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Donkey Kong (US set 1)

 
Arcade
Arcade
Platform:

Donkey Kong (US set 1)

| 1981
Genre:
Style:
Theme:
Description:


Notes:
Release type:
Developer: Nintendo of America
Controls/Input Device: Control(joy4way), Buttons(1)
Number of Players: 2
Rating:
Creator:
More Creator:
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Manufacturer:
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License from/Copyright:
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Music:
SoundFX:
System/ConversionClass:
SoundMix: Mono
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Game Awards Nominations:
Game Awards Won:
Title a.k.a.:
Slogans:
Avg. Playtime:
Mameinfo.dat entry:
0.37b10 [Yochizo]


WIP:

- 0.147u2: hap fixed clone Omega Fighter Special. The game fails to boot or finish post. After showing bad rom errors, the game resets.

- 0.147u1: Fixed maincpu rom loading.

- 0.122u7: Fixed gfx1/2/3/4/5 rom loading.

- 0.89u3: Changed Z80 CPU2 clock speed to 5MHz.

- 0.37b10: Yochizo added 'Omega Fighter' (UPL 1989) and clone Omega Fighter Special.

- 21st November 2000: Yochizo fixed some graphics bugs in the Omega Fighter / Atomic Robo-kid driver.

- 8th November 2000: Yochizo sent in a driver for Omega Fighter and Atomic Robo-kid.

- 25th April 1999: Dumped Omega Fighter Special.


LEVELS: 8 (restarts once)


Other Emulators:

* FB Alpha

* JFF

* Raine


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Romset: 2016 kb / 8 files / 457.8 zip


Credits Mameinfo and Mametesters Project Robert J. Rabgno et al.
History.dat entry:
Donkey Kong (c) 1981 Nintendo of America, Incorporated.

Export version for North America. For more information about the game itself, please see the original Japanese upright version entry.

- TECHNICAL -

[Blue Upright model]
The blue uprights (which are the most common), are a very rectangular affair, with quite a lot of artwork. They have orange-ish sticker style side-art (with Mario and Kong on them), with control panel, marquee, and monitor bezel graphics to match. This game does not use a standard arcade monitor. It requires a 'Nintendo Compatible' monitor (a normal monitor will display the picture like that of a photographic negative). This simple little monitor change basically launched the entire Nintendo Vs. Unisystem later on. Because only Donkey Kong series games and Vs. titles would work on these monitors (forcing operators to buy conversion kits for those games instead of a competitors game).

[Red Upright model]
The red upright versions are actually "Radar Scope" cabinets that have been factory-converted to Donkey Kong. These are fairly rare and feature slightly different gameplay.

- TRIVIA -

Donkey Kong was released in July 1981 in the USA.

Donkey Kong was to be Nintendo's first big breakthrough into the western - and particularly American - arcade scene. Before Donkey Kong, Nintendo was having difficulty establishing itself in these markets. After the game's massive success Nintendo quickly established their headquarters of Nintendo of America to ensure that the game was being distributed properly.

Mario was named after Mario Segale, the landlord of Nintendo of America's first warehouse location in Seattle (though it was debated whether this occurred before or well after the game was released). Mario was originally called 'Jumpman'; only the arcade version of Donkey Kong has ever called the hero Jumpman; most home coversions, particularly the NES version, game him the Mario name.

Accounts differ as to how Nintendo of America felt about the game before its release. Many sources claim that they all felt sure it would be an absolute disaster while others say they were more optimistic.

Although Mario is a plumber in later games, his career in Donkey Kong is that of a carpenter. Mario's appearance (and consequently his career) was dictated by the primitive graphics hardware of the time - the only way to have his arms appear 'separate' to his torso was to have them as a different color - hence he wears 'dungarees'. The mustache is present merely to indicate where Mario's mouth is, again due to the low graphics resolution imposed by hardware limitations. Mario wears a hat so his head is distinguishable from the game's black backgrounds.

About 60,000 units were sold in the US. Oddly, despite it being one of the ten best selling games of the golden age of video games, it never reached #1 on Replay's popularity charts. Instead, it was stuck at #2 behind mega hits "Pac-Man" and "Ms. Pac-Man" - the two best selling games ever.

Donkey Kong inspired a catchy hit song by Buckner and Garcia called 'Do The Donkey Kong' released on the 'Pac-Man Fever' album.

A Donkey Kong unit appears in the 1983 movie 'WarGames', the 1984 movie 'Gremlins', the 1985 movie 'The Heavenly Kid', and the sitcom 'Two and a Half Men' (Season 5, Episode 2 - People Who Love Peepholes).

MB (Milton Bradley) released a board game based on this video game (same name) in 1982. Save the girl and avoid the barrels and fireballs as in the video game. The gameboard is laid out like the video game's Ramp Stage. 'Can You Battle Donkey Kong and Save the Fair Maiden?'.

