The PC10 apparently uses a standard edge connector, in particular a 3x32 male eurocard connector. This means I don't need to murder any more game paks to make a batch of adapters, and as a bonus, a footprint pattern already exists for it in pcb123, 41612 din eurocard. For some reason it calls it a 98 pin connector, but it's not. I guess the artist couldn't count right - or maybe counted the screw holes?
Sourcing NES connectors isn't quite so easy. The pads on a aren't *quite* .100 on center, but I think I'll order a couple of those and see how they fly. Murdering game genies and famicom adapters isn't that odious a concept, though. The wraparound crazy units that the consoles used, and the modern chinese knockoffs aren't really a good idea, they're expensive, and bulky. I think soldered on connectors would just let 10 nes carts squeeze onto one of those boards, but I'll have too measure. If not, maybe I'll design it as a left/right type deal, so the carts themselves would be staggered. Maybe famicom connectors are easier to source.
As for my 'prototype', I'm still having the following problems: I can't run other PC10 boards with my adapter in place, I'll try and address that this weekend. A few games are giving strange glitches, I believe this has more to do with my hacktastic wiring, and games with some very demanding timing, or maybe a lot of DMA transfers from CHR to PRG. I'll try and clean that up a bit when I get a chance and see if it helps.
I'd also really like to crack the nut of the instruction rom and security chip, being able to customize that would be excellent. The chip itself is documented somewhat, and from the schematics it appears to screw around with a couple of the data lines from the eprom. I think it performs a simple on-the-fly decryption of the instruction rom, and maybe sniffing the bus could net me an unencrypted rom, which I could try to burn back (sans chip). This is maybe biting off a little more than I have time to chew, though. Maybe not, we'll see.
I'll try to post something by way of pics / schematic this weekend for anybody who wants one.
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Bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct -- the best kind of correct.
4 comments:
You can always look at the mame source code for more information on the protection mechanism. I have some other information that may be useful for you, but I don't see an email address for you.
yeah I'm taking a good close look at MAME tonight, but when I checked before, it basically skipped all the security stuff, and just jumped straight to running cart 0. It looked like only the NES part was being emulated, not the arcade part, but I may be wrong about that.
You can email any info you have to jhartrick at comcast dot net. I'm pretty sure I have an idea what's going on, but more information is always a good thing.
I'd love to see pics and schematics, I have been wanting to do this to my PC10 for awhile. It would be way nicer than desoldering roms from old carts and putting them in PC10 carts. I did that with PacMan, but that was enough.
For the PC10, I though the security chip was a RP5H01, just a rom. This needs to match the name chip somehow, or so I have read. Have you tried the new bios for the PC10 that allows you to rename the 10 slots? I also would like to see some of your work. This could be very promising.
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