0.03 [Nicola Salmoria, Gary Shepherdson, Brad Thomas, Edward Massey]
Artwork available
Bugs:
- Switching to TKG-02 (Radarscope Conversion) is no longer creating the proper color palette. trebor (ID 05052)
WIP:
- 0.177: Stiletto added notes about the Donkey Kong Speed-up Kit #2.
- 0.167: Robbbert added clone Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition Rev 5 (2013-04-22).
- 0.155: Changed description of clones 'Donkey Kong II - Jumpman Returns (V1.1) (hack)' to 'Donkey Kong II: Jumpman Returns (hack, V1.1)' and 'Donkey Kong II - Jumpman Returns (V1.2) (hack)' to 'Donkey Kong II: Jumpman Returns (hack, V1.2)'.
- 0.153: Matt Ziolkowski and Rob Rings added clone Donkey Kong (hard kit). Note: Donkey Kong "Hard" Kit is a yet "unconfirmed original" rom replacement kit which is a replacement for TKG-03 and -04 boards and greatly increases the speed and amount of fireballs showing on all levels. Such behavior can be seen easily on the Rivet Board, where most of the fireballs have appeared even before removing the first rivet.
- 12th August 2013: Smitdogg - Andrew Welburn dumped a bootleg of Donkey Kong.
- 21st October 2012: 3D ARCADE - New Nintendo 3D cabinet models for Donkey Kong and clone 'Donkey Kong II - Jumpman Returns' from Jibmums.
- 0.147u1: Miodrag Milanovic removed device_memory_interface from driver_device, fixes issues with Donkey Kong clones and various others.
- 0.146u2: No need for custom EEPROM intf in the Donkey Kong II clones [hap].
- 0.141u2: Couriersud fixed a bug in palette_normalize_range which caused color distortion. The luminance normalization now converts r,g,b to y,u,v and normalizes y prior to converting back to r,g,b. This affects e.g. Radar Scope, Donkey Kong and Mario Bros.
- 6th September 2010: Mr. Do - Donkey Kong II was recently added to official MAME, so that's been removed from the "Other Artwork" page, and added in to the dkong artwork set.
- 0.139u2: Added clones 'Donkey Kong II - Jumpman Returns (V1.1) (hack)' and (V1.2) (hack). This is a DKong/Hack combo using a Braze Technologies High Score Save PCB. This PCB will be placed in the CPU socket and the Z80 together with an additional 64K rom, a 74LS245, an EEPROM and a PAL/GAL. It looks like the "encryption" was a coincidence resulting from an easy PCB layout. The PAL is also used to switch A15 on and off. This is done in locations 6800 and E800.
- 0.133u5: Removed 2nd Discrete sound in Donkey Kong.
- 0.133u4: Added 2nd Discrete sound to Donkey Kong.
- 0.133u1: Renamed (dkongjp) to (dkongj).
- 0.129u3: Fabio Priuli added 'Free_Play' dipswitch to clone Donkey Kong Foundry (hack) and changed year to 2004.
- 0.129: Added clone Donkey Kong Foundry (hack) (1981).
- 0.128u2: More Discrete module optimizations [Derrick Renaud]: Added optimized custom mixer to Donkey Kong. The custom mixer just optimizes the code that creates the voltage on the 555s. It is also a test case for the new DISCRETE_CUSTOM module. This speeds up Donkey Kong 17%.
- 0.127u8: Aaron Giles fixed Donkey Kong crashes after quiting and artwork/gameplay area are getting squished/distorted.
- 0.127u5: Couriersud moved dkong memory_region calls into initialization routines.
- 0.127u2: Replaced I8035 CPU2 with MB8884, verified on schematics [Couriersud]. Optimized DISCRETE_RCDISC_MODULATED. Added X_TALs to circus. Optimized DISCRETE_RCINTEGRATE and DISCRETE_555_ASTABLE. Optimized DISCRETE_555_ASTABLE_CV and DISCRETE_MIXER. Optimized DISCRETE_555_CC. The 555 and mixer changes also speed up just about every current discrete game [Derrick Renaud].
- 0.126u4: Scanline exact rendering for Donkey Kong and clones [Couriersud]: Sprite limit of 16 sprites per scanline implemented from schematics. Proper wrap around from bottom to top. Added some notes about sprite limits and hardware to DKong driver (thanks to R. Belmont).
- 0.123u4: Updated DKong driver to use two discrete structs which were previously not being used [Couriersud]: Donkey Kong walk using a jump struct.
- 0.122: Fixed cpu2 rom address to $1000.
