NeoGeoX Hacking and Mods

nerdstick

Crossed Swords Squire
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Oct 1, 2012
Posts
183
You can use a credit card or other flat object slid beneath the back lid to pop it off, and the thumbstick is pried off the same way from the front.

But I'm at a loss as to how they got the microSD out, the glue is intense.
 

Lectoid

n00b
Joined
Dec 19, 2012
Posts
30
Since I had nothing to go on, I didn't realize there was glue. I kept working at it and it finally started to rip the glue. If you keep working at it , it will come off. I'd be careful about cutting it first as you might cut the board. Maybe get an xacto knife and cut out from under.
 

nerdstick

Crossed Swords Squire
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Oct 1, 2012
Posts
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Got it out :) Used a small knife and poked holes in it, then small pliers to pull out the SD.

Really lucky I have these odd-job tools handy..now to scour the SD.
 

ack

Ninja Combat Warrior
15 Year Member
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Apr 9, 2009
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538
Has anyone tried hooking up a usb keyboard to the dock to see if you can monkey around with / bring up any menus in fba?

-ack
 

lantus360

Fu'un-Ken Master
Joined
Feb 25, 2012
Posts
1,527
the other thing to check is dropping a cps2 rom in .FBA format and renaming it mslug.fba as before. Im curious to know if the emulator is just compiled with a neogeo driver or not
 

nerdstick

Crossed Swords Squire
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Oct 1, 2012
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If you supply the FBA, not sure how I'd convert a non-neo rom with the tool.

Figured out how to change images, just stuck on where the romlist is.. :(

Edit: Failure! It unpacks the rom and then freezes.

Bright side: I may have found the romlist.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jun 25, 2011
Posts
47
If you supply the FBA, not sure how I'd convert a non-neo rom with the tool.

Figured out how to change images, just stuck on where the romlist is.. :(

Edit: Failure! It unpacks the rom and then freezes.

Bright side: I may have found the romlist.
Awesome, keep us updated. :multi_co:
 
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nerdstick

Crossed Swords Squire
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Oct 1, 2012
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183
When mounted on linux the 2GB card has four partitions. A 1gig empty one (so the same as when you connect via USB.) Someone suggested you could use this fact if true to link it to the others? Seems like good news! They are indeed the same drive.

One is the 500MB partition that the roms are stored on (this is the one that was ripped and uploaded).

A useless ~20MB partition

and a ~250MB? partition that contains all of the menu files. It has folders containing every image (so you can customize them) numbered, including GUI images (so you could add a custom volume slider), and a slew of configs. One of which contains the list of game images you can add a few extras to.

A game card config which may give a hint as to the structure:
card_game_work_path=/mnt/mmc/card_game/
card_game_number=5

However, one issue is that the partition that stores the game was sized perfectly to fit the games that were supplied with it. So adding additional games isn't possible without utilizing the 1gig partition, if possible, or by using a new card if possible (I suppose by splitting it into four just the same).

If that hurdle is avoided (ideally by utilizing the 1gig which would let everybody in on the fun, or less ideally by replacing the card), the romlist appears to be stored in the snk_desktop.bin file.

But given it's a jumbled mess of binary, I can only guess whether or not anything can be added to it. But I suppose I can try?
/tmp/kotm.fba /tmp/alpham2.fba /tmp/cyberlip.fba /tmp/fatfursp.fba /tmp/aof.fba /tmp/ssideki.fba /tmp/lbowling.fba /tmp/mslug.fba /tmp/maglord.fba /tmp/bstars2.fba /tmp/samsho2.fba

At least I assume this is where they're loaded from, because everything else is a dead-end.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Nov 10, 2012
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Nice work nerd stick. Keep it up.

I won't be able to do much more work on this until after Christmas due to work and the annual family stuff that comes with Christmas. I'm sure by then you guys will have it cracked wide open and playing Pocket Color games on it.

Merry Christmas guys.
 

nerdstick

Crossed Swords Squire
Joined
Oct 1, 2012
Posts
183
Didn't see anything bios-y.

Anybody familar with Linux? Somehow the drive isn't full but Linux is refusing to let me add any files, even if more are deleted. According to fdisk-l it's at 491520/491520 blocks. Properties says 0 bytes used out of 0 bytes now. Not sure what the deal is..

Edit: Solved! Linux doesn't have a recycle bin, every drive itself has a hidden recycle bin on it (Alt+H). I was deleting files as Root Nautilus and so they were just being hidden in the trash rather than freeing up the space. No wonder!
 
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nerdstick

Crossed Swords Squire
Joined
Oct 1, 2012
Posts
183
Guess what I'm stuck at now is that the roms all run in MVS mode, making them unplayable. Oof! Judging by burning's video, for him as well.
Not sure what to do there.
 
Joined
Nov 10, 2012
Posts
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Guess what I'm stuck at now is that the roms all run in MVS mode, making them unplayable. Oof! Judging by burning's video, for him as well.
Not sure what to do there.

I only tried one game and I had the same issue of it being mvs mode.

I'm stuck at work but I remember when I was using that .zip to fba util it had a neogeo.zip file in the roms dir. I quickly took a look at it and it had what looks like bios and other config files in it. Maybe the util uses those files to create the .fba file.

Poke around in there?

I'm not sure if it has anything to do with it because I'm going by my half asleep memory.
 

Geddon_jt

Creator of the Master List,
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Aug 20, 2000
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1,322
This is a fascinating thread, you guys are really kicking ass with this thing.

Forgive my ignorance because I am NOT good with the tech side of things... but assuming you guys have isolated/viewed the list of files on the internal system memory, has anyone figured out whether this thing uses the standard Neo Geo BIOS after booting the game, or whether there is a customized BIOS for this unit that incorporates both the OS itself and the Neo Geo BIOS into a single file? In either case, I would suggest the BIOS files be sent over to Razoola ASAP.
 

FA-MAS

Kula's Candy
Joined
Oct 3, 2009
Posts
299
has anyone figured out whether this thing uses the standard Neo Geo BIOS after booting the game, or whether there is a customized BIOS for this unit that incorporates both the OS itself and the Neo Geo BIOS into a single file? In either case, I would suggest the BIOS files be sent over to Razoola ASAP.

I don't think they've found where the bios is yet. You can bet if it was using the standard bios.bin as emulators do, unibios would have been injected immediately.
 

Geddon_jt

Creator of the Master List,
20 Year Member
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Aug 20, 2000
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A BIOS that fixes the resolution issue for the dock, allows some amount of savegames, and permits region and AES/MVS switching would turn this thing from a fun novelty to a must own... those oversights are huge on the part of the developer of this thing, and should have been included if they had spent 30 seconds talking with anyone who owns a real AES.
 

Viewpoint

Art of Typing Wiz, , ,
20 Year Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2000
Posts
6,274
A BIOS that fixes the resolution issue for the dock, allows some amount of savegames, and permits region and AES/MVS switching would turn this thing from a fun novelty to a must own... those oversights are huge on the part of the developer of this thing, and should have been included if they had spent 30 seconds talking with anyone who owns a real AES.

100% agreed. A lot of shit on this thing could have been done much better.
 
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