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• General Test Mode Operation
• Erasing High Scores
• Setting the DIPS (including FREE PLAY mode)

Operating Congo Bongo Test Mode

Congo Bongo test mode

Congo Bongo is equipped with a diagnostic self-testing program that is initiated by pressing the SELFTEST switch located on the Control Board Assembly. It is a momentary red switch located in the corner of the board. Press and release it while the game is on to invoke test mode. Once in test mode the game will quickly perform some simple self tests and display a screen like the one shown to the right. Note: this kit enhances this screen to show additional information not found in the original Congo Bongo game.

Resetting Congo Bongo High Scores

Following the general test mode operation instructions above to put the game into test mode. (Press and Release the red SELFTEST switch on the gameboard) To erase the high score table follow the on screen instructions (Press and hold the jump button until a message indicates the HS table has been cleared). Once erased, a message indicated the high scores have been reset will appear.	Congo Bongo reset high scores
Power cycle the game to return to game play mode. The game will now have the original factory default high score table is displayed. Note clearing the high score table reverts it back to the original Sega factory default table (not 0).	Congo Bongo factory default scores

Congo Bongo DIP settings

Congo Bongo test mode

To aid in setting the DIP switches, the Congo Bongo HS kit enhances the test mode display to show the current DIP switch settings in an easy to read format. The original Congo Bongo software did not show this information. The additional DIP information is shown in the "settings" section. Changing the DIPs while in testmode will cause the screen to be immediatly updated to reflect the current settings. See below for the definitions of the DIPs.

DIP Switch SW1

The Congo Bongo High Score Save Kit does not change the meaning of any of the DIP settings for SW1. They are presented here for reference only. However the meaning of some of the switch settings for SW2 have changed (see below).

Note: when using the unlimited number of hunters (lives) settings it is not possible to get a new high score. This is because the game never ends.

Note: from a looking at the congo bongo game software it is questionable if the diffcult settings were ever implmented in the software. It appears on the surface that these difficulty dip settings are ignored by the game. If you have information about this please let me know.

DIP Switch SW2

The Congo Bongo coinage DIP settings are take the 8 switches and break them into two sets of 4 switches. One set for the left coin input, one set for the right coin input. This allowed operators to have, for example, a 25c quarter slot on one side and a dollar coin slot on the other side. The 4 switches then define 16 different combinations of number of coins mapped to number of credits, including all sorts of bonus combinations. See table below.

The Congo Bongo High Score Save kit takes advantage of this, by redefining the 2nd set of 4 coinage switches. This means you cannot have different coinage options for each coin slot. The kit forces the coinage to be the same for each slot. This is generally not a problem for collectors anyways, and most likely you will use the Free Play setting.

So, Original Congo Bongo, SW2 defines Coin-A and Coin-B options. With the HS kit, SW2 forces Coin-A coinage setting to be used for Coin-B. The newly created extra 4 switches are for new features such as Free Play and Flip Screen.

New features make use of the following DIP settings on SW2. #6 = Flip Screen, #7 = Free Play.