Donkey Kong also spawned a cartoon series of the same name : Ruby-Spears Productions. Produced by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears. Originally aired September 17, 1983 as part of 'Saturday Supercade' on CBS. Mario was voiced by veteran voice actor Peter Cullen, while Donkey Kong's voice was provided by the late actor/comedian Soupy Sales (1926-2009).

Michael Jackson used to own this game (Blue Upright model). It was sold at the official Michael Jackson Auction on April 24, 2009.

- UPDATES -

The original Japanese version had all four stages displayed in their original, logical order 1-2-3-4.
For this US version, they changed it to match the 'How High Can You Try/Get?' theme, with the stage order as follows :
L-01 : 1-4
L-02 : 1-3-4
L-03 : 1-2-3-4 (as in all levels of the Japanese version)
L-04 : 1-2-1-3-4
L-05 : 1-2-1-3-1-4
L-06 through L-21 all remain the same as L-05
L-22 : 1 (Kill screen).

- SERIES -

1. Donkey Kong (1981)
2. Donkey Kong Junior (1982)
3. Donkey Kong 3 (1983)

- PORTS -

NOTE: Only ports released in North America are listed here. For ports released in other regions, please see the original Japanese upright version entry.

* Consoles :
Atari 2600 [US] (1982) "Donkey Kong [Model 2451]"
Colecovision [US] (1982) "Donkey Kong [Model 2411]"
Mattel Intellivision [US] (1982) "Donkey Kong [Model 2471]"
Nintendo NES [US] (June 1986) "Donkey Kong [Model NES-DK-USA]"
Atari XEGS
Atari 2600 [US] (1988) "Donkey Kong [Model CX26143]"
Atari 7800 [US] (1988) "Donkey Kong [Model CX7848]"

* Handhelds :
Nintendo Game Boy [US] (June 1994) "Donkey Kong [Model DMG-QD-USA]"

* Computers :
Tandy Color Computer [US] (1982) "Dunkey Munkey"
Tandy Color Computer [US] (1982) "Donkey King"
Tandy Color Computer [US] (1983) "The King"
Tandy Color Computer [US] (1983) "Monkey Kong"
PC [Booter] [US] (1983) "Donkey Kong"
PC [Booter] [US] (1983) "Gorilla Gorilla" : part of the "FriendlyWare P.C. Arcade" suite
Atari 800 [US] (1983) "Donkey Kong [Model RX8031]"
TI99/4A [US] (1983) "Donkey Kong [Model RX8512]"
Commodore VIC-20 [US] (1983) "Donkey Kong [Model RX8513]"
Apple II [US] (1983)
Commodore C64 [US] (1983) "Donkey Kong [Model RX8514]"
PC [MS-DOS] [US] (1997) "Champ Kong" by CHAMProgramming

* Others :
VFD handheld game [US] (1982) released by Coleco.
LCD handheld game [US] (Game & Watch) released by Nintendo : double screen.

- CONTRIBUTE -

Edit this entry: http://www.arcade-history.com/?&page=detail&id=34723&o=2


Licensed from Alexis Bousiges under a CC Attribution 3.0 License
cheat.dat entry:
00000000 6001 00000090 FFFFFFFF Infinite Credits
00000000 6228 00000006 FFFFFFFF Infinite Lives
20800000 19C9 000000C9 FFFFFFFF Invincibility
00000020 6394 0000000F FFFFFFFF Infinite hammer upon pickup
00000000 62B1 00000063 FFFFFFFF Infinite bonus time
00010020 638C 00000099 FFFFFFFF Infinite bonus time (2/2)
00000000 62B9 00000000 FFFFFFFF No fireballs on ramps
00000000 6403 00000000 FFFFFFFF No fireballs on factory
00000000 65A0 00000000 FFFFFFFF No pies on factory
00000000 6400 00000000 FFFFFFFF No fireballs on rivets
00000000 6500 00000000 FFFFFFFF No jacks on elevators
00000000 6392 00000000 FFFFFFFF No barrels on ramps
00000000 6215 00000001 FFFFFFFF Always climb
00000001 6215 00000000 FFFFFFFF Deactivate climb
00000000 6217 00000001 FFFFFFFF Hammer
00010000 6691 00000001 FFFFFFFF Hammer (2/2)
00000001 6290 00000000 FFFFFFFF Finish sub-level 4 Now!
00000701 6229 000000FF FFFFFFFF Select current round
00000703 6229 000000FF FFFFFFFF Select next round
20F00000 0F7D FE043802 FFFFFFFF Fix Kill Screen Bug Fixes the bug which kills you on level 22 regardless, see here - http //donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get.htm
20F10000 0F81 3E0447A7 FFFFFFFF Fix Kill Screen Bug (2/5)
20F10000 0F85 17A717A7 FFFFFFFF Fix Kill Screen Bug (3/5)
20F10000 0F89 178080C6 FFFFFFFF Fix Kill Screen Bug (4/5)
20810000 0F8D 00000028 FFFFFFFF Fix Kill Screen Bug (5/5

Credit Pugsy's MAME Cheat file
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