Capcom — pre-CPS classics (1942, Ghosts'n Goblins, Commando)¶
Before the CPS-1, Capcom built its name on Z80 / 6809 boards (1984-1988): 1942, Ghosts'n Goblins, Commando, Gun.Smoke, Bionic Commando… Cult shoot'em ups and run'n guns, each on dedicated hardware.
Identification¶
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Capcom |
| Years | 1984-1988 |
| CPU | Zilog Z80 or Motorola 6809 (per board) |
| Sound | Z80 + 2× YM2203 (or AY) |
| Settings | DIP |
The main boards¶
| Hardware | Games | MAME driver |
|---|---|---|
| 1942 / Vulgus | Vulgus, 1942, 1943, Exed Exes | capcom/1942.cpp, 1943.cpp |
| Commando | Commando, Gun.Smoke, Section Z | capcom/commando.cpp |
| Ghosts'n Goblins | Ghosts'n Goblins, Ghouls'n Ghosts, Diamond Run | capcom/gng.cpp |
| Bionic Commando / LWings | Bionic Commando, Legendary Wings, Side Arms | capcom/lwings.cpp, bionicc.cpp |
Many share the Z80 + 2× YM2203 (FM) frame typical of mid-80s Capcom. Ghouls'n Ghosts (1988) is a landmark just before the move to the CPS-1.
Notable games¶
1942 (1984), Commando (1985), Ghosts'n Goblins (1985), Gun.Smoke (1985), Section Z, Legendary Wings, Bionic Commando (1987), Ghouls'n Ghosts (1988), Black Tiger, Tiger Road…
Common faults¶
| Symptom | Likely cause | Lead |
|---|---|---|
| Corrupt sprites/tiles | video RAM, customs | RAM test, contacts |
| No/partial sound | sound Z80 / YM2203 | Sound-stage diagnosis |
| Lost settings | DIPs misset | Check the DIP bank |
| No image | Power, CPU, harness | Base diagnosis |
80s boards → discrete TTL logic, recap + re-soldering; many bootlegs (1942, Ghosts'n Goblins).
Modernisation & mods¶
The common ground for every JAMMA board
Video, power, control panel and upscalers depend on the cabinet rather than the board: everything is centralised in Modernising a cabinet. To run the board outside a cabinet (at home, on a display): supergun.
- Storage 🟡: the game lives in EPROM/mask ROM on the board. Changing or restoring a game means reprogramming the EPROMs (and, for a mask ROM, using a pinout adapter) → EPROM method.
- Media preservation: replacing the original storage, multicarts, ODEs and modern options by family → PCB preservation hub.
- Scan rate 📺: not yet measured. The matching MAME driver does not expose its screen parameters in a form our extractor can use — no value is guessed here. Check what your monitor accepts before connecting → tri-sync and upscalers.
- FPGA / emulation: see the Emulation & FPGA section below.
Repair (technician)¶
- Capcom customs (mid-80s): corrupt sprites/tiles = video RAM + buffers first, the custom next (donor).
- Sound: Z80 + 2× YM2203 (+ OKI on some) — diagnose the sound stage.
- Capacitors: recap PSU + audio filtering. Oxidised 27xx EPROM sockets: turned-pin socket.
- Edge contacts: clean (eraser + IPA).
→ Methods: PCB fault-finding · Recap · EPROM · Traces & vias
Archived original schematics ✅¶
Manufacturer schematics for games in this family, archived locally (so they do not depend on a third-party site staying up). They give the board's real functional breakdown: clock tree, address decoding, video stage, sound stage, power supply — exactly what you need to trace a missing signal back to its source.
- 1942 — full schematic (PDF)
- Ghosts'n Goblins — full schematic (PDF)
- Side Arms — full schematic (PDF)
Scope and limits
A schematic applies to the game and revision named. Within one family the general breakdown (buses, decoding, sound/video stages) carries over from board to board, but component references and custom chip pinouts do not transpose between titles. Use it as a map of the logic, not as a cross-reference table.
Source: the Arcade Game Manuals collection on the Internet Archive. Manufacturer documents with no explicit licence, kept here for preservation (machines out of service for over 25 years).
Original manuals for games on this platform ✅¶
Manufacturer manuals for games running on this board. Beyond the instructions, they very often carry the full DIP settings, the connector pinout, the test procedure, the parts list and the expected voltages.
- Section Z — original manual (PDF)
→ Full catalogue: service manuals, wiring & game manuals
DIP settings ✅¶
2 games on this platform, settings extracted from the MAME sources (INPUT_PORTS_START blocks). The Position column gives the switch's physical reference on the board (SW2:!3,!4 = bank SW2, levers 3 and 4) — which is what lets you set it up without the paper manual. Games are sorted by MAME set name.
