Block Block to Pang conversion

Block Block was Capcoms answer to Arkanoid and it's an okay version at best, a much better game on the same hardware is Pang / Buster Bros. This conversion is pretty straight forward but you will need to make a jamma adapter even if you have one of these.

This is the official Block Block jamma adaptor but it won't work with Pang as the controls are different.

Here's the pinout

This is how mine turned out, I left out 21,22,Z and a since eight +5v wires is a bit overkill.

Now on to the conversion itself, mine had been stripped of eproms and all markings on the board suggests non jedec type 27C301 eproms would be needed but actually four need to be the standard 27C010 type.

So 4x 27C301 4x 27C010 and 1x 27C256 you can obviously blank and reuse the original eproms if your board is still complete.

There's two options as far as which version of Pang to run you can either use the decrypted version from Arcadehacker posted here or you can use his method to reprogram the original Kabuki cpu that requires an Arduino Uno and a battery to be fitted to the board. I went for the easy first option but may try the other option at a later date to see how Super Pang handles on Block Block hardware (it should work fine).

With the no battery / decrypted roms option you still use the Kabuki cpu but you need to either have 28 sticking out of the socket or remove the resistor at R40 (which is what I did).

Decrypted roms
pang6.bin - 27C256 location 14F
pang7.bin - 27C301 location 15F

Now you need the mame rom pang.zip for the rest of the conversion. Mame usually has useful file names with locations but not in the case of pang.

pang09.bin  - 27C010 location 8H
bb3.bin        - 27C010 location 9H
pang11.bin   - 27C010 location 8J
bb5.bin         - 27C010 location 9J

bb10.bin       -27C301 location 2J
bb9.bin         -27C301 location 3J

bb1.bin         -27C301 location 2D

 Conversion complete.

Air Buster pcb repair

This repair has been going on for quite a while, first the custom for the I/O near the edge connector was missing (snapped off) when I got the board and the custom CALC1 chip was also bad. I bought a working Gals Panic off ebay for both these parts.

I also had to replace several missing and bad maskroms with eproms, this got the board running but it had a very annoying intermittent issue with the background flickering and disappearing.

Half the cloud is missing, it would also effect the buildings later in the level.

Probing around with my logic probe while the fault was visible I was eventually able to hear the issue. Thanks to my logic probe having a audio / beeper feature, I confirmed on the scope I was getting an invalid output from one of the 74LS352s.

The bad 352 removed and waiting for a new one. Any other TTL on this board I have plenty of spares but not a single 352 so I had to order some and wait.

 With the new 352 fitted the background is restored, repair complete.