Questforge mapper info

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infiniteneslives
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Re: Questforge mapper info

Post by infiniteneslives »

So it appears I should have kept my mouth shut until I got my copy of Quest Forge at least.. A month after my purchase I messaged piko asking when I can expect my copy. Didn't get a reply, just a refund, and no reply to my follow up message inquiring about the refund. So I guess I'm officially black listed from playing piko released games unless I buy second hand or pirate... Looks like there's a limited edition up on ebay now I'll have to keep my eye on. Appears piko sells QF through ebay as well, but I assume my purchase would get immediately refunded there as well. I just want to play the game!
BacteriaMage wrote:Thanks! I wasn't clear on your answer but my question was ambiguously stated. I know the ROM would be safe once extracted. What I meant to ask was: Is it safe for my Kazzo (and me as the operator) to connect the cartridge to the Kazzo to extract the ROM? Is the Kazzo tolerant to the board's design or could it also be damaged? Moot point now though since I've already done it.
Oh right, the current kazzo design has 5v i/o so technically it will have some of the same concerns as 5v consoles. However considering it only takes a min or less to dump I wouldn't be too worried about it. That's not long enough for any overheating concerns like there is for playing the game for hours on end in a console.
Fisher wrote:I'm really curious about the quality of retro titles that are being (re)released now.
My copy of Mystery World Dizzy arrived this week. The quality of printed materials and everything is top notch. But I was rather disappointed to find the same Chinese board inside the cartridge though. Guess it all makes sense though as piko branding was on the back label so they produced the carts per what appears standard procedure now. Safe to say fusion retro books & Oliver twins don't realize the hardware decisions/risks much like ludosity I'm sure.
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
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Fisher
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Re: Questforge mapper info

Post by Fisher »

I was curious about Watermelon Games' PCBs.
So I searched a little and found some pictures:
Back
Back
Front - Epoxy
Front - Epoxy
Front free
Front free
Is it dangerous?
I think the CPLD is 5v tolerant, but what about the straight connections to the ROM?
lidnariq
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Re: Questforge mapper info

Post by lidnariq »

It looks like all the signals go through the MAX 2, so the ROM should be safe.
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Fisher
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Re: Questforge mapper info

Post by Fisher »

Thanks!
It's nice to known these games are (or at least should be) safe! :-)
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infiniteneslives
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Re: Questforge mapper info

Post by infiniteneslives »

Fisher wrote:I was curious about Watermelon Games' PCBs.
dbelectronics found his glob top WMgames cart to be excessively hot while playing and found the 5v signals were getting clipped due to 3v clamping diodes. It was one of the motivating factors for him writing his article, but nice to see some of the carts appear to handle translation properly.
infiniteneslives wrote:So I guess I'm officially black listed from playing piko released games unless I buy second hand or pirate... Looks like there's a limited edition up on ebay now I'll have to keep my eye on.
I missed out on the ebay auction, but I heard back from the developer and they were able to help me so I'm a happy camper now. ;)
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
GreyRogue
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Re: Questforge mapper info

Post by GreyRogue »

So mapper 268 on the wiki mentions the MindKids board. Mapper 268 appears to be specifically for Coolboy. Is the MindKids board a submapper, or will it be assigned its own mapper?
I've dumped my NES Wisdom Tree Collection cart, and I hacked up a version of FCEUX that works with it, so now I want to know what mapper to use add to the header permanently. It requires a Coolboy type mapper, but the registers are at 0x5000-0x5FFF (4 registers), not 0x6000-0x6FFF. It has work RAM that it uses at 0x6000 for game patches.

The Noah's Ark USA release is also a MindKids board, but it runs with the same mapper as the original MMC3. The MindKids mapper is technically more accurate, but doesn't really matter for that one from a functional point of view.
NewRisingSun
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Re: Questforge mapper info

Post by NewRisingSun »

I originally assigned mapper 268 for the Coolboy mapper, meaning the additional registers are at $6000, then just emulated Mindkids under the same mapper number, just having the mapper emulation respond to both $5000 and $6000. I have since come across carts for which this does not work, hence, I intend to assign mapper 268 submapper 1 to Mindkids.

One of these is a Chinese RPG (楚留香新传, Chǔliúxiāng xīn Zhuàn) running the Mindkids board in GNROM mode while using WRAM --- since the "lock" bit does not work in GNROM mode, WRAM writes to $6000 would inadvertently change the mapper configuration when responding at both $5000 and $6000.

There are Chinese RPGs from Hengedianzi that use the original Coolboy board as an oversize TNROM board (i.e. using the full eight bits of MMC3 registers 6 and 7 for 2 MiB of PRG-ROM space) with WRAM, even though the ASIC registers sit at $6000, by carefully using the WRAM Enable and Lock bits. They boot in the last 8 KiB bank of the first 512 KiB block, like a regular MMC3 would, then switch to 2 MiB mode using the following sequence that must be run from RAM at $000-$7FF:

Code: Select all

	LDA	#$00
	STA	$A001	; Disable WRAM, so that writing to the Coolboy ASIC does not corrupt saved game
	LDA	#$00
	STA	$6000	; clear outer bank offset and lower mask bits
	LDA	#$60
	STA	$6001	; Enable PRG A19-A20
	LDA	#$80
	STA	$6003	; Lock the Coolboy ASIC registers, so that WRAM writes do not change them
	LDA	#$80
	STA	$A001	; Enable WRAM
	JMP	($FFFC)	; Execute RESET Handler in the last 8 KiB bank, now in 2 MiB address space
NewRisingSun
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Re: Questforge mapper info

Post by NewRisingSun »

Coolboy/Mindkids (268) and another (mapper 91) submapper proposal added to submapper proposal page. No response after two weeks shall mean approval, after which I shall copy to main submapper page. No test ROMs will be made unless specifically requested.

Edit: Submapper added.
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