0-slot board hacking

I picked up a KoF 2003 Single PCB Neo-Geo JAMMA board. I got it to harvest the NEO-GRZ ASIC to fix my MV-1C, but before I do that it'd be fun to mess with it.

Some notes:

• The P, C, and V ROMs are surface-mount 44 pin mask ROMs, but installed in sockets!
• The ROMs are 3.3V, and have level-shifting buffers to translate logic levels (good, SNKP!)
• The P3 ROM is a normal 27C800 EPROM.
• The M1 ROM for the Z80 is a normal 8-bit EPROM as well.
• The BIOS, SP1, is a normal 27C4002 EPROM, so I think a UniBios can just socket right in there.
• I can't find the FIX layer graphics ROM anywhere (S ROM)! Where the hell is it?? Is it pulled from C ROM here? I know the internal FIX graphics are in the NEO-GRZ, but the cartridge supplied ones are nowhere to be found.
• EDIT: Now that I'm looking at a real KoF 2003 cartridge, it's the same way, with no FIX graphics ROM.
• There is a NEO-PVC chip on the P bus, just like in the cartridge.
• There is a NEO-PCM2 chip just like on the cartidge.
• There is the giant SNK 90G06CF7050 custom IC on the CHAR area, just like in the cartridge. Perhaps it contains the FIX rom itself. Looks to be a NEO-CMC.
• There's an Altera MAX 5V CPLD near the CPU and BIOS, with a 10-pin JTAG connection there. Not sure what that guy is for.
• Otherwise, this is similar to the MV-1C.

You could probably turn it into another game with a similar setup. Like maybe a SSVS,

mikejmoffitt said:

I can't find the FIX layer graphics ROM anywhere (S ROM)! Where the hell is it?? Is it pulled from C ROM here? I know the internal FIX graphics are in the NEO-GRZ, but the cartridge supplied ones are nowhere to be found.

Click to expand...

That's because KOF 2003 uses the NEO-CMC chip, which supports on-the-fly decryption of the C ROMs and can also decode the S1 ROM data out of the C ROM banks. The CMC50 version used by KOF 2003 (and most other post SNK-corp games) also supports decrypting the M1 ROM too. The earlier CMC42 version doesn't do M1 ROM decryption.