Bubble Bobble Bootleg info

[joaoljr]

ordered an AT28HC256

Bravo Ninn! Please keep us posted.

Punji

[joaoljr]

By the way, regarding the score save adapter, you may be able to dispense with soldering with the tips below.

1) Just twist the solid wire around the socket pin and cut off the excess (the socket shown is just an example,
not the correct size for the mod):


2) Cut off a pin from a "wire-wrap" socket and file its tip until it is sharpen enough to fit the board via diameter.
Insert the exposed end of the solid wire that goes to WR signal into the pin hole (you may need to double it up
in case it fits too loosely):


3) Press fit the pin into the board via (the one below is just an example, not the correct WR signal via):


Hope that makes things easier!

Punji

[centaur2]

Please post a screenshot of your hardware glitch, I may have some guess about the problem.

Hi Punji,

here are a few pictures. It starts after very few minutes of playing. I get vertical red lines under the moving objects, and on the game over screen the whole screen is filled with them.

After restarting the whole machine, the error goes away and does not come back most of the times.

Here the pictures:
[img=http://imageshack.us/scaled/thumb/707/img0838r.jpg]
[img=http://imageshack.us/scaled/thumb/441/img0835ri.jpg]
[img=http://imageshack.us/scaled/thumb/404/img0836ko.jpg]

[porchio]

finally got round to desoldering my roms and replacing them with this. Excellent work, loving it.

Thanks

[joaoljr]

finally got round to desoldering my roms and replacing them with this. Excellent work, loving it.

Thanks

Welcome... I hope you installed some sockets this time

Punji

[porchio]

I sure did

[joaoljr]

I get vertical red lines under the moving objects, and on the game over screen the whole screen is filled with them.

After restarting the whole machine, the error goes away and does not come back most of the times.

Please refer to Bubble Bobble schematics. RAM chips 83/84 on the video board hold the 256 entries palette RAM (16 bits per entry). For the score screen, index 0xFF holds the black "background" color and index 0xF7 has a dull red, like the one from your red strips issue. Your problem is likely related to a bad AA3 signal going into pin 5 of RAM chip 83. It is getting a "0" instead of a "1", selecting entry 0xF7 instead of 0xFF.

Now, RAM chips 79/80 hold the pixels for one screen scan line (one is for odd lines, the other for even lines, but I'm not not sure which). Before a new line is populated with pixels, it gets cleared by storing 0xFF into all RAM bytes. As far as I understand, this is accomplished by means of the pull up resistor networks RB2 and RB3. I guess your issue is related to either data signal DD3 or DD11 coming in and out the RAMs, which is feed into AA3 after going through chips 81 and 68. Maybe the pull up is failing somehow, or one of the RAM chips 79/80 do not properly write the "1" level provided by the pull-up resistor after warming up a little.

I noticed from the code that, if your red strips issue really has the root cause above, you should NEVER see it in level 1. Note that I don't quite understand why the strips only show up under moving objects in the level screens.

You may try a few things:

- Swap RAM chips 79 and 80 and check in the score screen if the red strips move from odd to even lines (you may confirm that by the amount of empty space between the top screen characters and the first red strip).
- Check all board signals connected to pin 13 of RAM chips 79/80 for anything suspicious.

Other than that, I would need an oscilloscope screenshot for a few signal to help you out.

Punji

[centaur2]

Hi Punji,

THANKS a lot for your very detailed information.
As soon as I am near the board again I will try and report back.

But you are right about one thing: I have never encountered the error in level 1.

All the best
Sebastian

[joaoljr]

But you are right about one thing: I have never encountered the error in level 1.

Sebastian, if you are unable to fix the HW issue, you may always patch the image "bb5" at offset 0x428e with a 0x00 (the current value it 0x80). This should change that dull red to black, making the strips go away. The only problem is that any screen objects using that color index will also be affected. That may be a minor issue when compared to the one you have now, so it may be worth a try.

Punji

[shinobi076]

Hi everyone !!
I've tested the new roms on mame and I've recoreded an inp file (2 loops clear with good ending):
http://benjamin.bouloch.free.fr/boblbobl_mplus089.zip"

I would like to congratulate all peoples who have contributed to this work because I can tell you that it's the same version (99%) than the orginal Taito pcb (I got it).
The only thing I see is the white ghost enemies who have slightly different patterns but is not easy to see.
Try to compare my inp file with my replays:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkhv23 ... videogames"
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkj68c ... videogames"
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkj938 ... videogames"

Can you confirm that the roms can run on every boot pcb ? the single and the double boards ?

[emphatic]

my replays:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkhv23 ... videogames"
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkj68c ... videogames"
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkj938 ... videogames"

I can only confirm that you are awesome at this game.

[joaoljr]

The only thing I see is the white ghost enemies who have slightly different patterns but is not easy to see.
Try to compare my inp file with my replays.

