Home Page Forums MAME MAME MESS Dumping Project ?

Ah, ok. I wondered about that (re: adapters tied to specific programmers). I'm under the impression this is a relatively "smart" programmer, albeit not as much so as one that costs $5k+, lol...so I guess I'll just have to look around a bit more and do some more digging. The ones on the eetools site look fairly straightforward without any "extras", but if I can get away with spending 1/4-1/2 that by getting an equivalent elsewhere (perhaps mcumall?), I'm game.

Has anyone ever tried to dump Konami Picno carts? I know a guy who owns 1 cart ([RX102] "Montage") and wants to dump it, but doesn't know, how.

Btw, I can't even find a decent release list for this system, judging by http://www.toy-toraya.com/pikuno.htm there should be around 25-30 releases with RX1xx serials (RX101 is a memory card, RX102 and further are the actual titles; RX001 is a console itself). The earliest ones are labeled 1992 (as well as the console), the most recent ones are 1996.

http://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?160228-FS-Konami-Picno2-14-games-Bundle!-Any-takers -- all the photos are dead already, but at least it tells us that someone actually had 13 different games (+ RX101 card) for this. Picno 2 is a more recent model of Picno, btw.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/System-PICN...dition-/401025871337?hash=item5d5f012de9 -- some good photos
http://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?75044-picno-2-konami-rare -- some cart photos
and -- ingame videos

Wait, there's a Konami edu-console and I didn't know? Now I really wish I had money to pick one up.

Anyway, do the carts open in any kind of easy/obvious manner? That'd be first step towards determining dumpability.

There's likely a BIOS ROM in the system too.

Sharkpuncher: the cheapest way to dump a lot of stuff is one of the TL866 bundles on eBay (you can get one with a ton of adaptors for under $120). Cowering and others have vouched that they're good stuff, and there's alternative open-source software for it so it can be used with Linux/Mac.

These are more "cards" than "carts" (like SG1000 MyCard/PCE HuCard/MSX Bee Card/MSX SoftCard), doubt you can open these easily.

Take a razor blade and then cut on the side edge carefully. Might not work so it your risk.

Oh well thing is I came across a fantastic deal for a TopMax 2, and since those had been fairly well reviewed and all, I got it. But eetools' adapters are 2-3x the price of other companies, I was thinking of getting some of the ones from Willem, but they look very similar to the dirt-cheap ones from random chinese sellers so that was tempting, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't any kind of obscure aspect I wasn't aware of. Obviously build quality is a thing and you get what you pay for, but I suspect a fair amount of the eetools price (and some of the other bigger names) is also just markup due to brand quality.

For HuCard type stuff you pretty much have to dump it from the edge connector unless you have expensive equipment and really really know what you're doing. And particularly for super rare stuff like this I can't endorse physically destroying the card to get at the inside. I rather doubt there's anything fancy going on in there.

If I remember correctly Guru ripped apart a HuCard back in the day and even with his tons of equipment, couldn't dump the chips inside directly and the card was ruined in the process...I feel like it was some kind of mysterious bare bonded stuff. Which makes sense, considering the profile of those type of cards.

Now I'm curious if I'm misremembering that though.

You're not. I remember pictures of the destroyed card. HuCards use glop roms inside, you can't* read them except via the card edges.

*Unless you do something ridiculous, which includes but is not limited to: microprobing, rebonding the ROM die to a carrier with legs; cutting traces on the hucard pcb and adding wires (which is really no better than reading from the card edge), etc.

LN