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Help identifying NAOMI hardware

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antron

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Hello AP folks! First post, someone directed me here for help from shmups forum where I usually post. I have a question:

I recently acquired a cabinet with a Naomi 1 system. It plays Virtua Athletics, which is supposed to be a GD ROM game. But, there is no GD ROM system. There is a bare PCB inserted where a cartridge would go (photo link):

open
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B64mdx5SP-LfM0xDQVQ3cmZRRXM4RWN0ZGF2TVJqNnEwbWFV

What is going on here? What is this PCB? How is this game running this way?

Thanks in advance!

open


open
 
there is no ic22? and looks like a socketed flash chip? this is a intersting protype board.
 
That board looks like a NAOMI communication/link board, you put one of these in each of 2 linked cabinets so they can talk to each other

No idea how this is currently running a game without the GD-ROM present - even more so without a DIMM board

Could it be a prototype/test location board?
 
I don't think it's a link board, just a cartridge without its shell. But this one is different than standard ones, I have the same kind in my F355-2 stack with the socketed chip in the center. Perhaps a test card, or produced in small series. Must be dumped to see if it's exactly te same ROM than the GD!
Very interesting.
 
Gakman said:
I don't think it's a link board, just a cartridge without its shell. But this one is different than standard ones, I have the same kind in my F355-2 stack with the socketed chip in the center. Perhaps a test card, or produced in small series. Must be dumped to see if it's exactly te same ROM than the GD!
Very interesting.
Click to expand...
Yeah the information I find suggested it was found in Ferrari F355 but I figured that made it more likely to be the link board. It's definitely not a cart out of the shell because it has the connectors on the top for putting a cart on top of this board.

It's either a cool bootleg or a prototype :P
 
antron said:
What is going on here? What is this PCB? How is this game running this way?Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Hi. nice find. thanks for sharing!
PCB you see on the photo is Sega 171-7885A type ROM board plugged into NAOMI, on bottom side of it located ~20 Flash ROMs, where game is stored.

in general it looks like prototype game or Sega inhouse GD-to-cart conversion.
is it working ? if yes - can you take ROM TEST screen from BIOS test mode ?

PS: also, it will be great to get it preserved. @rtw can do that, with all the care
 
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ROM Board Test doesn't appear to ever do anything.

Perhaps interesting: In the Game Test Mode there is an additional Bookkeeping mode. It provides a text histogram of the usage of particular events played in the game. (e.g. Javelin). I can't see an arcade operator ever needing that, but the developer would. Anyone know if the GD ROM has this?

I'm happy to provide this for dumping, if anyone thinks it's worthwhile.
 
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How hard is it to dump this? Do the ROMs have to be de-soldered?
 
The ROMs do not need to be desoldered to dump them. The only thing which is needed is to send it to me :D
 
Flash roms... Could they be reprogrammed to test converting other GD-Rom games to cart as per the other thread?
 
not good idea, flash roms used by Sega in these type rom boards is quite bad quality, imo for reprogramming experiments better to use something else.
 
@antron sent this to me and I dumped it, here are some dumping details:

This title was originally released on NAOMI GD-ROM. However
antron discovered this version which is cart based.

This cart is most likely a prototype.

There is no cartridge shell.

The protection device is mounted but it is not used.

If you try to do a ROM BOARD TEST you get an empty
screen and the system locks up. The dump shows that
the table of devices and checksums is empty.

Cart is populated with only 21 FLASH ROMs. There is
no EPROM.

Since there is no EPROM, game data does not start before
address: 0xa0800000

From MetalliC:

Even though there are 21 FLASH ROMS mounted the game only
uses 14 ROMs - IC1S - IC14S (a0800000.bin - a7000000.bin).

The remaining 7 contain random data, however they
are included for completeness.

Game asset data are in ISO files dated 16 October 2001,
while in the GD-ROM they are from 6 November 2001. In general it
looks like a prototype version, built about month before the final
game (26 Nov 2001 according to the GD-ROM header).

Extracted files from the ISO file system match the
final version, except the following 3 files:

DEC/ADV.PVM
DEC/MENU/SYSTEM.PVM
DEC/MENU/SYSTEM_EN.PVM

Which look like they were changed in the final version.

This proto shows 4 player start screen even if the
cabinet is set to 2 Player.

To support 4 players the cabinet must be set to 4 player in the BIOS
system assignments and use 2 x daisy chained 13551 JVS IO.
 
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