- 30th September 2007: Mr. Do - I brought home a Donkey Kong bezel, as that game has always bugged me a little. Once I had it sitting at home, I could see the difference between the old version and the real thing: Richer browns, both the light and dark. The brown on Jumpman's shirt in three of the four spots should be dark brown, not the light brown that matches the circle background. Oddly enough, which looks like a Nintendo printing error, the brown on the Jumpman in the upper-right corner actually is light brown. The alignment on a few of the characters was slightly off. It looks a lot nicer now.
- 0.116: Couriersud implemented discrete sound from schematics in Donkey Kong. Color generation from schematics (resistor mixer). Replaced DAC/Samples sound with Discrete. Removed all samples. Changed VSync to 60.606061 Hz.
- 6th May 2007: Mr. Do - Added the "under bezel" instruction card for Donkey Kong, plus the cocktail instructions, thanks to MikesArcade.
- 0.86u3: Donkey Kong sample improvements [Peter Rittwage, Derrick Renaud]. Added samples (run01, run02, run03, jump and dkstomp.wav).
- 18th July 2004: Andrea Mazzoleni fixed an invalid GfxLayout in Donkey Kong.
- 12th July 2004: 3D ARCADE - New 3D cabinet model for Donkey Kong from Baraka.
- 21st January 2003: Derrick Renaud modifyed the Donkey Kong sounds a little.
- 0.62: Added clone Donkey Kong (US set 2). Changed parent description to 'Donkey Kong (US set 1)'.
- 17th June 2002: Mike Haaland added the original US ROM set of Donkey Kong which includes the ladder trick.
- 0.53: Added clone Donkey Kong (Japan set 2). Added color proms ($0, 100, 200) from (Japan set 2) to (Japan set 1/3). Fixed rom names. Changed description of clone (Japan set 2) to 'Donkey Kong (Japan set 3) (bad dump?)'. Renamed (dkongjpo) to (dkongjo1).
- 0.37b14: Replaced 8-way Joystick with 4-way.
- 17th April 2000: Zsolt Vasvari fixed a Donkey Kong graphics bug.
- 0.36b13: Added clone Donkey Kong (Japan set 2). Changed description of clone (Japan) to 'Donkey Kong (Japan set 1)'.
- 23rd August 1999: Mike Coates fixed Donkey Kong sounds.
- 0.35b6: Replaced I8039 CPU2 with I8035.
- 0.34b6: Andrew Scott added sound decay to Donkey Kong.
- 0.34b4: Mirko Buffoni fixed sound pitch and tempo in Donkey Kong.
- 0.34b1: Added color proms ($0, 100, 200 - palette low, palette high 4 bits (inverted) and character color codes on a per-column basis).
- 0.33b7: Changed description to 'Donkey Kong (US)' and clone (Japanese version) to 'Donkey Kong (Japan)'.
- 0.31: Howie Cohen and Brad Oliver fixed sound pitch and Mario jump in Donkey Kong. Wiebo de Wit fixed scores over 100000 in Donkey Kong/Donkey Kong Jr.
- 0.30: 8039 emulator, and emulated sound in Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Mario Bros. Since the boards also use discrete circuits to generate sound, some samples are still needed to get complete sound support. Also partial sound in Radarscope [Ron Fries, Dan Boris, Mirko Buffoni].
- 0.29: Minor fix to Donkey Kong colors (black was dark blue) [Nicola Salmoria]. Added Gamma correction controls. Use Shift + Numeric pad +/- to change it. There are some games which are too dark on the default setting, instead of using the monitor settings use these controls to brighten the picture. Gamma correction also affects colors, like the girders in Donkey Kong [Nicola Salmoria].
- 0.28: Colors in Donkey Kong are now 100% accurate [Nicola Salmoria]: Several people complained that girders should be pink instead of red, but to the best of my knowledge the current colors are an accurate conversion of the color PROMs, and this has been confirmed by some people. There might be two different versions of Donkey Kong, with slightly different colors. If someone has a "pink" board and wants to read the PROMs from there, I'll be happy to include them.
- 0.27: Donkey Kong has better colors [Nicola Salmoria]. Are they entirely accurate?
- 0.24: Changed parent description to 'Donkey Kong (US version)'.
- 0.21: Added clone Donkey Kong (Japanese version). This version has the bug that barrels do not come down when at the top of a ladder, but the levels play in the order barrels-pies-elevators-girders instead of barrels-girders-barrels-elevators-girders.
