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Konami — classics (Frogger, Scramble, Time Pilot, Gyruss)

Konami's golden age (1981-1983): Z80 boards (often dual Z80 + speech synthesis) behind Scramble, Frogger, Time Pilot, Gyruss. Ultra-mature emulation, MiSTer cores for most.

PCB Konami (Circus Charlie)

PCB Konami (Circus Charlie) — photo by Cyberjobe, domaine public (Wikimedia Commons).

Identification

Field Value
Manufacturer Konami (often distributed by Stern/Sega/Gremlin)
Years 1981-1983
CPU Zilog Z80 (1 to 2)
Sound AY-3-8910 / SN76489 + sometimes speech synthesis
Settings DIP

The main boards

Hardware Games MAME driver
Scramble / Super Cobra Scramble (1981), Super Cobra, Frogger konami/scramble.cpp, frogger
Time Pilot Time Pilot (1982), Pooyan, Tutankham konami/timeplt.cpp
Gyruss Gyruss (1983) konami/gyruss.cpp
Nemesis (GX400) Nemesis/Gradius, Salamander (see Gradius) konami/nemesis.cpp

Many of these use a dual Z80 (game + sound) and a speech chip (VLM5030) for voice announcements (Gyruss, Time Pilot '84).

Notable games

Scramble (1981), Frogger (1981), Super Cobra, Time Pilot (1982), Pooyan, Tutankham, Gyruss (1983), Track & Field (1983)…

Common faults

Symptom Likely cause Lead
Corrupt sprites/tiles video RAM, Z80 RAM test, contacts
No sound / mute voice PSG / VLM5030 (speech) Sound-stage diagnosis
Lost settings DIPs misset Check the DIP bank
No image Power, Z80, harness Base diagnosis

Old boards → discrete TTL logic, recap + re-soldering; many bootlegs (Frogger, Scramble were massively copied at the time).

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 📺: ~16.0 kHz / 60.6 Hz — standard resolution, a classic 15 kHz chassis is fine → tri-sync and upscalers. (Computed from the MAME sources — konami/nemesis.cpp — pixel clock ÷ htotal.)
  • FPGA / emulation: see the Emulation & FPGA section below.

Repair (technician)

  • 1980s logic (dual Z80): diagnose TTL / static RAM / buffers, good/bad comparison on the scope (few customs).
  • VLM5030 speech / PSG: silent voice = speech chip + a DAC/analog stage, to diagnose separately from the rest of the sound.
  • 2732/27xx EPROMs on sockets: oxidised legs → re-tin / turned-pin socket.
  • Edge contacts: clean (eraser + IPA); check the PSU.

→ Methods: PCB fault-finding · Recap · EPROM · Traces & vias

Expected clocks — measurement table ✅

Values extracted from the MAME sources for this platform. On a scope or frequency counter, a clock that is missing or off-value points straight at the crystal, the divider or the chip at fault — the fastest starting point on a dead board.

Component Expected clock Role
AY8910 1.789772 MHz PSG
K007232 3.579545 MHz Konami PCM
M68000 6.144 MHz · 9.216 MHz main CPU
YM2151 3.579545 MHz FM (sound)
YM3812 3.579545 MHz FM (sound)
Z80 1.789772 MHz · 3.579545 MHz sound CPU (usually)

How to read this table

Several values for one component = several board variants in this family (or several instances of the chip clocked differently). These frequencies are those of the clock signal at the component's input, not of its original crystal — on many boards the clock is divided down from a single master crystal.

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.

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).

Manufacturer service bulletins ✅

Fixes the manufacturer issued to its network: they document a factory-acknowledged fault, its symptom and the modification to apply.

  • Frogger service note (#008) — PDF

→ Full catalogue: service manuals & wiring diagrams

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.

→ Full catalogue: service manuals, wiring & game manuals

DIP settings ✅

Settings extracted from the MAME sources (INPUT_PORTS_START blocks). The Position column gives the switch's physical reference on the board (SW1:3,4 = bank SW1, levers 3 and 4) — which is what lets you set it up without the paper manual.

DIP settings — MAME set salamand
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
Flip Screen SW3:1 Off · On
Cabinet SW3:4 Upright · Cocktail
Coinage SW1:1,2,3,4 4C 1C · 3C 1C · 2C 1C · 3C 2C · 4C 3C · 1C 1C · 3C 4C · 2C 3C …
Lives SW2:1,2 2 · 3 · 5 · 7
Coin Slot(s) SW2:3 1 · 2
Max Credit(s) SW2:4,5 1 · 3 · 5 · 9
Difficulty SW2:6,7 Easy · Normal · Hard · Hardest
Demo Sounds SW2:8 Off · On
DIP settings — MAME set nemesis
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
Lives SW2:1,2 3 · 4 · 5 · 7
Cabinet SW2:3 Upright · Cocktail
Bonus Life SW2:4,5 50k and every 100k · 30k · 50k · 100k
Difficulty SW2:6,7 Easy · Normal · Hard · Hardest
Demo Sounds SW2:8 Off · On
Flip Screen SW3:1 Off · On
Upright Controls SW3:2 Single · Dual
DIP settings — MAME set gradius
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
Lives SW2:1,2 3 · 4 · 5 · 7
Cabinet SW2:3 Upright · Cocktail
Bonus Life SW2:4,5 20k and every 70k · 30k and every 80k · 20k only · 30k only
Difficulty SW2:6,7 Easy · Normal · Hard · Hardest
Demo Sounds SW2:8 Off · On
Flip Screen SW3:1 Off · On
Upright Controls SW3:2 Single · Dual

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 held in memory, reachable from the test menu) rather than physical switches. In case of a discrepancy, the board's silkscreen and the test menu are authoritative.

Full catalogue of transcribed games: DIP reference. Original manuals: game manuals.

Emulation & FPGA

  • Emulation: MAME (scramble.cpp, timeplt.cpp, gyruss.cpp…).
  • FPGA / MiSTer: cores available (Scramble, Frogger, Time Pilot, Gyruss…).

EPROM repair

Z80 program (Scramble, Frogger, Time Pilot, Gyruss…) in 2716 / 2732 (2-4 KB). Colour PROMs. Many licensed to Stern/Gremlin/Sega; period components (early 80s).

Lineage

Precedes the Gradius/Nemesis (16-bit) and the 68000 beat-em-up era (TMNT).

Photos / assets

(To add: Scramble/Time Pilot/Gyruss boards, VLM5030.)

Sources & attribution

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.