Galaxian³ [Zolgear] Emulation part #1 : the boards

[DarthNuno]

2) is "Master CPU".
5) is "Slave CPU".
Two big wires are "Projector 1" and "Projector 2".

Thanks REVO 

Any chance of some nice hi res photos of the individual boards?
mungler

Hi Mungler and welcome on this board 

Yes, it's the next step  It's coming soon 

[DarthNuno]

OK, it's time to look closer these 12 boards from the second rack

1. the "CRAM" board

You can see it on the left 



As you can see, there are two cables linked to the front of the "MASTER CPU" board. I remove these two cables and the "MASTER CPU" board, but they are two another cables hooked at the back of the "CRAM" board, look 



I dunno where these 2 cables are going to... it's behind the backplane 

OK, now I'm able to remove the "CRAM" board. General view 


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Closer :


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Zoom on one of the two 'Processors" (not sure if they are processor, chip, ram, others) ?


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Both are similar, but they are different inscription near them.

Near the first one :



Near the second one :



Any idea what the difference is (Japanese team please ?) ?

2. the "MASTER CPU" board


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Closer :


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[DarthNuno]

3. the "RSO" board



General view :


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Zoom 


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4. the "SOUND" board



General view :


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Zoom 


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ps : sorry for bad quality of the pictures (done with a flash in a dark room, no daylight  ). I'll do some better ones if needed.

[DarthNuno]

5. the "SLAVE CPU" board


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General view 


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Zoom 


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6. the "OBJ" board


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General view 


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Zoom 


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[DarthNuno]

7. the "PGN" board



General view 


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Zoom 


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8. the "DSP" board



General view 


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Zoom 


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[DarthNuno]

9. the "OBJ" board

This second "OBJ" board is exactly the same than the first one (see 6. the "OBJ" board)

No difference at all, even the jumpers position.

See the 2 boards side by side 


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Only ONE difference  A number written on a kind of sticker, applied under the name of the boards.

T0085 for the first one, T000086 for the second one. A kind of serial number for the boards I would say ?


10. the "PGN" board

This second "PGN" board is exactly the same than the first one (see 7. the "PGN" board)

No difference at all, even the jumpers position.

See the 2 boards side by side 


[click to zoom]

Only ONE difference  A number written on a kind of sticker, applied under the name of the boards.

T0082 for the first one, T000081 for the second one. A kind of serial number for the boards I would say ?

[DarthNuno]

11. the "DSP" board

This second "DSP" board is exactly the same than the first one (see 8. the "PGN" board)

No difference at all, even the jumpers position.

See the 2 boards side by side 


[click to zoom]

Only ONE difference  A number written on a kind of sticker, applied under the name of the boards.

T0084 for the first one, T000083 for the second one. A kind of serial number for the boards I would say ?

12. the "VMIX" board



General view 


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Zoom 


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[DarthNuno]

Update : details of the  2. the "MASTER CPU" board now available.

Did you see it... 68020 Motolora powered 


Update : details of the  3. the "RSO" board now available.

I've used a scanner for the zoomed views. I hope it's not dangerous for the eproms ?


Update : details of the  4. the "SOUND" board now available.

[ark_ader]

Good luck with the project Nuno.

Maybe the Daphne crew can make a simulation of the game vs an exact emulation.   

[DarthNuno]

Good luck with the project Nuno.

Maybe the Daphne crew can make a simulation of the game vs an exact emulation.   

Thanks 

Once I'll describe all the boards, It'll be the 'roms dumping process', laser disc rip ...and of course help from everyone will be welcome 

I use to take snapshots for each boards, but 'scanning' the boards give better result in term of quality/picture.

Question : Is is dangerous to put a board on a scanner ? Any risk to damage eprom or something else on the board if I do that ?

[funkycochise]

eeprom are UV sensitive. They are erased using a UV insolator.
despite this, the risk of erasing such eeprom is very minimal.
to be more precise, eeprom needs to be isolated several times before erasure becomes effective.

Add to this that you still have the UV protector lable on it and then you can conclude by yourself...

[P-man]

hello to all, including Darth-nuno..

Well, guess what landed in my lap earlier this evening...  a complete 'spares' set of pcbs for a galaxian 3... that means i have one pcb of every type from the game, that means 11 pcbs in all, in order to have a full set i'd need another 6 i think. The guy i got them from says he scrapped a whole g3 theatre machine, i'm hoping he kept the pcb set and laserplayers/discs at least from the machine, but he's not sure he has anything left :|

Darth, are you in a position to fire your game up? i wondered if i have any hope of getting something running with just the pcbs i have..

