Grandstand Munchman
 | |
| Tomy's Puck Man, the Japanese release of the game Grandstand sold as Munchman. Grandstand's version has the same case with a "Munchman" sticker (うぃき野郎, retouched by Pittigrilli; CC BY-SA 4.0) | |
| Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Tomy (made in Japan) for Grandstand (Adam Imports Ltd, Harrogate) |
| Type | Tabletop electronic game |
| Released | 1981 or 1982 (sources differ; see History)[1][2] |
| CPU | NEC uCOM-43 4-bit microcontroller, marked D553C 160[2][3] |
| Memory | — |
| Storage | — |
| Display | NEC FIP8AM18T vacuum fluorescent display, cyan, red and green[2] |
| Sound | 1-bit, from the microcontroller[2] |
| ROM | Inside the microcontroller (MAME's dump is 2 KB)[2] |
| Input | Four direction buttons, AMA/PRO switch, on/off switch[2][4] |
| Power | Four C cells (6 V), or a mains adaptor[4][3] |
| OS / Firmware | — |
| Model no. | Tomy TKY-7612 (Tomy's US release, Pac Man)[5] |
Grandstand Munchman is the UK Grandstand release of Tomy's round, bright yellow tabletop Pac-Man game, which has a vacuum fluorescent display (VFD). Tomy sold the same game as Puck Man in Japan, Pac Man in the USA and Puckman under its own name in the UK; Futuretronics sold it in Australia as Pac Man-1.[2] The versions differ only in the name sticker above the screen, the instructions on the base and the packaging,[5][6] and Grandstand's Munchman still says Tomy on the bottom.[5] An NEC uCOM-43 4-bit microcontroller runs the game.[2]
History
[edit | edit source]Grandstand was the name that Adam Imports of Harrogate put on the electronic games it imported into the UK.[7] The Handheld Museum describes Grandstand's Munchman as licensed from Tomy and photographs it boxed, with "Mini Arcade Game" and the Grandstand name on the box.[8]
The release date is given as 1981 or 1982. Wikipedia, citing a collector's gallery, gives 1981 for Munchman, and Tomy's US leaflet for Pac Man carries a 1981 copyright.[1][4] MAME's chip list dates the D553C 160 to 1982, and the D553C 160 photographed in a Tomy Puckman by the windytan blog carries the date code 8228, which reads as week 28 of 1982.[2][3] One dated chip does not date the first production run, so the two years are given here as a range.
Hardware
[edit | edit source]| Part | Detail |
|---|---|
| Main board | Marked TN-08 2E108E01; made in Japan |
| Microcontroller | NEC uCOM-43, marked D553C 160 |
| Program | Mask ROM inside the microcontroller; MAME's dump is 2 KB |
| Display | NEC FIP8AM18T no. 2-21 VFD, cyan, red and green |
| Sound | 1-bit output from the microcontroller |
| Controls | Four direction buttons (UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT); AMA/PRO game selector switch; on/off switch |
| Power | Four C cells, 6 V; Tomy's adaptor rating 7.5 V DC, 200 mA, 2.1 mm plug, centre negative |
Board, microcontroller, display and sound from MAME's driver notes;[2] controls and power from Tomy's leaflet and the windytan teardown.[4][3]
The display has every position of Pac-Man, the monsters, the dots and the maze walls printed onto it as fixed segments, lit or unlit by the microcontroller; the windytan blog's close-up shows the eight grid sections of the tube.[3] MAME's notes explain NEC's display names: FIP stands for fluorescent indicator panel and the number after it is the number of grids, so the FIP8AM18T has eight.[2] The Handheld Museum's photograph of the inside of Tomy's version shows the tube at the back of the round case, mounted on the main board.[9]
The game program is mask-programmed into the D553C 160, the chip MAME's dump was read from.[2] A replacement microcontroller can come from any of the releases MAME lists for this game: Tomy's Puck Man, Pac Man and Puckman, Futuretronics' Pac Man-1 or another Munchman.[2] Grandstand Caveman uses the same NEC uCOM-43 family (D553C 209) on a Tomy board of the same TN- series, with a different program.[2]
