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Tetris Plus 2 Conversion

FPJ

FPJ

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I'm trying to convert a Jaleco Mega System 32 cart to Tetris Plus 2. I went over this thread https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/jaleco-mega-system-32-cart-conversions.4745/ and my understanding is a ROM swap works as long as the board has the same custom chip. I have a board with the same custom chip, the problem I am running into is making sure I put the ROMs in the right place. Looking at the existing boards I have, I noticed the numbers on the Mask ROMs don't always match the silkscreened numbers on the board for the socket. For example, 09 is in socket 10, 10 is in socket 9 and 08 is in socket 4.

Does anyone have a picture of a decased Tetris Plus 2 cart I could see to go off of?
 
Tetris Plus 2 released on both the Mega System 32 platform AND as a stand-alone PCB.... so make sure you're using the MAME ROMs from the tp2m32 set

as as nem said... typically the the number after the . in the file name describes the location of the ROM and the text before the . represents the label on the chip.

if they're still not lining up then use the labels from your donor set to identify the position for Tetris Plus 2.

FPJ said:
my understanding is a ROM swap works as long as the board has the same custom chip. I have a board with the same custom chip
Click to expand...
This is true for straight ROM swaps. But I've since built a program to decrypt and re-encrypt the ROMs so ANY donor can be converted to ANY game. https://github.com/twistedsymphony/ms32_recrypt
 
It should be possible to bypass the custom with a little board in the socket and just run decrypted....
It's on my to-do list... (along with blanks...)
 
Hammy said:
It should be possible to bypass the custom with a little board in the socket and just run decrypted....
It's on my to-do list... (along with blanks...)
Click to expand...
theoretically yes, but when I looked into this I quickly decided I couldn't be bothered to work out the pinout lol
 
In that original thread @Derick2k posted an archive of high res de-cased original cart pics and you can see the labels on the mask roms.

It's possible that there may still be some mistakes in MAME source regarding filenames. For example, I recently let them know about an issue with Gratia naming and it was fixed in a subsequent MAME release.

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/pull/13295
 
twistedsymphony said:
Tetris Plus 2 released on both the Mega System 32 platform AND as a stand-alone PCB.... so make sure you're using the MAME ROMs from the tp2m32 set

as as nem said... typically the the number after the . in the file name describes the location of the ROM and the text before the . represents the label on the chip.

if they're still not lining up then use the labels from your donor set to identify the position for Tetris Plus 2.


This is true for straight ROM swaps. But I've since built a program to decrypt and re-encrypt the ROMs so ANY donor can be converted to ANY game. https://github.com/twistedsymphony/ms32_recrypt
Click to expand...
Yeah. I made sure it was the MS32 version. Based off comparing the other boards to the MAME ROMs, it doesn't seem like they line up. For example, Game Tengoku has an MR94041.08 ROM but that board doesn't even have a socket in 8. But there is a MASK ROM labeled MR94041-08 in slot 4. Same board has the 9 and 10 locations swapped. The labeled ROMs (21 and 26-30) are exactly where you'd expect. My Tetris Plus 1 also has ROMs that don't match their spots. The TP2 rom set has a ROM 8 but none of the boards I've looked at have anything in that slot. That's why I was unsure about it otherwise I would have matched the slot to the ROM number.
20250707_171409.jpg


In the TP2 ROM set, I am seeing two that are 96019-01.9 and 96019-2.8. So those have both the dash number and the .X number. But the rest are things like tpm2m3203.10 or tpm2m3204.11. I think I'm just overthinking it. Or underthinking it. Lol. They're basically ROM 3 in slot 10 and ROM 4 in slot 11. The fact that there's something in slot 8 was what made me think I was reading things wrong because four of the other games I've seen don't use 8. I'll just add a socket there and plug everything into the slots labeled on the ROM files and see how it goes.

Thanks all!


kuze said:
In that original thread @Derick2k posted an archive of high res de-cased original cart pics and you can see the labels on the mask roms.

