Reverse Engineering the CIC

Discuss hardware-related topics, such as development cartridges, CopyNES, PowerPak, EPROMs, or whatever.

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thefox
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Post by thefox »

I will put Tengen.c back up as soon as I get home in couple of weeks.
Download STREEMERZ for NES from fauxgame.com! — Some other stuff I've done: fo.aspekt.fi
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Jeroen
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Post by Jeroen »

Awesome, thank you :)
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thefox
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Post by thefox »

Tengen.c is back online at http://thefox.aspekt.fi/Tengen.c as promised.
richard
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sem

Post by richard »

i dont know if you figured it out but i own a sem if you want me to run somthing.

not kidding i acctual do have one in my basement
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AWal
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Re: sem

Post by AWal »

richard wrote:i dont know if you figured it out but i own a sem if you want me to run somthing.
The CIC has been reversed completely and has been implemented on a PIC chip...I know there's a seperate decapping and vecorizing project at visual6502.org that's looking to do a simulation of the CIC as well...they have nice shots of the 3193A available.

...Speaking of which, Kevtris took down (or had taken down) all of his materials on the lockout from his tripoint mirror. Does anyone have a mirror of these...more importantly, that of the ciclone rar or asm, for those of us who would rather flash our own chips (I don't remember if re-syncing the clock was necessary...It seems kevtris has removed most of the old information as well).

...If there was a takedown request that I was unaware of, then I'm sorry I asked...
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thefox
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Re: sem

Post by thefox »

AWal wrote:...Speaking of which, Kevtris took down (or had taken down) all of his materials on the lockout from his tripoint mirror. Does anyone have a mirror of these...more importantly, that of the ciclone rar or asm, for those of us who would rather flash our own chips (I don't remember if re-syncing the clock was necessary...It seems kevtris has removed most of the old information as well).

...If there was a takedown request that I was unaware of, then I'm sorry I asked...
The final, working CIClone code wasn't ever released here, so even if the files were available they wouldn't be that useful. Also, he doesn't want those files to be distributed anymore. Regardless, all the information needed to duplicate the functionality is still available in this thread. And not too long ago segher also disassembled the original CIC.
petrozawodsky
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Re: Reverse Engineering the CIC

Post by petrozawodsky »

Hello.

Could anybody reupload LOCK2.BIN dump file from kevtris?
It was located on:
http://tripoint.org/kevtris/mappers/incoming/LOCK2.BIN

Also does anybody have a copy of IA.txt from 'Zack S'?
It was located on:
http://www.geocities.com/rndlogic/IA.txt

And I'm interesting of this files, that died after server was turned off in 2012:
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mantey/www/D4 ... erview.jpg
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mantey/www/D4 ... sh_ROM.jpg
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mantey/www/NE ... erview.jpg
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mantey/www/NE ... IC_ROM.jpg

Thanks.
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infiniteneslives
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Re: Reverse Engineering the CIC

Post by infiniteneslives »

Have you looked over all the files on segher's site? https://hackmii.com/2010/01/the-weird-a ... erful-cic/

Pretty much everything you need to replicate the NES and SNES CIC is there. This is all fresh in my mind having recently replicated them both on the STM8. So if you have specific questions ask away.
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
petrozawodsky
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Re: Reverse Engineering the CIC

Post by petrozawodsky »

infiniteneslives wrote:Have you looked over all the files on segher's site?
Yes, already.
Only one remark to that article: in those days segher didn't know, that original cic chips is the Sharp SM590 and SM595 microcomputers.
But I'm interesting on more depply detailed information about cic from nintendo and tengen, such as die, specs, etc.
Ice Man
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Re: Reverse Engineering the CIC

Post by Ice Man »

Bumping this topic because I seem to have bad luck with Krikzz AVR CIC or the Attiny13A's themself. Some work, most do not. Fuse settings are correct.

Either way, wouldn't it be possible to do something like ikari's SuperCIC and put the code on a PIC12F629 or another PIC instead? Has anyone done that yet?
lidnariq
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Re: Reverse Engineering the CIC

Post by lidnariq »

Kevtris had done that, but Bunnyboy bought exclusive rights to the code.

Infiniteneslives has done a (I think fully functional?) rewrite for the STM8 line, but hasn't released anything yet.
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getafixx
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Re: Reverse Engineering the CIC

Post by getafixx »

Ice Man wrote:Bumping this topic because I seem to have bad luck with Krikzz AVR CIC or the Attiny13A's themself. Some work, most do not. Fuse settings are correct.

Either way, wouldn't it be possible to do something like ikari's SuperCIC and put the code on a PIC12F629 or another PIC instead? Has anyone done that yet?
Are you adding a capacitor to the VCC pin on the AVR? I'd found while prototype testing that if you don't add the cap then the AVR seems to "forget" it's setting and goes back to blinking forever again. Adding the cap fixed it.
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infiniteneslives
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Re: Reverse Engineering the CIC

Post by infiniteneslives »

Attiny13 are fine, but they are sensitive to noise. Make sure you've got a 22uF cap on the cart near VCC supply connector pin, and ~100nF decoupling cap near the mcu as well. My bet is that's your issue.

I've found that a SNES CIC implementation is significantly more noise sensitive than an NES one. The power rails also seem to be much noisier on the SNES in comparison, perhaps due to Nintendo's decision to not stuff the big 1000uF input power cap on most consoles. I had issues when I ported my implementation on a STM8 mcu from NES to SNES. There also seemed to be an element related to the fact the mcu core was being clocked externally by the CIC CLOCK edge pin. Long clock lines were problematic, and buffering the clock helped greatly. Based on what I've seen in the SNES, attiny is more noise sensitive than the PIC, but the PIC can still suffer the same issues. Ultimately my solution has been to clock a mcu timer with CIC CLK and use that for time keeping instead of clocking the mcu core externally and instruction cycle counting. That setup makes the mcu fairly immune to CIC CLOCK noise. The statistical benefit of the mcu being in sleep mode most of the time (thus fairly immune to supply noise much of the time) may be playing a factor as well. These things are all difficult to determine with certainty, but that's my evaluation.

I haven't released any of my STM8 implementations publicly as I didn't see much benefit to the community. Everyone seems to be getting along just fine with krikzz and ikari's implementation, that and my work wasn't an derivative of theirs. I may entertain requests though on a case by case basis. Unless you're looking to do some fancy CIC dual purposing like I am, the only real benefit of the STM8 is cost reduction. Although I now realize my paragraph above may contradict that.. But this is the first I've heard of people having issues with krikzz's NES CIC, and I only have one report of issues with ikari's SNES CIC.
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
Ice Man
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Re: Reverse Engineering the CIC

Post by Ice Man »

Oh, I thought the capacitor on the board of the CIC was fine, since I directly replaced the NES CIC on board.
Guess I will add another capacitor, thanks for advice,
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