If nothing else, you might want the roms Darth? seeing as yours is Zolgear and mine appears to be a straight Galaxian 3.... I will be duimping the roms over the next few days.

I look forward to seeing how yours goes back together, if ever

[DarthNuno]

First of all, welcome here P-man, and many thanks for 'reacting' on this topic 

AWESOME 

Ok, i didn't really mention it but here's what I have now   

Of course, I have a complete Galaxian Theater, fully equipped with the upgrade kit 'Attack of the Zolgear'. It means :

- 3 pcb in the first box 



- 12 pcb in the second box 



- 2 laser discs 'Attack of the Zolgear' (one for each laser disc player)

The entire Theater was working when we dismantled it, except the laser disc players (we can see the game running on this video).

BUT I GOT MORE      

- 11 pcbs from the original game 'Project Dragoon' 

- 1 of the two laser disc 'Project Dragoon'...but ... this laser disc contains footage for left and right screen  ... yes ... the laser discs to insert in the left LD player and the right LD are the same  So we won't stuck for the video footage with only one laser disc.

But I still have a question regarding the number of boards  (I'm only speaking about the second rack of boards) :

- 'Attack of the Zolgear' uses 12 boards

- You and me have only 11 boards for 'Project Dragoon'

Two solutions   

- One board is common on both game, that explain what I (and you) have only 11 boards

- You and me have one missing board... If we are lucky, the missing one is not the same and we will be able to complete the set 

By the way, can you list (maybe with pictures) your 11 boards, so we can see if they are the same than mine ?

But I'm almost sure it's the first solution  The guy who gave you the boards probably  scrapped ( ) the Theater equipped with the kit 'Attack of the Zolgear' and he kept the original 'Project Dragoon' boards in a box 

Can you tell us where that Galaxian Theater was located by the way ?

I'm really happy to see you'll dump the 'Project Dragoon' roms  Of course I'll provide the 'Attack of the Zolgear' roms and also the video footage.

YEEEESSSS !!! 

[P-man]

ok, i started to dump the roms, but i have other stuff to get done for monday so i'll finish dumping them later in the week...

here is what i worked out from your pictures:

2x backplane pcbs
2x CPU pcbs (one with master MST roms, one with slave SLV roms)
1x CRAM pcb
1x RSO pcb
1x SOUND pcb
2x OBJ pcb
2x PGN pcb
2x DSP pcb
1x VMIX pcb
3x PERSONAL pcbs
 
This make 17 pcbs in total needed for a complete set... I have 11pcbs, that is, one of each type listed above, with the exception of the CPU pcbs where i have 2, one with MST roms, one with SLV roms. There are 7 pcbs containing unique romsets, there are an additional 4 pcbs that are duplicates and have identical roms..

Because Zolgear and G3 are essentially just rom swaps, the set i have is not the result of someone upgrading by swapping out all the pcbs.. It is an unused set of pcbs that were obviously purchased as a backup for a machine, the theory would be, identify the bad pcb in your machine and swap in a whole pcb straight away, zero downtime. Expensive no doubt, but it means instant fixes when the game was in operation.

So, the pcbs that i am missing are :
2x Personal pcbs
1x backplane pcb
1x DSP
1x OBJ
1x PGN

I think that i might be able to poach DSP/OBJ/PGN pcbs from another system 21 game perhaps, but maybe the personal and backplane pcbs might be hard to find...

I am assuming your backplane pcbs are identical? if this is the case, i might be able to modify another backplane from another game to run the bus cards, the major i/o goes through ribbons from CRAM to slave cpu from what i can see. I'm hoping that the 'personal' pcb might allow just 2 players, and the other 2 pcbs are not needed to run the game..

anyhow, there's an update for you..

[DarthNuno]

ok, i started to dump the roms, but i have other stuff to get done for monday so i'll finish dumping them later in the week...

That's a fantastic new  Great 

Because Zolgear and G3 are essentially just rom swaps, the set i have is not the result of someone upgrading by swapping out all the pcbs.. It is an unused set of pcbs that were obviously purchased as a backup for a machine, the theory would be, identify the bad pcb in your machine and swap in a whole pcb straight away, zero downtime. Expensive no doubt, but it means instant fixes when the game was in operation.

I think it's not the same script for me. When I got that GT-6, I also got this box 

(few details here)

...I didn't check closely yet, but this is a set of 11 boards + one 'Project dragoon' laser disc, and the name of the eproms looks different than the ones for Zolgear. In addition, they looks absolutely brand new. When the operator got that GT-6, it was loaded for playing 'Project Dragoon', and (I presume) he quickly upgrade it to 'Attack of the Zolgear', store the 'Project Dragoon' boards...that explain with the boards look new like new.