Italian MCU for Quizard 1

Another great Dumping Union story...

Brian found an Quizard-interface-board with an italian MCU on it, on ebay. As the seller only shipped within Italy another great guy from the DU jumped in. F205v bought the board and documented it here on his site. Afterwards he sent the board to me, for decapping the MCU.

It arrived today and i immediatly started the decapping-process...

It's really nice, that the process is really easy and that it's finished within just 10 minutes. Making the pictures and writing this blog-post took more time, as the decapping itself.

Afterwards i could read the D8751H with my programmer and got an 4kb file. Testing it in MAME worked perfectly and so you can now play all revisions of QUIZARD 1 in italian language!

So "introdurre Monete" and answer some italian quiz-questions! ;-)

Thanks to f205v for paying everything here and thx to Brian for keeping the eyes open for undumped stuff!

Aladdin Deck Enhancer - Compact Multi-Cart

 

The Aladdin Deck Enhancer is another device for the NES, which basically acts as an adapter. Designed by Codemasters and published by Camerica it sadly was a fail. The idea was to get games produced cheaper and therefor also can sell them for less to the consumers. But released in 1992, this was most likely just too late for the NES.

Only seven cartridges got released for the system. Two 4in1 carts and five single-game cartridges, which makes total of 13 games.

Some weeks ago i got the chance to buy an Aladdin Deck Enhancer in Germany, which included the Dizzy-cartridge. This cartridge was always bundled with the base-unit and is therefor the most available cartridge for this system.

As it's impossible to buy other cartridges for the ADE here in Europe, without paying the high taxes by importing it from the US, i started to reverse-engineer the cartridge.

My first goal was to get all official 13 games on one cartridge. While i was into it, i saw that the same NES-mapper's got used by Camerica also for standalone-single-game releases for the NES. For example the "Quattro Arcade" cartridge for the NES is using the same mapper as the ADE-4in1 cartridges (Quattro Sports, Quattro Adventure).

In the end i had a compilation of 25 games (including the three 4in1 carts)...which would need 4mb of space and which all work on the Aladdin Deck Enhancer.

 The designed PCB's worked exactly like with the original cartridge. All games start and are playable perfectly.

Another interesting fact of the ADE is, that the base-cartridge contain's a reversed method of the lockout-chip, to get the games running on the NES, without licensing it from Nintendo. I don't know exactly how this reversed lockout-method works on NTSC-NES-consoles, but on PAL systems it basically only works on every second/third console-startup to trick the NES. 

So basically with my PAL-NES i have to start/reset the console mostly a couple of times, to get the lockout-method working and the games running. It's exactly the same with the original cartridge.

My next step was to design a 3D-printed case for this multicart. The original cases are pretty unique and have some parts which are not easy to print with a normal 3D-printer. The second challenge was the limited maximum height of the cartridge, which was pretty low.

With some not working printed examples at first, i step by step got it fitting better and better. In the end i was pretty proud of the final result.

 Designing a cartridge-cover sticker is the most annoying part for me, as i'm not a graphicer ;-)

In the end i'm happy the cart is now finished and working. Finally i can play 25 games with my Aladdin Deck Enhancer.

Bandai Datach - AIO-Multicart

 I already made two multicarts for this system back in 2019. Those work without any problems, but as the prices of electronic parts raised the last couple of months, i reworked the design, so that it could get produced for the same amount.

Now we have here an All-In-One Multicart for the Bandai Datach. It includes all 7 seven games for this console and as a bonus it includes the game "Battle Rush" a second time, patched with the Debug-Menue enabled.

The cartridge has now a case directly included!

 

 

The DIP-sheet:

Bandai SUPER VISION 8000 - Multicart

 Tony asked me a couple of months ago, if i could make a multicart for the SUPER VISION 8000. A console from 1979, which was most likely the first console, which used ROM-cartridges.

Getting this console is nearly impossible these days, getting games for even more impossible...

Naive like i am, i told Tony, if he will send (borrow) his console to me i will do it. Some weeks later the console arrived, including MISSILEVADER as game cartridge. Already at the first evening i had a working multicart-prototype. So i finished the pcb-design, made a 3d-printed shell for it and now some weeks later here we are.

