New Product - Daedalus NeoGeo Converter

Neo Alec

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
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Did NGDev actually make MVS carts or Last Hope classic, or is that a repro?
 

Jag-Master

"Hey, are we done here?..., Cause I'm losing my bu
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Did NGDev actually make MVS carts or Last Hope classic, or is that a repro?

I'm pretty sure that the "Last Hope classic" is meant as the original home cart production run before it was re-released with the pink bullets iteration for their future mvs and home cart sales.
 

xsq

Thou Shalt Not, Question Rot.,
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Jan 17, 2013
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Yes James, DavidG and I worked together doing tests on the Pranslation, (along with another member that had the Double Space converter), that I have in order to make the super converter which is now known as the Daedalus. What I now own is a Daedalus Prototype, and it contains the exact same traces that are found in the Daedalus, the same type of side loading cart slot, the works. It plays everything that the Daedalus plays, and I have owned it since the early 90's, or mid 90's. It was made in 1992 or so, and it works like a charm. I actually let DavidG work with both of my Pranslations, and both of them have the same contact's and wires /traces that the Daedalus has. The only difference between the Daedalus and the Prototypes I own, is that the Pranslation has an older cart slot side loader that is about 1/10th deeper than the ones made for the Daedalus which helps give the games ever so slight more contact with the game pins, so Last Hope Classic and Super Bubble Pop have no glitches that appear on the screen or random rebooting that the current Daedalus has. These are the only 2 games that have any issues with the current Daedalus that I can find, and I have the entire library of MVS carts, among many different revisions AES consoles to test them on. The glitches on those 2 games are simply due to the fact that those same cart slots cannot be found anymore, so new ones had to be made, and Super Bubble Pop and Last Hope Classic just need to have better contact it seems with the converter to function properly. At least this it what I believe.



Yes, I take exceptional care of everything I own, however, there should be no difference in "horizontal stress" caused by the Daedalus or Pranslations, or MVS-AEG converters due to the fact that the slide open dust covers on the AES hold the cart firmly in place, and the converter itself is basically held in place just fine by a combination of the cart itself being stuck in two cart slots, and the dust covers firmly hold the cartridge in place firmly sticking straight up. It might put a tiny bit of stress on the AES cart connectors themselves, but the converter is unaffected by the cart sticking out the side of it.

Now, I will completely admit, the cart slot on the Daedalus has a bit more give in it, allowing the carts to be taken out and put in a bit more simply, because the Pranslation cart connectors are so damn rock solid that you have to PRY the carts in it by laying the cart flat on a table and then getting a MVS cart on top and jamming it in, and then for removal you must do the same, but you have to wiggle the MVS cart back and forth and pull with a shit ton of might to get it out. This was looked at as a bad thing, so the new cart slots just simply are made a touch shorter and are not so hard as a rock. I do not think that this affects the Daedalus, and even if the Daedalus were to break in the future, the converters are basically like the SNES ones which are point to point made, with just a few repeater logic chips inside on the P rom board so that the final games work properly, and there is no "Magic" to these converters that needs to be made, so other people can simply look at the lines in my Prototype, and just copy/paste that into an new converter and it's a done deal.

Simply put, the only thing that gets stressed by using a Daedalus is the cart slot in your AES, and thanks to the AES dust doors and thanks to the AES using not one, but two cart slots, the stress being done to the AES is extremely minimal. Your Daedalus should work for the rest of your life, and if your AES has very sturdy doors on it, then your AES should also be just fine. :) No worry's, the Daedalus was made the way it is for a reason. It was to reduce the height of the carts inserted so your AES can be put in a normal bookshelf or entertainment center without the worry of the games hitting the shelf above it, and it also allows people to SEE what game your playing, and so it looks cool, (among being able to play on all revisions of AES consoles without a power supply or using a screwdriver to fine tune things, and playing every game in the library without a problem). ;)

The Daedalus is a tremendous success on all those counts. I really appreciate the time and energy you contributed to the Daedalus project, and it's comforting to read your optimistic appraisal of the converter's lifespan, now that production appears discontinued.

