Dec 142014
 

Got a Jaguar console for cheap as I originally wanted the cartridge slot but like so many of my idea’s like that I ended up repairing it and not wanting to harvest parts from it.

This was sold as not powering up. Its important to know from the start that the Jaguar will not power on without a cartridge inserted but in this case it made no difference.
Opening it up and removing the metal shield allowed me to see the problem straight away and it is apparently a relatively common fault.
IMAG1087
IMAG1091

The voltage regulator IC has blown.
I ordered a new one and fitted it and now it at least powers up.

I haven’t really been able to test it yet as I don’t have a Jaguar AV cable. Also this version of Jaguar didn’t have an RF modulator fitted as it was the French ‘Peritel’ version.
Ill tap the signals some day and properly test this thing out so if it doesn’t work then it looks like ill have my cartridge slot after all.

BINman update

 General  Comments Off on BINman update
Dec 072014
 

As I get more experienced and learn new things in programming I like to go back and update my programs to test things out.
After many unreleased version updates and the end of 2014 approaching I’ve finally got to a point where I think an update is due.

bm3.3.2
Here is version 3.3.2 if BINman.
For those that aren’t familiar with it, I originally wrote this program in 2012 to allow me to quickly byteswap and interleave ROM files. Since then I’ve been adding to it as I needed the extra functionality.
There isn’t a great deal new here but the code has been overhauled quite a lot and is hopefully bug free.
There is also a basic hex viewer now too. It is basic but ive wanted to include one for a while now and here it is.

I hope other find this as useful as I do.
DOWNLOAD HERE
This requires the latest .NET to run (v4.5)

 Posted by at 6:59 pm

Rainbow Islands repair log #4

 PCB Repair Logs, Repair Logs  Comments Off on Rainbow Islands repair log #4
Nov 272014
 

Another TAITO PCB on the bench.This time we have a Rainbow Islands one:

Rainbow_Islands_PCB

The first thing I noticed was (dust apart..) the lack of the TC0070RGB module.For the uninitiated this custom in SIL package is a DAC so it converts digital RGB output of the PCB into analog signals.I borrowed this custom from my Bonze Adventure PCB and installed the needed sockets as always.Once powered on the board, I was greeted by a solid black screen so I started investigating.Probing the main 68000 CPU I found there was no clock at all.Main clock is generated by a 16MHz oscillator @X1 and then divided by a near 74LS161 counter.I visually inspected this part of circuit and found this:

16MHz_oscillator

Replaced the oscillator gave me a fully working board but then it was time to find a proper replacement for the borrowed TC0070RGB.I knew this custom was reverse-engineered by Macro (thanks to him) some time ago:

https://www.arcades.plus.com/Taito-RGB.html

https://www.arcades.plus.com/Taito-RGB-Instructions.html

So I order a couple of bare PCBs and assembled one:

TC0070RGB

I can say it works like the original part, no differences at all, I higly recommnend this replacement.

 Posted by at 10:12 pm

Arduino game cartridge dumping

 Arduino  Comments Off on Arduino game cartridge dumping
Nov 232014
 

Continuing on from the Gameking post I made yesterday. I have been working with Team Europe recently to help dump some cartridges for inclusion into MESS from the Leapster range of devices.
I adapted my Gameking dumper program a little to be more suited to the Leapster but in doing so I believe it made it more generic and therefore easier to be adapted to other devices too.

First off this program relies heavily on two additional IC’s being used in the circuit. These are 74HC4040‘s.
These chips are binary counters and they are great in the fact that they only require 2 inputs each from the Arduino and they cover 12 address bits out each too. So a simple bit of maths tells us that by using 4 output pins from the Arduino we cover 24 address pins. For those of you that thought my Gameking dumper wasn’t possible due to the low number of pins used on the Arduino then this is the reason why.
They are also good to use as they are both 5v and 3.3v tolerant and as a lot of these cartridges only use 3.3v its ideal.

If you are even just slightly familiar with how to hook up a ROM for reading then you will have no issues in wiring this circuit up.
Here is the circuit drawing made by Team Europe
dumperdrawing

And here is the circuit
dumperwired

Of course all of this is useless without the Arduino program itself which you can DOWNLOAD HERE
If you use this program for anything useful then please let me know and also please give credit where credit is due.

Thanks to Team Europe too for their testing, feedback and providing the pictures used in this post.
You can visit Team Europe’s blog here https://team-europe.blogspot.co.uk/