Apr 142015
 

Had this board for a while now but hadn’t looked at it.
IMAG1239

On booting the board up I got completely messed up graphics.
IMAG1238

On my pre power up visual inspection I somehow missed the damage and solder blob on the 052109 tilemap generator.
IMAG1240

I removed the solder using solder braid and straightened the legs up best I could with some fine tweezers. It took a while as I didn’t want to snap the legs off but I ended up with something I was happy with.
IMAG1255

Fixing that gave me the graphics back but there were jailbars present.
IMAG1242

Jailbars are usually a sign of a failed ROM and as the two MASKROM’s have previously been replaced for a pair of 27C400 EPROM’s I thought it was best I check these out first.
Both turned out to be fine so the next step was to check the address and data line to see if they were active.
Again I could find no problems here.

I then found the test menu which runs a self test on these ROM’s. The ROM at location 16I gave a different checksum each time I ran the test. A changing checksum can be a sign of a floating data pin. I already knew the data pins were active and that the ROM’s were good so I set to work with the multimeter checking continuity between the EPROM and the 051962 tilemap generator which these data line go to.
Eventually I found data pin 8 did not make it to the 051962.
IMAG1243

I was able to patch this underneath the EPROM so it would be hidden (and protected).
IMAG1244

On powering up all the jailbars were gone and the board is fixed.
IMAG1253

Tetris (317-0092) tested

 Decrypted Updates  Comments Off on Tetris (317-0092) tested
Apr 142015
 

rtw has successfully tested the decrypted set for Tetris (317-0092).

Thanks to rtw for giving feedback.

 Posted by at 6:13 pm

Jaleco Mega32 motherboard PLD dumps added

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on Jaleco Mega32 motherboard PLD dumps added
Apr 102015
 

Coolmod dumped and submitted PLD dumps from his Jaleco Mega32 motherboard.
These devices were unlocked PEEL devices and are not converted for use in a GAL device or similar.

Thanks to Coolmod for these.

 Posted by at 7:37 pm

Programming a Timekeeper RAM with Arduino MEGA

 Arduino, Guides  Comments Off on Programming a Timekeeper RAM with Arduino MEGA
Apr 062015
 

There is a lot of people out there that need to program a Timekeeper RAM but don’t have the necessary hardware to do so.
Silent Scope 1 & 2 both use one of these and if it dies will display the infamous 11P error.

Recently I decided it would be good to write an Arduino program to do this job.
I have only tested this on an M48Z58Y chip which is almost identical to the M48T58Y only the later has an extra CE (active HIGH) line.
While this worked well for me on the former, it may have issues that need addressed. I have also NOT tested this in any Silent Scope hardware. While the correct data was programmed I have no idea if Silent Scope requires any of the extended functions the Timekeeper RAM offers.
To put it bluntly, this may or may not work for you. If it doesn’t then I have no real way of testing how to make it work with the hardware.

Its a pretty rough program and it is more of a proof of concept than a finished product. Hopefully it will be a starting point for someone to finish or rewrite it.
IMAG1227

The basic setup requires:
-Arduino MEGA 2560
-SD card breakout board
-Timekeeper RAM
-A valid NVRAM dump (named as “nvram.bin” in the root directory of the SD card)

I Wired up the connections as follows:

ARDUINO -> Timekeeper
38 -> A0
36 -> A1
34 -> A2
32 -> A3
30 -> A4
28 -> A5
26 -> A6
24 -> A7
25 -> A8
27 -> A9
33 -> A10
29 -> A11
22 -> A11

40 -> D0
42 -> D1
44 -> D2
45 -> D3
43 -> D4
41 -> D5
39 -> D6
37 -> D7

23 -> /WE
35 -> /CE1
46 -> CE2
31 -> /OE

The SD card was wired as follows:
53 -> CS
52 -> SCK
51 -> SI
50 -> SO

Don’t forget to wire up you VCC and GND for both of these too.
All these pin assignments can easily be changed in the program if you wish.

Once the ‘sketch’ has been loaded up from the IDE if you open the terminal window (9600 baud) and everything is configured correctly you should see the following text.
ssprog

Send an upper case S and a few seconds later it will hopefully have finished and the chip should be programmed.
The ‘sketch’ can be found in the Arduino download section.

 Posted by at 2:56 pm