Switching games

[Gothicplsur]

I was wondering if it's possible to add a different game to my IGT PE draw poker slant top, not that I have it all working, say I want to make it a Deuces Wild, I understand its the game chip that needs replacing how would I go about doing so? this is what I'm thinking, I have MAME and I get the whole rom thing, and programming a rom to a blank chip, but is my machine motherboard capable of such a change?

Thanks.

[knagl]

Yes, you can put a different game in your machine.

Some quick IGT terminology for you -- the "motherboard" is the fixed backplane board in the back (or bottom) of your machine.  That's the board you replaced the EEPROM on to fix your machine.  The "MPU board" is the removable board in the metal tray that contains the program and graphics EPROM chips, among other things.

Based on the picture of your MPU board in this post, you have a non-superboard.  There are plenty of games available for the non-superboard, but be aware that you will not be able to use superboard ROMs on your board since your board doesn't have a DATA socket.

If you have some blank EPROMs of the correct size, you could burn a different program to them and install them into your machine.  A PE+ chipset will have the following chips:

- Program
- Data (Superboard Only)

- MRO
- MGO
- MBO
- MXO (all four of these are the graphics chips with the images and text for the screen -- Red, Green, Blue, and Black (X))

- CAP chip (defines the color palette available for the game)

Aside from not being able to use any of the superboard sets (that require a DATA chip), the other "catch" is the CAP chip.  The chip used for that is a bipolar prom which requires a special (old) programmer.  Not many people have programmers that can program these chips.

Your options for the CAP chip include:

- Using your current CAP chip.  For most basic card games, you can get away with using the "wrong" CAP chip as the colors are typically the same between similar video poker games.  Try that first, since it's the easiest solution.  The worst thing that will happen is that some of the colors for the game will be wrong.  You cannot damage your machine by using the wrong CAP chip.

- Buy the CAP chip that you need.  Some vendors still may have some CAP chips in stock, although parts and chips for the PE+ are becoming more scarce now compared to five years ago.

- Find someone who can program a CAP chip, or obtain a burner that can program them.

- Create an adapter to use a standard EPROM in place of the bipolar CAP prom.  Instructions in this thread - click here.


I would suggest trying to obtain a PE+ superboard MPU board if you can find one at a reasonable price.  A superboard MPU board will plug into the same motherboard that is already in your machine, and will allow you to use all of the available PE+ chipsets (both non-superboard and superboard sets will run on a superboard).  There are a few multi-game sets available which allow the player to choose from a menu of five different poker games on the same machine.  The multi-game sets require a superboard, however, as they utilize a DATA chip as part of the program.