How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

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Joe
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by Joe »

Markfrizb wrote:a bunch of Japanese characters..
ファイルが、こわれています。

"The file is broken/has failed."
Markfrizb
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by Markfrizb »

Wierd. It boots with animation and sounds.... Just won't go into a game.
I did use the English translation so I need to try the original next...

Edit: tried original J version. Same result.
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Markfrizb
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by Markfrizb »

OK, I got my MX29F1610MC flash roms in today. I programmed the DK3 that came on the cart to begin with. As a reminder, the original roms are MX29F1601MC. They both got hot real fast! needless to say the game didn't work. So what would make the cart get real hot?? the heat was from the roms. SO if I can read the roms just fine, why wouldn't the cart read them also? REALLY need a datasheet for the MX29F1601....

Oh, and I've mounted these before without issue so I don't believe the problem was mounting.
Sik
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by Sik »

Markfrizb wrote:Wierd. It boots with animation and sounds.... Just won't go into a game.
Maybe it's actually talking about the save data? (assuming it saves progress, I have no idea about that game) What happens if you wipe it?
Markfrizb
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by Markfrizb »

Sik wrote:
Markfrizb wrote:Wierd. It boots with animation and sounds.... Just won't go into a game.
Maybe it's actually talking about the save data? (assuming it saves progress, I have no idea about that game) What happens if you wipe it?
I've tried everything possible. Tried to change, delete, alter, rename..... nothing will get this to go into game mode.

I burned the original Jap version, and it acts the same way.

edit: I using a 1A3M host cart. I even tried it on a 256k cart. no difference
Near
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by Near »

Markfrizb wrote:So what would make the cart get real hot?? the heat was from the roms.
How in the hell would we know that? :P
It's not because Wizardry 1-2-3 is stored on them, I can surely tell you that much.

I've only ever had chips boil when I ended up crossing wires or connecting them wrong.
lidnariq
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by lidnariq »

ICs in general more or less only ever get hot because of bus conflicts, using the wrong voltage supply, or being given invalid voltage inputs causing both FETs on an input stage to be on.
Markfrizb
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by Markfrizb »

lidnariq wrote:ICs in general more or less only ever get hot because of bus conflicts, using the wrong voltage supply, or being given invalid voltage inputs causing both FETs on an input stage to be on.

I was hoping for someone would use their crystal ball. I figured there are significant differences between the flash roms....
I was hoping for suggestions on where to start looking. I know it wasn't because of game program on them (DK3 was programmed by the way, not Wizardry).

If my programmer can read the chips (read them as if they were the MX29F1610MC) then I would think that the data and address lines are the same. And probably the /CE and /OE as well..... whats left beside /WE...
lidnariq
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by lidnariq »

I'd test Vcc first, because it's by far easiest (and fast). After that, Vio seems more likely but more involved.
qwertymodo
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by qwertymodo »

Markfrizb wrote:OK, I got my MX29F1610MC flash roms in today. I programmed the DK3 that came on the cart to begin with. As a reminder, the original roms are MX29F1601MC. They both got hot real fast! needless to say the game didn't work. So what would make the cart get real hot?? the heat was from the roms. SO if I can read the roms just fine, why wouldn't the cart read them also? REALLY need a datasheet for the MX29F1601....

Oh, and I've mounted these before without issue so I don't believe the problem was mounting.
Hard to say, but just throwing random ideas out there, the MX29F1610 comes in a "reverse type" where the leads are bent backwards in order to simplify placement on opposite sides of a board, might want to check that you don't have one of those, or you'd have it soldered in backwards. I can't find a datasheet for the original chips, but here's the datasheet for the 1610. That being said, my money would still be on a soldering issue, like an improperly seated chip or soldering short.
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sanni
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by sanni »

Last edited by sanni on Fri Aug 14, 2015 3:16 am, edited 6 times in total.
nocash
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by nocash »

Cool. Interesting to see the MX-chip pinouts. Some comments...

Marking not-installed resistors would be nice (eg. as "N/A" instead of just leaving the description blank).
Some more wires (and bold address/data bus lines) might also help to see what goes where.
I would have probably numbered the FLASH and SRAM A0,A1,A2... address lines the same way as on SNES side (instead of using the shifted 16bit FLASH chip numbering.

The "MC" signals, MC35 and MC36 are connected to the battery controller... and the other MC's like MC38, MC_72, MC_74, MC_96... are they connected anywhere? I can't see there, although there is a short green wire attached to those pins (which is somehow suggesting that they are connected, if they aren't then I would leave them without green wire, and without external signal name (ie. only use an internal pin)).