The game
[edit | edit source]The game starts by itself when switched on, with a fanfare.[2][4] The first screen shows the segment number (P-01), the number of Pac-Men left and the number of monsters in that segment; the second is the maze, with Pac-Man starting at the bottom right. The four buttons move him up, down, left and right, and warp tunnels at the sides of the maze carry him and the monsters across to the other side.[4]
Pac-Man cannot eat bait behind him: dots are only eaten while he moves from right to left.[4][2] Each bait scores 2 points. A star scores 50 and gives seven seconds in which Pac-Man can eat the monsters, for 100, 200 and 400 points in succession; cherries score a bonus. Clearing all the bait and stars ends the segment. On AMA (amateur) there are two monsters in segments 1 to 3 and three from segment 4; on PRO (professional) there are three from the start. Over 2,000 points earns an extra Pac-Man, and clearing five segments shows "GOOD".[4]
Batteries and power
[edit | edit source]Tomy's US leaflet asks for four C cells, alkaline recommended, and lists an AC adaptor of 7.5 V DC, 200 mA, with a 2.1 mm coaxial plug, tip (centre) negative.[4] Four C cells make 6 V, and the windytan blog ran a Tomy Puckman from a 6 V DC adaptor wired to the battery terminals.[3] The battery voltage and Tomy's adaptor rating therefore differ; Grandstand's own leaflet for Munchman has not been found, so the setting it gave for the Grandstand Universal Mains Adaptor is not known. A modern supply should match Tomy's centre-negative polarity.
Tomy's leaflet warns that weak batteries make the display dark and the game act incorrectly, and asks for the game to be switched off when not in use, with the batteries removed for storage.[4] Cells left in the box leak; see Battery Explosion, Capacitor or Corrosion Damage.
Repair
[edit | edit source]Munchman has its own repair guides:
- Grandstand Munchman General Maintenance: opening the round case, the battery box, the DC socket, the keys and switches, the window and the name sticker.
- Grandstand Munchman Troubleshooting Guide: what a working game does, published voltages, a symptom table and the faults owners have found.
- Grandstand Munchman Capacitor Replacement Guide: the electrolytic capacitors on the TN-08 main board, with the values that can be read from owners' photographs.
The fault reported most often is a game that runs only from an adaptor. A collector's buying guide warns that a damaged power socket can lock the game into running from the mains only,[6] and on one Grandstand Munchman repaired on video the plug pushed the socket's pin out of place every time it was inserted, so the cells stopped working until a new socket was fitted.[10] The front window scratches and sometimes cracks, and the name sticker fades, peels or goes missing.[6]
No service manual or schematic for Munchman or Tomy's Pac Man has been found.
Related products
[edit | edit source]Grandstand also sold Mini-Munchman, a pocket LCD game in the same yellow colour, with a clock and timer, running on two LR44 button cells. It is a different machine: a licensed version of Epoch's Epoch-Man, not a Tomy design, and it shares no hardware with Munchman.[6][11] It is listed on Grandstand Handheld and Pocket Games.
Documentation
[edit | edit source]- Tomy Pac Man instructions (Tomy Corporation, 1981; two pages). Tomy's US leaflet for the same game: controls, batteries and adaptor rating, play, scoring and care. Grandstand's own Munchman leaflet has not been found.
