Home Page Forums MAME MAME TMS-09xx/1xxx thread (was New Dumps)

Yeah, the 1st Electronic Battleship has a really bad UI design. I didn't purchase it for its playability, more for preservation.

Did you receive The Generals?

Not yet. I'm sure they sent it the slowest way possible.

I'll keep you posted.

Here some pics of the PCB from The Generals...

http://imgur.com/a/rKzHk

Aw no informative label, a 'guess which MCU this is' challenge.

Well, it came out in 1980, so that has to limit the possibilities a bit.

Seems to just be a simple logic chip of some kind. The patent describes it as an 'integrated circuit comparator element', doesn't look like there's much to it...

https://www.google.com/patents/US4327920

With an 18-pin DIP, the first thing that came to mind was PIC1654, but the pinout doesn't match.

1 batt-
2 LED
3 switch
4 switch
5 switch
6 switch
7 diode to batt- (reset?)
8 batt+
9 LED
10 cap to batt-, resistor to batt+ (oscillator?)
11 LED
12 piezo
13 piezo
14 switch
15 switch
16 switch
17 switch
18 LED

Comparing two 4-bit inputs and lighting LEDs doesn't require a lot of smarts, and playing simple tunes wouldn't take much more.

Later Simon games used a custom chip, but they sold tons of those over many years. It was likely cheaper to use an MCU for a lower-volume game. Ideal Maniac used a PIC.

There might be more markings on the bottom of the chip.

I'd be happy to decap and photograph it if you want, but it will destroy it.

The game is pretty simple. It plays more of less like Stratego, except when you challenge your opponent's piece with your piece, you place them both on the electronic "battlefield" and it tells you who wins based on the pattern of bumps on the bottom. The loser doesn't get to see what the piece was that beat him, so it maintains the secrecy.

When one of the pieces is the "Flag" and the other piece is something that can capture the flag, it plays a song to indicate that the game is over. So it has to have more than just logic.

There's a flowchart showing the behaviour in the patent:

There's nothing there that you couldn't do with state machines, so it could very well just be logic. The question is whether it would have been cost-effective to produce a dedicated logic chip given the volume the game shipped in. It may have been cheaper to order a mask-programmed MCU. In any case, we probably can't work it out without a decap.

My bet is an MCU. 1979 tech, much cheaper than a custom chip.

krick did you act on the invitation from Sean to get it decapped?
I'm running low on MAME dev motivation these days, but no worries. I'll still take care of incoming handhelds.