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Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 4:37 pm
by Drakon
Esper dream 2 has the vrc6 so as hard as the powerpak may try I can still hear the difference from the real vrc6. Therefore I'm converting a real japanese esper dream 2 cart into english with the help of the fanslation floating around the internet:
Maskroms are desoldered and I stuck in precision sockets temporarily just to be 100% sure I have any wiring right before I hard solder in eproms. I'm still waiting on eproms I ordered to show up so for now this cart remains japanese. Luckily these maskroms seem to be eprom wiring, I dumped both maskroms with my eprom burner with no rewiring and they matched the crcs of the rom floating around the internet.
Also after applying the fanslation patch the chr and prg roms are still the same size as the unpatched version which is good.
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 7:39 pm
by l_oliveira
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=7974
All VRC6 games on the same cart. Cycles the game by pushing reset. Since I had 4 "slots", I chose to put JPN Akumajou Densetsu and the translation. Each "slot" has 8KB of save RAM (the SRAM chip I put in the cart is 32KB)
The Akumajou Densetsu ROMs were modified to run on the Madara/EsperDream board without the address lines swap, simplifying the hardware.
The circuit is simple: A capacitor connected to the "clock" pin from the cartridge slot charges when the reset button is held (as the clock stops and the line is held high) pulsing a counter, which in turn changes which bank of the 2 1MB EPROMs is visible to the Famicom. The SRAM is also divided into 4 banks, allowing each game to have its own saves.
The counter is also setup in a way that the first game loaded on power on is always Madara.
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:07 pm
by Drakon
Haha that's really cool. I don't mind making individual carts for each game. I'm also looking into megami tensei 2, it seems that it mixes audio using a 4.7k ohm resistor.
I can't find a madara english translation, or megami tensei 2 for that matter.
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:44 pm
by l_oliveira
http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1047/ <- that one I put on my cart.
I also played around with the Namcot C163 chip:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8570
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 5:19 am
by keropi
@l_oliveira:
have you written the details of the multicart somewhere? like rom info, patches, schematic etc? it's very interesting
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 7:10 am
by l_oliveira
keropi wrote:@l_oliveira:
have you written the details of the multicart somewhere? like rom info, patches, schematic etc? it's very interesting
Nope, but certainly it can be done !
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 8:14 am
by keropi
l_oliveira wrote:keropi wrote:@l_oliveira:
have you written the details of the multicart somewhere? like rom info, patches, schematic etc? it's very interesting
Nope, but certainly it can be done !
awesome, will give it a shot when you make the details available, thanks in advance!
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2013 9:40 am
by l_oliveira
keropi wrote:@l_oliveira:
have you written the details of the multicart somewhere? like rom info, patches, schematic etc? it's very interesting
Sadly I am kind of out of time to track down the circuit (I have the HORRIBLY BAD habit of not documenting stuff I do as I have no problem on making it again from scratch) since there's no schematic for it but this is quick enough:
Code: Select all
Comparing files Akumajou Densetsu (J).nes and AKUMAJOU DENSETSU MAPPER26_(J).NES
00000005: 10 20
00000006: 80 A1
0000439E: 01 02
00005FAC: 02 01
00006381: 01 02
00006399: 01 02
0000639E: 02 01
000063AF: 01 02
000063B4: 02 01
00010208: 01 02
00010212: 02 01
0001021B: 01 02
00010225: 02 01
0001022E: 01 02
00010238: 02 01
00014208: 01 02
00014212: 02 01
0001421B: 01 02
00014225: 02 01
0001422E: 01 02
00014238: 02 01
00030208: 01 02
00030212: 02 01
0003021B: 01 02
00030225: 02 01
0003022E: 01 02
00030238: 02 01
0003E079: 01 02
0003E12B: 01 02
0003E12E: 02 01
0003E302: 01 02
0003E307: 02 01
0003E313: 02 01
0003E323: 01 02
0003E32E: 01 02
0003E333: 02 01
0003E344: 02 01
0003E354: 01 02
0003E364: 01 02
0003E369: 02 01
This is the list of changed bytes for making Akuden run on EsperDream2/Madara board.
I'll look into making a schematic of the board circuitry later on ...
Edit: (Pay attention to the fact that the files have their HEADERS as the comparing was done with the NES files. Keep that in mind with the offsets !)
Edit2: The changed bits make obvious that the only thing different through the boards are the address lines swap.
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2013 12:40 pm
by Drakon
You remind me a lot of tiido in that sense. Tiido rarely makes schematics of the awesome stuff he builds.
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2013 12:51 pm
by l_oliveira
Drakon wrote:You remind me a lot of tiido in that sense. Tiido rarely makes schematics of the awesome stuff he builds.
I don't like making schematics for two very basic reasons:
I'm old and lazy.
I usually build something better when I have to do it again from scratch (I know it conflicts with the statement of being lazy but if I don't need to build something again, energy and brain cells were saved.)
In a sense it's similar to the hot glue sculptures modders like to build ... lol
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2013 5:46 pm
by Drakon
l_oliveira wrote:Drakon wrote:You remind me a lot of tiido in that sense. Tiido rarely makes schematics of the awesome stuff he builds.
I don't like making schematics for two very basic reasons:
I'm old and lazy.
I usually build something better when I have to do it again from scratch (I know it conflicts with the statement of being lazy but if I don't need to build something again, energy and brain cells were saved.)
In a sense it's similar to the hot glue sculptures modders like to build ... lol
Oh I love making hot glue sculptures.
Re: Making an english esper dream 2 famicom cart for fun
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2013 5:55 pm
by keropi
@l_oliveira
thanks for the patch info, will make an .ips out of it an post it
