...even after 11 years.
Ataxx questions: Answered
- Thread starter g3n3r1c
- Start date
...even after 11 years.
mrbill2084
Well-known member
Just to add joystick version chips are labeled
U78: 02-27-01
U77: 02-26-01
U76: 02-25-01
U75: 02-24-01
* holy thread resurection *
So.. have the pals been dumped yet?
just got a Joystick Boardset would love to make it trackball version.
So.. have the pals been dumped yet?
just got a Joystick Boardset would love to make it trackball version.DKJimbo
Member
Can anyone confirm trackball size on this game? 3"? 2-1/4"? Any recommendations on where to buy from,
2-1/4" I buy trackballs from Twisted Quarter. He seems to have more options than everyone else.
Brentradio
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Is this game any fun in one player mode?
Necro bump.
anyone have the JED files to burn these pals as gals?
I checked the PLD archive and noting listed at all for ataxx.
i have 3 of these pcbs. All joystick pals.
looking for these so I can work with pcbjunkie on a possible adapter that will do both …???
I am still looking myself, but no rush as no cabinet for my boards. joystick version is nowhere near as fun as the trackball version
I feel like both trackball and joystick games are too slow for me to get the cursor where I want it.
I think this is a game where a touchscreen would be best.
I think this is a game where a touchscreen would be best.
I have a dedicated cabinet. I forget, are they socketed? If so, would I be able to dump them with a TL866II? I also have an EMP-20 in storage...I keep an old win98 box with it so I can use it. That would take some monumental effort to extract though.
I don't have one of these boards, but I'm familiar with PALs, etc. on other Leland games like Super Off Road. I would guess that the PALs are locked, so you can't simply dump them.
Can anyone confirm the P/N on the PALs (actual chip number under the label, not the label number)? I reverse engineered the steering wheel PALs on Super Off Road and they were registered, but @pat9000 mentioned that they're PAL16L8s in this thread: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/found-dedicated-trackball-leland-ataxx-pcb-cpo.477936/ . If they aren't registered, they could be pretty easy to dump by simply reading the outputs while sweeping the inputs. If they're registered, you'd probably need to analyze their behavior with a logic analyzer.
For completeness, here is the CUPL source code I wrote for one of the Super Off Road steering wheel PALs: http://wiki.pldarchive.co.uk/index.php?title=18-01 . It would make sense that they'd operate similarly since a trackball has two optical encoders, while a steering wheel has one... Super Off Road had one PAL per steering wheel, and it looks like Ataxx has two PALs per trackball.
Unfortunately, I don't think schematics are available for Ataxx, which makes things a bit tougher as well.
DogP
Can anyone confirm the P/N on the PALs (actual chip number under the label, not the label number)? I reverse engineered the steering wheel PALs on Super Off Road and they were registered, but @pat9000 mentioned that they're PAL16L8s in this thread: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/found-dedicated-trackball-leland-ataxx-pcb-cpo.477936/ . If they aren't registered, they could be pretty easy to dump by simply reading the outputs while sweeping the inputs. If they're registered, you'd probably need to analyze their behavior with a logic analyzer.
For completeness, here is the CUPL source code I wrote for one of the Super Off Road steering wheel PALs: http://wiki.pldarchive.co.uk/index.php?title=18-01 . It would make sense that they'd operate similarly since a trackball has two optical encoders, while a steering wheel has one... Super Off Road had one PAL per steering wheel, and it looks like Ataxx has two PALs per trackball.
Unfortunately, I don't think schematics are available for Ataxx, which makes things a bit tougher as well.
DogP
Exciting news for the one or two people that care ... @SCUBA King lent me Ataxx trackball PALs, and I was able to reverse engineer and burn replacement GALs. I checked the trackball PAL p/n, and they use a PAL16R6 (registered) unlike the joystick PALs which use a PAL16L8 (combinatorial), so they couldn't be dumped easily.