Based on my personal experience with Daedalus I have to continue to recommend owners place an object snugly inbetween the horizontal MVS cart and the AES console to eliminate any chance of mid-game freezes or resets (this appears to help the MVS cart maintain 100% contact with Daedalus at all times). But I also agree based on your description that the original Pranslation's death-grip way of holding MVS carts is not a preferable alternative (removing some MVS carts from the Daedalus already requires plenty of force as it is now). And really, it just takes me two seconds to quickly slip something under an MVS cart to help prop it up, so it's totally worth that to have this top-tier converter. :)

Yeah, it's no problem, I just contributed to the project by giving my converter to DavidG along with some of my NGDevTeam games, and a few other titles that have issues with past converters, and spoke back and forth with him on what would be the best design, and the best way to make the Daedalus, along with doing a lot of testing once I got the Pranslation back a few times having to send it back and do more testing to get things right, but in the end the Daedalus would never have come to fruition without DavidG, he is the master behind this converter, and I really am glad that he decided to make it the way he did, because had he made it like the Phantom-1 it would be more of a nightmare trying to figure out where to put the AES to play games, and trying to put games in it and take them out would be a bigger nightmare. So I think overall he did a great job building the last required converter for the AES.

As for production of the Daedalus 5.0 being discontinued, I would not count on that happening this go around just yet. I have spoken with Shawn on several occasions about the possibility of the Daedalus no longer being manufactured, and Shawn seems optimistic that they will continue to make more of them as long as there is still interest for them in the Neo market, and looking at how each batch has sold out every single time, in just about the same time frame, I think there should be another batch to come out after this one sells out. This is just a guess of course, but I think if DavidG knows he can sell another 100 of these bad boys, then chances are he will produce another batch. I think everyone is finally getting it that this converter plays everything under the sun, and that it is far above and beyond the others before it, and that alone gets people to want to dump the old ones that they bought and grab a Daedalus just for the fact they know no matter what AES they have and no matter what game they wanna play, it will indeed work. For a long time Shawn was advertising that the Daedalus did not work with Gunlord and games after that, not knowing that it actually worked with EVERY game, and now that I have told Shawn the true compatibility of the Daedalus, and he changed the description, more units will fly off shelves. So, there is really no need to panic just yet, as I think there should be at least one more batch to come just around the corner if not more, depending on sales that is.

Finally, if you feel comfortable placing something under the converter I see no reason to do so. I thought about doing that the first year I owned the Pranslation until one day it just hit me that it was not necessary to do that, and I stopped using a pair of socks to "lift" the cart up a bit, and nothing has occurred to my converter or AES since then. I understand that it's floating in the back of your mind when seeing that cart sticking out sideways, but I can assure you, if the cart is really stuck in the converter and your AES is of decent quality without faults to begin with, all should work well, and as Forrest Gump said, "And that's all I have to say......about that." :D ;) Later bro, enjoy your converter!
s23GxZM.jpg
 

Fakk2

Crossed Swords 2 Bootleg Artist.,
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I'm pretty sure that the "Last Hope classic" is meant as the original home cart production run before it was re-released with the pink bullets iteration for their future mvs and home cart sales.

Actually Last Hope Classic was never re-released in any form, and Pink Bullets is a different game. The original Last Hope that was released on the AES format is more like Pulstar or R-Type in which you get as far as possible without dying, and when you die you have to start from a check point. The game is hard as nails as well. Whereas Pink Bullets is a sort of remix with Stage 2 and 4 flip flopped, new music is introduced in Stage 5, and ummm oh yeah, the entire gameplay is completely different. Think of Pink Bullets as you would a game like Blazing Star where you shoot as much as possible for score, and when you die you begin where you died. The difficulty is lowered by a shit ton, and the game has new end credit's and music as well at the end. It was a different feel altogether between the two games, and I personally love both of them for what they offer. I actually have a hard time choosing which I like the most, but I think I would choose the original if it had the same stereo near cd quality music in it. :)

Did NGDev actually make MVS carts or Last Hope classic, or is that a repro?

Actually Last Hope Classic was dumped by different people, and was made as a boot/repro by NCI on MVS. I made my own MVS cart from my AES release when the game first released in 2005, and I used that on my cab and AES when I did not feel like removing the top from my AES to play the game. ;) NGDevTeam never made any other Last Hope Classic's other than the official 60 cart release in 2005.

@xsq, Brevity? Me? lol fuck no, I am the man who likes "Walls of Text"! :D
 

Neo Alec

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
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Yeah, I was disappointed when I got Pink Bullets to find that the original game wasn't included. I have it on NGCD, and since they've never re-released it, I guess it's good that someone dumped the rom. Not good about NCI though.

