Finding the right Donor

OK, so I haven't done a reproduction cart yet. I have bought / ordered all the stuff i need to do the 2 projects that i have detailed guides for, but I'm trying to line up donor carts to try on projects i don't have guides for.

I found the attached spreadsheet which lists most, if not all games, along with Size, Rom type, sram size, version, hirom/lorom, and Rom speed, etc.

What I am questioning is How compatible do these need to be?

For Instance, I am looking at doing a Final Fantasy V, which is listed as such:

FINAL FANTASY 5 SquareSoft 16 MBit NTSC ROM and SRAM 64 KBit 1.0 Yes(HiRom) SlowROM

The Problem is finding another game with those exact qualities. Doing an F5 on the document only brings me to other Japanese games or Secret of Mana. Obviously i don't want to use SoM...

And Searching the document for other games that are Hirom AND SlowRom doesn't produce any viable candidates (all the US games i saw didn't have ram chips).

I assume that if need be i can swap a ram chip from a 2nd donor cart, but then what exactly, is the base reuirement just the HiRom or LoRom?

It seems from reading that i can put a SlowRom game onto a board from a FastRom donor cart (though not vice versa), if that is true would a game that matches everything except the rom speed be suitable, like say a copy of NHL 97?

Which brings me to my last question. When looking at PCB boards online, I see that the SFC FFV cart uses a different decoder (MB74LS139) than NHL 97 (MAD-1A). Does this make a difference? Or will it be necessary to pull the MB74 chip out of another game.

Thanks for any help you are able to give me.

-David

I explain a little

getafixx says: The functions of the MAD-1, as it looks, is an Address Decoder, SRAM controller, and a (2x) ROM Decoder all built into one

74LS139 is a decoder and demulttiflexer that can decode two ROM cartridge, the other possibility is to run a SRAM and ROM

The biggest difference that could decirce MAD-1 can handle a SRAM and two ROMs at a time. while 74LS139 can only handle two things, either 2 ROM, or one ROM and one SRAM

passing HIGH and LOW ROM ROM

the biggest difference is that the cartridges have their pins changed, most of the games are lowrom below 8Mbit

I keep writing soon out ...

The LoROM vs. HiROM has to match, but the slow vs. fast doesn't. Pretty much all modern flash chips are fast and can run fast or slow games.

exactly


I would not trust much of that excel sheet
is preferable to run this game on an emulator and actually see that things need



most important that the donor must have the special chip in the case of starfox 2 must have FX chip to Final Fantasy V should skip this step

is important that the SRAM must be equal or higher (major, not sure)
for data to be stored properly, never less

First option: the size of the game you want to replace is also important, if yours are going to need 16 Mbits, then you have to use 2 EPROM and a cartridge donor that has two MASKROM besides the SRAM, the typical configuration has a decoder MAD-1.

On the other hand, the second option is to use a TSOP that can store 32 Mbits, and a cartridge donor with 1 MASKROM and SRAM. This configuration usually have a 74LS139, but sometimes this with MAD-1

In both cases should work

If the game exceeds 32 MB and is a special case that is out of my reach right now, is that you have to rewire the MAD-1 to accept 2 TSOP, I do not know how to do it with a 74LS139

regards

16Mbit ROM means you can use boards with either a MAD-1 decoder or a '139 decoder ('139 only supports up to 16Mbit), so along with the 64K RAM requirement, your options are SHVC-1J3M-XX, SHVC-1J3B-XX, or SHVC-2J3M-XX (2x8Mbit ROMs). However, the only cart I know of that used SHVC-1J3B-XX was FFV, so that doesn't help you. You could also use boards with 256K RAM without any issues, so that also allows SHVC-1J5M-XX

A quick search of SNESCentral brings up the following options:
SHVC-1J3M-XX (1x32Mbit ROM/64K RAM)
===============================
Bounty Sword
Breath of Fire II
Chrono Trigger
Dai-4-ji Super Robot Taisen (Super Robot Wars 4)
Dragon Quest III - Soshite Densetsu e...
Dragon Quest VI - Maboroshi no Daichi
Earthbound
Fire Emblem - Seisen no Keifu
Fortune Quest - Dice o Korogase
Front Mission
Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi
Human Grand Prix IV - F1 Dream Battle
Illusion of Time/Illusion of Gaia
Madden NFL '95
NHL '95
NHL '97
Romancing Saga 2　(ロマンシング　サ・ガ2)
Romancing Saga 3　(ロマンシング　サ・ガ3)
Secret of Evermore
Secret of Mana
Seiken Densetsu 3 (せいけんでんせつ３, 聖剣伝説３)

