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Any PGM Conversion info out there?

I will say I have encountered audio quality problems on these conversions if the audio ROM had soldering issues. Going back over them always fixed it for me.
 
Here's a patch by request for DDP2 to force Korea region.

Apply to 'v102.u8' from MAME 'ddp2.zip' and burn to an M27C160 EPROM.

Let me know how it works for you @yonggarri and anyone else that may find it helpful - cheers!

As always xdelta UI can be found here: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/598/
 

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kuze said:
Here's a patch by request for DDP2 to force Korea region.

Apply to 'v102.u8' from MAME 'ddp2.zip' and burn to an M27C160 EPROM.

Let me know how it works for you @yonggarri and anyone else that may find it helpful - cheers!

As always xdelta UI can be found here: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/598/
Click to expand...


Hello.

I just finished the test with DDP2 patch by @kuze.
And cut to the chase, it works great!





20210430_185003.jpg





This is my PGM board & DDP2 cart.
It was Japan region and v102.


There were some troubles with eprom programmer, but I managed to patch the file and burn it to 27C160 EPROM.




20210501_140413.jpg




LET'S GO




20210501_140808.jpg
20210501_140912.jpg





It works -PERFECT- !
Actually this was the first arcade game I bought about 10 years ago, and finally successed to change region.
Special Thanks to @kuze once again!
 
What's the deal with changing DDP2 from JPY to Korea other than the language change? Modified difficulty?
(Apologies if mentioned above already.. I looked up but couldn't see any answer in a handful of pages!)
 
Flinnster said:
What's the deal with changing DDP2 from JPY to Korea other than the language change? Modified difficulty?
(Apologies if mentioned above already.. I looked up but couldn't see any answer in a handful of pages!)
Click to expand...
In Japanese version you start with 3 bombs and in this version you start with 5.

There are other differences in regions such as items quantity/type that show up during gameplay.
 
Are there guys on here that sell the converted PGM carts? I've got Ketsui but would love to add Espgaluda and DDPDOJ. Also is DDPII available as a conversion?
 
Thanks yes, I've checked Ebay. I just figured I'd ask if there was anyone on the forum doing it as I'd rather support them instead. But all good, ebay here I come. Thanks for the info :)
 
Bay78 said:
Are there guys on here that sell the converted PGM carts? I've got Ketsui but would love to add Espgaluda and DDPDOJ. Also is DDPII available as a conversion?
Click to expand...
@GC8TECH sells high quality reproduction carts of the three Cave shooters that include the proper 5V circuitry.
 
Hey everyone,

I have a broken Lydz Ketsui bootleg that I'm trying to get working again. I bought it from a friend knowing that it was broken, and I'm interested in it as a project, so I'm not keen to contact the seller or send it out - at least not yet; I'd like to try repairs first myself. Partly it's because I want to play the game, but mostly it's because I'm trying to familiarize myself with how the PGM stuff works and how to troubleshoot and repair it in preparation for putting together a set of @Fluffy 's PCBs when those start shipping again.

The general problem is that the board does not seem to meaningfully boot; I just get garbled graphics and intermittent video desync, almost as if it is 'boot looping' or resetting itself. No blind play, sound, or other indication that anything of substance is happening. The motherboard is known working, including with other Lydz boots. From this I've inferred that it's probably an issue with the Program ROM or its path to the motherboard.

I've done a bunch of diagnostic work on it:

- Reflowed all relevant components on PROG board (Program ROM, both GALs, resistor arrays)
- Checked resistor array direction
- Traced power and ground, checked continuity
- Cleaned contacts on PGM motherboard socket and cartridge edge
- Desoldered ROM, dumped, verified against known working ROM data, tested replacing with known working 27c322s with several different ROM images including the one I dumped from and a known working dual boot ket/ketarr ROM
- Manually traced out all address lines from the Program ROM
- Added a pullup resistor between pin J1 21 and +5V (per @Fluffy 's pinout document, although the board did not originally have anything here)

So it seems like the next logical thing to check is the GAL that interfaces with the Program ROM. It's labeled as 'U2' in this image.

