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Taito — classics (Space Invaders, Qix, Bubble Bobble…)

Taito is where it all began: Space Invaders (1978) created the arcade industry. Then a long line of 8-bit classics — Qix, Elevator Action, Bubble Bobble, Rastan — on various Z80 hardware. Ultra-mature emulation, MiSTer cores for many.

PCB Taito (Rainbow Islands)

PCB Taito (Rainbow Islands) — photo by Noggin73, domaine public (Wikimedia Commons).

Identification

Field Value
Manufacturer Taito
Years 1978 → late 80s
CPU Intel 8080 (Space Invaders) then Z80 (most)
Settings DIP

The main classic boards

Hardware CPU Games (examples) MAME driver
Space Invaders (1978) Intel 8080 @ 2 MHz Space Invaders (+ variants/clones) taito/8080bw.cpp
Taito SJ (1981-84) Z80 Jungle King/Hunt, Elevator Action, Alpine Ski taito/taitosj.cpp
"The Legend of Kage" / early Z80 The Legend of Kage, Bubble Bobble, Rastan taito/bublbobl.cpp, taito/rastan.cpp

Space Invaders: an 8080 drives a B&W bitmap framebuffer; the "colour" comes from a plastic overlay (green/red strips) glued on the screen — no hardware colour. It's the game that launched the golden age.

Notable games

Space Invaders (1978), Qix (1981), Jungle King (1982), Elevator Action (1983), The Legend of Kage (1985), Bubble Bobble (1986), Rastan (1987), Operation Wolf (1987)…

DIP settings transcribed

Several Taito games have their DIP tables in-wiki (e.g. Bubble Bobble): → DIP reference.

Common faults

Symptom Likely cause Lead
Corrupt bitmap image (SI) video RAM / 8080 RAM test, contacts
Wrong colours (SI) misplaced overlay Reposition the overlay
Corrupt sprites/tiles video RAM, customs RAM test
No sound amp / PSG / SN76489 Sound-stage diagnosis
No image Power, CPU, harness Base diagnosis

Old boards → discrete TTL logic, recap + re-soldering; many period Space Invaders bootlegs (identification).

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 📺: ~15.62 kHz / 59.2 Hz — standard resolution, a classic 15 kHz chassis is fine → tri-sync and upscalers. (Computed from the MAME sources — taito/bublbobl.cpp — pixel clock ÷ htotal.)
  • FPGA / emulation: see the Emulation & FPGA section below.

Repair (technician)

  • 8080/Z80 logic (80s): diagnose TTL / RAM / buffers, good/bad comparison. Space Invaders = 8080 + analog/SN76477 sound (a dedicated stage).
  • Sound: amp + SN76489/PSG — diagnose separately.
  • 2716/2732 EPROMs on sockets: oxidised legs → re-tin / turned-pin socket.
  • Edge contacts: clean; check the PSU (few electrolytics).

→ 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
YM2203 3 MHz FM (sound)
Z80 3 MHz · 6 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).

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 ✅

8 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 boblbobl
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
Mode — Game, English · Game, Japanese · Test (Grid and Inputs) · Test (RAM and Sound)
Flip Screen — Off · On
Demo Sounds — Off · On
Coin A — 2C 1C · 1C 1C · 2C 3C · 1C 2C
Coin B — 2C 1C · 1C 1C · 2C 3C · 1C 2C
Difficulty — Easy · Normal · Hard · Very Hard
Bonus Life — 20K 80K 300K · 30K 100K 400K · 40K 200K 500K · 50K 250K 500K
Lives — 1 · 2 · 3 · 5
Monster Speed — Normal · Medium · High · Very High
DIP settings — MAME set boblcave
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
ROM Type DSW-B:8 IC52=512kb, IC53=none · IC52=256kb, IC53=256kb
DIP settings — MAME set bublbobl
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
Mode DSW-A:1,3 Game, English · Game, Japanese · Test (Grid and Inputs) · Test (RAM and Sound)/Pause
Flip Screen DSW-A:2 Off · On
Demo Sounds DSW-A:4 Off · On
Coin A DSW-A:5,6 2C 1C · 1C 1C · 2C 3C · 1C 2C
Coin B DSW-A:7,8 2C 1C · 1C 1C · 2C 3C · 1C 2C
Difficulty DSW-B:1,2 Easy · Normal · Hard · Very Hard
Bonus Life DSW-B:3,4 20K 80K 300K · 30K 100K 400K · 40K 200K 500K · 50K 250K 500K
Lives DSW-B:5,6 1 · 2 · 3 · 5
ROM Type DSW-B:8 IC52=512kb, IC53=none · IC52=256kb, IC53=256kb
DIP settings — MAME set bublboblp
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
Language SW A:1 English · Japanese
Flip Screen SW A:2 Off · On
Demo Sounds SW A:4 Off · On
Coin A SW A:5,6 2C 3C · 1C 1C · 2C 1C · 1C 2C
Coin B SW A:7,8 2C 3C · 1C 1C · 2C 1C · 1C 2C
Difficulty DSW-B:1,2 Easy · Normal · Hard · Very Hard
Bonus Life DSW-B:3,4 20K 80K 300K · 30K 100K 400K · 40K 200K 500K · 50K 250K 500K
Lives DSW-B:5,6 1 · 2 · 3 · 5
Edit Mode DSW-B:7 Off · On
DIP settings — MAME set dland
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
Game — Dream Land · Super Dream Land
Lives — 1 · 2 · 3 · 100 (Cheat)
DIP settings — MAME set sboblboblb
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
Game — Bobble Bobble · Super Bobble Bobble
Lives — 1 · 2 · 3 · 100 (Cheat)
DIP settings — MAME set tokio_base
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
Cabinet SW A:1 Upright · Cocktail
Flip Screen SW A:2 Off · On
Demo Sounds SW A:4 Off · On
Coin A SW A:5,6 2C 1C · 1C 1C · 2C 3C · 1C 2C
Coin B SW A:7,8 2C 1C · 1C 1C · 2C 3C · 1C 2C
Enemies SW B:1 Few (Easy) · Many (Hard)
Enemy Shots SW B:2 Few (Easy) · Many (Hard)
Bonus Life SW B:3,4 100K 400K · 200K 400K · 300K 400K · 400K 400K
Lives SW B:5,6 3 · 4 · 5 · 6
Language SW B:8 English · Japanese
DIP settings — MAME set tokiob
Setting Position Options (default in bold)
Lives SW B:5,6 3 · 4 · 5 · 99 (Cheat)

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

Emulation & FPGA

  • Emulation: MAME (8080bw.cpp, taitosj.cpp, bublbobl.cpp, rastan.cpp…).
  • FPGA / MiSTer: cores available (Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, Rastan, Elevator Action…).

EPROM repair

8080 program (Space Invaders, 1978) in small 2708 / 2716 EPROMs (1-2 KB), + the famous cellophane colour overlay. Period components (±5/±12). Many variants/licences (Midway).

Lineage

Precedes the Taito 16-bit systems (B/F1/F2/F3) on the 68000.

Photos / assets

(To add: Space Invaders board, colour overlay, Bubble Bobble board.)

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.