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Released: Gaelco Conversions. Squash or Thunder Hoop into Biomechanical Toy

Seems that may be the case, so the conversion is really only possible on Squash boards - I haven't seen any successful conversions on a Thunder Hoop board so far

Looking at the MAME driver, the RAM is identical in every way other than that single parameter. I would have thought given Biomechanical Toy is unprotected, the encryption parameters wouldn't make a difference.

Must be something to do with how the encryption was bypassed to run the unprotected code on encrypted hardware.
 
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mr3xtraball said:
My guess is that those different parameters(values) are hard-coded in those 2 fpga's
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That's what I think too. And probably the /1 vs /2 difference in the reference is just for the extra jumpers.
xodaraP said:
I would have thought given Biomechanical Toy is unprotected, the encryption parameters wouldn't make a difference.

Must be something to do with how the encryption was bypassed to run the unprotected code on encrypted hardware.
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Squash being encrypted but not BMT the mechanic to be put in place is to generate encrypted values for BMT so that on Squash hardware they are decrypted.
 
Makes sense. The number is 14 on Thunder Hoop and 15 on Squash. I wonder what it actually is, possibly a magic number for generating decryption keys?

The RAM address space is the same across both games/boards

Wish I knew more about this side of things so I could try to get it going. The MAME driver even lists Squash as also running on the /1 board so I'd be interested to know if the code is different than if is running on the /2 board
 
xodaraP said:
Wish I knew more about this side of things so I could try to get it going. The MAME driver even lists Squash as also running on the /1 board so I'd be interested to know if the code is different than if is running on the /2 board
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It's been confirmed it's not, thus the custom programmed FPGA theory becomes credible.
 
Crap, just located my Squash PCB and it's a /1 :(

It does seem to have a wire running from PA4 to F3, is that a factory thing? Googled for the PCB and saw the same thing with more of them.
 
Sp33dFr34k said:
Crap, just located my Squash PCB and it's a /1 :(

It does seem to have a wire running from PA4 to F3, is that a factory thing? Googled for the PCB and saw the same thing with more of them.
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Try converting your board and see, I'll try installing that jumper on mine and see what it does
 
Yes guys, don't lose hope.
To me compatibility is more related to the donor game used (i.e. works only with Squash) rather than the board reference (/1 or /2).
 
I will definitely try, roms are on their way but will probably take a while to get here.
 
My TH board will be here I would guess today or tomorrow and I think I have enough of the right EPROMs there so we'll see what happens
 
Hello,

This thread has been brought to life concerning useful information.

I have seen myself that wire patch on Squash /1 pcb.I have tried to install the wire patch on my biomechanical toy conversion /1 pcb. I havent suceeded to fix the graphic corruption.It seems that the wire connects the second(lower) rom bank /CS signal, and one of the 74' TTL IC near the PAL and the CXO , near the sound ROMs, the pictures are unclear unfortunately.
Plz someone confirm the two locations/ends where must be installed the wire patch.If so, i will give another try on my pcb.

Good day, Dragos.
 
@Apocalypse - how difficult would it be to adjust the current modified ROMs that allows the conversion from Squash to BMT to work with that parameter difference?

MAME seems to suggest it's called only at boot, but is that the case or is it constantly being called on as a protection?
 
All you Squash owners, what's the value of the capacitor in the lower left corner, CC1? My board is missing it.
 
mr3xtraball said:
Hello,

This thread has been brought to life concerning useful information.

I have seen myself that wire patch on Squash /1 pcb.I have tried to install the wire patch on my biomechanical toy conversion /1 pcb. I havent suceeded to fix the graphic corruption.It seems that the wire connects the second(lower) rom bank /CS signal, and one of the 74' TTL IC near the PAL and the CXO , near the sound ROMs, the pictures are unclear unfortunately.
Plz someone confirm the two locations/ends where must be installed the wire patch.If so, i will give another try on my pcb.

Good day, Dragos.
Click to expand...
The attached pics should be clear.
nem said:
All you Squash owners, what's the value of the capacitor in the lower left corner, CC1? My board is missing it.
Click to expand...
It's a 100uf 25v.
 

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xodaraP said:
@Apocalypse - how difficult would it be to adjust the current modified ROMs that allows the conversion from Squash to BMT to work with that parameter difference?

MAME seems to suggest it's called only at boot, but is that the case or is it constantly being called on as a protection?
Click to expand...
I guess OG author has used a script of some sort to recaculate tiles values so to me it shouldn't be much complicated appart from changing the parameter in the script.

The parameter is used everytime you write to VRAM not only at boot.
 
Hello,

Thanks for the HQ pics Sp33dFr34k.I have tried again that wire patch , but it didnt work.When i install the wire patch, the sprites gets corrupted, without it, only the tilemaps are corrupted.
Looking again at the Squash /1 PCB and scratching my head, that wire patch doesnt make sense to me at all, let me explain: the lower ROM bank is not populated, the jumper that selects /CS signal to said ROMS is missing, WHY /CS A ROM THAT ISNT THERE ??? :thumbdown: I guess the wire patch is a NO-GO, someone plz verify that.
The theory that the encryption is hard-coded in those two fpga or done by 68K program - stands, unless denied.
When i got more time (weekend), i will burn the EPROMs with a fresh ROMset of Squash, just out of curiosity, to see what will happen, to see if that wire patch is REALLY needed.

Have a good day, Dragos.
 
Burnt the 12 ROM's, put a piece of wire on PA4, switched the resistor from PB3 to PB4 (4 to 8MB), but getting garbled graphics. I have the /1 squash PCB, any ideas?
 
You've got the same problem as mr3xtraball and anyone else with the /1 PCB - it seems the conversion at this stage at least will only work on the /2 PCB, presumably because both BMT and Squash were released on the /2 PCB.

Hopefully @Apocalypse or someone with the knowledge can make the /1 PCBs work, but other than that we're kinda stuck :(
 
Thanks for the suggestion Apocalypse.

No I have not burned the PAL, not sure my programmer does those. Which chip would I need for that?

Here's an example of what I get.

20180507_012530.jpg?
 
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