I've traced the pinout of the GAL and it seems to connect as follows:

PGM Cartridge Pin22V10 Pin27c322 Pin
40 (PA16)2 (In)34 (A15)
36 (PA20)6 (In)
35 (PA21)5 (In)
34 (PA22)4 (In)
33 (PA23)3 (In)
30 (AS)1 (In)
21 (IO)32 (A20)
22 (IO)13 (GVpp)
20 (IO)42 (A19)

I could be misinterpreting this, but it seems to me like the purpose of this GAL is to ingest the upper address lines that don't exist on the 27c322 (PA21-23) and map them to different regions of the EPROM. Since there are two address bits on the EPROM being toggled (19, 20), I think that should result in splitting the EPROM into 4x1MB addressable 'chunks' - perhaps the purpose of this is to load a BIOS or some kind of specific code region at startup, and then transition into regular program code later?

Does anyone know if this GAL has been dumped, and if so, where I could obtain a JED (or otherwise documentation on the logic) for it? Or alternatively, could I use a modified ROM or a different GAL program (perhaps one of the ones intended to do similar EPROM region remapping for Fluffy's boards) to reach a working state?

Thanks in advance for any help!
 
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Softdrink said:
I could be misinterpreting this, but it seems to me like the purpose of this GAL is to ingest the upper address lines that don't exist on the 27c322 (PA21-23) and map them to different regions of the EPROM. Since there are two address bits on the EPROM being toggled (19, 20), I think that should result in splitting the EPROM into 4x1MB addressable 'chunks' - perhaps the purpose of this is to load a BIOS or some kind of specific code region at startup, and then transition into regular program code later?
Click to expand...
Yes, that is exactly what the GAL is doing - at least on official carts. The BIOS expects the game to start at 1MB, so the GAL maps the address space from the PGM to the EPROM. (It also makes sure the game doesn't map over I/O area).
This is how it works for DDP, which uses the motherboard BIOS. Espgaluda and Ketsui start at 0 and disable the motherboard BIOS. You should be able to adjust the equations from my boards, they are in the cart assembly thread.
https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/pgm-single-game-pcb-assembly-and-troubleshooting.10015/
You'll need WinCUPL to assemble the pld files into jed files.
There may still be some secret sauce in the Lydz board, let me know if you find it. :)
 
Fluffy said:
Yes, that is exactly what the GAL is doing - at least on official carts. The BIOS expects the game to start at 1MB, so the GAL maps the address space from the PGM to the EPROM. (It also makes sure the game doesn't map over I/O area).
This is how it works for DDP, which uses the motherboard BIOS. Espgaluda and Ketsui start at 0 and disable the motherboard BIOS. You should be able to adjust the equations from my boards, they are in the cart assembly thread.
https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/pgm-single-game-pcb-assembly-and-troubleshooting.10015/
You'll need WinCUPL to assemble the pld files into jed files.
There may still be some secret sauce in the Lydz board, let me know if you find it. :)
Click to expand...
Perfect, great to know I'm on the right track!

Thanks again for all your work documenting these boards; the pinout has been extremely helpful in troubleshooting this cart. I'm really looking forward to working on the proper DIY carts once you get the boards going again!

I'm having a hell of a time downloading WinCUPL right now, seems like the MicroChip site download link isn't working correctly at the moment? Or maybe getting blocked by network or something... I'll figure it out.

Do you have any idea why the J1-21 pullup isn't connected on the Lydz boards? Your pinout documentation and the assembly guide for the carts makes it seem like at least a 100Ohm pullup is required for the cart to boot properly, but the Lydz carts I've seen never have this pulled up (it's not connected to anything at all, in fact). And when I add the pullup on my cart, it changes the behavior (although it still doesn't give me any meaningful output, heh).

And yeah, if I find anything interesting of course I will share. :)
 
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Softdrink said:
Do you have any idea why the J1-21 pullup isn't connected on the Lydz boards? Your pinout documentation and the assembly guide for the carts makes it seem like at least a 100Ohm pullup is required for the cart to boot properly, but the Lydz carts I've seen never have this pulled up (it's not connected to anything at all, in fact). And when I add the pullup on my cart, it changes the behavior (although it still doesn't give me any meaningful output, heh).
Click to expand...

Some Factory carts ("Demon Front" from memory) Don't have the 100R resistor. There IS a pad for it.. but its not populated. But i think this maybe related to the ASIC being used as the CPU on the cart.
 
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