Neo Geo 161 in 1 Cartridge hacked

[SGGG2]

It’s finally happened. Vortex over at arcade-projects has figured out how to reprogram the flash chips. There’s an optional daughterboard to allow a third flash chip for a total of 3GB storage, enough to hold the entire library and some homebrew. They’ve even implemented a more official looking menu. Pick’n Mix doesn’t work, though. Maybe with UniBIOS 5.

The downside is this is an expert level mod, the boards are thin and break easily. Due to the amount of work of involved you’d be better of buying one of the flash carts than paying someone to mod a 161. This means most of us will be waiting on Chinese suppliers to start making these.

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads ... ost-395646

[DejahThoris]

It's not THAT bad of a job, but it is very involved with a lot of steps.

Requirements are more or less:

- You can solder/desolder 1.27mm spaced pins
- You can solder/remove TSOP56 SMD chips multiple times without damaging them
- You have a way to program via JTAG
- You purchase a second 161 in 1 (to harvest a chip out of)

Total cost is probably in the $150 range if done yourself?

- 2 v3 161 carts
- 3 different programmer PCBs from JLCPCB or equivalent
- programmer for those PCBs, dual daughterboard from JLCPCB etc
- 1.27mm 2x50 sockets
- 1.27mm 2x50 pins
- 2.54mm 2x25 sockets

[ASDR]

I assume there's also a solution for the 3V3/5V mismatch or whatever electrical issues those cards supposedly have?

But yeah, if those just show up on AliExpress that would be sweet.

[XtraSmiley]

I assume there's also a solution for the 3V3/5V mismatch or whatever electrical issues those cards supposedly have?

But yeah, if those just show up on AliExpress that would be sweet.

The team has open sourced them in the hopes that the Chinese actually steal the design and make them, but nothing yet. Rewrite is doing batches of them for people for a small fee if you can't wait.

[DejahThoris]

I assume there's also a solution for the 3V3/5V mismatch or whatever electrical issues those cards supposedly have?

But yeah, if those just show up on AliExpress that would be sweet.

You're mixing the V3 carts up with older 161-in-1's. V3 carts do not have this issue, their 3.3v voltage regulators work just fine.

[bobrocks95]

Voltage regulators aren't enough for properly interfacing 3.3V flash chips with 5V systems. These carts directly connect 5V data/address lines from the system to 3.3V powered chips.

In fact, given clamping diodes on I/O pins, my conclusion the last time this came up was that it might actually be better to not have the voltage regulators and just overvolt the flash chips to 5V. Would like to see an actual EE weigh in again.

[BazookaBen]

So is there support for a customizable library?

Because I don't really care about having 10 soccer games and mahjong games and all that stuff. I just want the classics.

I imagine that would make everything fit on one cart easier, without needing parts from another?

[Mikey]

Considering the price of some of these games, I wonder why SNK doesn't re-release them using new cartridges with modern storage techniques.

[maxtherabbit]

So is there support for a customizable library?

Because I don't really care about having 10 soccer games and mahjong games and all that stuff. I just want the classics.

I imagine that would make everything fit on one cart easier, without needing parts from another?

yeah this

[SGGG2]

You can customize the games, but I don’t know the details.

https://twitter.com/leonkiriliuk/status ... 6896574802

[maxtherabbit]

I assume there's also a solution for the 3V3/5V mismatch or whatever electrical issues those cards supposedly have?

But yeah, if those just show up on AliExpress that would be sweet.

You're mixing the V3 carts up with older 161-in-1's. V3 carts do not have this issue, their 3.3v voltage regulators work just fine.

How do you tell which version you have anyway?

[DejahThoris]

I assume there's also a solution for the 3V3/5V mismatch or whatever electrical issues those cards supposedly have?

But yeah, if those just show up on AliExpress that would be sweet.

You're mixing the V3 carts up with older 161-in-1's. V3 carts do not have this issue, their 3.3v voltage regulators work just fine.

How do you tell which version you have anyway?

Open it up. If your PCBs have daughterboards on them, you have the correct one.

[ASDR]

How do you tell which version you have anyway?

Open it up. If your PCBs have daughterboards on them, you have the correct one.

How do you tell you're getting the V3 one when your buying one from Ali/eBay?

I'm quite out of the loop on what's up with the AES these days, pretty much given up on fancy flash carts and I think I got all the cheap games at this point, but I wouldn't mind owning one of those 161 in 1 carts. The V3 ones are fully reviewed to be electrically and mechanically safe for the console? The only issue with them is the game selection and I assume some buggy games?

[bobrocks95]

How do you tell which version you have anyway?

Open it up. If your PCBs have daughterboards on them, you have the correct one.

The V3 ones are fully reviewed to be electrically and mechanically safe for the console? The only issue with them is the game selection and I assume some buggy games?

They're still all 3.3V flash with no proper voltage translation, so use at your own risk in my opinion.

[ASDR]

They're still all 3.3V flash with no proper voltage translation, so use at your own risk in my opinion.

Ah, thanks! So more power drawn from the console, potential damage, no thanks. Not for an expensive system like that. Guess one day somebody is going to figure something out that is cheaper than a flash cart the price of a full MiSTer setup or an AES collection the price of a house