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

Master Merlin is added and playable.
sean: if you compare the guts (sans MCU) to the old 1978 Merlin, is it identical? Because from an emulation point of view, it is.

Thanks; I'll fix my files. The rows in the ROM array were much closer than on the other chips, so I had to use a different algorithm to ID the 1-bits, and I was left with more bits to correct than usual.

Were there any emulation differences due to the chip being a 1400CR? The die looks like a TMS1100 with 4K ROM.

Edit: I'll pull out my Merlin carcass and compare.

I'd have to look at the disasm to see if it uses typical TMS1400 features such as nested(max 3?) calls.

And I'd really need to fix up the debugger disasm view for that; currently it's unsorted LFSR, hard to follow.

Urg, yeah, that would be a pain. No biggie, I just wondered if you had to change anything to get it going. I couldn't find anything about the 1400CR anywhere. But I guess that's not too surprising since we only have an email a mailing list post with the pinout of the TMS1400, and nothing about the TMS1600.

I did a quicker test, and indeed it's using nested calls (I checked by simply printf-ing a counter: increment on call, decrement on return)

Cool!

I dug up Merlin, and the PCB is practically identical to Master Merlin. The size is the same and all the components are in the same place. The only differences are that the traces are wider, which caused a few re-routes, and the OSC cap and resistor are different.

In fact, the date code stamped on the Master Merlin PCB is 8027; the copyright on the case is 1982, so I'm pretty sure that means the PCB was meant to go into a Merlin. Probably sales dropped off and they were left with an inventory of PCBs.

I guess that explains the genesis of the 1400CR - they wanted the extra ROM space, but needed the same pinout. I wonder if any other devices use the 1400CR.

The "buttons" are a single sheet of plastic folded in thirds with conductive paint applied to 2 of the sections. The 3rd section folds in between the other 2 and has holes to allow the other 2 sides to touch when you press on it. The Master Merlin version is also mostly identical to the Merlin version; there are only a few minor differences. The button layout, mounting holes, and connector are the same. I can't find a date code on it, but I assume it was also leftover from Merlin.

I've talked to the Doyles about Merlin in the past (the inventors), and they apparently programmed a 'bunch' of games for it. Only 6 were used in the first one. We didn't talk about Master Merlin for some reason (short conversation, focused on the original game and Wildfire Pinball), but I bet when the idea for a sequel came up, they just used some of the other things they already had... Minimizes R&D a lot I'd expect...

Another one bites the dust!

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/Handhelds/Mattel%20World%20Champ%20Baseball/

This one had a really weird VFD in it, with strangely laid out grids, which are marked up on the ident image.

kevtris is it possible to determine the number of stack levels in HD388x0 by altering your dumping program? For example, call from address A 1 time, then from address B xx times, and return xx+1 times to see whether or not address A is lost.

The reason is, CGL Super Kong works ok if I increase the stack size in the mcu emu core. This game has the B revision of the MCU. Hitachi docs say the stack size is 4, maybe they increased it on the B rev.

Entex Raise The Devil and Electronic Poker are working.

Is there anything non-standard about the speaker setup in the poker game? If so, can you make a schematic? In MESS, I'm getting messy farts instead of beeps.