Does Capcom of Japan still revive dead CPS3 security carts?

[skforty]

Yeah, its definitely nice to have other people interested/motivated

Yeah, we should document the differences, ill do the same with mine, although i have 3 at the moment.

One last random darkhorse idea i wanted to throw out is:

Is the cartridge pinout known? I couldnt find the schematics on it. If we knew it, we could also potentially make an adapter for PC through parallel port, modify the mame source, trigger the menu through mame, and have it rewrite the cart that way....Because finding the menu through mame is not only possible, its been done...

@Sneek: Yes, if you can dig that up and take pictures that will be VERY valuable. Please try.

[Artemio]

*If* the cart is rewritable that is. I found no text in the carts indicating this... That's why i didn't go on.

[skforty]

you're right, we dont know that its possible. I think one of the best things to do would be try and access that menu from mame, at least then we could play around with it, and see if its a worthwhile endeavor to reverse the cart pinout, or even pursue the discovery of the menu "naturally".

[idc]

*If* the cart is rewritable that is. I found no text in the carts indicating this... That's why i didn't go on.

Pretty certain the carts should be rewritable. Capcom Japan told me they have no stock of CPS3 kits/carts whatsoever, so I'm presuming that whatever carts are sent in are repaired rather than being replaced entirely, since they don't actually have replacements to send back out.

I am also led to believe that Capcom Asia will actually reprogram any CPS3 cart with SF3.3 Asia data, regardless of what it was originally.

[sneek]

Pretty certain the carts should be rewritable. Capcom Japan told me they have no stock of CPS3 kits/carts whatsoever, so I'm presuming that whatever carts are sent in are repaired rather than being replaced entirely, since they don't actually have replacements to send back out.

I am also led to believe that Capcom Asia will actually reprogram any CPS3 cart with SF3.3 Asia data, regardless of what it was originally.

I would agree... I can confirm that Capcom Asia will reprogram any cart region to Asia region. Ive had it done to two carts.

As per the original topic, ive also had two carts done with Capcom Japan. Just a hell of a lot harder!

Regarding the menu... I always thought you would need a custom cd (something only capcom would have) to use that reflashing menu even if you could figure out how to access it to begin with.

[Artemio]

*If* the cart is rewritable that is. I found no text in the carts indicating this... That's why i didn't go on.

Pretty certain the carts should be rewritable. Capcom Japan told me they have no stock of CPS3 kits/carts whatsoever, so I'm presuming that whatever carts are sent in are repaired rather than being replaced entirely, since they don't actually have replacements to send back out.

I am also led to believe that Capcom Asia will actually reprogram any CPS3 cart with SF3.3 Asia data, regardless of what it was originally.

Sorry, meant to say "if the cartridge is reflashable with our boards". There is no sign of a reflashing menu in the carts though... it seems that it would indeed either be on a separate CD that loads the program and executes it or special hardware to which we have no access or something that plugs in the boards in teh plastic covered space or...

[idc]

I am also led to believe that Capcom Asia will actually reprogram any CPS3 cart with SF3.3 Asia data, regardless of what it was originally.

I would agree... I can confirm that Capcom Asia will reprogram any cart region to Asia region. Ive had it done to two carts.

To clarify, I meant that if asked nicely they will reprogram, say, a dead SF3.1 US cart as SF3.3 Asia. Not something I've asked them directly, but it was something I was told by a reliable source.

It's a pity that Capcom Asia don't appear to have security data for other regions. I just wonder if they'll tell us the required info to revive carts if we pester them enough. As I've discussed previously, Capcom Japan were polite and understanding but would not release any information. I have no contacts at Capcom Asia, but it seems to me that they may be a little more likely to help us.

I'll bet that if we had access to the security data for one game for any region, it would be trivial to reconstruct the data for all other games and regions.

[speedlolita]

There's also some glitch with Chun Li in the Asia version I read somewhere..

Is it only Ken and Ryu that are effected, like does Dudley still speak?

[Ramza]

There's also some glitch with Chun Li in the Asia version I read somewhere..

Is it only Ken and Ryu that are effected, like does Dudley still speak?

All japanese voices are cut out and replaced in the Asia version. Gameplay-wise it should be the same as the japanese Version (990512).

