Bubble Bobble Bootleg info

[idc]

Download: boblbobl_redux_2015-01-04.zip

[golani]

great work

[silverfox0786]

i guess the two 27512 eprom chips at the down side are the reason

I was able to further investigate the issue and confirmed that it is caused by the last pair of EPROMs that hold the video graphics.

In my dual board, which works fine, there are six pairs of video EPROMs, all 27256, which gives a total of 2 x 192KB.

In my single board, there are three pairs of video EPROMs, the first two are 27512 and the last is 27256, which means a total of 2 x 160KB.
So, some information was dropped. The game code still tries to access that missing data, but it ends up getting the incorrect information.

As ninn said, just take the images from the original game "bublbobl":

http://www.romnation.net/srv/roms/22137 ... obble.html"

And do:

copy /b a78-13.16 + a78-14.17 r18
copy /b a78-19.34 + a78-20.35 r20

And then flash r18 and r20 on a pair of 27512 or equivalent chips.
Unfortunately I don't have any at hand, so I can't test it.

Punji

I wish to implement this fix but not sure how

can someone explain which chip r18 and r20 goes to which socket please

here Is my board

[joaoljr]

@silverfox0786

Your board seems to be similar to Asure's one, i.e., it uses two 8700 (128K bytes) and two 27C256 (32K bytes) for the video ROMs. If that is really the case (need better pictures to confirm, including from the bottom side), you will need to replace the later chips by two 27C512 (64K bytes) with the missing treasure room bitmaps. You may probably need to cut and re-wire some board traces in order to allow 64K addressing on those EPROMs, as Asure did, so it is not going to be a trivial fix.

Please see the posts from May 10th, 2013 ahead.

Punji

[silverfox0786]

@silverfox0786

Your board seems to be similar to Asure's one, i.e., it uses two 8700 (128K bytes) and two 27C256 (32K bytes) for the video ROMs. If that is really the case (need better pictures to confirm, including from the bottom side), you will need to replace the later chips by two 27C512 (64K bytes) with the missing treasure room bitmaps. You may probably need to cut and re-wire some board traces in order to allow 64K addressing on those EPROMs, as Asure did, so it is not going to be a trivial fix.

Please see the posts from May 10th, 2013 ahead.

Punji

thanks for the reply Punji

I brought the board faulty so I have repaired the faults fixed the Sound recapped it and am rearing to go on this board so a little soldering is no probs for me HEHE

here are some better pics of the board









what I don't understand is this part

do I just change EPROM 6 and 7 or do I remove the other 8700 ones as well and socket them and also socket those blank slots and install all 6 GFX roms and then do the LS 138 addressing fix as asure has done

and if so what files do I use and in which order

[joaoljr]

@silverfox0786

I think you just need to replace ROMs 6 and 7 by two 27C512, since this is were the treasure room bitmaps are stored. You need to check where each pin 20 goes and maybe fix the LS138 logic. Please provide more details about the connections.

Punji

[silverfox0786]

@silverfox0786

I think you just need to replace ROMs 6 and 7 by two 27C512, since this is were the treasure room bitmaps are stored. You need to check where each pin 20 goes and maybe fix the LS138 logic. Please provide more details about the connections.

Punji

Had a look at my board and it matches asure's board exactly

I checked the sockets & pins for the 28-pins 27C512

Socket 1, pin 1 & 28 appear to be connected.

Pin 1-goes to pin 1 of the array near it. (VCC)
Pin 1 & pin 28 are connected together.
Pin 20 goes to G4 10 (LS138)
Pin 22 goes to G4 4 (LS138)
pin 28 goes to VCC 5V rail..

Socket 2,

Pin 1-> ra2 (but via rail on the back.) (VCC)
Pin 1 & pin 28 are connected together.
Pin 20 goes to g4 10 (LS138)
Pin 22 goes to g4 4 (LS138)
pin 28 goes to VCC 5V rail..

Pin 20 of the other four other sockets / roms are connected to pin 3 on the 74LS138 at position G4.

my board is exactly as above

[joaoljr]

Asure has provided some instructions on August 11th, 2013. Basically:

- Re-route 74LS138 pin 1 to VCC (only). This should cause ROMs 6 and 7 to get selected for a 64K address range instead of the current 32K, allowing you to use 27C512 instead of 27C256.

- Re-route pin 1 of both ROMs 6 and 7 to address line CA15 (instead of VCC) to get the full 64K address range. This is the confusing part in Asure's instruction. I'm not sure where it connected this signal. I suppose you may try pin 1 on either 8700, since it should be connected to that address line as well.

- Flash the new 27C512 chips with the last two video ROM pages (assuming 32K page size here).

