Can I convert Football Champ (Taito F1) into something else?

[kuze]

I've had a fake HOT chip blow up like that, scared the crap out of me

 

[XtraSmiley]

I believe I have a Dead Connection ROM board if that helps anyone. I can post pictures if needed. I sadly have been unable to find a working F2 motherboard yet... so I have no idea if my games even work.

 

[mypinballs]

Hi, Just found this thread Its great to see some other people thinking the same as me. I started a similar thread on ukvac back in october last year to see if i could work out the same, as i wanted to find something better to do with my football champ pcbs! (Not a football fan)

The thread is here,
http://www.ukvac.com/forum/topic373454_post1131736.html

I think you are further ahead though on working it all out as you have access to real dead connection singe boards which is great. I had got stumped on trying to work out where the ic72 flip flop connected but did think the same that it was only using 1 side of the flip flop.

Is it possible to post some more pics or write down where the data (pin 2) and clock (pin 3) pins come from and what the inverted output (pin 6) is used for and where it goes.

Is there info on what the extra jumpers are for to i.e Jumpers 9-12. I only saw these and ic72 as changes from football champ.

Very interested to hear on further progress.

The back of my FC board is like this currently
I have previously added the missing A18-M68k address line to the roms and to the 68k cpu, and changed the pin 11 input of ic45 pal input to A19-M68k, but nothing really improved.

 

[mypinballs]

I have some more progress to report. I found that one of my original game roms i burned for the conversion was the wrong one meaning my rom0 upper data bits were wrong. Once i had this rectified and changed i got this with dip switch 3 enabled. Phew!

I burned a set of the large 27c400 and 27c800 roms to swap into by board and now i have a working game Took awhile to get a programmer that would burn the higher sized 16 bit roms needed, but glad i did.

Video of the intro running here on my instagram feed : https://www.instagram.com/p/B83ZtpvnXrB

So if anyone needs a set of roms for the conversion please let me know. I'm still interested to know more about ic72 and what its for, because it doesnt seem to be needed, or the version of board i have is ok without it.

Off to play some dead connection

 

[twistedsymphony]

added the missing A18-M68k address line to the roms and to the 68k cpu, and changed the pin 11 input of ic45 pal input to A19-M68k

WOW, nice work.

So in addition to adding the above connections did you have to cut any traces? And did you have to modify the ROMs at all?

 

[Hammy]

Well done! Thanks for finishing this one, it was sitting around for a long time.
Seems that fresh eyes on this one was all that was needed!

I re-burned all the GFX roms and took the extra 74 off and patched a couple of traces that had been cut....

Can confirm it's working!!!
Only note with the roms is that rom 8 = rom 9 and rom 9 = rom 10.

rom 10 in mame archive is the sample rom (rom 57 on the F.C board)

 

[Hammy]

So in addition to adding the above connections did you have to cut any traces? And did you have to modify the ROMs at all?

Just a couple of wire mods, no rom patches.

I'm gonna put the extra 74 back on to see what happens, seems to be running fine without it? crazy!

...
Dual boot with football champ too! if you bump the roms up and add an extra line and a toggle on a19:
27c160's for the 800's
800's for the 400's
040 for the 020's

 

[twistedsymphony]

nice, my attempts were all done on a ROM board version of the game, I think the only wire I was missing was the one from the PAL. I do have a single board version so I'll dig that out to try either today or tomorrow. and maybe we can figure out this conversion for the ROM board variant as well

So who's up for the next potential F2 Conversion!?

I'm thinking Ah Eikou no Koshien to Gun Frontier is possible

 

[Hammy]

Ninja kids is the only other game that may run on this particular board. (TE7750 chip)
Not looked at it. The config for ninja kids has 1 less graphics chip compared to football champ h/w.

 

[mypinballs]

WOW, nice work.
So in addition to adding the above connections did you have to cut any traces? And did you have to modify the ROMs at all?

Thanks, i only had to cut 1 trace which was the original signal to the pin11 of the ic45 pal ic, so i could attach the higher address line to it for the new 27c020 game roms.

 

[twistedsymphony]

Ninja kids is the only other game that may run on this particular board. (TE7750 chip)
Not looked at it. The config for ninja kids has 1 less graphics chip compared to football champ h/w.

indeed. though Ninja Kids isn't that rare or valuable of a game. If you're interested I have an original Ninja Kids ROM board I can do some testing on though.

I threw this chart together a while back when I was trying to figure out what potential conversion candidates were...

