What's new
Hi,
I've patched all Sega System 32 games in order to desuicide them or make conversions:

http://arcadefixer.blogspot.co.nz/2017/10/conversions-on-sega-system-32-hardware.html

Cheers.

[EDIT]
I'm going to release the files here, reason I was selling them was to fund some projects but DS proposed to send me the hardware I need so I can move forward on my projects and everyone can enjoy the games.

Here's the list of the protected romsets:
- arescue: Air Rescue, suicide module battery powered
- arescuej: Air Rescue, Japanese version, suicide module battery powered
- arabfgt: Arabian Fight, security module, non suicide
- arabfgtu: Arabian Fight, US version, security module, non suicide
- arabfgtj: Arabian Fight, Japanes version, security module, non suicide
- brival: Burning Rival, suicide module battery powered
- brivalj: Burning Rival, Japanese version, suicide module battery powered
- darkedge: Dark Edge, suicide module battery powered
- darkedgeJ: Dark Edge, Japanese version, suicide module battery powered
- dbzvrvs: Dragon Ball Z V.R. V.S., suicide module battery powered
- f1lap: F1 Super Lap, suicide module battery powered
- f1lapj: F1 Super Lap, Japanese version, suicide module battery powered
- ga2: Golden Axe 2 The Revenge of Death Adder, security module, non suicide
- ga2u: Golden Axe 2 The Revenge of Death Adder, US version, security module, non suicide
- ga2j: Golden Axe 2 The Revenge of Death Adder, Japanese version, security module, non suicide
- sonic: Segasonic, suicide module battery powered
- jleague: The J.League 94, Japanese version of Super Visual Football/Super Visual Soccer, suicide module battery powered
- jleagueo: The J.League 94, Japanese version of Super Visual Football/Super Visual Soccer, alternate version, suicide module battery powered

Most of the time only one ROM has to be updated for the game to work without the security/suicide module. However checksum would be wrong in the test menu so a second ROM has to be updated just to modify the checksum value.

And the files (in progress, files are scattered all over my hard drive):

Air Rescue:
This game is supposed to be played on a twin cabinet. However MAME's devs have found a way to make it a standalone game. Only difference is the title not being cut in half during intro (as originally half is displayed on each of the 2 screens).
Protection can be reduced mathematically to a multiplication by 4 which can also be translated in assembler by a simple 2 bit left rotation... So weak.

- arescue (twin)
IC6
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-14539
IC13
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-14540

- arescue (standalone, just use IC6 above and IC13 below)
IC13
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-14540_1

Arabian Fight:

- arabfgt
IC8
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-14609_1

Burning Rival:

- brival
IC8
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-15722_1

- brivalj
IC8
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-15720_1

Dark Edge:
One of the protections (for the 2 player mode) expects the module to decrease a counter in RAM and when zero is reached it sets a trigger. I think this is where Asure got stuck.
Thing is there isn't any real check that the counter was decreased by one on each cycle so you can fool it but just setting it to zero and setting the trigger to 1 in the same cycle (see my blog for more details).

- darkedge
IC8
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-15246_1

Dragon Ball Z V.R. V.S:

- dbzvrvs
16542a
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-16542a_1

F1 Super Lap:

- f1slap
IC8
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-15611_1

Golden Axe 2 - The Revenge Of Death Adder:

- ga2
IC8
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-14958b_1
IC9
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-15147b_1
IC17
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-14961b_1
IC18
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-15148b_1

Segasonic The Hedgehog:

- sonic
IC8
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-15786c_1
IC17
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-15787c_1

The J.League 94:
Weird enough other versions of that game (Super Visual Football and Super Visual Soccer) don't have a security module.
Also it's quite funny the less desirable game has the strongest protection (I had to include the protection algorithm in the program ROMs where I could simply nop or modify conditional branches for most of the other games).

- jleague
IC8
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-16781a_1
IC17
http://www.filedropper.com/epr-16782a_1

This should cover at least one version of each game for now.