Going by a PCB photo, there seems to be a via between R11 and R12, so there's probably something more connected there (just two resistors in series wouldn't make too much sense anyways, especially if one of them isn't installed).

Oh, nice to see SYSCK being passed to EXPAND via R14. It's same as for Satellaview carts (ie. apparently intended for passing SYSCK to the satellaview receiver unit on expansion port). Btw. you forgot the resistor value for R14 (going by PCB photos it's having 100 ohms installed, which would be also same as in satellaview cartridges).
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by nocash »

R1 and R4 are 510K and 510 ohm accordingly (not 500K and 500). If you can decipher the part numbers on the real board: There are hires PCB photos earlier in this thread (the 3-digit numbers are reading as NN and number-of-zeroes, eg. 123 = 12000 ohm = 12K ohm).

There seem to be further vias near R1 and R4 which aren't showing up in the schematic. And more vias on A12 and A23 on the cart edge connector. There seems to be stuff missing in the schematic, unless the vias are dead-ends without connection (btw. a photo of the PCB bottom side would be nice).

On PCB front side, cart edge pin 32,33,34,35, and 49, and 60,61,62 are not connected (probably more on bottom side). Would be neat to indicate that in the schematic. I guess your CAD software autogenerated wires on each pin - but it should (hopefully) allow you delete that wires in cases where the pins aren't connected.
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sanni
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by sanni »

Thanks for your input, really appreciate it.

You're absolutly right about R11 and R12, R11 goes to the MegaChips' Pin 38.
MegaChips 96 is connected to the edge connectors reset pin.
Still can't find MegaChips pin 72 and 73.
Last edited by sanni on Mon Aug 10, 2015 1:27 am, edited 2 times in total.
nocash
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Re: How to program a NINTENDO POWER Cartridge ?

Post by nocash »

Thanks for the update and PCB photos!

MM1134 pins should be as so:

Code: Select all

      .-------------..-------------.
    1 | GND                    VCC | 8
    2 | /RESET (out)      /CS (in) | 7
    3 | CS (out)              Vout | 6
    4 | Vbat (in)        /CS (out) | 5
      '----------------------------'
So MC36 would be /SRAM_CS (forwarded from pin7 to pin5 when VCC is good).

And MC35 would be /RESET (low when VCC is bad), that would serve as power-on reset signal for the MX1500. The other /RESET pins (MX1500 pin 96 and 100), one of them should OUTPUT to SNES (when starting a game selected in the bootmenu), and the other one is probably INPUT from SNES (on power-up, or when pushing RESET button). No idea which is input and which output since they are just shortcur together.

MX1500 pin 30 + 31 are apparently oscillator inputs (could be named OSC1 and OSC2 or so), in this case driven by the 21MHz master clock SNES rather than using a separate oscillator.

MX1500 pin 29 and 38 are still looking weird. If there's no other connection to those pins then I've no idea what they could be good for. My first idea would have been pin38 = /SRAM_WE, but it seems that the SRAM write enable is shared with /FLASH_WE3.

MX1500 pin 72 and 73 could be anything. Are they wired to any vias (underneath of the chip) or are they just not connected? One guess would be that they could be upper address lines for FLASH memory (Nintendo is often doing that: outputting the higher address bits together with separate /CS1 and /CS2 signals), maybe intended for testing/debugging, or allowing to use a single big FLASH chip instead of 2-3 smaller FLASH chips in future hardware revisions... though in that case they would also need an option for merging the /CS1,2,3 and /WE1,2,3 signals to single pins.

MX1500 pin97 might be some mode selection input, that could be pulled high or low by installing either R9 or R10. Maybe for selecting between multiple small FLASH chips and single large FLASH chip. Or for indicating if the 3rd FLASH chip is installed. Or whatever. Some of the GNDed pins might be also whatever mode selections.

Oh, and C5 should connect to pin91 instead of to R9 (they are both VCC, so it would matter only for context & signal run time).

EDIT: CIC_10 could be called /CIC_RESET or /CIC_ERROR. It should get low (pulsed) on CIC region errors. And it might also get low on power-up or when pressing Reset button (in that manner it would be a 4th reset signal on the MX1500 chip, doubt that the MX1500 relies on this extra reset input). When using the cartridge with non-japanese consoles, then one would probably cut the CIC_10 signal, and strap MX1500 pin 93 to VCC (?)
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