It's possible that there may still be some mistakes in MAME source regarding filenames. For example, I recently let them know about an issue with Gratia naming and it was fixed in a subsequent MAME release.

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/pull/13295
Click to expand...
I saw that, but sadly the Mega link no longer works. : /
 
Took me a bit to get some more 322s. I found some info that said two of the ROMs MR96019-01 and MR96019-02 are identical to the parent ROMs. The reason why they were incorrectly labeled is because someone just grabbed those from the non-M32 version and put them in the pack without changing the label. I burned everything and positioned everything according to the mame files, corroborated by arcade-history, and it doesn't boot. It's stuck in a reset loop. I never get anything on the screen. I re-verified all the ROMs and they pass and I double-checked that I have the right security chip (this was a Game Tengoku). Motherboard works fine with Tetris Plus 1 and the Game Tengoku tested fine before I did the swap.

I checked back in the other thread and it sounds like someone had a similar issue which they fixed by making sure the program ROMs are 100ns or faster, but the ones I am using are already 70ns.

I can put out the Tetris Plus 1. 2 would be cooler since it has more multiplayer options, but it's not the end of the world.
 
One other thing you can check out is your jumpers. Note the jumpers without solder blobs that have a fine trace running too.

You can also verify your ROM placement against @Derick2k's picture:

rT09uzF.jpeg
 
About the motherboards, i have one with the extra connector and TTL and it does not seem to run with boxing etc. Is this motherboard only for quiz / mahjong ?
 

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Is the extra connector you're talking about the CN5 one underneath the board? Mine has that, but this is the motherboard came with Game Tengoku and runs fine both with that and TP1.

kuze said:
One other thing you can check out is your jumpers. Note the jumpers without solder blobs that have a fine trace running too.

You can also verify your ROM placement against @Derick2k's picture:

rT09uzF.jpeg
Click to expand...
Thanks for this. The link that other thread was dead and I couldn't find the picture. Yeah, those ROM placements match mine. I wondered if I might need to do something with those jumpers, but the game before didn't have any of them filled. I'll try matching the ones in the picture and see if that does it.
 
Unfortunately, jumpers did not fix it. :(

Did you know that the connectors on the ROM board don't stop you from putting it on upside-down? And also that even though when the game is in the case, you orient the text with the bottom facing away from the JAMMA edge, if you don't have the case on because you're trying to get a conversion to work, the text printed on the board should be oriented the other way with the bottom facing toward the JAMMA edge? This knowledge did not fix the problem either, but it was certainly a good thing to figure out.

I tried putting the Game Tengoku ROMs back on just to make sure there wasn't an issue with the ROM board and everything booted up just fine. There must be something else I'm missing. Assuming this particular conversion works at all, I suppose.
 
Hammy said:
About the motherboards, i have one with the extra connector and TTL and it does not seem to run with boxing etc. Is this motherboard only for quiz / mahjong ?
Click to expand...
all mobos have that connector, there's a sub-board that plugs in under the PCB and has a cable that routes to a JAMMA to mahjong converter. for the mahjong games

j32.jpg

if that sub-board is connected, even if the Mahjong adapter isn't plugged in then non-mahjong games wont boot.

there are some other mobo differences though, I have a desert war cart that will boot on some mobos but not others, for seemingly no reason. Similarly I've got a boxing "cart" that only boots on 1 of the 5 JMS32 mobos I own... I really can't discern any significant differences between these mobos either. they all appear identical.

FPJ said:
I checked back in the other thread and it sounds like someone had a similar issue which they fixed by making sure the program ROMs are 100ns or faster, but the ones I am using are already 70ns.
Click to expand...
That was me. Interestingly my chips were labeled as 100ns and didn't work, and some of the factory chips are 120ns.. and did work but it turned out that my chips were ACTUALLY 150ns and had been painted over and re-labeled as a faster speed... So yeah don't trust the labeling on your EPROMs if they've not bare smooth ceramic. if the texture on the top of the chip doesn't match the belly of the chip they've been re-painted.

