Currently in progress of dumping Stakes Winner Alpha dev board

ResO

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Since Stakes Winner is coming out on Nintendo Switch today I figured that I’d announce that I’m working on dumping the Alpha dev big-board. It’s got a whopping 12 C chips, 3 V chips, 10 program chips and the standard 1x M1 & S1. Unfortunately P1 through P8 were Static RAM chips and lost to time due to a dead battery, however the SP1 & SP2 are intact. I figure with a little work we can get it running with the final release P1. I look forward to sharing this with the community and feel like preservation involves not just collecting, but sharing. (I hope other proto owners hear this message as dumps have proven to not devalue carts).

I hope this is a simple project and that we discover something quite unique, but at the end of the day any new NG game dump is worth the fun and effort even if the title doesn’t fit everyone’s taste. Look forward to the complete set of binaries very soon! :)
 

massimiliano

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Fantastic, thanks a lot for sharing! that's the spirit!
 

wyo

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Was this the one that was on YAJ recently?
 

Evan

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Let's hope you can get the P1 chip working...
 

Day_Man

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Cool, looking forward to seeing what differences there are.
 

Razoola

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Very nice, looking forward to this.
 

ResO

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Update: I’ve just got a slight delay, My spring loaded IC extractor broke after removing just 2 of the 19 EPROMS (they’re really stuck in the sockets) I ordered some deoxit and a couple new extractors. As soon as everything arrives I’ll read the EPROMs & upload the dumps ASAP. :)
 

kuze

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Props to you for doing this and sharing with the community, very cool!

You can also use a small flathead screwdriver to remove EPROMs. That's how I've always done it, just wedge it in between the chip and the socket, work it up a bit, do the other side.
 

ResO

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Props to you for doing this and sharing with the community, very cool!

You can also use a small flathead screwdriver to remove EPROMs. That's how I've always done it, just wedge it in between the chip and the socket, work it up a bit, do the other side.

Oh, I’m aware. I’ve used flatheats my whole life, but the pins are very thin on these chips and to avoid risking bending them when prying I’d prefer to pull them straight out. On a board like this it’s just for personal peace if mind, I’m sure you can understand.
 

Razoola

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I have always used a screwdriver also, never had an issue with bending pins using that method, it only happens if you try doing it all in one go from one side also. Personally I never liked using the small ROM extractors, I agree they allow the ROM to be pulled out dead straight so do whatever your safe with.
 

Heinz

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Patience and a screwdriver, two things that always go together when you're not using the latter for it's intended purpose. ;)
 

skate323k137

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I won't call the member out, but I did some trace repair for a member here that gouged out some traces using a screwdriver to remove roms. While I've done the same (removed roms with a flathead) I can definitely appreciate doing it correctly. It was a good hour to track and repair traces on the damaged board.
 
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ResO

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I’m sorry again for the delay, still waiting on my IC extractors (guess I bet on the wrong horse with my eBay seller). All in due time. I’ve got deoxit in a squeeze bottle with a needle point and my GQ-4x4 waiting and ready.


On a side note, the board is mostly using 4mb NEC 27C4001D eproms. I bought a spare so I could use it for playing around with the Final P1, but my GQ says that the size isn’t enough for the 2mb file. I’m scratching my head a little on that one, but I’m new to programmers. It seems to dump the 27C4001 ICs fine, so I wonder why it’s not sufficient for the P1 binary?
For the record, I yanked it from a mame rom with the .p1 file type (which I don’t believe should matter?). I plan on posting the dumps in .bin inless it’s important to have them be designated c1,v1, etc etc when I save the files. From the two I’ve extracted & dumped I’ve seen no offset, but I’m not a pro enough to know corrupt data from good. Whatever will be, will be.
 

ack

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On a side note, the board is mostly using 4mb NEC 27C4001D eproms. I bought a spare so I could use it for playing around with the Final P1, but my GQ says that the size isn’t enough for the 2mb file. I’m scratching my head a little on that one, but I’m new to programmers. It seems to dump the 27C4001 ICs fine, so I wonder why it’s not sufficient for the P1 binary?

You are mixing up bit vs byte. The 27c4001 is 4Mbit (512KByte), while the rom file you pulled from mame is 2MByte (16Mbit).

-ack
 

ResO

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Finally got my extractors in the mail (both broke, lol). The detoxit was good enough to break them loose from the sockets.

Will .bin files be fine, or would it be better or make a difference to save them as .rom or .s1/m1/c1/v1 etc? As I have SP1 & SP2 chips, I was unsure of having a .sp1 file which could be confused as a bios. Simply dumping as .bin can just be renamed as dot whatever anyway later, correct?

Also, I didn’t bother removing the P1-P8 SRAM chips as I don’t believe there’s an actual possibility that they’ve retained any data.

I don’t think there’s a need to include a Final P1 (but I can if y’all want), I figure you all can find that easy enough. It’ll probably take one of our more savvy members to come up with a way to boot this unless a final P1 works as-is. I’m holding out hope for a working game, but will be excited to see sprite rips and any differences. Fingers crossed that no existing chips are corrupt.

Just lmk what you guys want and I’ll dump ‘em and get it hosted today or tomorrow if I’ve got the time. :)
 
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Razoola

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name them as they are on the PCB.
 

ResO

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name them as they are on the PCB.


So like 088_c1_alpha.c1 instead of 088_c1_alpha.bin ?

File name doesn’t need to be 088-c1-Alpha, open to recommendations. I’ll try to get em all dumped by this evening.
 
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Razoola

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.c1 is defo better than .bin

Can you post a picture of the PCB, that might be helpful in choosing a naming system.

Raz
 

ResO

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.c1 is defo better than .bin

Can you post a picture of the PCB, that might be helpful in choosing a naming system.

Raz

The prog board is an X3002-P2B, and the character board is an X3002-C3. It’s one of those gigantic SNK dev boards that has both male AES pinout on one edge and male MVS pinout on another. The eprom labels all had been removed, but booting up the game in my MVS gives the audible stakes winner jingle, then it reboots. Soft Dip detects as Stakes Winner (I believe it says “Stakes-Winner” with a dash instead of Stakes Winner), but the dip options are different from the final (Continue & How To Play settings are missing, and a unique “CPU Scroll” Free/Limit option is there. I simply put eprom labels over the exposed windows of the chips and stamped them accordingly.

Edit: I don’t have my new Unibios 4.0 yet, just have a stock bios in my MVS. If I recall my Riding Hero proto detected as NGH 4444 so I don’t know if it will be helpful to know what the NGH number is for these proto games.
 
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ResO

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