Question about donor carts
in The Brewery
So I'm buying donor carts for a SMB2J repro, and all of the ones from the cartdb that say they are mmc3, and have the correct size chips on board, don't after I buy them.
They say they are supposed to be 32 pin boards, but they are all 28.
Can someone please explain how to use that website to get the ACTUAL carts I need for repros? Cause either I'm really stupid, or the website is consistenly wrong in its searches.
The board types are right, but I need to make sure the games that return in the searches have the correct sized chip slots for what I'm doing. And nothing in the search criteria seems to match.
They say they are supposed to be 32 pin boards, but they are all 28.
Can someone please explain how to use that website to get the ACTUAL carts I need for repros? Cause either I'm really stupid, or the website is consistenly wrong in its searches.
The board types are right, but I need to make sure the games that return in the searches have the correct sized chip slots for what I'm doing. And nothing in the search criteria seems to match.
Comments
and just fyi, not all mmc3 boards are equal. TSROM has a ram chip that TLROM does not, and some games require that to operate. TKROM is configured for a battery where the others are not. beyond that, tlrom boards are pretty small and you have less space to run jumper wires.
Originally posted by: Moothead2
For SMB2J I believe you'll need a copy of SMB2 that has all contacts on the bottom like the one here: http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=130.
you're thinking of final fantasy 3. smb2j should be fine without those pins.
Originally posted by: Kuros
Interesting. I've opened 4 different TLROM boards, and all of them only have 28 pins for both PGR and CHR.
what games? that sounds like TEROM or something instead of TLROM
Are you sure you're looking at the proper revision of the board if you're using bootgod's DB? A few games have different board revisions like Gauntlet.
For instance. Should be a 32 pin TLROM.
It's not. LOL
http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=272
(Used for reference instead because it has an actual PCB picture.)
As much as I love the Bootgod DB you need to be careful. Sometimes it's just not accurate or you aren't seeing the proprietary board design on the profile. In your searches go to PCB/Hardware and set the board type to NES-TLROM and mapper to 4, go to the games tab and set the release country to your country of origin and that should do it. Just always look so see if there's a pic on the DB first, sometimes I think they're going by rom header info instead of verifying each and every cart.
When in doubt check the hardware section of the profile to ensure the mask roms are 32 DIP. If it doesn't say that, don't use it unless you have it laying around to verify it yourself.
Originally posted by: Kuros
http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=639
For instance. Should be a 32 pin TLROM.
It's not. LOL
Does your cart have a konami board? If so can you post a pic?
For the Nintendo made boards you can see the 28 pin mask prg with the extra 4 holes. Look at the other profile here:
http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=901
The konami boards may only have 28 holes for the prg- that's how their version of unrom is laid out. For the unrom version you hang pins 1,2,31,32 out over the edge and just wire as necessary.
http://i.imgur.com/Z4TU5.jpg
ETA: Seems to be a board also set up to be used with CHR-RAM also, nice. And you can almost tell it's not an official Nintendo board because even though it says Nintendo, it's about 2 years after Nintendo took all the centermost pins off their MMC3 games because they didn't want CHR-RAM use.
you found the right profile in the db the first time. it just happens they didn't have a photo of that version of the board for that game. if you look at super c you can see the photo for that type of board
http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=128
and the other profile have photos of the nintendo style board.
you can use that board as a donor if you want, but it's probably going to be more work that you want.
konami produced boards use the nintendo 'prg' layout for both prg and chr. since that game has 128KB of data for each, they are going to be 28 pin chips.
you can put 32 pins eproms in place of those mask roms by putting pin 3 of the eprom in hole 1 on the board. you have to lift the extra legs on the eprom and wire them accordingly. for 128KB eproms it would be
pin 2 -> hole 22
pin 24 -> GND
pin 32 -> +5v
i don't know what you do in the case of 256KB eproms. these boards may not support that.
the wiring is pretty straightforward, but it looks like the prg eprom will end up hitting one of the tabs in the cart shell. I've run into that doing punch out hacks and you have to cut part of the tab away.
for simplicity I would recommend finding an alternate donor for beginner projects. super mario 2 or 3 are sure to work for any tlrom/tsrom game.
here's some general info about mask roms in nes carts: http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Mask_ROM_pinout