DIP settings — MAME set 1942
| Setting | Position | Options (default in bold) |
|---|---|---|
| Coin A | SWA:8,7,6 | 4C 1C · 3C 1C · 2C 1C · 1C 1C · 2C 3C · 1C 2C · 1C 4C · Free Play |
| Cabinet | SWA:5 | Upright · Cocktail |
| Bonus Life | SWA:4,3 | 20K 80K 80K+ · 20K 100K 100K+ · 30K 80K 80K+ · 30K 100K 100K+ |
| Lives | SWA:2,1 | 1 · 2 · 3 · 5 |
| Coin B | SWB:8,7,6 | 4C 1C · 3C 1C · 2C 1C · 1C 1C · 2C 3C · 1C 2C · 1C 4C · Free Play |
| Flip Screen | SWB:4 | Off · On |
| Difficulty | SWB:3,2 | Easy · Normal · Difficult · Very Difficult |
| Screen Stop | SWB:1 | Off · On |
DIP settings — MAME set 1942p
| Setting | Position | Options (default in bold) |
|---|---|---|
| B | — | Off · On |
| Coin A | SWA:8,7,6 | 4C 1C · 3C 1C · 2C 1C · 1C 1C · 2C 3C · 1C 2C · 1C 4C · Free Play |
| Cabinet | SWA:5 | Upright · Cocktail |
| Bonus Life | SWA:4,3 | 20K 80K 80K+ · 20K 100K 100K+ · 30K 80K 80K+ · 30K 100K 100K+ |
| Lives | SWA:2,1 | 1 · 2 · 3 · 5 |
| Coin B | SWB:8,7,6 | 4C 1C · 3C 1C · 2C 1C · 1C 1C · 2C 3C · 1C 2C · 1C 4C · Free Play |
| Flip Screen | SWB:4 | Off · On |
| Difficulty | SWB:3,2 | Easy · Normal · Difficult · Very Difficult |
| Screen Stop | SWB:1 | Off · On |
Check against your own board
These settings apply to the game and revision described by MAME. One title may have several DIP sets depending on region or revision, and some systems use soft-dips (settings in memory, via the test menu) rather than physical switches. In case of a discrepancy, the board's silkscreen and the test menu are authoritative.
See also: DIP reference · game manuals
Procedure — a dead board, step by step ✅¶
What this adds
The general method lives in PCB diagnosis. This is its application to this platform: the same order, but with the values actually expected here, so you do not have to go back and forth.
Tools: multimeter, oscilloscope (or frequency counter), current-limited bench supply, desoldering braid. → Tooling
If the board is still in a cabinet
A CRT holds its charge with the machine unplugged. → CRT safety
1. Inspection, power off. Corrosion, cut tracks, oxidised EPROM legs, leaking SMD capacitors, dubious earlier repairs.
2. The connector, before anything else. A large share of "dead boards" are a contact problem, not a fault. Clean the contacts with isopropyl alcohol and reseat — not with an abrasive eraser on a gold edge, which takes the plating off and brings the problem back worse. It costs two minutes and settles the question.
3. Power, measured on the board. Aim for +5.0 V measured as close as possible to where power reaches the board — not at the PSU output: the drop is in the loom, and that is exactly what makes a board boot on the bench and not in the cabinet. Where you probe depends on this board's connector — JAMMA edge, JVS loom or a proprietary harness — plenty of makers kept one long after JAMMA arrived — see Identification above. → Wiring Check −5 V and +12 V too if the sound stage uses them. Suspected short: bring it up current-limited and find the hot spot.
4. /RESET. It must release after power-up. Held low = the CPU never starts. A 1–2 Hz loop is not the reset circuit, it is the watchdog: the CPU is crashing at boot, so look at the bus, not at the reset.
5. Clocks. There is no measurement table for this platform — MAME's sources yield nothing usable for it. Any frequency quoted under Architecture on this page serves as a marker; otherwise compare against a working board rather than against a number: an invented value condemns healthy parts. → PCB diagnosis
6. Bus. Activity on the main CPU's address lines tells you whether it is running or frozen. Frozen with good clocks and good reset → work RAM, bus buffers, ROMs.
7. It boots but the picture or the sound is wrong — that is another job: see Common faults on this page, then signal tracing.
Emulation & FPGA¶
- Emulation: MAME (
1942.cpp,commando.cpp,gng.cpp,lwings.cpp…). - FPGA / MiSTer: cores available (1942, 1943, Commando, Ghosts'n Goblins, Gun.Smoke, Bionic Commando…) — often by Jotego.
Lineage¶
Just before the CPS-1 (1988) — Capcom then moved to its in-house 68000 base.
Photos / assets¶
(To add: 1942 / Ghosts'n Goblins / Commando boards.)
Sources & attribution¶
- MAME —
capcom/1942.cpp,commando.cpp,gng.cpp,lwings.cpp(Z80/6809, YM2203, games) — https://github.com/mamedev/mame - Wikipedia — 1942 / Ghosts'n Goblins / Capcom — CC-BY-SA — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capcom
Review & corrections
How this space is used
Spotted a wrong value, an outdated procedure, a chip reference that does not match your board? Say so here, with what you observed (model, board revision, serial number, measurement). Every report is cross-checked against a source before anything changes — an unverifiable correction is published as “reported by …, not cross-checked” rather than silently applied.
Reading is open to everyone; posting requires signing in with Discord. Reports from the wiki's declared reviewers are handled first; anyone else's are read too, but go through a human before anything is changed.