of having some additional black area below it. Which could partly explain the overhang on the repros. I imagine the overlay yours came with could have been a replacement at some point for the original. Or else it never fit right from new, which...maybe? Maybe they were still finalizing vendors and parts in the first few months and some things didn't quite match up.

Interestingly, I did measure my older cab and the overlay is a 1/4" shorter than my newer one (the newer one matches the currently available repros). No idea if this is meaningful. The mounting hole design is the same.



Also, I know you mentioned about August 1990, but I think it was out before that. I have a PDF for an issue of Cash Box from June 1990 that states the Neo Geo debuted in the US at the ACME show in Chicago, March 1990. The writeup also says that it "went into domestic shipment in May". The page opposite the article is an ad featuring the 'small SNK logo' cabs, this is the one with the 4 slot large and the 6 slot as an inset in the corner.

I based the release date of the MVS from Wikipedia, but it may be incorrect. The other date it mentions is April 26th for Japan. Either way, safe bet both of our cabs are, at the latest, first production run.

And I think you're correct in that the CPO overlay it had wasn't original to it, since the holes drilled into it weren't from the factory. I doubt they would have shipped it that way with it overhanging on the end as well. Looks sloppy and easy to damage in shipping. I'm confident it came with the one in the promo pic and got replaced at some point.

On the side art front unfortunately I believe mine is just black vinyl with nothing underneath it. I tried a couple paint strippers with no luck. If I pick at it it goes straight to the wood underneath. Always a chance there is a small bit of it still underneath but I'm not at the point of wanting to pull it off just yet.

Two quick things I wanted to see if your cab shared.

The monitor geometry adjustment board is larger on the early cab. Left newer, right older.



Also the power supply is different, so the newer cab has a cutout on the back panel, the older cabs just had a small notch for the cord to pass through. From photos of others I'm pretty sure these are both original.

New left, old right

I'll have a look in a few hours and let you know.

If it's just black vinyl, then the original side art is probably lost and what's there is the black base, same as what mine had.

The last thing that I noticed, I have white out marks on several things in the cab. There was a number stamped (I think on top of the white out rather than using the white out to cover a number). They all seem to say G3 101 but it's varying degrees of faded and I found them on the main 4 slot board and cover, monitor frame, the monitor adjustment board, and both LED PCBs.

This could of course have been an operator doing this just not sure, but thought it's worth mentioning if you have anything similar.

Fygee said:

I'll have a look in a few hours and let you know.

If it's just black vinyl, then the original side art is probably lost and what's there is the black base, same as what mine had.

Click to expand...

I guess I didn't realize there was a black base vinyl. I don't think that's the case on the newer one. The leftover existing red vinyl also looks much 'shinier' on yours than my newer cab.