Falcon Type A to JAMMA Adapter

Description

Allows you to use your Falcon or pinout compatible pre-JAMMA game, in a JAMMA cabinet or a super gun device.

Falcon released Crazy Kong in 1981. It was virtually identical to Donkey Kong with the most obvious difference being the way it sounds and changes to the color palette.

Even though the game was considered a bootleg at the time, it was in fact properly licensed for distribution as Nintendo couldn’t keep up with the demand for Donkey Kong. Crazy Kong was however a completely different product, with different code running on different hardware.

The pinout for Crazy Kong has a convenient 36 pin layout and has been since used in other games by Falcon. It was later adopted by other manufacturers as well who made minor changes to the pinout along the way.

In the end, there are at least a dozen variants of this pinout. Some are somewhat compatible, and others are not. This is especially true when with dealing with bootleg games. With so many variants, it is simply not practical to create an adapter that can reliably convert all games. After a lot of research and experimentation, I ended up producing two adapters for the Falcon pinout class, which cover about 80% of the important releases.

This adapter aims to be as compatible as possible with the early games that use this pinout. This class of games typically have the power pins on the right when looking at the edge connector parts side while it is facing away.

For games that have power pins on the left, please see the listing for Falcon Type B adapters.

Images

Pinout

This adapter follows the following pinout scheme:

SOLDER SIDEPARTS SIDE
GNDGND
GNDGND
GNDGND
SPK+SPK-
+12V+12V
P1UPP2B1
P2UPP1B1
NCTBL_EYES
+5V+5V
NCP1DOWN
NCP2DOWN
P2STARTNC
P1STARTCOIN1
P1RIGHTP1B1
P1LEFTVRED
VBLUEP2RIGHT
VGREENP2LEFT
VSYNCP2B1

(PCB edge connector facing away, list is ordered right to left)

Compatible Games

Game PCBs with a similar or compatible pinout are:

  • Crazy Kong, Falcon release
  • Rockola Eyes
  • Ms Pacman 36-pin bootleg

and likely many other bootleg games.

It is extremely important that you check the pinout against your board before powering on your game. Damage may result to your game or adapter if your game doesn’t follow the pinout of this adapter 100%.

Also, please ensure the cabinet jumper must be in the Upright position, unless using this adapter with Eyes (only) in a cocktail cabinet. Some bootleg games map +5V to this pin!

This pinout has been tested with Krazy Kong, Ms. Pacman, Frogger and a number of other boards.

Revision History

Rev 1.0: Initial Design.

Rev 1.1: Board resize, and power traces widened.

Rev 1.2: Silkscreen updated.

Specifications

Board Size: 45mm x 112mm
Current Carrying Capacity: 5V – 12A, 12V-3A