arcade ROM reprogrammer

jamma-pcb · Post by **jamma-pcb** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 5:07 am

Hi all

by any chance does anyone know of a good reprogrammer for the roms on konami boards and other types.

I have quite a few boards to reflash and not quite sure which types of programmers I need.

Any advice would be welcome

thanks

jamma games
http://arcadeboards.exterior-coatings.com/ab/

invzim · Post by **invzim** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 1:32 pm

Most games are EPROMS, not flash, so you need an eprom programmer. I picked up this recently:

http://www.mcumall.com/comersus/store/c ... oduct=4225

Key point here is pure USB operation.

If you're doing large eproms, like neo-geo BIOS etc, get this aswell:
http://www.mcumall.com/comersus/store/c ... oduct=4249

You also need an eprom UV eraser.

Best source for eproms is probably ebay, you need "new" ones, as a lot of games use mask-roms which are not erasable.

jamma-pcb · Post by **jamma-pcb** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 11:04 am

i have a parallel version do you think a usb to parallel port cable would work with the saviva boards (willem compatible)

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:00 pm

jamma-pcb wrote:Hi all

by any chance does anyone know of a good reprogrammer for the roms on konami boards and other types.

The best EPROM programmer for the hobbyist is the Xeltek 280U.

It's USB, painless to work with, requires no adapters for 48pin
circuits.

Never ever buy a Willem.

rtw

antron · Post by **antron** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:46 pm

rtw wrote:
jamma-pcb wrote:Hi all

by any chance does anyone know of a good reprogrammer for the roms on konami boards and other types.
The best EPROM programmer for the hobbyist is the Xeltek 280U.

It's USB, painless to work with, requires no adapters for 48pin
circuits.

Never ever buy a Willem.

rtw

but it costs $500

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:02 pm

antron wrote:but it costs $500

I saw one on eBay the other day for around 130USD used.

When you are dumping/writing ROM's you don't want to
fiddle with jumpers and complex setup procedures you
want it to work.

If you can pay 300USD for a PCB you can pay the same for
a proper EPROM programmer.

rtw

invzim · Post by **invzim** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 3:06 pm

I've had no issues with the GQ-3X, no jumpers, and the setup is simply install the program and plug the USB cable.

I used to have a pocket programmer II that was parallel, which sucked big-time.

Post by **system11** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:19 pm

I rather like the Needhams programmers myself. Again these are quite expensive but well worth the money. I originally got a Willem, and it just didn't work very well. The Needhams just worked. It has always just worked. 7 years on it still just works.

Unfortunately with Xeltek and Needhams products, I'm unaware of software for Linux available for them. My Needhams EMP-10 is old enough to use some DOS software, which I can run under an emulator

Post by **undamned** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:48 pm

bloodflowers wrote:My Needhams EMP-10 is old enough to use some DOS software, which I can run under an emulator

We use EMP-20's at my work

-ud

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 1:50 am

bloodflowers wrote:Unfortunately with Xeltek and Needhams products, I'm unaware of software for Linux available for them. My Needhams EMP-10 is old enough to use some DOS software, which I can run under an emulator

For the win part try Wine, and for the DOS part try Dosbox under
Linux that is

rtw

danox574 · Post by **danox574** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:44 pm

I wanted to note -- I recently attempted (a month ago) to purchase a modern Needham's EMP programmer because I've used a EMP-10 for the last 10 years or so with great success and grew tired of dealing with DOS and booting from floppies or other partitions. The reseller talked me out of it -- said at that time, no one was answering the phone over there, and nothing had been produced or shipping for several weeks. I called them before I posted this message, and got voicemail, but it said go to the website to buy or get support, or fax us at this number. Then it hung up. This was not my experience with the company, and I'm not sure what's up over there.

I bought a Labtool 48UXP and could not be more pleased.

I am with RTW, you don't want to be playing around, you want to be programming, reading, comparing, and otherwise moving on with what your doing, not screwing with gear.

SAM · Post by **SAM** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:03 am

antron wrote:
rtw wrote:
jamma-pcb wrote:Hi all

by any chance does anyone know of a good reprogrammer for the roms on konami boards and other types.
The best EPROM programmer for the hobbyist is the Xeltek 280U.

It's USB, painless to work with, requires no adapters for 48pin
circuits.

Never ever buy a Willem.

rtw
but it costs $500

Pay someone to do it for you. After all it shouldn't cost you more than $500 if you doesn't got a tons of EP-ROM to burn.

antron · Post by **antron** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:56 pm

danox574 wrote: I bought a Labtool 48UXP and could not be more pleased.

I hope so, that thing is a grand.

