334 replies to this topic

[palindrome]

Not sure on the name of the bingo game.

There seems to be a bug in the ARM core. Not sure how to report it or if has beenfixed in a later version ( I am using the AGE source). The bug affects the logic of a conditional branch after a TST instruction. This is what is actually causing the CPU ERROR message when the software is run..

The author of ertictac discovered it also where he mentions the dirty hack to get around the bug in the ARM core.

[Heihachi_73]

AGEMAME is being phased out it seems, focusing more on the mechs prior to being added to the baseline MAME.

Your best bet would be to post over on the MAMEWorld forum (most likely you're already reg'd since the AGEMAME forum is hosted there) or MAME Testers; if it gets any further than a black screen they'd probably sneak a little hack in until proper emulation takes its place (unless the hack breaks everything else in the process, like a few Data East games which also use the ARM CPU). Someone under tha nick 'mw' partially decoded an obscure animation format used in MK5 and MK6 games, but hasn't replied in ages.

You'll find the most recent MAME source in the usual place. It's up to 0.131u1 as of this post, so AGEMAME is quite a bit behind (although most likely nothing has been touched in the ARM section).

[palindrome]

I tried out the latest MAME source but could not get breakpoints working in debug mode which is really important if I want to trace through chunks of code and examine registers.

What would be really useful is a video of a Mark V booting up.

I am getting something weird up on screen at the moment, it doesn't look like much though.

Attached Files

•  queen.jpg   162.39KB   218 downloads

[Heihachi_73]

About all I can say about the games booting up, it looks similar to a PC startup - black and white DOS text before the game screen displays. I can't remember a MKV boot-up sequence (there are only MKVI's in Vic), it might have a blue background with white text instead.

Edit: By the way, is this another new dump I see going by that screenshot?

[Agua]

I saw a MKV being booted up today....it starts as a black screen with only white writing...looks something like this:

Checksum...ok
Eeprom......ok
Arm emulator ok
Dram (or something like that)

and a bunch of other stuff i didn't see then the game flicks on

Hope that helps a bit

[palindrome]

@ Heihachi_73

I have a couple of Aristocrat boards and several games which I dumped myself using an eprom programmer. One is a Mark V ( US version ) and a Mark IV ( this is 6809 based so it should be possible to emulate in MAME too ). The Mark IV has enchanted forest roms installed, this was the first expanding wild game and is one of my personal favorites.

@ Aqua

Can you recall how the startup check screen was rendered ?
What I mean by that is, was each line of text written to the screen one at a time ? Or was the entire summary of checks just splashed to the screen all at once ?

[Heihachi_73]

AFAIK the MKIV/6809 version should be fairly easy compared to MKV, would there be much difference between MKIV and 86lions.c?

Played Enchanted Forest a few times, but my biggest win on that type of game was on the graphics swap, Phantom Pays (when you get 3 masks up you can't lose, especially when it spun up a heart at the bottom on both ends!).

@palindrome: Sorry about the double PM, that was me getting another error message while posting, although it apparently still sent the first one...

[Agua]

The writing on the screen came up one line at a time but the whole process (from time the machine was turned on until the time the game appears) takes maybe 10 seconds tops

[palindrome]

AFAIK the MKIV/6809 version should be fairly easy compared to MKV, would there be much difference between MKIV and 86lions.c?

Played Enchanted Forest a few times, but my biggest win on that type of game was on the graphics swap, Phantom Pays (when you get 3 masks up you can't lose, especially when it spun up a heart at the bottom on both ends!).

@palindrome: Sorry about the double PM, that was me getting another error message while posting, although it apparently still sent the first one...

I didn't get your private message ??

Both machines have surprisingly similar hardware.

The Mark IV drives two AY8910 sound chips [ my board has two Winbond WF19054 which are practically the same as the AY8910 chips ]. If you listen to the win tunes on a Mark IV, you'll notice that the sound is quite good for its time.

The video address generator / CRT is R6545, apparently these have similarities to the M6845 as found in the 86lions driver.

The biggest difference in hardware is the 6522-VIA, the Mark IV uses a R65C21P2 PIA ( Peripheral Interface Adapter ) which is the same as the MC6821 ( emulated in MAME ).

It uses a single UPD43256BCZ-70LL for 256kb of static ram used for meters.

There is also a single U6264A 8K x 8 SRAM chip used for VRAM, it can take another chip in the next socket but it is vacant on my board.

Edited by palindrome, 16 May 2009 - 02:10 PM.

[Heihachi_73]

That's strange, they're still both listed in my outbox, minutes apart. I think the 86lions.c games may have been in MK2.5 cabinets, not sure.

[palindrome]

That's strange, they're still both listed in my outbox, minutes apart. I think the 86lions.c games may have been in MK2.5 cabinets, not sure.

It is similar to the Mark IV. In fact Mark IV ROMS can be used in the Mark 2.5 according to the MK IV service manual.

I've been up all night working on the Mark IV emulator. I've made some progress with enchanted forest and now I have a startup screen

I'm going to submit a preliminary driver to MAME very soon.

Attached Files

•  enchanted forest2.jpg   79.24KB   112 downloads

[palindrome]

Here's another screen shot, I noticed the reels coming up on screen just before the meter set 1 screen. It's not on the screen for long, and it took me a few hours
to notice so I took a screen shot after setting a break point

Colors look wrong though.

Attached Files

•  reels.jpg   99.66KB   152 downloads

[freddy1]

Nice work.

[Agua]

Absolutely awesome!

[Heihachi_73]

Holy crap, they're definitely the ones I remember! Looks like the actual graphics is slightly different to our types though. What region is your EPROM set?

Would you have any screenshots of the actual board up and running? There's a poor quality mobile phone video on YouTube of the same game and hardware, looks like a Tabaret (Vic) version though (this one is 100% identical to the ones I remember; only thing is, Tabaret are usually too stingy to make a 2c version, they were all fives!).

[palindrome]

I got this board from the U.S but there really was only one type of board and it is identical the ones here. Unfortunately I don't have a machine, so I can't run the game and take proper shots as it should be.

I made a small mistake regarding the hardware. The board has a 6522-VIA but I was looking for a DIP package that is why I couldn't spot it before, there is one near the two AY8910 sound chips which drives the sound and generates a timer for the CPU. The PIA I found is used to drive the electro-mechanical meters and connects the RTC directly to the CPU.

I suspect the lions86.c driver is for the Mark 2.5 Microstar due to the location of the eproms.. u8 for blue, u10 for green, u13 for red..etc

The game is identical to the games I remember here in NSW on that platform circa 1994.

[Heihachi_73]

Ah OK, it wouldn't happen to show anything inside the program ROM? (I don't have a MKIV set to check)

[Heihachi_73]

I understand the difference in graphics now...just found some other screenshots of MK4 games and the main screen looks identical (look at the Top Gear screenshot at arcade-history.com). Must be an earlier version to ours - our machines (the Vic ones at least) had a larger graphical display for the credit/bet/win meter at the top rather than just the internal font; the MK4 Wild Cougar had pretty much the same reel graphics as MK5 games (e.g. 256 colour K/Q/J symbols instead of shaded).

[palindrome]

Aristocrat established a refurbishing division called Jubilee some time in the 90's. I think the Mk IV you're familiar with is the Jubilee Mk IV, these were refurbished Mk IV machines with Mk V internals and different software.

I got your PM this time... I'll talk to you more about it on MSN
when I get the chance to get on.

[pokiesfun]

Hey Palindrome that's great work!

I can't beleive my eyes with the MK4 enchanted forest!!

Cheers