Porchy

Air Buster and SCI PALs

PAL Updates Comments Off

Sep 102011

A very helpful guy called Andreas has been sending me some of this PAL dumps.
So far he has sent the missing Air Buster PAL, PR-500A and a full set of Special Criminal Investigation (SCI) dumps.

All these are still in PAL format and will need to be converted to GAL using PALTOGAL or something similar. I would do this myself but cannot test the outputs so I wont bother.
Another note, the SCI dumps were taken from a non working board but the PALs were unprotected and have no reason to believe they wont work. Please let me know if you do try these.

Massive thanks to Andreas for sending me his stuff

Street Smart PALs

PAL Updates Comments Off

Sep 102011

Received a Street Smart board today.
The PAL I originally had for download (location 1N, missing in MAME too) was useless. Luckily 2 of the 3 PALs on this board were unprotected and have now been added.
They are PALs at location 1N and 20M.
The PAL at 1N is a PAL20L10 and needs to be programmed to a GAL22V10.

I also have the original PAL dumps should anyone want them.

New Astro City cab

General Comments Off

Sep 082011

Received a New Astro City cab yesterday. Its in pretty decent condition, the monitor looks really nice and the price was right.

After checking and adjusting the voltages at the edge connector I fired up Puzzle Bobble 2 on the Taito F3 platform and had a few games.
There are a few problems to start with. Both the start buttons didn’t work. This ended up being some dodgy micro switches but was quickly sorted with a dose of WD40.

After a few games I decided to check out the inner workings of this thing. What a shock I had.
Looks like the good people of Hong Kong arent too fussy about safe wiring practices.

After making the loom safe for use I decided to check out the rest of the wiring.
First of all, this cab was originally designed for 110v supply but a step down transformer is fitted to convert 220v to 110v. I checked the voltage coming out the noise filter, 143v! Turns out the step down transformer was for a 200v input to get 100v output.

I removed this and fitted a proper 240v one. The output is now 108v, much better.
I also replaced the power supply wiring as this was 22AWG for something more substantial.

I decided to check the incoming wiring on the back panel, more dodgyness.

These are actually the supply wires.
I also found a set of redundant RGB-S wires in the loom, these have been removed too.

Two new CPS2 PALs

PAL Updates Comments Off

Sep 042011

Found a BGSB2D PAL in my SFZ2. Also spied another PAL on the daughter board labelled BGSG2B.
Both can now be downloaded

PLS153 to GAL22V10 adapter

Guides Comments Off

Sep 042011

I decided to see if I could replace a PLS153 for a GAL22V10. Due to the high number of outputs the PLS153 has, it cannot be swapped out for a GAL16V8 and GAL18V10’s are a bit pricey. A GAL22V10 on the other hand has enough outputs but it has 4 more pins than a PLS153.
I made a simple (and rough) adapter up on veroboard, reversed the PLS back into equations using a tool made by Charles MacDonald, rejigged the output pins and recompiled for a 22V10.

The outcome was a fully working adapter to swap out an expensive PLS153 for a cheap 22V10 and can be made in around 15 minutes.

If anyone is interested in making one of these up that works for my GAL files here is the pinout
NOTE: If you do make one up, remember that you will be turning the adapter around to insert it therefore pin 1 on the PLS side will go to the left. I didn’t think it through on my first attempt and got them the wrong way round.

GAL Pin             PLS Pin
1                     1
2                     2
3                     3
4                     4
5                     5
6                     6
7                       7
8                     8
9                    N/C
10                  N/C
11                N/C
12              10
13                    N/C
14               9
15                11
16                12
17                13
18                14
19                15
20                16
21                17
22                18
23                19
24                20

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