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evilsim

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I would love to own a genuine Bubble Bobble but I do not. I have 2 bootlegs - one Lost Caves and one Super Bubble Bobble. I would like to change the roms on the super to become regular bubble bobble.

Being rather green with modifying roms, I am reaching out to ask if anyone can tell me which set I can change to. I have no dumped any of the roms on my existing Super Bubble Bobble - that would probably be a good place to start ?

There are heaps of romsets for super, http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/lista_mame.php?ricerca=sboblbo&arcade_only=0¤t_version=0.
Then there are lots of bubble bobble sets too, http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/lista_mame.php?ricerca=bubble+bobble&arcade_only=0.

I would be greatful for any guidance.


EDIT: this is solved, by changing the roms to REDUX . Also a dipswitch was the answer to my original question.
 
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you cant.
real bubble bobble has a protection chip.
a lot of bootlegs have the place to put the missing parts, but you would need to fabricate a replacement.
 
real bubble bobble has a protection chip.
While true that you can't run the program/OG ROM code because of the custom only found on legit BB PCBs...
I'm pretty sure a few patched/bootleg versions exist of normal BB (not Super) he SHOULD be able to use one of these.

BB Custom
SyqnKqK.jpg


Be warned however, another side effect of the missing custom is improper timing of some special events.
Bootleggers simply tied these events to things like score, even in Taito's own ports of the game these triggers are wrong.
The story gos a warehouse fire destroyed the original source code for the game.
Every trigger since that time (right up until Dr Decapitator opened up the custom) has been approximated (not real) even from Taito.
 
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"super bubble bobble" is a mode set by dipswitch on some bootlegs.
it's not a romswap
OOhh boy I feel silly.
Dip bank 1, switch 1. ON = Super, OFF = Regular

This board appears to have a non jamma compliant edge. The bootleg board came with a short jamma extension piece. Without the extension piece I get no sync. I will investigate further later on.

Thankyou so much @stj and everyone else who commented as well. The people and the advice here is top notch.
 
Trust me you will want to re-program the eproms on your board to use the Bubble Bobble REDUX rom set -- Long thread here

The bootleg roms that are original to bootleg boards do not play properly at all because the protection kicks in and introduces all kinds of problems to the game play. The REDUX roms attempts to make bootleg boards run as close to the original pcb as possible, with only a few small bugs remaining. It is definitely worth the effort to upgrade your boardset to REDUX.
 
I have a jamma adapter for the BB boots. Be advised that most online pinouts are incorrect.
 
Found an old photo. I don't have any PCBs left but @xodaraP might have one spare?

Happy to share Gerber's.
50574079_10216454348684296_7561443976494972928_n.jpg
 
"super bubble bobble" is a mode set by dipswitch on some bootlegs.
it's not a romswap
OOhh boy I feel silly.Dip bank 1, switch 1. ON = Super, OFF = Regular

This board appears to have a non jamma compliant edge. The bootleg board came with a short jamma extension piece. Without the extension piece I get no sync. I will investigate further later on.

Thankyou so much @stj and everyone else who commented as well. The people and the advice here is top notch.
The edge connector is NOT JAMMA and you will cause damage if you use it without an adapter. Luckily the power traces are in the same place but the video connections are very different.

As long as you have the 56p bootleg (same edge size as JAMMA) I have some spare adapter PCBs but no edge connectors do you would need to buy one and solder it on
 
thanks for the info guys, @brizzo id love to change the roms, i appreciate the advice :) am I still able to use the dipswitch to change between regular and super Bubble Bobble ? I have read elsewhere that there is a button combination at the title screen which can also get the game to start in "super".

the jamma extension I have works fine, but the audio lines were backwards, and the -5v was missing ; so the audio was all stuffed. I've added some wires and checked continuity on the others, its working nicely now!

I would like to grab the gerber @Frank_fjs :) I am about to do a PCB print run when the new BetsuBetsu comes out, so I'll get one of those too. If anyone else needs one just ask, I will probably print 5 of them.



Edit: the chips they speak of in the arcadeotaku forum are (on my bootleg with Z80B) Toshiba brand labelled TMM24512P AND TMM24256AP but my programmer doesnt support those directly. The TMM24512P reads OK as a 27C512, but the other chips I cannot get them to dump, or if they do, the buffer is empty. The one dump I got of the TMM24512P didnt match the SHA-1 from the website, nor did rom ident pick it up. :( Its awesome to have a working Bubble Bobble now, but it would be even better to have this bootleg tweaked version REDUX on there.
 
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RT809H - I had a more expensive one like $300 AUD one but the thing broke after about 4 uses and the Ali Express seller refunded me so I just got this. It works well, Ive done quite a few rom modifications/rewrites and tons of dumps. I just cant figure out what this TMM24256AP chip is substituted with.

edit: to avoid sounding silly, 27256 eprom is the obvious substitute, but when I try and read these chips with my programmer everytime the chips dump no data and says its blank.

edit: I have many 27C512 eproms I found at work, so maybe I could use these in place of the 27C256. it appears the single 27C512 my board is using is simply the 27c256 data on there twice (0-7FF0 then 8000-FFF0)

im gonna try this soon, from my understanding I only need to place new data onto chips 3,4,5 near the Z80B chip
 
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I was personally glad someone took the time to backport/update the inaccurate gameplay of these bootlegs.
I knew progress had been made after the decap, but this is just fantastic work!

The original BB is one of my all time favorite arcade games.
 
not sure why my reply didnt go through early in the morning, but I got REDUX on there and it all works perfectly. I have tons of spare 512 and 256 eproms as well, since I only needed 3. I'll hopefully need them in the future.

as always much thanks to everyone on this forum who helped me !! I am learning a lot from this place :)

I now have a dual-board bootleg of both Lost Caves 1.2 and Bubble Bobble REDUX. Stoked :thumbup:


edit: i have placed the data for chips 3,4,5 onto 27c512 EPROM's as well. I just paste the data twice, then write it. Not sure if I am allowed to paste the files here for anyone else if they want to write REDUX to AM27C512 chips.. If you want the hex files maybe PM me...
 
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not too hard to join files,

dos/win: copy /b file1 + file2 file12
Linux(mac?): cat file1 file2 > file12
 
Found an old photo. I don't have any PCBs left but @xodaraP might have one spare?

Happy to share Gerber's.
50574079_10216454348684296_7561443976494972928_n.jpg
I will have a bootleg very soon and i agree with the seller to send me only the pcb without that adapter and this way i saved some money for this purpose . i will be happy to pay for a bare board if you brothers have a spare . any chance ? Or should i use the gerbers to order min 5 from china ? God bless you ^^
 
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