Pole Position Clone Status: 10XX cracked!

ajcrm125

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After years of sporratically playing with the 10xx custom I finally decided to just sit down, spend a few days and figure this damn thing out.

Here's a documentary of my success:
 
Nice work! I really enjoyed watching the video, so please keep those coming if you can. :)
 
Very cool. Were you able to get those last little oddballs taken care of?
 
That's some cool stuff! It's great that there are still folks out there willing to spend the time to figure that stuff out to help keep these games running!
I salute you sir!
 
I can't wait until a better PCB solution is engineered for these machines. I will be first in line to pre-order.
 
What are the problems with PP and what is the end goal here? (excuse my noobishness). I did enjoy the video however.
 
the boards are full of custom Namco chips, battery acid damage prone and poor design power distribution..

I have had a dozen board sets through the years and all have had problems and I have paid dearly to have some of them fixed!
 
the boards are full of custom Namco chips, battery acid damage prone and poor design power distribution..

I have had a dozen board sets through the years and all have had problems and I have paid dearly to have some of them fixed!

Yeah I have one working PP2 boardset left and I'm afraid to leave it on for too long. :)

Turn it on.. take some measurements and turn it off.
 
Yeah I have one working PP2 boardset left and I'm afraid to leave it on for too long. :)

Turn it on.. take some measurements and turn it off.

I haven't had a chance to watch the video yet, I will later. Just some thoughts, if MAME can emulate PP and PP2 wouldn't that mean that they would have to have already reverse engineered the hardware? Also couldn't you program a FPGA to simulate the PP hardware?

Edit:

This project looks like that successfully decapped the Namco custom chips:

http://guru.mameworld.info/decap/index.html

Edit #2

Never mind about the FPGA I see you are using one.
 
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I haven't had a chance to watch the video yet, I will later. Just some thoughts, if MAME can emulate PP and PP2 wouldn't that mean that they would have to have already reverse engineered the hardware? Also couldn't you program a FPGA to simulate the PP hardware?

The MAME code is quite simplistic compared to the hardware and so customs like the 10xx, 8xx... simply aren't emulated (nor do they need to be). There are 3+ CPUs on the boardset all wanting to access memory. So the MAME code goes through each one sequentially and grabs memory for each one. In the actual Hardware, you have all the CPUs wanting to access the same memory all at the same time. And the customs decide on a priority of who gets what... and when.

So the short answer is.. in software, things are happening sequentially (one at a time) and in the actual hardware everything is happening all at the same time.
 
The MAME code is quite simplistic compared to the hardware and so customs like the 10xx, 8xx... simply aren't emulated (nor do they need to be). There are 3+ CPUs on the boardset all wanting to access memory. So the MAME code goes through each one sequentially and grabs memory for each one. In the actual Hardware, you have all the CPUs wanting to access the same memory all at the same time. And the customs decide on a priority of who gets what... and when.

So the short answer is.. in software, things are happening sequentially (one at a time) and in the actual hardware everything is happening all at the same time.

Thanks for explaining! Does that decapping project help you at all?
 
Thanks for explaining! Does that decapping project help you at all?

Doesn't look like the 5*xx series customs were decapped (and those are the only ones on that list), but they are essentially Fujitsu microcontrollers cores with embedded firmware.
 
Doesn't look like the 5*xx series customs were decapped (and those are the only ones on that list), but they are essentially Fujitsu microcontrollers cores with embedded firmware.

These were they are right on the page and are green which means they were successful:

Namco Custom 50xx DIP28 Bosconian, Xevious
Namco Custom 51xx DIP42 Bosconian, Dig Dug, Galaga, Pole Position 1 & 2, Xevious
Namco Custom 52xx DIP42 Bosconian, Pole Position 1 & 2
Namco Custom 53xx DIP42 Dig Dug, Pole Position 1 & 2
Namco Custom 54xx DIP28 Bosconian, Galaga, Pole Position 1 & 2, Xevious
 
These were they are right on the page and are green which means they were successful:

Namco Custom 50xx DIP28 Bosconian, Xevious
Namco Custom 51xx DIP42 Bosconian, Dig Dug, Galaga, Pole Position 1 & 2, Xevious
Namco Custom 52xx DIP42 Bosconian, Pole Position 1 & 2
Namco Custom 53xx DIP42 Dig Dug, Pole Position 1 & 2
Namco Custom 54xx DIP28 Bosconian, Galaga, Pole Position 1 & 2, Xevious

Ah ok. So it sounds like they were able to grab the firmware and hence the Pole Position MAME source includes the Jujitsu emulation. Now to just develop a 8840 core. :)

My goal is to get all the video and general hardware working first and sound last so I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it.
 
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