Weird StarHorse EX Naomi motherboards.

[Kujako]

So just as a heads up, the odd StarHorse EX specific Naomi boards floating around on the eBays will work as regular Naomi systems if you swap out the BIOS. These boards are "naked" in that they lack the Naomi enclosure and are a bit smaller than standard Naomi boards.

They look like this, with the game PCB and a communication board installed.

I picked one up for cheap, with an unseated cooling fan. After cleaning it up and using a thermal pad to reattach the fan it's working perfectly with a CF modified DIMM board. Note how the motherboard is shorter than the DIMM board in it's enclosure.

Using a multi region BIOS image (excuse the messy work area). Because it's not in a case, the IO board overhangs. Thinking I'll screw it to a wood plank to address this.

 

[MetalliC]

So just as a heads up, the odd StarHorse EX specific Naomi boards floating around on the eBays will work as regular Naomi systems if you swap out the BIOS. These boards are "naked" in that they lack the Naomi enclosure and are a bit smaller than standard Naomi boards.

it's just one of later revisions Naomi 1, you may check some notes there https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blo...11f586b97e07cc/src/mame/drivers/naomi.cpp#L86
they was mainly used in games which uses RS232 peripheral devices, like Star Horse or Mushiking series, and number of other games.
normally Star Horse units came in metal boxes, but seller apparently get rid of it.

 

[Kujako]

it's just one of later revisions Naomi 1, you may check some notes there https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blo...11f586b97e07cc/src/mame/drivers/naomi.cpp#L86
they was mainly used in games which uses RS232 peripheral devices, like Star Horse or Mushiking series, and number of other games.
normally Star Horse units came in metal boxes, but seller apparently get rid of it.

Good to know. I went down this path because these boards are often sold really cheap, because no one outside of Japan cares about StarHorse. I think this one was around 25$ US.