After looking at PCB pics and memory maps the 3 I thought were most likely were
Foorball Champ to Dead Connection
Ah Eikou no Koshien to Gun Frontier
and Drift out to Pu Li Ru La
in that order

 

[mypinballs]

Well done! Thanks for finishing this one, it was sitting around for a long time.
Seems that fresh eyes on this one was all that was needed!

I re-burned all the GFX roms and took the extra 74 off and patched a couple of traces that had been cut....

Can confirm it's working!!!
Only note with the roms is that rom 8 = rom 9 and rom 9 = rom 10.

rom 10 in mame archive is the sample rom (rom 57 on the F.C board)

Yeah i think part of the issue was the confusing file names etc. Much studying of original board pics to sort them out.

Weird about the IC72 ic isnt it! Very interested to know what thats all about

 

[mypinballs]

Talking about conversions. It a shame that Metal Black isn't exactly the same hardware as football champ, as thats where i started with this when first looking, ie can metal black be run on something else. I think the i/o ic (4 player vs 2 players??) and sound hardware is different though. Metal Black uses the TCO480SCP scrolling ic i think to.

 

[djsheep]

Great work @mypinballs

 

[Darksoft]

Congrats @mypinballs

Ninja kids is the only other game that may run on this particular board. (TE7750 chip)
Not looked at it. The config for ninja kids has 1 less graphics chip compared to football champ h/w.

I have 2x Thunder Fox. Is there something I could convert one of them to?

 

[twistedsymphony]

I have 2x Thunder Fox. Is there something I could convert one of them to?

I threw this chart together a while back when I was trying to figure out what potential conversion candidates were...

Liquid Kids looks like the only other board with matching taito Customs.
Maybe Mega Blast if you patched out protection.

 

[twistedsymphony]

I just modded my single-bard Football Champ and it works perfectly.

Unfortunately duplicating this on the ROM board (Hattrick Hero) version doesn't boot.


jump together pin 30 of the 4 27c010 EPROM slots together and then tied that to CPU Pin 46 (C-Connector pin 1 by way of the solder joint for the PAL pin 11 socket


then pulled pin 11 of the PAL out of the socket and tied that CPU Pin 47 (C-Connector Pin 19).


the other jumper wires you see on the bottom are factory, my other Hattrick hero ROM board has them also.
I know the ROMs are good as I tested them in the single board version.

PALs have different labels, ROM board PALs are "C80-06" and "C80-07" instead of "C80-08" and "C80-09"
Pin 11 on the lower numbered pal was routed to CPU pin 46 though, just like on the other PCB.

ROM board version IC numbering matches Dead Connection though... so there's that:
Hattrick Hero (ROM Board)
ic2 = c80-12 -> d28-09.2
ic3 = c80-16 -> d28-06.3
ic4 = c80-18 -> d28-08.4
ic5 = c80-17 -> d28-12.5 or d28-07.5

ic6 = c80-15 -> d28-10.6

ic8 = c80-01 -> d28-01.8
ic9 = c80-02 -> d28-02.9
ic10 = c80-03 -> d28-03.10

ic16 = c80-04 -> d28-04.16
ic17 = c80-05 -> d28-05.17


Football Champ (Single Board)
ic4 = c80-10 -> d28-12.5 or d28-07.5
ic5 = c80-14 -> d28-08.4
ic6 = c80-11 -> d28-06.3
ic7 = c80-12 -> d28-09.2

ic1 = c80-04 -> d28-04.16
ic2 = c80-05 -> d28-05.17

ic9 = c80-01 -> d28-01.8
ic10 = c80-02 -> d28-02.9
ic57 = c80-03 -> d28-03.10

ic70 = c80-15 -> d28-10.6

 

[frsj8112]

I have some more progress to report. I found that one of my original game roms i burned for the conversion was the wrong one meaning my rom0 upper data bits were wrong. Once i had this rectified and changed i got this with dip switch 3 enabled. Phew!

I burned a set of the large 27c400 and 27c800 roms to swap into by board and now i have a working game Took awhile to get a programmer that would burn the higher sized 16 bit roms needed, but glad i did.

Video of the intro running here on my instagram feed : https://www.instagram.com/p/B83ZtpvnXrB

So if anyone needs a set of roms for the conversion please let me know. I'm still interested to know more about ic72 and what its for, because it doesnt seem to be needed, or the version of board i have is ok without it.

Off to play some dead connection

Nice work mate

Does it still need the wire patch on the backside of the PCB?

 

[mypinballs]

Nice work mate
Does it still need the wire patch on the backside of the PCB?

Yes

 

[Darksoft]

Thanks for info.