SHVC-2J3M-XX (2x8Mbit ROM/64K RAM)
==============================
7th Saga
Secret of Mana
Super Adventure Island II / Takahashi Meijin no Daibouken Shima II

SHVC-1J5M-XX (1x32Mbit ROM/256K RAM)
================================
Fushigi no Dungeon 2 - Fuurai no Shiren
Sim City 2000
Winning Post 2 - Program \'96 (ウイニングポスト2プログラム\'96)



tl;dr: Madden NFL '95, NHL '95, NHL '97 (it's a good bet that any NFL/NHL after '95 will probably work too, the SNESCentral list is far from complete)

If you want a more generalized answer, here you go. The important factor is the PCB ID, ignore those compatibility spreadsheets/lists. First things first, if your game needs a special chip (SA-1, SuperFX, DSP-n, etc), you'll need a donor with that same chip. Most likely, you're talking a ROM hack/translation if you need a special chip, so just use the board for the original game.

For non-special chip games, here's a quick breakdown of the PCB ID (I'll only cover the common cases here):

SHVC-ABCD-XY

SHVC: ID prefix, doesn't really matter here. SHVC is the most common, but there are others.
A: number of ROM chips. Probably 1 or 2. If 2, they are probably 2x8Mbit, limiting you to 16Mbit games.
B: A = LoROM, J = HiROM
C: SRAM size. 1 = 16K, 3 = 64K, 5 = 256K
D: Decoder. M = MAD-1, B = '139. MAD-1 supports up to 32Mbit, '139 supports up to 16Mbit*
XY: Doesn't matter.

*There are 2 different ROM chip sizes, 32-pin chips only support up to 8Mbit, 36-pin chips support up to 32Mbit. A MAD-1 board with a 32-pin ROM will only support up to 8Mbit. Check the PCB photo at SNESCentral and count the ROM pins. Their info is often incomplete, so if they say unknown supported ROM/RAM size, use the info posted here. Also, this assumes you don't want to mess around with adding/modifying the address decoder (e.g. add a '139 to a MAD-1 board to support 2x32Mbit TSOP ROMs, etc.).

Once you know which PCBs will support the ROM you're using, you can use SNESCentral to find games that use that PCB. Sometimes, a game uses more than one PCB during different production runs, so you're not 100% guaranteed to get the PCB you want, but you can check the PCB that you get against your requirements, and chances are it may still work.


Examples:
SHVC-1A3M-30: LoROM, MAD-1 (32Mbit ROM), 64K RAM
SHVC-1A3B-11: LoROM, '139 (16Mbit ROM), 64K RAM
SHVC-2J3M-20: HiROM, MAD-1 (2x8Mbit ROMs), 64K RAM

You don't need donors. New boards will be available.

Alright thanks guys, you all really cleared up the questions i had!

Most of mine, i intend to grab Japanese versions and switch out the chip for tsop with the english version on it.

My roomate wants US carts, so for him I am looking to use donors.

I had read illusions towards their being blank PCB's like retrousb has for the NES. I wait anxiously...


Edit:

Since I'm at work waiting to go home I'll share my discoveries I made at home. I had a copy of NHL 97 that i had removed the maskrom and replaced it with an IC socket. I then, using my new desoldering pump (OMG if only i had one of these a year ago!!) to remove the maskroms from Madden 96, NHL 95, and some BB game, NBA 97 or something.
The Madden 96 maskrom were the only ones to work in the NHL socket. I got so excited when it booted up, I can't wait for my chips to get here so i can program them!

Knowing now what you guys told me, The NBA Live 97 is LoRom which is why it didn't work.

The NHL 95 game is only 32 pins. Is there something special that has to be done when putting a 32 pin MaskRom in a board? (I know this wont matter when i use my tsops as they will all be using the 36 pin adapter, but I'm trying to understand how this all works.)