[Artemio]

I have a few boards and this is the documentation I could gather form them:

http://junkerhq.net/xrgb/index.php/CPS-3_board_models"

If you have any more please feel free to post it here or edit the wiki. The purpose of that wiki is to collect information so we can share it. Its final storage place should be available to all of us.

So far I have found three revisions of the CPS-3 board, 95682A-2 to 95682A-4, the 95682A-2 revision is the most interesting one since it has the layout on the PCB to attach a battery and connectors CN2 to CN4 to attach pins for possible communication with external devices. Of course none of that is documented since these were never used and removed on later revisions. On the wiki I did what I could at the moment to document this findings hoping that we can start gathering as much information as possible on this.

Sorry about the delay, but I had to go on a trip.

[sneek]

@Sneek: Yes, if you can dig that up and take pictures that will be VERY valuable. Please try.

Sorry guys... been away on business and forgot about this thread.

CPS3 Motherboard: Cyclone Rev.2 95682A-2

http://sneeknet.homelinux.com/images/cp ... e-rev2.jpg


Can take some more if needed.

[channelmaniac]

OK.. here we go...

ADM202 = High Speed 5v, .1uf CMOS RS-232 Driver/Receiver.

It has TTL/CMOS inputs/outputs and RS-232 level inputs/outputs. Plus it takes the 5v input and has a voltage doubler AND inverter sections to give you +/- 10v on the RS-232 outputs. Interesting chip.

The "CC" labeled components are electrolytic capacitors.

The "EXC" labeled ones are what I believe to be those 3 pin power filters that are typically next to the JAMMA connectors to filter power and inputs.

RTC-4553 = Serial-interface real time clock module.

This chip has a built-in crystal and 30 x 4-bit SRAM and is the reason for the battery.

The 256k SRAM is just a generic 62256 type with an L suffix for low power standby to keep the battery from draining too fast.

The only thing I'm having trouble with is VD1 - It's a voltage regulator but who knows what the input and output voltages are.

Download the data sheet for the ADM202 from http://www.datasheetarchive.com" and grab the pinouts. From there you can try to pin out CN2, CN3, and CN4.

RJ

[Artemio]

Thanks a lot for the information Channelmaniac, you are the go to guy with this kind of stuff .. what are your views on this? Obviously from what we've gathered there is probably a revision 1 board that may have had those components and was probably not released to the public. It is unknown if having those components in place would achieve something, and since there is SRAM there with a battery the most probable outcome is that we wouldn't.

Anyway, what kind of approach would you recommend to investigate this issue further? I believe that we should find all cps-3 boards that we can and get pictures of any model that is not 2, 3 or 4 which are the ones we've documented so far.

Another path is disassembling the cart's code.

And another is playing with MAME to figure out how to get that menu working.

[Artemio]

I think getting that menu to work in mame would be cool, I have no idea how easy it'd be to replicate it on there real hardware mind you.

that is partially related to disassembling the code, since even though we could find the start address to do that, running it on real hardware would imply to know how to trigger it from normal conditions.

[channelmaniac]

Someone should repopulate the RS-232 portions and try various combinations of start/stop/data bits and baud rates to see if the thing responds.

[sneek]

Someone should repopulate the RS-232 portions and try various combinations of start/stop/data bits and baud rates to see if the thing responds.

Hah... might be an idea, get some serial action happening. I still reckon even if you get it to accept comms you will still need a cd which we don't have to reflash the cart.

[DJ Long Cat]

I'm throwing my input into this.

I bought a CPS3 Jojo2 JP board off ebay 2 years ago and I knew it was an earlier revision but I didn't know when.

Whats weird about my board is that it has an input for one of the external devices.

Top Left Hand Corner. I haven't seen that on any other board ever.



I have no idea what it was used for so I'm just throwing this out there.

[Artemio]

And it is a rev 2 Cyclone, right? Very interesting. It would be great to know if there is something different under the white plastic, of course if it is possible.

[DJ Long Cat]

I can't because I sold it before I went away for College.

I still know who I sold it to and I'll ask him in the name of science.

EDIT: I just got word that the guy killed the cart while changing the battery but the board itself is probably still fine.

I'll post pictures as soon as I can get them.

[DJ Long Cat]

Guys, this just got interesting.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v171/ ... cade/CPS3/"

Do they usually have a battery and chips under there?