MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Master O
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MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Last edited by Master O on Thu Dec 22, 2016 10:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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charlie chong
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by charlie chong »

Great news
:D FIRE SHARK !!
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Xyga
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Xyga »

Haven't played Fire Shark in a while, perfect opportunity to return to it (and finally try trap15's hack also)

I suppose 0.181 will be out right before Christmas or something.

EDIT: as I thought it's thanks to Caps0ff recovering that 'lost' box of chips. Awesome.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by soprano1 »

Great news indeed!
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by emphatic »

Merry Christmas!
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by pcb_revival »

The decapping blog should be added to original post.

http://caps0ff.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/h ... aplan.html
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Master O
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Master O »

pcb_revival wrote:The decapping blog should be added to original post.

http://caps0ff.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/h ... aplan.html
That was a great read about how they actually accomplished the feat.

I just hope they also do this for Nichibutsu's "Tatakae Big Fighter," which is also a shmup that relies heavily on its MCU. In fact, without its MCU, it will not boot, period.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by BPzeBanshee »

Absolutely great news! I think apart from Ghox (which isn't a shmup I suppose but still fun) and Tatakae Big Fighter that's literally it for the non-working Toaplans of that era if I'm not mistaken.

For anyone who's really keen to play it before the official MAME release next week I compiled a 64-bit build for download here straight off the repo.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by soprano1 »

BPzeBanshee wrote:Absolutely great news! I think apart from Ghox (which isn't a shmup I suppose but still fun) and Tatakae Big Fighter that's literally it for the non-working Toaplans of that era if I'm not mistaken.

For anyone who's really keen to play it before the official MAME release next week I compiled a 64-bit build for download here straight off the repo.
So a new version of MAME is all we need? No need for new roms?
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Sumez »

I don't have any interest in emulation or MAME, but I appreciate the preservation aspect. And I'm curious - what do these MCUs do? This is the first I've heard of them.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by IseeThings »

soprano1 wrote:
BPzeBanshee wrote:Absolutely great news! I think apart from Ghox (which isn't a shmup I suppose but still fun) and Tatakae Big Fighter that's literally it for the non-working Toaplans of that era if I'm not mistaken.

For anyone who's really keen to play it before the official MAME release next week I compiled a 64-bit build for download here straight off the repo.
So a new version of MAME is all we need? No need for new roms?
Of course you need new roms, the entire progress is about the internal ROM of the Sound MCUs being dumped.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by IseeThings »

Sumez wrote:I don't have any interest in emulation or MAME, but I appreciate the preservation aspect. And I'm curious - what do these MCUs do? This is the first I've heard of them.
The MCUs contain all the sound / music data used by the games, without them sound couldn't be emulated at all (before that some people had hacked in huge wav samples recorded from the PCBs, but that isn't emulation and wasn't accurate)

From a preservation point of view having these dumped is very, very important.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by IseeThings »

BPzeBanshee wrote:Absolutely great news! I think apart from Ghox (which isn't a shmup I suppose but still fun) and Tatakae Big Fighter that's literally it for the non-working Toaplans of that era if I'm not mistaken.

For anyone who's really keen to play it before the official MAME release next week I compiled a 64-bit build for download here straight off the repo.
Tatakae Big Fighter is Nichibutsu and uses a security MCU, not sound related.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by soprano1 »

IseeThings wrote:
soprano1 wrote:
BPzeBanshee wrote:Absolutely great news! I think apart from Ghox (which isn't a shmup I suppose but still fun) and Tatakae Big Fighter that's literally it for the non-working Toaplans of that era if I'm not mistaken.

For anyone who's really keen to play it before the official MAME release next week I compiled a 64-bit build for download here straight off the repo.
So a new version of MAME is all we need? No need for new roms?
Of course you need new roms, the entire progress is about the internal ROM of the Sound MCUs being dumped.
OK, gotcha. Thanks.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Sumez »

IseeThings wrote: From a preservation point of view having these dumped is very, very important.
It would be even if it didn't contain data.
Until Bubble Bobble's custom logic MCU got dumped some years back, it was impossible to correctly replicate that game at all.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by neorichieb1971 »

From a logic perspective not a lot of this makes sense. There are far more complex games already 100% than Fire shark.

Was the MCU chip itself so hard to replicate? Sounds like a good chip to put the protection code on.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Sumez »

Not hard to replicate. Hard to get into and actually read what it does.
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Master O
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Master O »

IseeThings wrote:
BPzeBanshee wrote:Absolutely great news! I think apart from Ghox (which isn't a shmup I suppose but still fun) and Tatakae Big Fighter that's literally it for the non-working Toaplans of that era if I'm not mistaken.

For anyone who's really keen to play it before the official MAME release next week I compiled a 64-bit build for download here straight off the repo.
Tatakae Big Fighter is Nichibutsu and uses a security MCU, not sound related.
TBF's MCU has now been dumped:

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/ ... c502c30259
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Ed Oscuro »

neorichieb1971 wrote:From a logic perspective not a lot of this makes sense. There are far more complex games already 100% than Fire shark.
Possibly gross exaggeration incoming: MCU chips are more like glob chips, it's a physical problem. There's no socketed ROM to pull out and put in a dumper; the MCU is working off a ROM embedded in the chip itself, next to a CPU core which works directly on that ROM. Getting the data out isn't exactly plug-and-play.