Related pages
[edit | edit source]- Grandstand Munchman General Maintenance
- Grandstand Munchman Troubleshooting Guide
- Grandstand Munchman Capacitor Replacement Guide
- Grandstand Universal Mains Adaptor
- Grandstand Caveman: Tomy game on the same NEC uCOM-43 family, same adaptor rating
- Grandstand Tron: Tomy game on a Hitachi microcontroller, same adaptor rating
- Grandstand Handheld and Pocket Games: includes Mini-Munchman
- Coleco Pac-Man Mini-Arcade: Coleco's tabletop Pac-Man of the same period
- Category:Grandstand
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Wikipedia, "Munchman (tabletop electronic game)" (retrieved 2026-10-18): released in the UK by Grandstand in 1981, citing Ian Marshall's Retro Computer Gallery (2002); rebadged Tomy Pac Man / Puck Man; six volts DC from four C batteries.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 MAME source, hh_ucom4.cpp (retrieved 2026-10-18). Driver notes for Tomy Pac-Man: made in Japan; PCB label TN-08 2E108E01; NEC uCOM-43 microcontroller labelled D553C 160, 1-bit sound; cyan/red/green VFD NEC FIP8AM18T no. 2-21; bright yellow round casing; known releases Puck Man (Tomy, Japan), Pac Man (Tomy, USA), Puckman (Tomy, UK) "and also published by Grandstand as Munchman", Pac Man-1 (Futuretronics, Australia); starts automatically when switched on; only eats dots going right to left; inputs four directions and an AMA/PRO difficulty switch. Chip list dates the D553C 160 to 1982 and the Tomy Caveman D553C 209 (PCB TN-12) to 1982. ROM dump of 0x800 bytes taken from the D553C 160. File header explains NEC VFD names (FIP = fluorescent indicator panel, first number = number of grids).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 windytan, "Tomy Electronic PUCKMAN", May 2013 (retrieved 2026-10-18). Blog teardown of a Tomy Puckman: AMA/PRO switch; VFD with all sprite positions pre-printed (close-up photograph); main chip photographed marked "NEC Japan 8228EK D553C 160"; four C cells, 6 V; run from a 6 V DC adapter wired to the battery terminals.
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 Tomy Corporation, Tomytronic Pac Man instructions, copyright 1981, Carson, California, printed in Japan. Hosted here as File:Tomy Pac Man Instructions.pdf: p. 1 (scoring table; care: weak batteries make the display dark and show incorrect action; controls diagram; four C batteries; AC adapter 7.5 V DC 200 mA, 2.1 mm ID coaxial plug, tip (centre) negative), p. 2 (object, how to play, segments, warp tunnels, monsters per segment on AMA and PRO, Pac Man cannot eat bait behind it, scoring).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Handheld Museum, "Tomy Pac Man, Etc." (retrieved 2026-10-18): VFD, four C batteries, model TKY-7612; released under three names, "All are identical except for the sticker with the name on it, and the instructions on the bottom"; "Munchman was released in the U.K. by Grandstand (but says Tomy on the bottom.)"
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Retro Games Now, "Grandstand Munchman 80's handheld review", 17 March 2012, value section updated July 2024 (retrieved 2026-10-18). Collector's review and buying guide: the versions differ only in the name sticker and packaging; buying checks (window scratches and cracks, sticker, test on batteries alone because a damaged power connector "can lock the game in 'mains power only' mode"); Mini Munchman is an LCD licence of Epoch's "Epoch Man", not a Tomy design, run on two watch batteries.
- ↑ Play It Again project, "Grandstand" (retrieved 2026-10-18): Leslie Kenyon "had previously used the Grandstand name to sell electronic games in the U.K. through his Adam Imports business".
- ↑ Handheld Museum, "Grandstand Munchman" (retrieved 2026-10-18): VFD, four C batteries, licensed from Tomy (Pac Man); photographs of the game and its box ("Mini Arcade Game", Grandstand).
- ↑ Handheld Museum, "Game Guts" (retrieved 2026-10-18): photograph of the inside of a Tomy Pac Man.
- ↑ retro_restos, "Munchman Pacman Grandstand VFD Tabletop Game Repair. No power and Scratched Screen Repair", YouTube, 7 April 2023 (watched 2026-10-18). A Grandstand-branded Munchman that worked on an adaptor but not on batteries; on-screen caption: "every time I plugged the power jack in, it moved the pin and the batteries wouldn't work again. I ordered a new jack socket"; the socket was replaced and the scratched window removed, sanded and polished.
- ↑ Handheld Museum, "Grandstand Mini-Munchman" (retrieved 2026-10-18): 1981, LCD, two LR44 cells, licensed from Epoch (Epoch-Man).