Happy New Year 2018 guys ;)
This is fantastic news!! Thanks a lot @Apocalypse. You'll make many people happy :)
 
I guess the cheapest ones, but there are rom boards with bigger roms and smaller roms. I'm sure that @Apocalypse will be able to tell us more on due time...
 
The ones I see more often selling for "cheap" are Burning Rival and J League 94 / super visual soccer. I'm sure other games might sell for less but they just don't seem to show up that often. GA2 and segasonic always seem to be for sale, but yikes they are pricey.
 
There's a scammer selling tons of System 32 on ebay.
He sells motherboards and romboards separately and states them as "untested".
He pretends to be a professional arcade seller. What could stop him to plug boards back together to test them?
 
I try to stick to YAJ or Japan sellers for sys32 myself.
 
There's a scammer selling tons of System 32 on ebay.
He sells motherboards and romboards separately and states them as "untested".
He pretends to be a professional arcade seller. What could stop him to plug boards back together to test them?
so you mean they dont work and he knows? Or is he just trying to get more money selling them that way?
 
There's a scammer selling tons of System 32 on ebay.
He sells motherboards and romboards separately and states them as "untested".
He pretends to be a professional arcade seller. What could stop him to plug boards back together to test them?
so you mean they dont work and he knows? Or is he just trying to get more money selling them that way?
Probably. With the serials you can see motherboards and romboards came paired and he did separate them.
He could make even more money by selling them separately as working.

We all know "untested" means totally broken. ;)
 
There's a scammer selling tons of System 32 on ebay.
He sells motherboards and romboards separately and states them as "untested".
He pretends to be a professional arcade seller. What could stop him to plug boards back together to test them?
so you mean they dont work and he knows? Or is he just trying to get more money selling them that way?
Probably. With the serials you can see motherboards and romboards came paired and he did separate them.He could make even more money by selling them separately as working.

We all know "untested" means totally broken. ;)
I see. Pretty lame,,,
 
Air Rescue:
This game is supposed to be played on a twin cabinet. However MAME's devs have found a way to make it a standalone game. Only difference is the title not being cut in half during intro (as originally half is displayed on each of the 2 screens).
that´s right, see pics:
original rom
original title.jpg

stand alone rom:
alone title.jpg

my suggestion about this "stand alone" is to use only one system 32 pcb,
instead of use a dual system with two system 32 pcbs and a link board, like this:
http://www.jammaplus.co.uk/forum/uploads/8304/airrescue.jpg

but ist does only work in a dual pcb setup...... :/

so what´s the magic behind this roms?
 
Air Rescue:
This game is supposed to be played on a twin cabinet. However MAME's devs have found a way to make it a standalone game. Only difference is the title not being cut in half during intro (as originally half is displayed on each of the 2 screens).
that´s right, see pics:
That was an affirmation, I tested it in MAME indeed.

so what´s the magic behind this roms?
I think it's just a note about their finding, nothing more.
However it might be possible to make it run on a single board setup by disabling communication routines.
 
I recently bought a dual-board Air-Rescue PCB setup. What's a good way to tell if it has the "big" or the "small" rom board, also which games use the big and small rom boards?

@Apocalypse do you have any need for the System 32 link board? I wont be needing it.
 
interesting... so Air Rescue has the Small PCB

but it looks like the "Small" PCB has 2 more EPROMS than the "Big" PCB.

looking at pictures for the different games here is a list of which game uses which rom board:

837-8393-01 "Big" (18 chip) ROM Board:
Alien 3
Arabian Fight
Burning Rival
Dark Edge
Dragon Ball Z VRVS
F1 Super Lap
Golden Axe II
Jurassic Park
Segasonic
Soreike Kokorogy 2
Super Visual Soccer/Super Visual Football/The J.League 1994


837-7429-01 "Small" (20 chip) ROM board:
Air Rescue
F1 Exhaust Note
Hollosseum
Rad Mobile/Gale Racer
Rad Rally
Slipstream
Spiderman
 
Last edited:
Back
Top