Figuring out the Neo Print main board

Big Bruno

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Ok so I finally bought a Neo Print. It's somewhat of a MVS type board although heavely modified. I also happen to have about 12 NeoPrint carts I have purchased throughout the years. So I am thinking, Cool now I can finally use these and see what is on them. So after plugging in several and seeing what is on them (they must have made a ton of these) I think I have a better understanding of it.

so in looking at the board there are 2, 8 Dip switches that are all on off on the US version. I have no docs on how to set these and the are a Pain to get to.

The neo print carts Use the 1994 (c) MVS (forget the Model) boards for the P and V chips and a differnt board for the M and C chips (there is no S chip on this board)

most the boards have 1 V and 1 M chip and only 1-4 C and 1-2 P chips the C and P are all flash roms.

Now I have 2 carts that do not work which are missing the M Chip and has no V chips. But they do not appear to be removed (holes are filled) So I am thinking they are suppose to be like this so there is either a Dip Setting or a adaptor board needing to be used to make these work. I doubt it is a adaptor board so it must be a dip setting. These also have pink labels.

Another note I have been going back and forth on this but I looked at the board again and The Main Demo screen with athena has to be accessed via the board. so the languages are on there. So my thought is If it is missing the V and M chip either there was a Newer revision of the NeoPrint board that needs to be used *or* again it is a dip setting.

So any thoughts.

as it happens I have another neo print board (the one I got with the carts) But I looked into pulling the current one out and replacing it. however there are so many connection on this thing and it is so hard to get to. Truthfully I can not tell how they got it in in the first place.

Pics (note this are 500kb files each for detail)

Inside of Cab
http://neogeocentral.com/images/NeoPrint/IMG_0356.jpg

Neo Print Main Board (this is the spare I have not the one inside)
http://neogeocentral.com/images/NeoPrint/IMG_0357.jpg

carts label up
http://neogeocentral.com/images/NeoPrint/IMG_0358.jpg

this is a pink Label cart (does not work on my NeoPrint)
http://neogeocentral.com/images/NeoPrint/IMG_0359.jpg

This is a US cart that works
http://neogeocentral.com/images/NeoPrint/IMG_0360.jpg
 
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ki_atsushi

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Pics please! This sounds awesome, I've never even heard of this before!
 

Razoola

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ki_atsushi said:
Pics please! This sounds awesome, I've never even heard of this before!

Yes pics please indeed :)
 

Big Bruno

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Razoola said:
Yes pics please indeed :)

Yeah Yeah...OK

Geez Now I will have to call my Webhost and have them reset my password since I lost it when I upgrade my computer :)

I will try to get something up tonight.

Then you can work on the Neo Print Uni-Bios :p
 

chris1

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Big Bruno said:
Yeah Yeah...OK

Geez Now I will have to call my Webhost and have them reset my password since I lost it when I upgrade my computer :)

I will try to get something up tonight.

Then you can work on the Neo Print Uni-Bios :p



Looking forward to the picks too.. :glee:

Great topic and congrats on getting a Neo Print..A machine I've always been interested in..
They have one in a mall I go to in N.Y...I have some picture of it somewhere....One Secaucus N.J. and a version in my local Bowling alley....I recently saw one in Seaside Heights too..

Things I look for when I go to Arcades//Shore Arcades,etc....Neo Geo Machines,Neo Print Machines,Atomiswave cabs,Candy Cab type machines,Small mini version Arcade machine housing Ms Pac Man,certain Pinball machine like South Park and Super Mario Bros/Pinbot.

The closest machine I've come to in comparison to Neo Print was the Sega/Atlus ST-V Print Machine..That uses a Sega ST-V board and Print carts..
When I went to get my Neo Gold the vendor had one in the back yard with no monitor,but everything thing else was intact.
I tore that machine apart taking everything I could even the camera/printer...I could not believe the massive wiring and pcbs etc in this machine..I would not want to work on this very Complicate IMO machine..

The ST-V board was set to work the Print carts but with a few changes within the soft dip menu I was able to get it to play regular game carts....It had the expansion board all hooked up within the machine too...many,many wires..
.........................................................
Free Picture hosting/ get no Spam from it.
http://photobucket.com/


One of the old Neo Print topics..

http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65025&highlight=Neo+Print+Machine
 

Big Bruno

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Pics, added

Now I am going to have to start updating my coming soon section again :)

oh and FYI appears all the boards are different so maybe they were put together with spare parts :make_fac:
 

ki_atsushi

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What do they do? Are they games or do they take pictures? Looks cool, whatever it is!
 

Big Bruno

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ki_atsushi said:
What do they do? Are they games or do they take pictures? Looks cool, whatever it is!


It's a Time Machine.


Yes the carts basicly hold Background picture Info of various frames and takes your picture then prints them out in a sticker or sheet with the background of whatever you set the printer up with. this is a four panel print out.

Tora.jpg


Chibi Athena guides you thru the printing process
 

chris1

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Big Bruno said:
It's a Time Machine.


Yes the carts basicly hold Background picture Info of various frames and takes your picture then prints them out in a sticker or sheet with the background of whatever you set the printer up with. this is a four panel print out.

Tora.jpg


Chibi Athena guides you thru the printing process

Ha ha...That's So cool..
 

Razoola

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Nice, I wonder now if the bios is in a socket on the main pcb or not.

Raz
 

Big Bruno

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OK, so lets discuss ;)


There are no Socketed Chips, I took of the plastic cover on the MVS slot. The standard Neo Chips are on the board (Z-80, 68000, Yamaha Sound) and also what looks like one of the custom chips except it is labeled with the Neoprint terms (PSTM if I recall Guessing "Print Station MVS" )

There are a total of 9 Ram chips in 3 different sizes one of which is located above the Z80) and a ton of mini IC's There also is a PAL section I am assuming since it has a Svideo out it is outputing PAL in europe who knows. Possible a dip setting for this? No Clue.