By the way, Asure is around... I sent a PM to him last week and got a reply. It may be a good idea to ask him to chime in on this thread.

Punji

[silverfox0786]

Asure has provided some instructions on August 11th, 2013. Basically:

- Re-route 74LS138 pin 1 to VCC (only). This should cause ROMs 6 and 7 to get selected for a 64K address range instead of the current 32K, allowing you to use 27C512 instead of 27C256.

- Re-route pin 1 of both ROMs 6 and 7 to address line CA15 (instead of VCC) to get the full 64K address range. This is the confusing part in Asure's instruction. I'm not sure where it connected this signal. I suppose you may try pin 1 on either 8700, since it should be connected to that address line as well.

- Flash the new 27C512 chips with the last two video ROM pages (assuming 32K page size here).

By the way, Asure is around... I sent a PM to him last week and got a reply. It may be a good idea to ask him to chime in on this thread.

Punji

#

That's awesome Punji, whilst waiting for your reply I started to back track this thread and saw what he had done

he has the chips pin 1 connected to the same line as the 8700 pin 1 line and cut the 138 chip pin 1 and connected that to VCC

I ran out of 512s so am waiting for some to get delivered and will try it as soon as they get here

in the mean time I will pm asure and get him to confirm what we both assume to be the connections

thanks Punji really appreciated all your help and for a awesome REDUX version.

While I have you here, do you know if my board can work with your save mod code with the correct EEPROM installed

EDIT: would you be able to ask MAMEUIFX team to add your fixed roms to their menu as well please. The current set they have is a much older version

[joaoljr]

I have the score save mod installed on two very different boards. It think it should work on yours all right...

[silverfox0786]

I have the score save mod installed on two very different boards. It think it should work on yours all right...

That's awesome
Thank you

[joaoljr]

Regarding Bisboch / Aladar not running on MAME, that is caused by the monster speed DIP switch configuration, as someone mentioned before... it needs to be set to "Very High" (apparently the monster speed is not affected by that, it is always the same as in the "Normal" setting).

I compared their version with mine by playing on level 29 (blue platforms with 7 whales), where some slowdown usually happens, but detected no difference. I would encourage people to use mine mainly because it has the extra mods. I don't feel like porting those to Bisboch / Aladar version because I'm not familiar with it and could end up triggering traps and introducing issues.

[silverfox0786]

Regarding Bisboch / Aladar not running on MAME, that is caused by the monster speed DIP switch configuration, as someone mentioned before... it needs to be set to "Vert High" (apparently the monster speed is not affected by that, it is always the same as in the "Normal" setting).

I compared their version with mine by playing on level 29 (blue platforms with 7 whales), where some slowdown usually happens, but detected no difference. I would encourage people to use mine mainly because it has the extra mods. I don't feel like porting those to Bisboch / Aladar version because I'm not familiar with it and could end up triggering traps and introducing issues.

I do like your redux its great and love the extra mods you added

one thing I did find in my travels of my single board PCB is that Pin 14 is not connected to anything, I was getting a really bad wobbly image and realised that is Video GND

I patched pin 14 to ground and now the image is perfect

[silverfox0786]

performed the graphics fix today and works a treat

LS138 Pin one goes to VCC

make sure that the connection that loops round the Pin1 LS138 is not severed

Pin 1 of both 27C512s need to go to Pin 1 of any GFX Chip, be it the 8700 or the blank slots

[Asure]

Great to see you solved it and are enjoying Bubble Bobble now

[silverfox0786]

Great to see you solved it and are enjoying Bubble Bobble now

thanks

its wasn't as hard as I thought

a mod that every single board owner should do I think

[brizzo]

Dear Punji,

Thank you for your dedicated endeavor to successfully patch and bypass the protection found in Bubble Bobble! I cannot imagine how many hours were spent debugging with MAME, but it is appreciated! Thanks again!

[karatechamp999]

hi guys, need your help on this one. I got a bootleg BB board and wired it into my jamma double dragon cab and I get background on the left half of the screen and all the sprites on the right half. it's also not taking credits? and test screen is just an orange screen with nothing on it - not sure whats going on here any leads? i'll try and get a couple pics up - thanks in advance

[joaoljr]

Too many hours for sure, but I really enjoyed doing it and I'm glad others can benefit of that!

Now I need to find some time to put my Defender board together...

[karatechamp999]

http://s172.photobucket.com/user/karate ... u.jpg.html"

hi guys, need your help on this one. I got a bootleg BB board and wired it into my jamma double dragon cab and I get background on the left half of the screen and all the sprites on the right half. it's also not taking credits? and test screen is just an orange screen with nothing on it - not sure whats going on here any leads? i'll try and get a couple pics up - thanks in advance