Galaxian³ [Zolgear] Emulation part #1 : the boards

[DarthNuno]

Well, no game is immortal, and some games such Galaxian³  are so rare. We need to preserve this game, or it will lost forever.
Only Namco has the source of their games, and I doubt they will release Galaxian³ sources in the future 

With the time, repairing such arcade games will be very hard, or maybe impossible : no more spare item, no more knowledge or worse : no more interest 

Impossible to let die this game !!! I'll do all I can in order to give to the Galaxian³ game the immortality and allows a maximum of gamers to see what the game is.

The bad thing is : I'm not a Mame, Daphne, or other emulator developer but... I'll make all the resources of this game available to them. But I'll keep all the boards and laser disc here. I hope they'll help me to do a good job regarding the roms dump, laser disc capture...

Ok, stop talking.

Let's start to examine how a Galaxian Theater works.

They are three boxes of electronics stuff :



Box number 1 :



Let's see closer what are these three boards, from left to right 


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Did you notice ? All these three boards are the same.

Ok, let's carefully remove one :




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Now, in order to show you all the components, here's more views of this board :


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...and if it's not enough, here a scan of the board, in two parts :


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Ok, now the questions for the dumper/developer specialists only please :

- What are the roms to dump on that board ?
- What do I have to buy in order to dump these roms  (link to shops) ?
- Other things to do on this board ?

 

[Sonic 1992]

Hello, Good luck with this project!  I hope it works out great!!  I'll bet it will be a little hard due to it being such a complex game though...

Here is the link for the site for MameUIFX.. ( a frontend I really like)  I'll bet the Site Admin (MameSick) might be able to help you/give advice?   Just drop in on their forum and ask..  He seems to be very smart with emulation! 


Good Luck!!      

http://mame32fx.altervista.org/home.htm

[petieken]

I'm not an expert but I recognise 3 roms on this board. It's the 3 in the middle with the stickers on them. I'm in doubt about 2 other IC's but I think they are ram. But I'm definately sure about the 3 in the middle.

I have this eprom programmer/reader here:
http://www.willem.org/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1_17&products_id=204

Can you check the eprom type numbers under the clips. From that number I can tell you if they are 8 or 16 bit eproms. If they are 16 bit you will need an extra adapter with that reader. I had to buy an adapter with my reader: http://www.willem.org/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1_21&products_id=77


You will have to be very careful when dumping the eproms. You have to set dip switches and one mistake can destroy your eprom. And you don't want that!! Always triple-check the settings before placing your eprom in the reader/programmer.

[petieken]

Okay I checked the part numbers and those 2 other chips are neither rom or ram chips.
Check the other boards too if the stickers on the eproms have different numbers?

As Sonic 1992 said it won't be easy to emulate this. I think the Mame developers will not only need the rom's and laser disc, but the whole system architecture and routines...

Good luck with the project! 

[Havok]

You should contact "The Guru":

http://www.mameworld.net/gurudumps/

Contact info:

http://www.mameworld.net/gurudumps/comments.html

[ANY]

Ok, now the questions for the dumper/developer specialists only please :

- What are the roms to dump on that board ?
- What do I have to buy in order to dump these roms  (link to shops) ?
- Other things to do on this board ?

 

Hi Bruno,
The only rom to dump are the 3 chip with "GLC XXXXX" sticker on them.
Some pal are there too, but i bet that namco have "secured" them (dumpable with the right toys...)
Mame can "work" also without them.
Any rom reader can handle them, the Willem can do it with right adapter, at first look they seem 1to4 Mbit 16 bit ones.
Or if you want to post them i can do it, or we can do it in November...
The board is unique, not used in any other games, but maybe it's related to system 21, we will see when you show the video board
Each board seem to control 2 player and you can fine adjust the gun volume for guns. (Guess)
Other notable chip is the Namco C139 witch is a serial conroller, maybe to sync with other CPU board, quite sure.

Let us know

[DarthNuno]

Great  Following the responses I got here and by mail, the dump should not be the major problem  And the interest about this project it very good, so let's go further on it 

Here's a better view on the EPROM 


(click on picture for the full size version)

Now you can read the specs on it. Is it a common EPROM by the way ? What is the purpose of the small plastic part I've removed on that Eprom ?

[petieken]

Now I can see the type of EPROM used. It's a 27C1000 as you can see, I haven't seen these much on arcade pcb's; in fact, I can't remember if I have ever seen them on arcade pcb's. They have a capacity of 1 Mbit each, in an 8-bit configuration.
If you want to dump these with an eprom programmer, you'll have to loop up these specs and set the dip switches according the manual. (so you don't destroy your eproms)
I made this mistake the first time I ever used an eprom programmer.... 
There was 1 bad eprom on the vigilante board and of course I destroyed a perfectly good one... Luckily Vigilante was already dumped for mame so I could take a new eprom and burn the file again.

Good luck with the dumping process!!! Someday maybe everybody may experience G³ in mame thanks to you!

[petieken]

I looked up the datasheet and it's the same eprom as 27C1001 which is very common.

[ANY]

Great  Following the responses I got here and by mail, the dump should not be the major problem  And the interest about this project it very good, so let's go further on it 

Here's a better view on the EPROM 

Now you can read the specs on it. Is it a common EPROM by the way ? What is the purpose of the small plastic part I've removed on that Eprom ?

The eprom is 1mbit 8 bit... I was wrong very comon and every programmer can handle that.
The plastic clip is just used to secure the chip in it's socket.

[Phil B]

Are those the only three boards used by the game or are there more in the other boxes?

[DarthNuno]

Are those the only three boards used by the game or are there more in the other boxes?

Hi Phil,

Nope, there are 12 (yes ...TWELVE  ) other boards in the second 'boards rack'. I'll update the post with the pictures of them soon 

[DarthNuno]

Today, let's examine what's inside the 2nd 'rack' of boards.

Entire view of it :



Closer, for left to right :





So they are 12 boards inside that box.

Let's name it :



1) CRAM

2) ???CPU (Japanese team please ?)



3) RSO



4) SOUND



5) ??-?CPU (Japanese team please ?)



6) OBJ

7) PGN

DSP

9) OBJ

10) PGN

11) DSP



12) VMIX

There are also two big wires :



...named :

- ???1 (Japanese team please ?)

- ???2 (Japanese team please ?)

[REVO]

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

[mungler]

Hi,

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

bfn,

mungler