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!
According to mame source at least one game (XK-501: Wanwan Aijou Monogatari) uses a OKI MSM6653A Voice Synthesis IC with 544Kbits internal maskROM. Is the maskrom dumped? The multicart has support for it?
ReplyDeleteno, it's not dumped and also not supported by these multicarts.
DeleteHi, any chance you make more of this multicarts?? Also, how much where they??
ReplyDeleteNo...i will at least not make any of these the next year...maybe at the end of 2023...
DeleteWould it be possible to fit them all in just one single multicart??
ReplyDeleteit would most likely be possible...but this was a proove of concept...and i will most likely never make any other batch of these.
DeleteThe last undumped game was just dumped. Would you consider returning to this or possibly even making a full library multicart?
ReplyDeleteyes, i already thought about this, when i saw the last game got dumped. It will take some time, as i want to make the pcb-design completely new from scratch...and i will only work on it from time to time...
Delete