MASKROM/TSOP Cartridge reader/writer question below

[Foskel]

Hey hey,
got a few questions and i thought you might be willing to help me.

First of all: I'm about to buy some TSOP-DIP Adapter from buyicnow.
The main question is: What is the best adapter pcb to work with? Adapter I, II or III ? Or what are the differences when i solder my tsop onto it?

Next question: Is it possible to Flash a 8mbit rom onto the 032 and be able to play it on my snes cart ? or should i buy some 29f080 if i want to build smaller games with this method?

And next question: my friend gave me an TSOP-DIP Adapter for my eprom burner, and an adp 003 / TSOP48 8/16bit Adapter V2.0
It's not possible to Flash an AM29f032B with this right? Well at least i tried severall times but without success. a 29lv800 was flashable though.
so i bought a whole adapter set from mcumall including the TSOP 40a/b ... that is the right adapter i presume?

and the last question for now:

once the 032 is mounted on my adapter I/II/III what is an easy way to reflash the chip now? i heard about these maskrom adapters that would let me flash the chip directly onboard but i'm not confident enough to build one myself. Any place where i can order one?

that's it for today

thanks alot for listening

[SkinnyV]

Buy Type II or III, type I gave me alot of issue and I was never able to get it to work with them.

It is possible to burn a 8Mbit game to the 29f032 but you'll have to figure out a way to connect the 36 pin chip to a 32 pin ROM board (no tutorial for that online yet)

About programming, once the 29f032 is soldered to the maskrom adapter, there's no way to reprogram the chip without owning a Maskrom to Willem adapter beside desoldering the flash chip. And trust me, it is hard enough to get one chip working that you would never want to desolder one.

Just a piece of advice, it look all so easy when you look at tutorial but it is something that can give a lot of trouble even when everything is soldered perfectly. I am still struggling to get them to work and I had 2 change my willem programmer twice because they are made like crap and break.

My advice, buy a flash cart. It will save you a lot of headache.

[Foskel]

Hey,

thanks for your answer

i do own a flashcart, but i'm a collector myself and i would like to have some of the japanese rpg translated on cartridge.

i already did some games on 801 chips without any problems, i just wanne give it a try

[rkrenicki]

If you are going to program the chips prior to soldering to a carrier, then you want to get either the Type I or Type III.

The Type II has A20 and A21 reversed, which is fine if you are going to program the chip the carrier as it will be correct on the 36 pin output. Either that, or you purposely correct the ROM to compensate or swap the address lines on your programmer.

I personally program all of my flash roms on the carriers, so I use Type II and will start using Type III once I run out.

As for 8mbit games, I would just stick to using 080/801s instead of wasting a more expensive flash rom. I only use 29f032s if the game is larger than 16mbit. I would much rather use a 2Axx/2Jxx board and a pair of swapbined 801s for 12 and 16mbit.

[Foskel]

thanks again. you guys helped me out alot this board is great

[Foskel]

Heya,

i had some free today so i started building a maskrom/tsop modded cartridge reader.

i used a seperate snes cartridge connector i found.

now when i insert an unmodded game, the cartridge gets the following ID: 18FB

the chip profile is set to 29f032b.

i guess 18FB is not right? i'm using a GQ-4X burner without a extended line adresser.
what id should i get so i can read an original mask rom cartridge?

any idea where my problem lies? can anyone give me the right pins for a19-a21 without an extended address adapter? thanks!

update:
i tried my adapter with a donor board and mounted tsop, i get no id or 1818 if i turn the cart around. as mentioned i use the adapter III board from buyicnow. do i have to bridge al 3 R jumpers?


suggestions anyone? :p

[SkinnyV]

It's hard enough to have 29f032 read/flash properly with the willem adapter, trying out thing with the chip being red from the cart directly is just looking for trouble if you ask me. I doubt the chip will be read properly as there's component between the chip address line and the edge connector.

Also, the GQ-4x is not good at flashing 29f032, I borrowed one from a friend and have yet to get a successful burn. Check their forum and you'll see this is a common issue. Tried to contact MCUmall and they were not really helpful about it and they just redirected me to the forum threads.

[Foskel]

hey, but it should be possible to connect a cartridge to the willem and then read the mask rom right?

i build that kind of adapter and i get a FFFF or 1818 ID , double checked all solder spots.. cant figure it out

[Foskel]

update:

i soldered my tsop board directly onto a 40pin socket for my willem burner.

i used http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6614/hiromz.jpg this diagram for the socket and the snes hirom maskrom-pinout for the tsop.

i still dont get an id from the chip, only FFFF


what am i doing wrong? O_o

[rkrenicki]

do you have all three jumpers on the carrier bridged?

[Foskel]

hi, yes i bridged all jumpers.

i even tried switching a20 and 21 around, but same result.

http://imageshack.us/f/805/20120401165304.jpg/

that's what it looks like. the red wires are a19-21 and vcc(the other vcc is a black wire)


i tried soldering directly to the cartridge, directly to the tsop/dip adapter and to a snes-cartridge slot.... same result O_o

only thing i didn't try was soldering directly to the tsop himself

[Foskel]

Hello again,

i soldered again and tried the next 147 variations i had in mind.


http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/7483/2 ... 220234.jpg

that's what my 6~ adapter looks like. Unfortunatly i still have the same problems. Red is VCC and A19/20/21. This is a Hirom Adapter soldered like the Diagram i showed above.

i cant read a original game and i cant read or write an tsop cartridge.

i'm using a gq-4x and the chip is set to am29f032b.
i wont get the right ID neither with A19/20/21 stolen from pin 4/37/38 of the chip nor from the extended adress lines right from the gq mainboard (i opened the case)


i triplechecked all solderspots twice! (yes. i did.)

i get the feeling that either:
- the diagram is not right
- gq-4x sucks ass
- the 10 original games and 7 tsop games i tried to read/write are all dead
- I'm a hopeless jungleape with 2 left hands

oh and PS: with my tsop adapter the gq-4x has no problem with writing the flash chips. only this cartridge adapter is giving me pain O_o

[alphamule]

For reference, as I was asking in IRC about this.

http://emu-docs.org/Super%20NES/Cartridges/sfcdev2.php The older project's details. http://cgfm2.emuviews.com/snes/snes/sfcdev2.php <-- Official site that author wanted me to link to, but link wasn't working for me.

http://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spie ... ROMref.txt Dead link - had to use archive.org or search engine cache. This has some helpful information about ROMs. Doing an exact search for "PROM/ROM index and cross reference" finds it online on Scribd.


From discussion on IRC, it seems that the type III is best, as it has the pins swapped on the address lines, correcting an issue when programming the Flash ROM before soldering. I'm trying to figure out what steps are required to program once soldered as that would also eliminate this issue. The original Mask ROM of course didn't have programming pins.