I have an old ART serial based programmer. I could not get its software to properly work in dosbox. I finally got ahold of the manual and realized the thing communicates like a modem. Now I use GTKTerm (Winterm clone) and send it raw files. I got it for Atari ROMs, and it only goes up to 28 pins. Anyway, ART makes quality programmers. Their current USB model goes for about $300, but is Windoze only.

jamma-pcb · Post by **jamma-pcb** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 11:38 am

Hi all

I just got hold of a VP280 does the job rather well and fast to...

http://www.modchipitalia.com/shop/detai ... dprod=3123

I didnt buy it for that price got a great deal anyone else got one

antron · Post by **antron** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 2:50 pm

jamma-pcb wrote:Hi all

I just got hold of a VP280 does the job rather well and fast to...

http://www.modchipitalia.com/shop/detai ... dprod=3123

I didnt buy it for that price got a great deal anyone else got one

how is the software? stable? stable connection?
looks like you can pick that one up for about 200 USD

Post by **system11** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:45 am

Well my Warriors of Fate died (suicide, I forgot to change the battery....) and since it's a JP region one I'm going to have to re-region it to US to resurrect it. Shame, I liked having the JP one. I'd best check the dates on all my CPS-2 board too, I did start labelling them last time I swapped the batteries in those.

Anyway, finally got tired of messing around with dosemu and the quite old EMP-10 dos software, everyone has been saying Xeltek to me, so I grabbed a SuperPro 3000U on ebay, if it rocks I'll post here when it arrives. If it doesn't I'll do the same.

Post by **system11** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 1:34 pm

Oh, yes - this is a nice programmer. While the seller turned out to be in China despite being in "Bristol, United Kingdom", it did arrive very quickly indeed and works fine.

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:25 pm

bloodflowers wrote:Oh, yes - this is a nice programmer. While the seller turned out to be in China despite being in "Bristol, United Kingdom", it did arrive very quickly indeed and works fine.

Did you buy it from eBay or from another seller bloodflowers ?

rtw

Post by **system11** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:59 pm

Ebay - seller was 'elc-uk' or something. 395UKP, which given that it wasn't hit by customs, was a very good deal. I had one issue with it last night, while I could talk to it, it didn't seem to want to program until power cycle. I suspect this is due to me using vmware though and talking to it through that, possibly power saving settings somewhere.

I switched vmware over to manual assignment of USB connected devices and turned off any power save settings I could find in the client OS, no issue since.

I actually -bought- vmware too, to use this

Not a fan of Wine, never had much luck with anything other than specialised builds for a particular application (WineX), or very simple programs like Notepad.

Anyway, Warriors Of Fate lives once more, only the Q-Sound battery has died. I'm going to swap the other until I can find a permanent fix for the JP revision, as the desuicide ROMs only exist for the US revision, and I don't want to re-region my board. One idea I had was to compare the hacked and original rom, then look for those places in the JP one and copy the changes. I'm not sure if that will work though. I think getting mame to run the hacked rom would be a good start.

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 9:27 pm

bloodflowers wrote:I switched vmware over to manual assignment of USB connected devices and turned off any power save settings I could find in the client OS, no issue since.

I actually -bought- vmware too, to use this Not a fan of Wine, never had much luck with anything other than specialised builds for a particular application (WineX), or very simple programs like Notepad.

Anyway, Warriors Of Fate lives once more, only the Q-Sound battery has died. I'm going to swap the other until I can find a permanent fix for the JP revision, as the desuicide ROMs only exist for the US revision, and I don't want to re-region my board. One idea I had was to compare the hacked and original rom, then look for those places in the JP one and copy the changes. I'm not sure if that will work though. I think getting mame to run the hacked rom would be a good start.

Thanks for the heads up, cool that you are running it under VmWare

Good luck on your WOF adventure, I agree that MAME would be a good starting point.

rtw

Post by **system11** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 9:44 pm

Well, I got the hacked roms running on mame (easy change, in video/cps1.c - set to NOBATTRY). Next came copying the changes in the US rom into the Japanese rom. I got some way through the task, but in the end I had to abort as I found sections that just didn't match. Without knowing machine language I think my adventure ends here. I did get the hacked Japanese one to run, fully playable, but there are minor gfx issues here and there - title screen, a few flickering shadows and so on.

Post by **system11** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:54 am

A friend showed me how to disassemble hacked and nonhacked ROMs so I could see what the changes were, I applied these to the Japanese set (not as simple as it sounds - a lot of things moved around), and created a desuicide rom for Warriors Of Fate JP

Tested and working in the board now.

Yay!

(rom sent to the Dead Battery Society page owner)

shmups.system11.org

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