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Donkey Kong
Question from Jacob: I have a few questions about the Donkey Kong machine. 1) In general, do most joysticks on Donkey Kong machines tend do be more loose than those on other machines? As I’ve played my machine, I’ve worried that the joystick has become more loose. But, it still returns to the middle. 2) I’m not sure if you’ve heard about it, but there is a chip called Donkey Kong 2 that you can install in your Donkey Kong machine by removing the Z80 chip and reinstalling it with the DK2 chip. What it does is gives you this new Donkey Kong 2 game and it saves your high scores. And when you complete a stage, it shows a new “How high can you get?” screen. Whenever this screen shows up and I start a new stage, Donkey Kong stays where he is from the “How high can you get screen?” on the new stage. This only happens for a second and then he disappears and the game plays as normal. I’m sorry if that’s too hard to understand, but if you would like to see what I mean there is a youtube video by “bikdog7” who talks about DK2. In his video, you’ll see when he’s going into the 50mm stage the event I’ve described above happens. All you need to do is type in “Donkey Kong 2” in the browser and you should find his video. 3) Whenever I am playing DK2, Pauline will sometimes glitch at the top and her legs will blur. This only happens for a few seconds, but it will go off and on. I asked the guy who sold me the DK2 chip and he said it is a failing EPROM. I was wondering on what you though it would be. I would really appreciate your help.
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Jacob,
On your Donkey Kong machine…
1.) Sometimes joysticks can become loose over time from playing with them too much. You can always buy a new one from arcadeshop.com or therealbobroberts.net if you feel that it’s time for a replacement.
2 & 3) We are familiar with the Donkey Kong 2 upgrade kits but we have not had any experience with them. It does sound like you are having some board issues that could possibly be related to failing eproms. I believe this kit was developed by Jeff at jeffsromhack.com. You could try contacting him (he has a contact info link in the upper right hand corner of his site) and see what he thinks.
Of course, if you were not having problems before the upgrade then it could possibly be something related to the upgrade that caused the problems to occur. You might go back through the process and make sure that the upgrade was installed properly (i.e. make sure that the chips were installed properly and all legs are making a good connection).
Thanks you for your questions and good luck with your repairs.
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