The first multicart for the SUPER VISION 8000, containing all seven available games for the console.

Here's the DIP-Sheet:

Enjoy!

GAME KING 128mbit (92 in 1) Multicart

This is it! The third and final revision of a Multicart for the GAME KING!

 

Back in 2019 in released a Flashcart with 512kb of space, which could fit 4x 128kb games. In 2020 i released a new design with 4mb of space, and with 4 carts you had ALL available games in your hands.

Some weeks ago, i reworked it again, and now i'm finally finished with it ;-) This new cartridge has 16mb of space and can hold ALL available games for the handheld. In fact you have 92 games in one cartridge!

Designing the cartridge-case was pretty interesting, as the cartridge uses nearly the complete available space inside the cartridge-slot, but it worked out pretty nice.

Inside are four 29L3211 flashroms full with games!

It also has the seven GAME KING 3 games included, which only work on the GK3 of course!

The 92 games on the cartridge are:

 

Available with someone wants one...

Casio Loopy - Multicarts

The CASIO LOOPY, another obscure console from Japan, which had no flashcart so far.

 

Back in 2019 i already had a basic cartridge-design ready, which had space for 1-2 games and while it had no RAM-support, it worked pretty good for most of the games. This was basically just a proof of concept and shortly after i sent the design to Phil Bennett, who did an amazing job with it, which will most likely be in MAME sometime in the future.

In 2022 i took the basic-design and reworked it from scratch. I added RAM and did fill up the cartridge with four 27c322 eproms. This means the cartridge has 16mb (128mbit) of space for 4-8 games.

The game-library of the Loopy is not big, only 10 games (9 are dumped) and 1 extra device (Magical Shop) got released.

Which means, with only two multicarts you can basically have a full-set of all Loopy games. My next task was to design cartridge-shells and that worked out pretty good too.

The 8in1 multicart is full with all eight 2mb games. The 4in1 has the two 3mb games included and has space for 2 other games. It's extendable, which means if ever the missing "Chakura-kun no Omajinai Paradise" get's dumped, just program it on a 27c322 and solder the eprom into the cartridge. Even a forth 27c322 could get soldered in, if someone will do a homebrew game for the console in the future.

 The battery for the RAM is easily accessable from the backside of the cartridge.

The labels on the cartridge are self-printed and hand-cut and include the switch-settings for each game.

After everything was finished i designed a minimalistic cartridge-stand which can hold five Loopy cartridges:

And here are some pictures of all games on the multicarts:

i have only a very limited amount of each multicart available (4 pieces each). If someone wants a full set (both multicarts) i will include a cartridge-stand for free.

If all multicarts are sold, i will most likely do one more batch of 5 pieces each. Most likely i will not do a third batch, as they are just to much work to get them assembled and the prices of the needed components got insanely high the last few months...

1st Batch - SOLD OUT

2nd Batch - SOLD OUT

No carts are available anymore!

Air Duel (World, M72 Hardware) - MCU decapped

 Finally after so many years, we got another needed MCU for MAME. This is another example of great team-effort, where people around the world worked together to get this finally done.

Brian A Troha found an ebay-auction where the complete chip-set for Air Duel (World) got sold. At the same time i got contacted by Silvio from Swiss, that he has an MCU for Air Duel, but as it's missing it's labels, nobody know's if it's for the World or Japan version of the game, and that he can ship it to me for decapping.

So we had a little dilemma. When Silvio's MCU is for the World-Version we don't need to spend a lot of money for the ebay auction. If it's not, we need money to get the chip-set from ebay...

Another example why the mail-list of the Dumping Union is really important! DU-member's teamed up to assure money for the ebay-auction.

The strategy was to wait until Silvio's MCU arrived here and could get decapped. => If it's from the Japan-Version, we have to buy the World-chips from ebay.

Silvio's MCU arrived at my home on tuesday the 14-06-2022 and shortly after i got home from work i directly decapped it. Sadly it was the MCU for the Japan-Version and matched the existing decap, which i already did some years ago.

So with the amazing financial help from the other DU-members we could buy the chips and the package arrived today at my frontdoor.

 The decapping-process worked flawlessly and just after a couple of minutes, the chip was desecured and i had the 4KB of data dumped.

