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great work @mypinballs !

Side note, I've gotten hold of a F3 Taito Cup Finals PCB but it is missing the PAL chip at IC28. I thought it was dumped and uploaded to jammarcade.net but I can't find the file?
Hi,
IC28 is labelled as D29-14 which I think originated from Arabian magic. The file is available at jamma-arcade under the hat trick hero'93 title as thats the alternative name for cup finals

You will need a GAl20v8 gal which are hard to get to use the file in its original form though

If you are stuck I can help you and supply a chip/file for use with a modern ATF22V10 gal. There is some conversion needed as the 22v10 ics are larger in size and so you can't just use the original file with the newer ics.
Thanks!
I don't have any GAL20V8 chips around but i do have GAL22V10d. Would it be possible to make that work?
 
D29-14 file attached in GAL22V10 form

Tested the file on a new chip in my board and works fine
Many thanks, I tried it on my board with a GAL22V10D device but the pcb just resets :(
What are the origins of your board? Is it an original cup finals white single layer pcb? Have you confirmed if all the pals are the correct ones in the sockets. (Upload a few pics.) If 1 is missing maybe others have been moved/swapped about etc. Also to get the board up and running with gunlock as a step 1 you only need to swap the 4 game roms. You should be able to leave all the cup finals stuff as is to begin with. Of course all your graphics and sounds will be wrong but it should run.
 
D29-14 file attached in GAL22V10 form

Tested the file on a new chip in my board and works fine
Many thanks, I tried it on my board with a GAL22V10D device but the pcb just resets :(
What are the origins of your board? Is it an original cup finals white single layer pcb? Have you confirmed if all the pals are the correct ones in the sockets. (Upload a few pics.) If 1 is missing maybe others have been moved/swapped about etc. Also to get the board up and running with gunlock as a step 1 you only need to swap the 4 game roms. You should be able to leave all the cup finals stuff as is to begin with. Of course all your graphics and sounds will be wrong but it should run.
I do have a Grid Seeker board that is not functioning properly, it has graphics issues.
It also uses the D29-14 PAL-chip and when I put that chip into the Cup Finals board, the game boots and function normally.
 
Oh, and the pcb is also lacking sound.
I have been working on this board before (must be 2 years ago) and I can see a GAL16V8 at location IC17 and one output is connected to reset on the 68000 CPU.

I believe that i burned the dump from jammarcade before but it seems to be non working

http://www.jammarcade.net/files/pals/Taito-D49-21.jed

It seems like the device was bad. I burned it on a GAL16V8D instead and now I get a reset signal.
But still no sound, hmmm
 

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Well you must have programmed the new gal wrongly as the updated file works fine here on my board and an atf22v10. Anyway, good luck with it

if you want a physical new ic that’s tested then pm me
 
Well you must have programmed the new gal wrongly as the updated file works fine here on my board and an atf22v10. Anyway, good luck with it

if you want a physical new ic that’s tested then pm me
Well i'll be darned, I must've burned the wrong D29-14!
I tried your JED-file again and now it works!
Many thanks

Now onto resolving the audio issues
 
Just to double check, which EPROM are you using for sprites/tiles? 27c800?

Has anyone checked the pinout of the two expansion connectors already?
 
Has anyone tried other games like Darius Gaiden, Elevator Action Returns, Grid Seeker etc?
 
I've got a Taito Cup board on my desk and waiting for parts, I'm definitely going to try Elevator Action Returns.
 
Has anyone tried other games like Darius Gaiden, Elevator Action Returns, Grid Seeker etc?
I'd can try some other rom sets no worries. Elevator action does look pretty cool as does darius g
 
Some info to share on testing the Elevator Action Returns idea on this single stack white board. I am sharing this info to help others wanting to try these things out and also so i dont forget what i've learnt. Hopefully documenting further items is helpful.

so, Game Roms

The game roms are 32-bit depth so there is 4 of them to get the correct bit count. They are all in one address space as the enable line is connected to all of them. Only one enable line !OE is used as the !CE one is tied low

The roms for Elevator action (and Darius G ) are twice the size as Gunlock using 27c4001 (4mbit) instead of 27c2001 (2 mbit) so pin31 A18 needed checking for connection. Handily the pin is connected to all 4 roms and not tied high, so that seems like higher sized roms are catered for.

This is what i worked out in terms of rom placement

elevator actino game roms exp1 - 1.jpg


The !OE line comes from Pal IC29 which is labelled D29-15.

Powering up the board as above results in a continuous reboot and a blank screen, so i think D29-15 needs replacing with another ic that can handle the addressing for larger roms, or the D29-15 jed file needs extracting and modifying. I will take a look at this next i think

Any more ideas then please let me know :)
 
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Powering up the board as above results in a continuous reboot and a blank screen,
What speed ROMs are you using? I had a similar problem with Jaleco Mega System 32 conversion (which also uses 4x 8-bit ROMs to create 32-bit depth) and anything slower than 100ns wouldn't boot.
 
I reproduced the first step:
IMG_20200424_184326.jpg


I tried to use new memory chips, and the choice was either AT27C020 (=OTP EPROM) or SST39SF020A (=Flash). I went for the flash option, as they are cheaper and allow me to reprogram them in case I make a mistake. So far they work fine. I'll report back once I've got the conversion complete and a bit more testing.
Chip positions matched my (white) board. I noticed in the mame driver some PCBs seem to have a different numbering. I am now waiting for the EPROMs to arrive...
 
Ok taito f3 arcade fans, i have some cool things to report. Pretty happy with myself right now :)

So, before i get into it then let me share this

elevator actino game first boot - 1.jpg
elevator actino game first boot - 3.jpg


I've been on a pal equation journey :)

I have created a custom pal for this board and i think* its now unlocked games with 4 mbit game rom sizes. More to discuss about this, but its really interesting how taito created this single board hardware. (For reference gun lock uses 2 meg game roms and cup finals uses 1 meg game roms.)

Now burning some new spite, tile and music roms to see what we get.

As a quick test, i did what i did before with gunlock to see if i could credit up and start a game, and i could. Graphics wrong again but it think these images are actually pretty useful

elevator actino game first boot - 6.jpg
elevator actino game first boot - 7.jpg
elevator actino game first boot - 8.jpg
 
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