That's pretty hard core that you converted your copy to MVS. Wasn't the epoxy an issue?
 

Fakk2

Crossed Swords 2 Bootleg Artist.,
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Yeah, I was disappointed when I got Pink Bullets to find that the original game wasn't included. I have it on NGCD, and since they've never re-released it, I guess it's good that someone dumped the rom. Not good about NCI though.

That's pretty hard core that you converted your copy to MVS. Wasn't the epoxy an issue?

Actually the epoxy is also on the Bang 2 Busters and Treasure of the Caribbean AES carts, and I busted that crap out also, and got that game in MVS cart for myself also. Yes, breaking the Epoxy is a bit time consuming using a razor blade, and it does some damage to the cart boards if not careful, but I personally can't stand how it looks with epoxy all over the place, so once I got that crap off the boards, I simply got the roms dumped, made new eproms for the MVS carts, and then put the NGDevTeam and NCI roms onto brand new clean boards and put it back together. I mean as long as you don't damage the roms themselves, it's not a big issue. ;)

and it happens I'm also really enjoying reading them.

So, by any means, keep it up.

That's my job it seems :D I don't post often, but when I do, it's a doozy! Enjoy the long reading! :D lol
 
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Neo Alec

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That's a lot of effort. I just bought the MVS versions of those.

What happened to the nice AES art, shells and cases?
 

Fakk2

Crossed Swords 2 Bootleg Artist.,
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That's a lot of effort. I just bought the MVS versions of those.

What happened to the nice AES art, shells and cases?

I am not sure what you mean, what happened to the nice AES art, shells, and cases? Nothing happened to them. Can you expand on your question? Are you talking about the sac carts that they used or the sac carts that I used? You have no idea how far my effort is actually going in my Neo Project at the moment.
 

Neo Alec

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
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I guess you reassembled the AES games after copying the roms?
 

Fakk2

Crossed Swords 2 Bootleg Artist.,
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I guess you reassembled the AES games after copying the roms?

Yes of course, after copying the roms I reassembled the games, then made an MVS cart from the roms I copied. This way I have both an AES cart, and an MVS cart of the games I made the roms from, plus I have Roms to use with Emulators if I wish. I would never just trash a games artwork and manuals etc, after opening them as I consider that a waste of SNK's material. I always make sure to take pictures of the games when opening them for my Neo-Geo Examination folder, and I always scan the stickers, manuals, and inserts for other folders on my Neo-Geo HDD as well before I reassemble the games, (for preservation purposes).
 

Liquid Snake

I am untouchable
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I am not sure what you mean, what happened to the nice AES art, shells, and cases? Nothing happened to them. Can you expand on your question? Are you talking about the sac carts that they used or the sac carts that I used? You have no idea how far my effort is actually going in my Neo Project at the moment.

New Neo ;)
 

tomlee80

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Feb 12, 2012
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Is the 161 in 1 Cart compatible with my Daedalus? I'm running an unmodified (No Unibios) early model Japanese AES.
 

GohanX

Horrible Goose
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I don't have a Daedalus, but I'd imagine it should work, it works with other converters. You may need to file the sides of the 161 board a little to prevent damage to the slot since most of the carts are slightly too wide.

The 120 in 1 will not work with home systems.
 

aha2940

AH, A, COLUMBIAN!,
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Is the 161 in 1 Cart compatible with my Daedalus? I'm running an unmodified (No Unibios) early model Japanese AES.

It does work. It also works with the magic key converter, if the converter gets modded (add cable to make the button permanently pressed).
 

Razoola

Divine Hand of the UniBIOS,
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It does work. It also works with the magic key converter, if the converter gets modded (add cable to make the button permanently pressed).

Is there a picture somewhere of how a magickey should be modded to make the button always pressed?
 

aha2940

AH, A, COLUMBIAN!,
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Is there a picture somewhere of how a magickey should be modded to make the button always pressed?

Sure, I modded mine with a switch, and I know some other users of these forums did it too. My mod is not pretty at all, but it works, I'll post pics here.
 

fille1976

Crossed Swords Squire
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Apr 23, 2016
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Is there a picture somewhere of how a magickey should be modded to make the button always pressed?

Hi raz,its on page 11 from terraonion neosd mvs support tech thread,its a picture i took from mine cause it wasn't working witn neosd mvs.
 
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