Finally another MCU preserved!

Many thanks to all people who were involved in this task and helped to get another game on the M72-hardware finally fully preserved.

The rom will most likely be supported in the next MAME version (0.246) which will most likely get released at end of July 2022.

Credits: Brian A. Troha, BillD, rtw, f205v, darksoft, Gor, Smitdogg, Sean Sutton, Team Europe

And a Special Thanks to Silvio, for shipping the other MCU to me. Sadly not what we needed but as always very good practice for decapping chips.

If you want to read about another great team-effort, to get the two games on the Konami Polygonet arcade platform finally emulated in MAME, head over to Mog's Blog for an amazing summary of the complete emulation-history of this platform. How the journey started nearly 20 years ago, when the roms of Polygonet Commanders were added to MAME, what happened the next 19 years and how everything come together in the last couple of three weeks! => Amazing work guys and congrats to all who helped to get this done!

BPROM Read-Adapter v0.2 (21in1)

 In August 2021 i released the first version of the BPROM-Read-Adapter...which supported reading 14 different bproms with your programmer. You can read about it here.

As some boards from Funworld use the extremely rare CY7C291 bproms in PLCC28 package, i reworked the complete adapter-design and added support for it too. Previously i always had to handsolder the CY7C291 to something useful for reading it with a programmer.

 

In the end i added the following devices to the new design: CY7C261, CY7C263, CY7C264, CY7C291, 2564, 2532 and 2516.

The CY7C*-devices are even supported as PLCC28- and DIP24-package!

So the new adapter support's READING the following 21 devices (Of course it also supports the equivalent BPROM's from other company's like the 24S10 or 74S287 for the 82S129):

• 82S123 (32 byte)
  
• 82S129 (256 byte)
  
• 82S131 (512 byte)
  
• 82S135 (256 byte)
  
• 82S137 (1 kbyte)
  
• 82S141 (512 byte)
  
• 82S147 (512 byte)
  
• 82S181 (1 kbyte)
  
• 82S185 (2 kbyte)
  
• 82S191 (2 kbyte)
  
• 82S195 (4 kbyte)
  
• 82S321 (4 kbyte)
  
• 82S641 (8 kbyte)
  
• 2708 (1 kbyte)
• CY7C261 (8 kbyte)
  
• CY7C263 (8 kbyte)
  
• CY7C264 (8 kbyte)
  
• CY7C291 (only 2 kbyte! - so split the 8kb dump into four 2kbyte pieces!)
• 2564 (8 kbyte)
  
• 2532 (only 4 kbyte! - so split the 8kb dump into two halves!)
  
• 2516 (only 2 kbyte! - so split the 8kb dump into four 2kbyte pieces!)
  

 

All BPROM's can get read as 2716, 2732 or 2764 (see the markings on the adapters) which should be supported by any programmer.

For reading 2708 eproms, you will need an external power-supply, which get's the needed +12V and -5V...just connect it to the adapter, read it as 2716 and split the dump afterwards into two halves.

Reading the BPROM's as 2716 will give you a 2kb file. Split the file to the correct sizes of the BPROM (The size of the BPROM is written above at the list of supported BPROM's) and you will get your correct dump of the bprom! (example 82s123: Split the 2kb file in pieces of 32byte each. All pieces should have the same CRC. Enjoy your BPROM-dump!)

If your programmer supports a "PIN-Check" before dumping you can have "1 Missing Pin" on some of the BPROM's. That's OK, don't worry ;-) !

 

 

 

 

Needed parts:

• 8 pcs 40 Pin 1x40 Male 2.54 Breakable Pin Header
  
  
  
• 3 pcs 1P2T Toggle Switch
  
  
  
  
• 2 pcs DIP16 IC Socket
• 1 pcs DIP18 IC Socket
  
• 3 pcs DIP20 IC Socket
• 2 pcs DIP24 IC Socket
  
• 2 pcs DIP24 IC Socket (wide) 
• 2 pcs DIP28 IC Socket (wide)
  
• 1 pcs PLCC28 to DIP28 Adapter.
  
  

  

•  2pcs 12pin single row female Pin Header.
  
  
  
  
• PCB Files: You can order the boards here.