But once I popped them in the board and put the logic analyzer on them, they looked VERY familiar. They're EXACTLY the same as the Super Off Road steering PALs that I reverse engineered a few years ago (like: http://wiki.pldarchive.co.uk/index.php?title=18-01 ). Well, 3 of them are... there's a 2-bit address, and SOR uses 0, 1, and 3 for the three 1-axis steering wheels. Ataxx uses two 2-axis trackballs, so there's 4 PALs, using all addresses 0-3. So, I cloned the 3 SOR PALs, and made a tiny modification to build one for address 2, and they simply worked!
And not that anyone wants them, but I also cloned the joystick PALs. ;-) I'll be submitting all these (as well as a couple other Ataxx PALs I cloned) to the PLD Archive shortly.
Additionally, there are a few different ROM revisions... it looks like MAME has Rev 4 and 5 (E-302-31005-04 and E-302-31005-05). I have a Rev 1 (E-302-31005-01), which I'll be submitting the dump of shortly, and I've seen a label for Rev 2 (E-302-31005-02), which I don't think has been dumped. In the case of Rev 1, it looks to only support the trackball.
The Rev 5 (and maybe Rev 4) ROM support either, but you need to tell the board which one you're using by either grounding or leaving open pin 'Y' on the edge connector (GND=joystick, open=trackball). I assume the factory JAMMA conversion board grounds this pin for you. So if you want to use the factory JAMMA conversion board, you'll need to un-ground pin 'Y' and swap the PALs to convert to trackballs.
And lastly, I think the wiring diagram in the manual has different wire colors than the typical trackball wire colors (using typical trackball harness colors crosses one X with Y, so it just bounces around). I know trackball mounting orientation varies, and I think at some point the standard even swapped directions, so to make this as accurate as possible, I'll define the pins based on the 4-pin connector at each opto board:
J: Red TB X-axis pin 1
K: Red TB X-axis pin 4
L: Red TB Y-axis pin 1
M: Red TB Y-axis pin 4
N: Blue TB X-axis pin 1
P: Blue TB X-axis pin 4
R: Blue TB Y-axis pin 1
S: Blue TB Y-axis pin 4
PAL Summary:
Trackball PALs (PAL16R6)
U75: 02-08-01 = SOR 18-01
U76: 02-09-01 = SOR 19-01
U77: 02-10-01
U78: 02-11-01 = SOR 21-01
Joystick PALs (PAL16L8)
U75: 02-24-01
U76: 02-25-01
U77: 02-26-01
U78: 02-27-01
Anyway, hopefully someone finds this interesting/helpful.
DogP
... @SCUBA King lent me Ataxx trackball PALs, and I was able to reverse engineer and burn replacement GALs. I checked the trackball PAL p/n, and they use a PAL16R6 (registered) unlike the joystick PALs which use a PAL16L8 (combinatorial), so they couldn't be dumped easily.But once I popped them in the board and put the logic analyzer on them, they looked VERY familiar. They're EXACTLY the same as the Super Off Road steering PALs that I reverse engineered a few years ago (like: http://wiki.pldarchive.co.uk/index.php?title=18-01 ). Well, 3 of them are... there's a 2-bit address, and SOR uses 0, 1, and 3 for the three 1-axis steering wheels. Ataxx uses two 2-axis trackballs, so there's 4 PALs, using all addresses 0-3. So, I cloned the 3 SOR PALs, and made a tiny modification to build one for address 2, and they simply worked!
And not that anyone wants them, but I also cloned the joystick PALs. ;-) I'll be submitting all these (as well as a couple other Ataxx PALs I cloned) to the PLD Archive shortly.
Additionally, there are a few different ROM revisions... it looks like MAME has Rev 4 and 5 (E-302-31005-04 and E-302-31005-05). I have a Rev 1 (E-302-31005-01), which I'll be submitting the dump of shortly, and I've seen a label for Rev 2 (E-302-31005-02), which I don't think has been dumped. In the case of Rev 1, it looks to only support the trackball.
