November 2011 – Page 2 – JAMMArcade.net

Pocket Gal bootleg repair log

Nov 212011

Another decent fella from a forum was giving this board away for the price of postage.

Its been a bit quiet lately on the repair front so thought id give myself something to do. Ended up being a really quick and easy fix.
The game booted up and all the sound appeared to be there, it would even coin up but the game could not be started.

Checked pin 17 at the edge connector (Start button) and this was HIGH and it toggled LOW when the start button was pressed. Traced this through to a nearby 74LS245.
The direction pin (1) was held low connected to ground and because the ENABLE pin was pulsing it was pretty difficult to see if the inputs on the B side of the Bus were making any difference to the A side outputs. I piggybacked a new 245 onto it and the game could now be played. I desoldered it and replaced the chip, all is now working. Shame the game is utter crap!

I also took the opportunity to dump the unprotected PAL16L8. I’ve converted it to GAL and tested it. There is a PAL16R6 on there too which ill get around to doing sometime but the board is of typical bootleg quality and a bit of a pain.

Fluke 9010 repair log

Nov 212011

A kind bloke over on the UK-VAC forums was selling off a couple of Fluke 9010’s last week for a very decent price. He stated one had no beep and the other doesn’t communicate with pods.
Received these heavy buggers today and tested them. Both are cosmetically in very great condition.

Turns out the one with no beep is also the one that doesn’t communicate with the pods and both problems are caused by the same thing, the 6520 PIA is shot. I confirmed this swapping the chip over.
Ordered some replacements and fixed the fault.

It also worth mentioning that both of these units have the clock module fitted, although I do not have the necessary components to make use of this feature its pretty interesting to me as my other one doesn’t have it.

Commando Bootleg PAL dump and schematic

PAL Updates Comments Off

Nov 152011

A guy has called Zabanitu has contacted me with a PAL dump from with bootleg Commando board, he has also made a nice little schematic of how it connects up.
Many thanks to him for this.

C64 breadbin JiffyDOS dual boot

General, Guides 2 Responses »

Nov 122011

Today I finished my adapter to make a breadbin 64 accept a 27C128 EPROM.
The standard kernel ROM is a 2364 pinout and is 64Kb. To fit both the original kernel and the JiffyDOS kernel on obviously we need a ROM twice the size.
The problem is the 2364 is not compatible with any EPROM pinout unlike the C64c so this adapter is necessary.

I used 2 turned pin sockets, a 24 pin and a 28 pin one.

On the 28 pin socket cut pins 20, 23 & 26 short,not completely off but short enough not to make contact with the pins on the 24 pin socket when pushed together.
Connect pin 1 to pins 27 and 28
Connect pin 14 to pin 20

Get the 24 pin socket

Connect pin 28(VCC) of the 28 pin socket to pin 24 of the 24 pin socket
Connect pin 2 of the 28 pin socket to pin 21 of the 24 pin socket
Connect with 23 of the 28 pin socket to pin 18 of the 24 pin socket
Attach flying leads from pins 14, 26 and 28 of the 28 pin socket, these will go to your switch.
You can also fit a 4.7k resistor between pins 26 and 28 which means you don’t need that extra flying lead from pin 28 to the switch, just makes it that little bit easier.
Mash the two sockets together lining pin 14 of the 28 pin socket to pin 12 of the 14 pin socket.
Fit your 27C128 eprom and you should be good to go.

My first attempt works well but isn’t the neatest. If I make another and I almost definitely will, it will be neater.

C64 Easyflash cartridge

General Comments Off

Nov 102011

Got a little free time today to mess with my Easyflash cartridge for the Commodore 64.
The main reason for getting this was to play Prince of Persia but its a fantastic device that ill be using for playing many games.

Mine came with the new Prince of Persia game already flashed onto it but wanted to have a play around myself.
The reprogramming is all done via the C64 itself using the Easyprog program so no external programmer is required although an SD device is highly recommended.

If your using an SD2IEC device then the Fastloader option needs to be disabled in the OPTIONS menu or it will hang at this screen (thanks for the heads up Steve).

My mate Stiggy has already written a nice little writeup on this device and he stated that flashing a file took him just under 40 minutes. Not totally sure how big the file was but I tried to copy Last Ninja 1 & 2 over which is 882KB and using JiffyDOS took just under 10 minutes.

After this the game loads pretty much like you would expect from a normal cartridge. Im very impressed with this thing. Now to find more goodies to try out.

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