Bubble Bobble Bootleg weirdo w/ PS4 Chip

ArcadeDanger

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I have a soft spot for these Redux-able Bubble Bobble Bootlegs, so when this one came up on KLOV I decided to pick it up. I was *very* curious about the PS4 with the silkscreens Bubb on it and if it worked.

Canada seems to have a lot of these bootlegs, as 2 of the 3 I've gotten came from there. I guess the copyright protections were a bit more mild than the US ones back then, allowing for the import of the bootlegs?

The story on this one was that it was originally sold as working, but never actually tested - there was no Taito to Jamma adapter.

The board is in very nice condition - just a little bit of dust on it. Has a label P0-1109, no H - power connector pins.

I have a 56 pin edge connector and one of IanKellog's Jamma fingerboards to create an adapter. As I have a working board, I wire up the pins for the edge connector that give power and ground first (+5VDC, -5VDC, and +12VDC). Note these boards need -5VDC for sound to work. I also connected the video leads - R,G,B, Video GND and CSYNC so we can see what the board is putting out. This is sufficient to get an idea of what's going on with the board.

As I kinda expected, it's not working, the graphics are all scrambled.
 

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Next I pulled the PS4 chip. Interesting! One of the pins in completely bent. Maybe on purpose? I decide to gently bend it back into position. Reinstall. Now I get a completely black screen.

I don't know the pinout for the Taito PS4 chip, couldn't find it online either, but I'm guessing its close to the Z80 but not completely?
 
Next I re-confirm my adapter is ok by using it on my working reduxed boardset. Checks out for voltage and video.

I re-seat the ribbon cable between the CPU and GFX boards. No change.

Next I try to isolate if the problem is on the CPU board or the GFX/daughter board by swapping known working board sets (they are very similar and I expect them to be compatible).

From this I find that the daughter/GFX board works just fine with the working set.

So the problem is definitely on the CPU board. I still suspect this PS4 - on other bootlegs this is always a Z80. I want to swap a Z80 into it and see if that improves the situation.

I've got a half dozen PCBs (ark bootlegs) that have Z80s on them, but none of them are socketed!
 

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Thanks Paris, I didn't think the schematics would have the PS4 in it.

As mentioned, I have a stack of Arkanoid Bootlegs that use Z80s. One of them has a problem were the spinner only goes one way, so it's become a donor board. Applied a decent amount of flux to the solder holes, then heat it up via heat gun. Used the solda-pullit to clear the solder, and then gently pried and then tapped the Z80 out of the board. It worked!

With some practice I can probably do this without damaging the donor PCB, this time I got a little too close and bubbled up a PCB layer.

I replaced the PS4 with the donated Z80 and the board came up as Super Bobble Bobble! Even the sound is working (was worried with the corroded screws on the amp heatsink affecting it).

So now I've got an interesting choice. I could just REDUX it and call it a day. Or, assuming the PS4 is legit, could I simply add the PS4 to the board, burn the original ROMsets for ICs 3,4,5 and have it play like an original board?
 

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What the rare PS4 chip is doing there I have no idea!

If you wanted to run the original code with the PS4 I think you'd have to install some other ICs also - some of the locations are unpopulated on the bootleg, including the clock crystal for the PS4.

Well done on getting it running though :)
 
The PS4 being plugged into the Z80 socket may have killed it. If the board has a socket spot for the PS4 you can try burning the original ROMs.
 
@Tendril, yeah I've no idea how this would have ended up here. All I can think is someone had an original BB that was destroyed somehow, and the PS4 was a easy to recover piece?

Then someone had this bootleg in their stash, needed a Z80 for something else, stole it.

Then someone tried to make this otherwise dead board work again by putting the PS4 into the spot of the Z80?

Such a weird story.

Paris, no idea if the PS4 is good.

I'm thinking that the good thing to do is offer up the PS4 for someone else with a real board to fix or keep as a spare. It'd be cool if someone with a real board could verify this PS4/MCU.
 
I will check if the ps4 is socketed in my pcb and if so I can test it for you if you can cover shipping costs.
 
Mine is socketed. And I suppose a spare would be nice. I've never heard of one going bad, but things happen, right? Let me know what you end up wanting to do with it.

@Tendril, yeah I've no idea how this would have ended up here. All I can think is someone had an original BB that was destroyed somehow, and the PS4 was a easy to recover piece?

Then someone had this bootleg in their stash, needed a Z80 for something else, stole it.

Then someone tried to make this otherwise dead board work again by putting the PS4 into the spot of the Z80?

Such a weird story.

Paris, no idea if the PS4 is good.

I'm thinking that the good thing to do is offer up the PS4 for someone else with a real board to fix or keep as a spare. It'd be cool if someone with a real board could verify this PS4/MCU.
 

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Ok, on recommendation I tested that the +vcc pin isn't shorted on the chip. I tested pin 21, which is the top right corner, one lead on the DMM there and the other touching all the rest of the pins. The DMM on diode/continuity mode. No shorts, so I'm hoping it'll work!

So if this chip works out, I could find one of the bootleg boards that runs with a 68705 MCU hack, take that board off and put this in its place... should run as good as a real board, I'm guessing?

The boards I have are missing quite a few ICs and the through-holes are blocked on one of them, so I'll stick with keeping them as REDUX/Lost Caves.

In other news, I finished the Jamma adapter.
 
I love these threads. I read something that I don't recognize, google it, then find out all sorts of things about bootleg boards and REDUX/Lost Caves.
 
So if this chip works out, I could find one of the bootleg boards that runs with a 68705 MCU hack, take that board off and put this in its place... should run as good as a real board, I'm guessing?
.

Still no :) If I remember right the PS4 is not pin compatible with the 68705 - the 68705 boards have other changes.

PS4 is really a M6801u4 MCU.
 
Ok, on recommendation I tested that the +vcc pin isn't shorted on the chip. I tested pin 21, which is the top right corner, one lead on the DMM there and the other touching all the rest of the pins. The DMM on diode/continuity mode. No shorts, so I'm hoping it'll work!

Just an update, the PS4 IC from ArcadeDanger worked fine in my BB.

As a side note, the chip has 2 5V inputs, pin 7 and pin 21 and a GND connection on pin 1, see pic attached (the 5V on pin 7 is not clearly seen in the schematics, but it is there).

Paris
 

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