FPJ said:
Unfortunately, jumpers did not fix it. :(
Click to expand...
In my experience there is no difference in the Jumpers with any game on this hardware.

FPJ said:
Did you know that the connectors on the ROM board don't stop you from putting it on upside-down?
Click to expand...
it's super annoying isn't it :( one connector has 3 rows of pins instead of 2, that's how I visually orient it with the PCB case off.


FPJ said:
There must be something else I'm missing
Click to expand...
What is the security chip number on your PCB?
Also can you show us which file you're installing on which chip and where? I can probably give you some guidance if I know these details.

EDIT: looking at MAME source it appears the "tp2m32" DOES have correctly named ROMs where the file extension matches the [##] location on the ROM board. HOWEVER I'd ask how recent your MAME ROM set is because if this wasn't always the case and you're using an older set with mis-labled ROMs that could be the root problem here.
 
Last edited:
twistedsymphony said:
if that sub-board is connected, even if the Mahjong adapter isn't plugged in then non-mahjong games wont boot.

there are some other mobo differences though, I have a desert war cart that will boot on some mobos but not others, for seemingly no reason. Similarly I've got a boxing "cart" that only boots on 1 of the 5 JMS32 mobos I own... I really can't discern any significant differences between these mobos either. they all appear identical.
Click to expand...
Hmm, have a look at your board that boxing boots, i'm pretty sure its about those 3x TTL's...
I'll take a picture tomorrow to show you!
 
twistedsymphony said:
all mobos have that connector, there's a sub-board that plugs in under the PCB and has a cable that routes to a JAMMA to mahjong converter. for the mahjong games

j32.jpg

if that sub-board is connected, even if the Mahjong adapter isn't plugged in then non-mahjong games wont boot.

there are some other mobo differences though, I have a desert war cart that will boot on some mobos but not others, for seemingly no reason. Similarly I've got a boxing "cart" that only boots on 1 of the 5 JMS32 mobos I own... I really can't discern any significant differences between these mobos either. they all appear identical.


That was me. Interestingly my chips were labeled as 100ns and didn't work, and some of the factory chips are 120ns.. and did work but it turned out that my chips were ACTUALLY 150ns and had been painted over and re-labeled as a faster speed... So yeah don't trust the labeling on your EPROMs if they've not bare smooth ceramic. if the texture on the top of the chip doesn't match the belly of the chip they've been re-painted.


In my experience there is no difference in the Jumpers with any game on this hardware.


it's super annoying isn't it :( one connector has 3 rows of pins instead of 2, that's how I visually orient it with the PCB case off.



What is the security chip number on your PCB?
Also can you show us which file you're installing on which chip and where? I can probably give you some guidance if I know these details.

EDIT: looking at MAME source it appears the "tp2m32" DOES have correctly named ROMs where the file extension matches the [##] location on the ROM board. HOWEVER I'd ask how recent your MAME ROM set is because if this wasn't always the case and you're using an older set with mis-labled ROMs that could be the root problem here.
Click to expand...
It's the SS91022-10 chip, which I understood to be the same for TP2. I'm converting from a Game Tengoku. I've checked a few different places for ROM files. They weren't all mislabeled, only the two that are from the parent romset. I placed them in the locations that match the mame github and also the photo of the TP2 board that was posted.
TP2M32_21 at socket 21
TP2M32_26 at 26
TP2M32_27 at 27
TP2M32_28 at 28
TP2M32_29 at 29
TP2M32_30 at 30
MR96019-01 at 13 (this was mislabeled as .9)
MR96019-02 at 1 (this was mislabeled as .8 )
MR96019-03 at 10
MR96019-04 at 11
MR96019-05 at 22
The modify date on the files is 2003, which is more recent than the others I found which were 1996.
 
The chips I used for 26-29 do look kind of suspicious now that you mention it. Unfortunately the rest of the ones I have of that size are 150ns or 120ns.
 
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