SNES clone chips (TCT-97*)

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Individualised
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SNES clone chips (TCT-97*)

Post by Individualised »

The CPU/PPU variants pictures thread over in the hardware sub-forum reminded me of this.

Is there any more information available about the "TCT-97*" series of SNES clone chips? They intrigue me as they don't seem to be researched that much (nor are SNES chip variants as a whole - i'd love to see CPU/PPU/APU variant articles on the SNESDEV wiki like there is on NESDEV). For example, does anyone know who manufactured them? I know UMC made clone chips for other consoles than the NES, and sometimes their clones were had generic marking, but judging by some old posts I read a while ago, they don't seem to be very accurate compared to UMC's NES and Megadrive clones so I guessed they didn't have anything to do with these. Games that use the SA-1 apparently aren't compatible, and if I remember correctly a Tiny Toons game had a severe graphical glitch that was consistent with early emulators. I'd like to find out the exact differences between these and the real deals but I imagine we're a long way from that. I also notice that TCT-975, TCT-976, and TCT-978 are known to exist (I believe 975 is a clone of the APU, 976 is the 1-chip PPU and 978 is the 5A22 clone) but TCT-977 has never seemingly been pictured. I appreciate that reverse engineering stuff like this and decapping and stuff takes a huge amount of effort and some of the stuff I've seen so far on NES console and mapper chips is excellent. Would be awesome to see some of that stuff for the SNES too.
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jeffythedragonslayer
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Re: SNES clone chips (TCT-97*)

Post by jeffythedragonslayer »

Can you link us to the CPU/PPU variants pictures thread?
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Individualised
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Re: SNES clone chips (TCT-97*)

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Fisher
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Re: SNES clone chips (TCT-97*)

Post by Fisher »

We have discussed about a SNES clone and some of its bugs on this thread.
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Individualised
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Re: SNES clone chips (TCT-97*)

Post by Individualised »

I believe I saw that thread a while ago
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Individualised
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Re: SNES clone chips (TCT-97*)

Post by Individualised »

Certain SNES games, such as Final Fight 2, were hacked into arcade-friendly versions and bootlegged as arcade machines (this also happened to Megadrive games such as Street Fighter 2, Aladdin and Sonic 3). As far as I know, these machines predate the common SNES clone chips such as the TCT-97* line. Does anyone know if these cabinets used salvaged genuine SNES parts, or if they use clone hardware? I wasn't able to get a conclusive answer from watching footage, but apparently the Final Fight bootleg has audio issues. Would be interesting it was some sort of bodged together hybrid thing like the VS. Super Mario Bros bootleg that's technically considered the first Famiclone.
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