Dec 242013
 

Ive been dabbling with Rainbow Islands for quite a while now and there are a couple of things that just didn’t feel right to me. They both involve the self check routines invoked at startup.
The first is the C-Chip check. In the original ROMs if the C-Chip fails its test you will be met with nothing but a blank screen as the palette has not yet been initialised. The second issue is with the ROM checks. The two MASKROMs are checked properly, in that they do a bitsum and compare to a value. The four EPROMs however do no such thing, the code simply checks for a WORD value of #$1987. This is poor IMO.

Today, as a Christmas present to myself (and maybe others) I have addressed both of these issues.
There is a catch however. The patch I did for the C-Chip is no problem but to do the patch for the ROM check I had to use free space in the ROM area, this free space is found at the end of the address space for the ROMs meaning that it would be contained in the 23C1000 MASKROMs. So if you want to use these you need to make an adapter of some sort.

Because of this I have included both sets of patches, one for just the C-Chip fix and the second for the whole lot.
I have not yet tested these on the real hardware but I think they should work.

C-Chip only
C-Chip & ROM check (requires pinout mod)

Merry Christmas!

 Posted by at 8:15 pm
Dec 232013
 

So recently I have acquired the following.
An Amstrad CPC 464. After being impressed with the 6128 I thought I would try out the 464. It was only a tenner so why not, it works too.

Next up is Rainbow Islands/Bubble Bobble on the PC. Ive not seen the big box version before and its nice to have in my collection of RI games. I also think this version is different.

Last up is a rather nice little thing. Its a RAM replacement module for the ZX Spectrum so when those hard to find RAM chips go bad this modern day solution can fill the gap.

 Posted by at 4:15 pm

Combat School PAL dump

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on Combat School PAL dump
Dec 182013
 

caius has dumped the PAL10L8 chip from Combat School.
It is in GAL16V8 format and is tested

Thanks to caius

 Posted by at 6:57 pm

Dragon World (V0300) PAL dumps

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on Dragon World (V0300) PAL dumps
Dec 152013
 

No stopping caius recently!
He has dumped the two PAL16L8 chips from the PCB. These are tested.

Thanks caius

 Posted by at 6:15 pm

Konami GV PAL dumps

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on Konami GV PAL dumps
Dec 152013
 

More from caius.
This time there are two PAL dumps from the Konami GV motherboard. At this time we are not sure if they are unique to each game so for now I have listed them as Konami GV with a list of games for the platform.

Thanks to caius once again

 Posted by at 5:13 pm