So how did the MCU decapping go? Did the ROM data have to be figured out from die shots? I can't find any details.

Anyway, amazing news! Hats off to the people who funded & made it happen.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by BPzeBanshee »

Ed Oscuro wrote:So how did the MCU decapping go? Did the ROM data have to be figured out from die shots? I can't find any details.
Have another look at the first post in this thread - the Caps0ff blog is pretty detailed.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Pixel_Outlaw »

Somebody send a courtesy copy of Vimana's ROM with MAME to Giorgio A. Tsoukalos.
Guy is obsessed with Vimanas.

"Could it be possible that Ancient Aliens encoded their history in the music binary of Vimana and it is only today that we now know how it may have sounded?" :lol:
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by gameoverDude »

Played some Fire Shark on .181 64-bit, and it sounds nice. So long, ThunderMAME.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by TiddlyWinks »

Just found this thread. Awesome news!

How do I contact these people? I have a Ghox board I am willing to donate if they will dump the mcu.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by rtw »

I have contacted TiddlyWinks with the pertinent details.

caps0ff already have a Ghox PCB which they will decap in due time.

If you want to help the caps0ff project you can do so here:

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4805718

edit:
Here is the current timeline:

http://caps0ff.blogspot.no/2017/01/proj ... nning.html
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Shepardus »

Is there a version of MAME with support for this but also autofire/custom buttons settings like those in MAMEPlus (which hasn't been updated for two years)? I know MAME has autofire accessible through the cheats menu now but it's barebones and not as nice as what MAMEPlus has, unless that's changed within the last couple months.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by OmegaFlareX »

Nope, vanilla mame took the autofire code from MAMEUIFX which, as you know, is pretty barebones and kinda garbage. It doesn't even save your settings, you have to re-enable it manually every time you launch a game. I think there's a keybind in the UI to toggle it on/off, which would help somewhat, but I could never get it to work lol.

I guess until the culture of MAMEdev wizens up to the fact that autofire isn't actually cheating, the feature probably won't get much attention.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Shepardus »

OmegaFlareX wrote:Nope, vanilla mame took the autofire code from MAMEUIFX which, as you know, is pretty barebones and kinda garbage. It doesn't even save your settings, you have to re-enable it manually every time you launch a game. I think there's a keybind in the UI to toggle it on/off, which would help somewhat, but I could never get it to work lol.

I guess until the culture of MAMEdev wizens up to the fact that autofire isn't actually cheating, the feature probably won't get much attention.
This was bugging me so I took an autofire+custom buttons patch I found and updated it for the current version MAME 0.185. Here's a download, just replace the MAME executable in an existing MAME installation with this one. I'm calling this AutoMAME, original name do not steal. Hopefully this is actually useful and I didn't miss an existing distribution that already has this...

In the zip I also included a diff of the source code which you can apply to the MAME 0.185 source if you want a Mac/Linux build or you just don't trust my binary (also GPL2 requirements etc.). I ran into issues applying the diff on macOS to the source code zip package downloaded from mamedev.org, but it worked fine when I checked it out from Github (mame0185 tag) and used git apply. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'm guessing it's something to do with Windows vs. Unix EOLs. If you can apply the patch, though, it should work on all platforms vanilla MAME supports.

I also threw in a fix for Parodius Da's default dipswitch settings because why not (the arcade manual and the PCB recordings I've seen have extends set to 30k/100k rather than 20k/80k).
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by tomwhite2004 »

Does this mean I could map say "button 1" to autofire on one controller button and its standard non auto function on another? eg for game like blazing star where the charge shot is on the same button as standard fire.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by Shepardus »

tomwhite2004 wrote:Does this mean I could map say "button 1" to autofire on one controller button and its standard non auto function on another? eg for game like blazing star where the charge shot is on the same button as standard fire.
Yes, you would bind one of the custom buttons to map to button 1 (press "1" in the custom buttons menu) and then turn autofire on for custom button 1 but not button 1, and then bind the two to separate controller buttons. This is also useful for Fire Shark since the flamethrower weapon breaks when using autofire. You can also set autofire to toggle for each button and bind a button to toggle autofire on/off. Unlike vanilla MAME's autofire, these settings actually save in the cfg files so you don't have to set them every time you launch the game.

If you've ever used MAMEPlus, it's the same as that. I think some other forks of MAME also had this but I'm not aware of any that are still being updated.

I want to add the ability to set different buttons to different autofire frequencies and not just on/off/toggle (useful for games like Hishouzame where fast autofire leaves inconvenient gaps in your shots but you sometimes need it for point-blanking enemies), but I'm not in any rush to do that.
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Re: MCUs for Fire Shark, Vimana, Teki Paki DUMPED!!!!!!!!!!!

Post by tomwhite2004 »

Thats awesome, thank you for taking the time to put it together and make it available to all.

I got a pc just as mameplus had stopped being worked on so never knew of its extra auto fire settings, great to have something to get round the limitations of the standard version.
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