I've done a bit of work converting games on the System 16B hardware and learned a lot along the way. A couple of people have asked for some help with conversions and @ekorz suggested it would be nice to have a thread here - so I wanted to provide all the information I can on the topic and others can add to it
I also thought this information might come in handy should SOMEONE *nudge nudge* want to create a System 16 multi as there are differences between the boards that will need to be taken into account as any multi will need to be able to assume the role of any of the 4 ROM boards.
General information:
- 29 games - Ace Attacker, Alien Syndrome, Altered Beast, Aurail, Bay Route, Bullet, Cotton, Dunk Shot, Dynamite Dux, E-Swat, Excite League, Flash Point, Golden Axe, Heavyweight Champ, MVP, Passing Shot, Riot City, Ryu Kyu, SDI, Shinobi, Sonic Boom, Sukeban Jansi Ryuko, Super League, Tetris, Time Scanner, Toryumon, Tough Turf, Wonderboy III and Wrestle War
- 4 different ROM board types - 171-5704, 171-5358, 171-5521, 171-5797, these will be referred to in the thread by the last 4 digits only (5704, 5358, 5521, 5797)
- 171-5521 and 171-5704 ROM boards are almost identical, but support tile banking in the opposite sections to each other
- 171-5521 and 171-5704 ROM boards use the same PAL (315-5298)
- 171-5797 has 2 SMD customs on board in place of the PAL on the other ROM boards
- 171-5358 supports 32K and 64K (27C256 and 27C512) EPROMs only
- Encryption varies between games and ROM boards. Encryption methods included a custom FD1094 processor (68k processor with battery backed RAM), encrypted sound processors and encrypted 8751 MCU processors.
- Jumpers are listed for the games in the MAME driver but the listing is incomplete. If you successfully convert a game that isn't listed on that ROM board, please share your success so the MAME driver can be updated.
- The main program ROMs (A5 and A7) have to be non JEDEC 1mbit EPROMs (unless the game uses a 512kbit EPROM) - 27C1000 or 27C301 are the type you will require. The other ROMs are all JEDEC type
Games supported by each ROM board:
- 5704: Aurail, Bay Route, Cotton, Flash Point, MVP, Riot City, Tetris, Wonderboy III, Wrestle War
- 5358: Ace Attacker, Alien Syndrome, Bullet, Dunk Shot, Excite League, Passing Shot, Shinobi, Sonic Boom, Super League, Time Scanner, Tetris, Tough Turf, Wonderboy III
- 5521: Altered Beast, Dynamite Dux, Golden Axe, Heavyweight Champ, Ryu Kyu, Tetris
- 5797: E-Swat, Golden Axe, MVP, Toryumon
Some games work across multiple ROM boards - but you need to make sure you get the correct version for that board. The MAME driver can give you this information or if you post in the thread I am more than happy to help identify which version you require
5704 conversion help:
I have successfully burned ROM sets for these games on the 5704 board and can confirm they work correctly:
Aurail, Bay Route, Tetris, Wonderboy III and Wrestle War (Wrestle War came on the board when I got it)
I can confirm I have tried to burn Altered Beast to this board, and it does not work. I went to great lengths to try to get it working - and can confirm that at least for now, it is not possible. Altered Beast on the 5704 board uses an 8751 MCU for protection which has not been dumped and is currently listed by The Guru as undumpable. This means that while you can burn the correct set for the game and even have it running perfectly, none of the controls will work and the game will not coin up. You can burn the set designed for the 5521 ROM board and it will run, coin up and is playable on the 5704 board but with fairly substantial graphics glitches.
I made a thread on another forum about this issue, and it comes down to the 5704 board only being able to run Altered Beast on 1mbit EPROMs, not 512kbit (due to the way the tile banking works across the 2 boards) - here is an excerpt from that thread:
There are 3 versions of Altered Beast that run on 1mbit ROMs that could potentially be used. None of these have been decrypted for one reason or another
317-0065 (FD1094) - Wanted by the MAME team, not found as of yet
317-0066 (MC-8123B) - Dumped but not verified with a second dump or released by DWidel, possible errors towards the end of the data
317-0078 (8751) - Listed as currently undumpable by The Guru
I will copy the relevant parts of the thread across to here in case later on it becomes possible to perform the conversion or someone figures out how to make it work
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