Because I'm that type of person i have a strong urge to go home and switch out my SoE, and SoM and BoFII maskroms and start swapping boards just to see them work!! (That's crazy talk though )

New NES PCBs are available now. You don't need donors for most of those now either.

Maybe so, but AFAIK, they aren't yet. Also, unfortunately without an economy of scale, donors are still cheaper than new PCB's + shells.

Also, to answer your question about 32-pin ROMs on 36-pin boards, they have the exact same pinout, the 36-pin ROM just has 4 extra pins on one end, so a 32-pin chip will fit just fine without any special considerations, so long as you put it in the correct holes. The 36-pin PCB's are pretty clearly marked to indicate this.

As for SoE/SoM/BoFII, do us all a favor and just take my word for it that they work, k? You'll have us crying over here if you start pulling mask ROMs just to swap them for curiosity's sake

Could you point me to a guide for using those? Such as which king of chips i would need? I've only read up on nes repro's in the last few days and it seems a bit harder to find the right parts than snes. The idea of using blank pcb's is really intriguing but i have no idea what to get for the sram/wram, etc.
Also looking at the boards on retrousb, how do you handle games that need a battery to save with?




Then do you know why the mask rom of NHL 95 wouldn't work? I had it in the correct 32 pins... I suppose i never tested it before i desoldered it from it's board.

The InfiniteNESLives new NES boards only require you to have EPROMs or FlashROMs. You don't need any other parts as you can get those with the boards when you order I believe.

qwertymodo, the great thing about the new SNES pcbs is unlike eproms and the tsop flash methods, the buyer doesn't need to solder anything. That certainly should be appealing to alot of people. The newer NES pcbs will be the same way. Once new cases are sorted out, we can finally move toward people not destroying original games.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for using new parts over donors. I'm even working on my own cart design, just for kicks. But unless you can beat $12 for a fully populated PCB with a shell, donors will still be cheaper.

As for NHL '95, there is no reason it shouldn't work on an NHL '97 PCB. Maybe the socket isn't making good contact, or maybe you're putting it in wrong. Hard to say.

not, if permitted email link from another page

SNES boxes





regards

And for something like $8 more, you don't have to do any soldering. And you don't need an adapter. And when 29F032s are much harder to find and more expensive the cost difference may be in favor of new even more.

AM29F032B's aren't the only option. Anyway, I'm eagerly awaiting INL's HiLo boards, and in conjunction with the RetroQuest shells, I agree that they'll make a better solution for people interested in a dev cart, I just figured I'd offer up some useful information.

I think they are valid options, I am of the option that is best to use new piesas that gutting an original cartridge, in my case buy a single pcb ready plus postage, is very expensive. that is why I ask for help to replace MAD-1

I must have put it in upside down or something, it works now.

Is there any pcb available which has 2 maskroms for 2 tsop adapter...

For hirom games this is not a topic, because for lorom?

I think the nba t.e. cart is 2 maskrom and lorom, right?

thanks

red

Are you asking for a TSOP adapter for carts with 2 mask ROMs? That's just a 32-pin/8Mbit ROM, nothing special about it. You could easily use the breakout adapters I made for the M29F160, but use the M29F080 instead, and don't include the extra 4 pins when you solder on the breakaway pin strips. Or, it would be trivial to make a 32-pin version.

Or are you asking for a LoROM game that uses 2 ROM chips, as a donor? Try NBA Live '95 or Troy Aikman NFL Football. However, they only support 16Mbit, because they have 2x8Mbit ROMs.

In case someone's looking for these, still.

http://www.infiniteneslives.com/snessupplies.php "Was going to copy and paste the best features but... every one of them makes donors look stupid unless you just happen to have some EPROMs (like me)." - Me on IRC

http://www.nintendorepairhut.com/access ... ories.html CTRL-F "Cart Creation Board" -> Not tried both this and the INL boards, as I don't even have a SNES with me.

http://retrorgb.com/romcarts.html List of Flash carts for various systems.
http://www.stoneagegamer.com/snes-flash-comparison.html SNES Flash cart comparison

You bumped a year and a half old thread. Also, this thread should probably be moved to the reproduction section.