The Rev 5 (and maybe Rev 4) ROM support either, but you need to tell the board which one you're using by either grounding or leaving open pin 'Y' on the edge connector (GND=joystick, open=trackball). I assume the factory JAMMA conversion board grounds this pin for you. So if you want to use the factory JAMMA conversion board, you'll need to un-ground pin 'Y' and swap the PALs to convert to trackballs.
And lastly, I think the wiring diagram in the manual has different wire colors than the typical trackball wire colors (using typical trackball harness colors crosses one X with Y, so it just bounces around). I know trackball mounting orientation varies, and I think at some point the standard even swapped directions, so to make this as accurate as possible, I'll define the pins based on the 4-pin connector at each opto board:
J: Red TB X-axis pin 1
K: Red TB X-axis pin 4
L: Red TB Y-axis pin 1
M: Red TB Y-axis pin 4
N: Blue TB X-axis pin 1
P: Blue TB X-axis pin 4
R: Blue TB Y-axis pin 1
S: Blue TB Y-axis pin 4
PAL Summary:
Trackball PALs (PAL16R6)
U75: 02-08-01 = SOR 18-01
U76: 02-09-01 = SOR 19-01
U77: 02-10-01
U78: 02-11-01 = SOR 21-01
Joystick PALs (PAL16L8)
U75: 02-24-01
U76: 02-25-01
U77: 02-26-01
U78: 02-27-01
Anyway, hopefully someone finds this interesting/helpful.
DogP
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This is awesome, this game should only be played with track balls! I am guessing with trackballs you don't need that adapter pcb? but make a special harness?
The pinout of the main connector is 56-pins like JAMMA, but only has the power pins in the right spot. Everything else is wrong, so you'd either need the factory JAMMA adapter (and disconnect pin 'Y' from GND), make your own JAMMA adapter (like I did, pictured above), or I believe a dedicated cabinet doesn't use any adapter, so you could just have your wiring harness wired for the Ataxx pinout.
Note that Ataxx (similar to other Leland games) outputs sync at a higher rate than most, so while most normal monitors can be adjusted to sync to it, LCD converters like the Gonbes have issues with it. I noticed in this thread: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/ataxx-board-will-not-sync.528266/ some people used slower oscillators to bring it down to a more normal frequency, though I assume that slows the game down as well.
@SCUBA King also mentioned that he was told the sync timing itself is pretty messed up and has some sync issues with some monitors. There's a PAL on the factory JAMMA adapter that certainly at least converts from separate H/V to composite sync, but may also do more to tweak/condition the sync. I don't personally have a factory JAMMA adapter, so I can't give any first-hand info on that. My hand-built adapter simply ties H and V sync together (the board output has open collector drivers with pullup resistors, so tying them together wired-ANDs the separate syncs into a composite sync signal). My (non-Gonbes) LCD converter works with it like that, and I was also able to get it to work on a real K7000 (though the adjustment range is pretty small before it starts slanting at the top - which I think is the problem he was referring to with the sync timing).
DogP
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Last edited:
There is a jamma adapter that should play both (not factory jamma) in development.
Will post when I have more intel.
The sync issue is the larger problem. It looks great and locks on with lcd but seeing tearing on top on some crts. Still in dev.
Will post when I have more intel.
The sync issue is the larger problem. It looks great and locks on with lcd but seeing tearing on top on some crts. Still in dev.
I submitted all my current dumps to PLD Archive this AM, so they should be up soon. If anyone wants the dumps before then, drop me a message and I'll send them your way.
DogP
That'd be great... and I'd be glad to help w/ the sync issue if you'd like me to check anything out on it.
DogP
Looks like the files were posted this morning: http://wiki.pldarchive.co.uk/index.php?title=Ataxx . If you try these, let me know if you have any problems (or success too!).
DogP
DogP
Just stumbled onto this. So for those of us without a chip burner, would anyone be able to burn a set of the trackball PALs?
Since you're in Canada, @steph from hobbyroms.com is probably a great choice since he's also in Canada.
DogP
will have to hand deliver them since Canada post is on strike.
