Jun 062014
 

This is hopefully one of five Juno First repair logs.
Thanks (I think) to muddymusic I have a stack of these needing repaired. There are two originals and three bootlegs altogether and decided to make a start on the originals first.

This one booted to an unsynced red picture.

Looking at the schematics I could see that the sync is generated by custom chip 082 at location EF13 on the bottom PCB.
Swapping this chip with the one from the other board set brought the sync back. That’s bad news for original board set #2.

So now I just had a red screen with nothing going on.
It was at this point that I learned this hardware uses a custom 6809 CPU known as Konami-1. I was originally going to try and borrow a 6809 pod for the Fluke but that put a swift end it that idea.
Now’s the perfect time to use my beloved Arduino again.
By hooking it up to the address, data, RW, BA and BS lines I wrote a program that would read the program ROM’s back and display the data as well as a bitsum for the ROM.
It worked really well and found my second issue.

This is the original HEX file

and here is what I was actually reading on the board

You can see that bits 0 and 1 are always on.

So the 74LS245 at location D7 on the lower PCB had a two stuck pins on D0 and D1.

Replacing this enabled me to read all the program ROM’s correctly.
I had at this point wanted to be able to test RAM too but due to the timings required and not knowing how those custom chips worked I left it alone.

So now I have a booting game but all the sprites and title screen graphics are missing.

First thing I did was see if I could replicate the fault in MAME.
By creating empty files to replace ROM’s 7C, 7D and 7E on the top PCB I got the exact fault.

Checking those EPROM’s with the probe revealed that none of the chips were ever being enabled.
Following the schematics back to where the ROM selection lines are generated I came to a 74LS273 at location 6D on the upper PCB. Pin 11 is the clock pin for this chip and I would expect it to be pulsing but it was stuck HIGH. Following the /SSEL line back to the lower PCB led me to a 74LS138 at location I6.

This had pulsing inputs but either stuck HIGH outputs or floating pins. Replacing this chip gave me the graphics back.

That’s one down.

CPS1 Ken Sei Mogura

 General  Comments Off on CPS1 Ken Sei Mogura
Jun 012014
 

Here is something a lot of people wouldn’t even know existed and those of us that did had given up hope of one being found. As luck would have it though, DrGlitch on the Jamma+ forum located not one but two of these machines here in the UK.
Even better he loaned me the boards to dump and they are currently in the capable hands of Haze who is working on getting this thing running.
Kensei0

Here you can see the usual CPS1 PCB stack.
Kensei1

Whats not normal is that this stack is only used as a video board and the rest is controlled by this
Kensei2
kensai3

We also got the manuals for this thing too.

Its an excellent find and cannot thank DrGlitch enough for loaning me the boards so we can get them dumped.

CPS1 Ken Sei Mogura PAL dump added

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on CPS1 Ken Sei Mogura PAL dump added
Jun 012014
 

Added the PAL dump from this rare beast. It is marked KNM10B.
Thanks go to DrGlitch from the J+ forum for sending me this board.

 Posted by at 12:37 pm

Pin Toggle “Shield”

 Arduino  Comments Off on Pin Toggle “Shield”
May 312014
 

The pin toggle PCB I made finally came and im quite pleased with it. I had to make a couple of changes in software to accommodate an error I made but that’s the beauty of having full control via software.

It works well but I wish I had added a reset switch on top and also wish I had given access to a couple of the other IO pins across the top because right now I have to add a link you switch between 20/24 pin devices.
Maybe ill make a revision 2 sometime but I have no real need to do so.

 Posted by at 9:37 pm

Taito F3 cartridge & Juno First bootleg PALs added

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on Taito F3 cartridge & Juno First bootleg PALs added
May 252014
 

I loaned a couple of cartridges from muddymusic recently.
The F3 carts have a few different PAL chips in them and I have dumped and tested all present in the carts I have. All the chips were unlocked.
I already had a couple of F3 PAL dumps from Twin Cobra 2 thanks to Kevin Eshbach. I have also changed his PAL dumps from game specific to general “Taito F3 cartridge”.

MM also sent me a load of Juno First boards to look at. The original boards use a custom 6809 CPU that uses encrypted opcodes. The bootleg boards use a regular 6809 CPU but have 2 PAL chips to implement the encryption.
There is also a PAL10L8 chip present on the original board (marking are scratched off but is present on schematics), I havent tested yet but I think this will be compatible with the one from the bootleg.
None of the Juno First PALs are tested as the board sets all have issues.

Thanks to muddymusic for lending me his stuff.

 Posted by at 2:56 pm