So I am assuming the attract mode and main code are programed on the board. Both English and Japenese. So let me go throught what may be the process

on initial Bootup the Screen flashes "Please wait" and there is a code in the top left corner I am assuming this is The Cart Number, it is a 3 digit alpha nurmeric code. Time varis on Bootup with which cart you use. Maybe checking the printer and Bill reader. then it will go into attrack mode which is standard except with the language diffrerences (of course text also varies) in some cases there will be a picture screen that pops up with some text. and in other cases it will allow you to select the background sets (one of the carts has 2 sets of backgrounds to choose) so I think this must be pulling form the Program rom on the cart.

Since there is alot of speach in this (with Athena Givening instructions) it must be stored on the main board as well.

Now on the 2 carts missing the M rom (I forget what the M rom is) it boots up as if there was no cart in at all. So apperently it is accessing something. Both's these carts are classed Limited. So could it also be a Date check or something that would cause it not to function I will have to play with it I guess.

Now on the Dips

You will notice there is one in the middle of the board and at the bottom. The one at the bottom is next to the Printer control output. There is a diagram that list the Pins as 1-8. Not sure if the 1-8 dip corresponds with the 1-8 label on the controler out to the printer. Maybe. The one in the middle has no reference.

Any thoughs?
 
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Razoola

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what happens if you power on the system with no cart in?

Raz
 

Big Bruno

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Screen keeps flashing (Like a reboot) and random colored characters display on the screen. This also happens when you plug in the 2 pink limited carts.
 

dogtoy

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Is this an emulated platform? I'm very interested in these, now. You should send raz some of these carts so he can dump them, maybe the bios too. I'd like to see what would happen if you put one of these carts in a regular mvs (probably nothing with no p roms?). But maybe if you also had a neo print bios in a regular mvs board. Of course it would all be so pointless without a camera or printer.

raz- I know you have that bios that dumps roms ;) those pics of it on the cps2shock. Would that work with these carts?

Where do you buy carts for a neo print?

cheers,
-DT

edit- maybe if you took the 'p' rom chip off the neo print motherboard and placed it in the p socket on a cart you could use these in a normal mvs without having to replace the bios?
 
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Razoola

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From the sounds of it there is no bios but I could be wrong. I would have expected something from a system turned on with no cart in if there was a bios (like the crosshatch screen). I dont have the alility to dump the carts either I think.

Raz
 

Big Bruno

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Reviving old topic.

OK I finally got the paper for this thing and have been working with it. I also started a page to catalog each cart with the prints available.

My Neo Print Page *under Construction

Note: I started labeling them NPM and picked the number off the character Rom chip. I used NPM to keep with the 3 letters however on the print board itself is PSTM. I also get the number off the character room since I think those are the most unique. Also worth noting some roms appear to be from differnt versions. Which leads to my theory on getting the pink label carts to work below.

Anyway...

I am still having trouble getting the Pink labled carts to work. However One thing I was able to do is I actually Swapped the boards and was able to get someting. this is what I did.

I took out the Program rom board from a working cart. then added the board with the character roms (missing the M chip) and started up the Neo Print. I did get to a main screen minus the music and athena voice. except the character were all scrambled (This was expected). It did let me however add a character and do a print.

I have not messed with the dip switches yet. however I am wondering if I found a working cart that used the same number of Character roms. Socket it and also added the music rom if I would get something working.

As an oddity. When I went to tokyo last year I picked up a Dessert Neo Print cart that gave you the option of going with 1 picture, 4 pictures or 16 pictures. And it would proceed to take that number of shoot to send to the printer. All the others I have just take the one shot and goes.
 

Nightmare Tony

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still got the schematic rolling around. Thew board is vERY different from the Neo Geo system. While it does indeed use the graphic and sound and CPU set, the primary function of the board is converting and routing the video signals to overlady the video graphics on the camera graphics.
 

channelmaniac

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NMT,

I'd be VERY interested in getting a copy of those if it would be possible.

Raymond
 

Nightmare Tony

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Will have to check out first with Apple Photo since they seem to be the holders these days, least last time I checked. Tis also a case of digging them out. Too much paperwork. Heck, got a one of a kind arcade machine buried which I need to get in the house and get the rOMS out for MAME....
 

swayze2

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Just picked up NEO PRINT Machine

Just picked up a great shape neo print machine. They said it was in good working condition but all it does for me is display a scambled screen. Anyone have any ideas?

Maybe someone would be interested in it if I cannot get it working? I live in Michigan.
 

Big Bruno

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if the scrambled screen is somewhat like colored blocks. Usally you will have to remove and reinsert the cart. Sometimes it takes several times. you also will get this if you insert a cart that is not support on that machine but if it is a english written cart then it should work fine.

Sticker paper will run you about $150 for 200 prints though. Unless you can find a deal. paper is CK710SPC, You can also set it up to print on the cheaper non-sticker paper. I would have to look up the model again for that.

The CK710SPC paper was on ebay awhile back for around $50 but they sold through all of it.

Phil
 
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swayze2

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Neo Print

Thanks for the response!

Yea that is exactly whats going on. It is all colored blocks, and I can somewhat see the image from the camera in the background. I have reinserted the cart several times with no luck. Possibly a bad cart? Can you buy new cartridges still?

Anyone have these carts? Maybe make a possible trade?

I have extra sticker paper and ribbon.
 
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