Tiptonium
Tech Support Moderator,
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2001
- Posts
- 2,174
Hello Everyone,
This project involves converting a Money Puzzle (Idol) Exchanger MVS cartridge to NGH format. The sacrifice cartridge used for this conversion is a World Heroes 2 Jet home cartridge. There seems to be an abundant and cheap supply of this cartridge, especially the Japanese version! I was able to find a well used Japanese Money Idol Exchange loose MVS cartridge for the project that had long ago been orphaned. The poor fellow did not have a serial number, all identity had been lost. Fortunately, the chips were real!
When I first started the conversion, I neglected to do the proper research. After building the conversion I quickly realized that the V ROM used on the Money Puzzle Exchanger was 32 meg. World Heroes 2 Jet expects 16 MEG V ROMS. Very easy to tell after the fact… screwed up sound effects… Doh! I did a quick swap of the PROG board to one that supports 32 MEG ROMS and the sound effects from the V ROM worked perfectly. But I wanted to use the PROG board from the World Heroes 2 Jet since I heard rumors in the world of Neo Geo where such things are dared mentioned or discussed that it was indeed possible… What to do? Read on!
**** WARNING **** This is not a simple chip swap/jumper conversion. No traces were harmed in the process of this conversion. A wire was used! What?!?! Yep, a piece of genuine wire.
The Details:
Remove the V, P, S, M, and C chips from the Sacrifice NGH boards.
Remove the V, P, S, M and C chips from the Money Puzzle Exchanger MVS cartridge. Place them in their corresponding locations on the sacrifice NGH boards with the exception of the V1 CHIP. Do not solder that one on yet!!!!!
Voodoo Conversion 101:
I contacted a fellow that goes by handle HPMAN on the neo-geo.com forums. He is a person that knows a great deal about the internals relating to the technical architecture used in Neo Geo game cartridges. What follows is a bit of HPMAN conversion magic that will allow the game to address the entire 32 MEG V ROM. This particular magic works because there is only one V ROM used in the game. Are you still here? Ok, here it is…
World Heroes 2 Jet Sacrificial PROG Printed Circuit Board Modification:
Remove the LS139 chip from the PROG PCB. What is an LS139? Basically, this is a decoder/demultiplexor chip. Need more? Use Google.com
Remove jumper blocks 16 and 17.
Before soldering the V1 chip to the sacrificial PCB bend PIN 32 so that it sticks out horizontally. The V1 chip has 42 PINS. Look at the PCB closely. You will note that pin 1’s location is labeled on the board as is PIN 21, 22 and 42. Finding PIN 32 should not be too hard to find.
We’ll need to connect the V ROM PIN 32 to the PCM PIN 77 somehow. The easiest way to do this is to solder a wire to PIN 32 and then solder the other end of the wire to the lower PAD of jumper 16. Jumper 16’s lower PAD maps directly to PCM PIN 77!
Solder the V1 PINs 12 and 13 together. This is best done from the backside of the PCB where the PINS push through. You could also use piece of wire wrap but that seems to be a bit of overkill.
That’s it! There are no jumpers to change on the CHA PCB.
The Insert and Label
I created a custom insert and label for Money Puzzle Exchanger. I used snippets from the Japanese MVS flyer, several screen grabs and a few graphics created from scratch. I decided to create English Version graphics, right down to converting the Japanese logo to English! I supplied plenty of Engrish on the back side of the insert to complete the art. I decided to go with a really bright dark pinkish color, in honor of the King of Fighters 2002 NGH insert. Overall, I’m really pleased with it. The insert is designed to fit the old style case. With a little work, it would make a fine Shock Box insert.