- 0.20: Paul Berberich fixed some colors of Donkey Kong that is now quite close to original arcade. Ron Fries created a new set of Donkey Kong samples, using Mike Cuddy's 8039 emulator. The new samples no longer have static, they are aliased and louder. All names are now generic, so the same name can be used across Nintendo line (DK, DKjr, DK3, Mario).
- 0.14: Ron Fries added preliminary sound support to Donkey Kong! It uses some very bad samples for now. The samples are distributed in a separate archive - put them in the dkong subdirectory.
- 0.13: Nicola Salmoria added high score saving to Donkey Kong.
- 0.08: Maybe I understood how the character colors are selected in Donkey Kong, at least in part, but I'm not sure [Nicola Salmoria]. Anyway, I started fixing them. Colors for Donkey Kong derived from Kong emulator by Gary Shepherdson.
- 0.05: Special thanks to Brad Thomas and Gary Shepherdson (Kong emulator) for the extensive information on Donkey Kong.
- 0.03: Nicola Salmoria added 'Donkey Kong' (Nintendo 1981). Game is playable with wrong colors and no sound. Known issues: I can't find the color RAM! Some information on Donkey Kong gathered from MageX by Edward Massey.
- 17th January 1996: Dumped Donkey Kong (US set 1).
LEVELS: 4
Other Emulators:
* CottAGE
* FB Alpha
* HiVE
* JAE
* JEmu
* JEmu2
* Mimic
* Raine
* Retrocade
* VAntAGE
Recommended Games (Platform):
Steel Worker
Donkey Kong
FamicomBox (Donkey Kong)
Crazy Kong
Crazy Kong Part II
Kong (Donkey Kong conversion on Galaxian hardware)
Donkey Kong Junior
FamicomBox (Donkey Kong Jr.)
Donkey Kong 3
Super Donkey Kong (Super Famicom Box)
Logger
Naughty Mouse
Treasure Island
Treasure Island (DECO Cassette)
Woodpecker
Dock Man
Kangaroo
Minky Monkey
Ponpoko
Pop Flamer
Popeye
FamicomBox (Popeye)
Q*bert
Faster, Harder, More Challenging Q*bert
Q*bert's Qubes
Springer
Arabian
Boggy '84
Bristles (Max-A-Flex)
Congo Bongo
Dr. Micro
Hopper Robo
Jump Coaster
Mappy
Namco Classic Collection Vol.1 (Mappy)
Mouser
Mr. Do's Castle
Number Crash
Popper
Roc'n Rope
Konami 80's AC Special (Roc'n Rope)
Super Glob
Ben Bero Beh
Complex X
Jumping Jack
Lode Runner
Lode Runner II - The Bungeling Strikes Back
Lode Runner III - The Golden Labyrinth
Lode Runner IV - Teikoku Karano Dasshutsu
Lode Runner - The Dig Fight
Mr. Do's Wild Ride
Pandora's Palace
Peter Pack-Rat
Vs. Ice Climber
Vs. Ice Climber Dual
Vs. Wrecking Crew
Baluba-louk no Densetsu
Pig Out: Dine Like a Swine!
Sea Hunter Penguin
Multi 5 (Tong Boy)
Recommended Games (Monkeys):
Tranquillizer Gun
Crazy Kong
Crazy Kong Part II
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Junior
Donkey Kong 3
Super Donkey Kong (Super Famicom Box)
Sky Skipper
Treasure Island
Dazzler
Kangaroo
Mighty Monkey
Minky Monkey
Triple Punch
Congo Bongo
Jumping Jack
FamicomBox
Rampage
Rampage: World Tour
Toki
Monkey Mole Panic
Itazura Monkey
Crazy Monkey
Crazy Monkey 2
Arcade Video game published 38 years ago:
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:
[US] Atari 2600 (1982) "Donkey Kong [Model 2451]"
Colecovision [US] (1982) "Donkey Kong [Model 2411]"
Mattel Intellivision [US] (1982) "Donkey Kong [Model 2471]"
[US] Nintendo NES (june.1986) "Donkey Kong [Model NES-DK-USA]"
Atari XEGS
[US] Atari 2600 (1988) "Donkey Kong [Model CX26143]"
[US] Atari 7800 (1988) "Donkey Kong [Model CX7848]"
* HANDHELDS:
[US] Nintendo Game Boy (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
[US] Atari 800 (1983) "Donkey Kong [Model RX8031]"
TI99/4A [US] (1983) "Donkey Kong [Model RX8512]"
Commodore VIC-20 [US] (1983) "Donkey Kong [Model RX8513]"
[US] Apple II (1983)
[US] Commodore C64 (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: https://www.arcade-history.com/?&page=detail&id=34723&o=2
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