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I have a ki board I can loan if it would help as long as i get it back
 
dumping the ki2 drive through the conversion board onto the pc would be worth trying.
 
Does anyone have the ki1 upgrade board schematics or pinouts. (the adapter board for running ki2 on ki1 pcb).. I think mine is faulty and would like to diagnose the prob...
 
Is posting blurry thumbnails of a Dual KI/KI2 mod still a thing in 2021?


...I'll check back in a couple years.

DogP
 

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please don’t troll here
 
Where did you see that it’s a dual setup ?
On my workbench.

please don’t troll here
Sorry... no trolling. Just poking fun at how the dual mod has popped up several times over the years, and everyone's always so secretive about it - hiding how it works underneath cables, blurry photos, or just plain falls off the face of the Earth. ;)


This isn't a perfect mod, but it's pretty simple... figured I'd post what I know and maybe it'll help someone somewhere do it, or maybe build their own better mod with some of this info. I'll post details later tonight...

DogP
 
This isn't a perfect mod, but it's pretty simple... figured I'd post what I know and maybe it'll help someone somewhere do it, or maybe build their own better mod with some of this info. I'll post details later tonight...
this is the way :thumbup:
 
Nice one @DogP — a (literal) game changer for sure :)
 
Here we go... first just a quick backstory. I got this KI2 PCB probably 15 or so years ago, but it didn't work. I noticed that it was a conversion, but was missing the conversion HD interface PCB. So I planned to deconvert it to KI, but shortly afterward found a (dedicated) KI2 PCB, and this board got buried in my PCB stash. Fast forward to 3 years ago, someone was selling a conversion HD interface PCB. I grabbed it, and of course was curious how it worked... so I quickly mapped it out. Then I lost interest, and never dug out the KI2 PCB to mate it to.

Fast forward (again) to this week - I was digging through some boards, and came across my KI2 PCB. Turns out it was also dead (lifted CPU pins), but once I resoldered the CPU, and married the conversion PCB to it, everything worked (including the original 420MB Seagate KI2 HD in its plastic shell).

Now, to the interesting stuff. I remembered when I mapped out the conversion board, other than having a CPLD on it, it appeared to just pass the IDE signals through. So, I suspected (and still suspect) that the CPLD is just an auxiliary device on the IDE bus that responds to a certain set of commands that the IDE drive itself doesn't (or maybe at a different address, or slave instead of master, etc). The CPLD only has a subset of the entire IDE interface connected to it (8 data lines plus some control lines). So, I decided to try running KI (original) with the KI2 conversion PCB installed, and as I somewhat expected, it worked! Presumably, KI just doesn't talk to the conversion PCB, so it just sits there idle.

That told me that I could swap KI/KI2 by just swapping the HD, boot ROM, and sound ROMs. This makes a fairly straight-forward multi. The ROMs are 27C040s, which can easily be doubled to 27C080s and have their upper address switched. I burned both "Any IDE" images to a 27C080, and used the 4MB/8MB jumper to switch between them. Switched to 4MB pulls the EPROM A19 high (KI2 in my case), switched to 8MB switches it (presumably) to an actual address on the CPU, which seems to always be low (KI) - if making a real kit, I'd suggest actually switching it low instead of using the address though.

The HD can be run from CF w/ a CF to 44 pin IDE adapter, and I knew switching CFs was possible from my old Multi Konami Viper project ( https://forums.arcade-museum.com/th...xing-konami-viper-switching-multi-mod.432261/ ). The Viper was a bit more complicated, because it wouldn't work with SD to CF adapters (I think it ran in Memory mode instead of IDE mode). Since I had some SD to CF adapter parts leftover from the Viper experimentation, I tried it on the KI board, and it did work. 2-way SD card switches are readily available, while multi CF boards just have both CFs set up in a master/slave configuration, which isn't what we want (why I built the custom switch for the Viper). I manually toggle the SD switch, though you could add your own common control line between the SD switch and the EPROM A19s (need to check I/O voltages though).