Can you confirm that the roms can run on every boot pcb ? the single and the double boards ?

I will try to take a closer look at this white ghost movement discrepancy, but small movement differences may be due to the code skipping some PS4 emulation routines when slowdown is detected (that may happen when you have 7 enemies and a lot of bubbles flying around the screen).

By my accounts, based on feedback posted here, these images were already installed successfully in at least 6 PCBs. I have two boards, one single and one double. It is very likely that it will run on yours. The only requirement so far is that it should NOT have an MC68705 processor, which was used to run the PS4 emulation code instead of the main Z80 CPU. That type of board seems to be so rare that I was never able to find a picture of one in the Internet.

Punji

[golani]

hello,
did you mean this pcb?
i have some more pics.
greetings
simon

http://s14.directupload.net/file/d/3172 ... xi_jpg.htm

http://s1.directupload.net/file/d/3172/4d8a2emc_jpg.htm

[shinobi076]

I will try to take a closer look at this white ghost movement discrepancy, but small movement differences may be due to the code skipping some PS4 emulation routines when slowdown is detected (that may happen when you have 7 enemies and a lot of bubbles flying around the screen).
By my accounts, based on feedback posted here, these images were already installed successfully in at least 6 PCBs. I have two boards, one single and one double. It is very likely that it will run on yours. The only requirement so far is that it should NOT have an MC68705 processor, which was used to run the PS4 emulation code instead of the main Z80 CPU. That type of board seems to be so rare that I was never able to find a picture of one in the Internet.
Punji

I've tried again and I think I was wrong. all enemies patterns seems really 100% indentical with the orginal. you've done a great job !!!
I can buy this boot: http://www.crazykong.com/pcbs/A%20-%20F ... n.pcb.html"
this is the 56pins boot pcb. do you have this one ? is it ok for conversion ?

[joaoljr]

I can buy this boot: http://www.crazykong.com/pcbs/A%20-%20F ... n.pcb.html"
this is the 56pins boot pcb. do you have this one ? is it ok for conversion ?

The one you mentioned above seems to be the non-JAMMA 56-pin version (based on the fact that it has a connector adapter).
Mine is this:

It is a a JAMMA 56-pin version. You will notice that the overall layout is identical.
I can't guarantee to you 100% but it is very likely that yours will work as well.

Good luck!

Punji

PS: Those red wires were temporarily used to connect the board reset circuit to a push-bottom.
I used it to synchronize the oscilloscope when debugging the HW issues.
This board was completely dead on arrival, it was either stricken by lightening or got a big voltage surge.
I had to replace 30 (!!!) chips to get it in working condition again.

[shinobi076]

Many thanks for the info Punji. I will let you know.

[pc18]

What a great read. I cant wait to have a go at this with my bobble bobble board. Keep up the good work!

[VectorGlow]

I will try to take a closer look at this white ghost movement discrepancy, but small movement differences may be due to the code skipping some PS4 emulation routines when slowdown is detected (that may happen when you have 7 enemies and a lot of bubbles flying around the screen).
By my accounts, based on feedback posted here, these images were already installed successfully in at least 6 PCBs. I have two boards, one single and one double. It is very likely that it will run on yours. The only requirement so far is that it should NOT have an MC68705 processor, which was used to run the PS4 emulation code instead of the main Z80 CPU. That type of board seems to be so rare that I was never able to find a picture of one in the Internet.
Punji

I've tried again and I think I was wrong. all enemies patterns seems really 100% indentical with the orginal. you've done a great job !!!
I can buy this boot: http://www.crazykong.com/pcbs/A%20-%20F ... n.pcb.html"
this is the 56pins boot pcb. do you have this one ? is it ok for conversion ?

Regarding the connector and just in case you were wondering, that's not quite JAMMA I'm afraid - I have one almost exactly the same and if you look at the two pins near the top of the edge connector you'll see they are separate - on a JAMMA edge connector they are both Ground, here here the lower one is for Button 1 Player 1. Otherwise it's pretty close to JAMMA, but you'll still need an adapter to plug it into a JAMMA loom.

The one in the pic by joaoljr (excellent work on the Bubble Bobble code that man - very impressive ) does look to be JAMMA, but to be 100% sure it would be worth checking through all the pins and their connections.

[VectorGlow]

Pre-patched ROM link updated:

https://ianc.net/temp/boblbobl/boblbobl ... -01-31.zip"

Is this still the latest and greatest version of joaoljr's code? Just checking as I want to load it onto a bootleg board that I'm currently repairing.

[idc]

Pre-patched ROM link updated:

https://ianc.net/temp/boblbobl/boblbobl ... -01-31.zip"

Is this still the latest and greatest version of joaoljr's code? Just checking as I want to load it onto a bootleg board that I'm currently repairing.

Yep. In fact, I've rigged the site to always provide the latest revision, no matter which link from this thread is clicked.