<a href="http://www.tiptonium.com/videogames/reviews/neogeo/images/mpeinsert.jpg" target="_blank">Click Here To Download Hi-Res Insert</a>
<a href="http://www.tiptonium.com/videogames/reviews/neogeo/images/mpelabel.jpg" target="_blank">Click Here To Download Hi-Res Label</a>
-- Tiptonium Out
[ January 14, 2003: Message edited by: Tiptonium ]</p>
This project involves converting a Money Puzzle (Idol) Exchanger MVS cartridge to NGH format. The sacrifice cartridge used for this conversion is a World Heroes 2 Jet home cartridge. There seems to be an abundant and cheap supply of this cartridge, especially the Japanese version! I was able to find a well used Japanese Money Idol Exchange loose MVS cartridge for the project that had long ago been orphaned. The poor fellow did not have a serial number, all identity had been lost. Fortunately, the chips were real!
When I first started the conversion, I neglected to do the proper research. After building the conversion I quickly realized that the V ROM used on the Money Puzzle Exchanger was 32 meg. World Heroes 2 Jet expects 16 MEG V ROMS. Very easy to tell after the fact… screwed up sound effects… Doh! I did a quick swap of the PROG board to one that supports 32 MEG ROMS and the sound effects from the V ROM worked perfectly. But I wanted to use the PROG board from the World Heroes 2 Jet since I heard rumors in the world of Neo Geo where such things are dared mentioned or discussed that it was indeed possible… What to do? Read on!
**** WARNING **** This is not a simple chip swap/jumper conversion. No traces were harmed in the process of this conversion. A wire was used! What?!?! Yep, a piece of genuine wire.
The Details:
Remove the V, P, S, M, and C chips from the Sacrifice NGH boards.
Remove the V, P, S, M and C chips from the Money Puzzle Exchanger MVS cartridge. Place them in their corresponding locations on the sacrifice NGH boards with the exception of the V1 CHIP. Do not solder that one on yet!!!!!
Voodoo Conversion 101:
I contacted a fellow that goes by handle HPMAN on the neo-geo.com forums. He is a person that knows a great deal about the internals relating to the technical architecture used in Neo Geo game cartridges. What follows is a bit of HPMAN conversion magic that will allow the game to address the entire 32 MEG V ROM. This particular magic works because there is only one V ROM used in the game. Are you still here? Ok, here it is…
World Heroes 2 Jet Sacrificial PROG Printed Circuit Board Modification:
Remove the LS139 chip from the PROG PCB. What is an LS139? Basically, this is a decoder/demultiplexor chip. Need more? Use Google.com
Remove jumper blocks 16 and 17.
Before soldering the V1 chip to the sacrificial PCB bend PIN 32 so that it sticks out horizontally. The V1 chip has 42 PINS. Look at the PCB closely. You will note that pin 1’s location is labeled on the board as is PIN 21, 22 and 42. Finding PIN 32 should not be too hard to find.
We’ll need to connect the V ROM PIN 32 to the PCM PIN 77 somehow. The easiest way to do this is to solder a wire to PIN 32 and then solder the other end of the wire to the lower PAD of jumper 16. Jumper 16’s lower PAD maps directly to PCM PIN 77!
Solder the V1 PINs 12 and 13 together. This is best done from the backside of the PCB where the PINS push through. You could also use piece of wire wrap but that seems to be a bit of overkill.
That’s it! There are no jumpers to change on the CHA PCB.
The Insert and Label
I created a custom insert and label for Money Puzzle Exchanger. I used snippets from the Japanese MVS flyer, several screen grabs and a few graphics created from scratch. I decided to create English Version graphics, right down to converting the Japanese logo to English! I supplied plenty of Engrish on the back side of the insert to complete the art. I decided to go with a really bright dark pinkish color, in honor of the King of Fighters 2002 NGH insert. Overall, I’m really pleased with it. The insert is designed to fit the old style case. With a little work, it would make a fine Shock Box insert.
<a href="http://www.tiptonium.com/videogames/reviews/neogeo/images/mpeinsert.jpg" target="_blank">Click Here To Download Hi-Res Insert</a>
<a href="http://www.tiptonium.com/videogames/reviews/neogeo/images/mpelabel.jpg" target="_blank">Click Here To Download Hi-Res Label</a>
-- Tiptonium Out
[ January 14, 2003: Message edited by: Tiptonium ]</p>