For the SD to CF adapter, I used the CF Type II adapter with a Micro SD adapter, since it's taller and lets the switch stick out over the top of the CF socket. I also had a Micro SD to CF adapter, but it's a Type I adapter with the socket out the side, which is flush with the CF socket (so the SD switch couldn't stick out). Then it was just a matter of imaging the KI and KI2 images to SD cards. The adapter worked fine with 2GB and 8GB cards that I had laying around.

Parts I used (maybe not exact models, but look the same):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KTYQRL9
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MY139K4
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DKO7R8

I used what I had on hand, but some alternatives would probably work. A CF adapter with the Micro SD socket out the back instead of side should work fine. Also, an IDE to SD adapter would probably work (like: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QNB6QLC - requires a 44 pin IDE cable).

Note: I haven't switched my sound ROMs yet. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep this mod, so I didn't want to make any mods to the PCB. You can simply bend pin 1 of each EPROM and tie them to the switch... or you can remove the 0 ohm SMT jumpers, tie them together, and connect to a switch (would look cleaner). The game runs fine with the wrong sound ROMs, though most sounds are horrible screeching sounds (still says "Killer Instinct" though).

Limitations of this mod:
-The biggest one... still requires the fairly rare KI2 conversion PCB.
-Requires some wiring (SD card and EPROM selects), and ideally an MCU or something to switch the game by holding start buttons or something (not having to open the cab to access the PCB).
-Seems to require a power cycle to switch games. It hangs at boot if you switch while simply pressing the reset button. I didn't track this down - it might be something with the PCB or protection circuitry that doesn't get reset... or it might be something simple like the SD adapter just doesn't like the SD card being switched while powered. In which case, a dual CF switcher might be the solution. Switching back to the original game does work... i.e. KI (works) -> reset -> KI2 (hangs) -> reset -> KI (works) - so it doesn't get in too weird of a state.

Nice one @DogP — a (literal) game changer for sure :)
Haha... good one! ;)

DogP
 

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Oh, and here's the spreadsheet (.pdf since .xls isn't an allowed file here) I did when I mapped out the conversion PCB. I did this a few years ago, so I can't guarantee it's 100% correct... but it should be close.

If I was to find some time, I'd like to hook up the logic analyzer to this and watch the IDE commands to see what this conversion PCB is actually doing. I don't see that happening soon though. And it's probably easier to simply log the IDE commands in MAME when running the conversion ROM. At that point, I'd suspect you could simply patch those instructions out of the boot ROM and run without the protection PCB.

Oh, and I haven't looked at running any of this with a dedicated KI2 board. From looking at the MAME driver, it looks like a completely different protection. It seems that the dedicated PCB shuffles around some address mappings (e.g. what used to control audio now goes to VRAM, etc). I'm not sure which would be easier... patching out goofy IDE commands, or swapping read/write addresses. The latter would probably be more universal, as it should be basically the same ROM between dedicated KI and KI2 boards, with the exception of swapping the addresses to match the hardware.

Anyway, I hope someone finds this info helpful, or at least interesting... I'd be glad to answer any questions (other than "will you sell this?" or "can you mod my board?" ;) ).

DogP
 

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if you have the ide conversion pcb, can you try dumping the ki2 drive on a pc through the conversion board?
 
if you have the ide conversion pcb, can you try dumping the ki2 drive on a pc through the conversion board?
As I discuss above, the conversion PCB is basically a passthrough... so it's very unlikely that there'd be any difference. The CPLD just hangs on the IDE bus, but isn't a MitM. If it tried taking over any HDD data, you'd have two drivers on the same line, which almost certainly isn't happening. So, unless you're explicitly talking to the CPLD, it's likely just sitting idle while you talk to the HDD.

DogP
 
i dont think it's passive, i suspect it's translating some drive commands - look at the mame source.
what country are you in?
i'd like to draw a schematic of one of these boards.
 
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