Galaxian³ [Dragoon] Emulation part #1 : the boards

[DarthNuno]

This topic is dedicated to the original Galaxian³ mission : Project Dragoon

(the other topic dedicated to the Attack Of The Zolgear mission is right here)

Regarding the boards, no more suspense   



Holy Christ ! This is it !!! P-Man did it faster than light. He dumped the romset & documented the boards.
An important step has been done, but calm down... there is a long way to go before a Galaxian³  emulator...
Anyway, at least the Project Dragoon roms are now safe... forever ;-) Many thanks P-Man !!!

ok, i finally documented the boards and dumped the romset..

you can download it here:
http://www.andysarcade.net/pix/G3PD.RAR

My pcbs are probably going to be put into storage now for a rainy day, i have way too much on to do anything with them right now, still, the documenting and dumping is done...

enjoy.

In addition of the pictures/documentation included in the Project Dragoon romset provided by P-Man, I'll add additional picture & information regarding that specific romset 

[P-man]

Someone from the MAME team pointed out that i missed including OBJ3.BIN in my archive, and that VOI0 and VOI2 appear to have the same checksum.. i have added the missing rom, and verified that indeed, on my pcb, VOI0 and VOI2 carry identical data..

The archive has now been updated and i am told there is a skeleton MAME driver in place, waiting for the system 23 expert to look at it..

http://www.andysarcade.net/pix/G3PD.RAR

enjoy..

[Valsimot]

You guys rock!

I'm guessing it's going to take a VERY powerful PC with two monitors to run it?

Since I've never played the game (or seen it for that mater), I'm very happy to think that I might be able to one day.

[funkycochise]

good news about those dumps...

[DarthNuno]

In the latest Mame .128u5 Release (source update from the 7 December), you can read in the whatsnew.txt (available right here)

...

New games marked as GAME_NOT_WORKING
------------------------------------
Treasure Island [Angelo Salese]
Destiny Horoscope [Angelo Salese]
Galaxian 3 [Andy Welburn]
Witch Card (Video Klein) [Roberto Fresca, Guru]
Bra$il [David Haywood, Angelo Salese]
Fashion (Version 2.14) [David Haywood, Angelo Salese]
Il Pagliaccio [David Haywood, Angelo Salese]

It's just a skeleton of a driver, but hey... seeing the name Galaxian3 inside a mame release is an historical moment isn't it ? 

 

[AsPiC]

Very good news

Congratulations for your work

[DarthNuno]

....and back on this 

I got today all the boards used for the dump of  'Project Dragoon' (thanks Andy  ) 



Very well packed, and the boards (11!) ...look like new   



Ok, now the next step - as as suggested by Naibo on that post- is to provide *ultra high* resolution pictures of all the boards, both side. I'll use these boards for that job. I don't have the right camera for that at home, but I'll do some test with a friend's Nikon D90 in these comings days.

[Superully]

wouldn't it be an option to simply put them on an a3 scanner?

[DarthNuno]

wouldn't it be an option to simply put them on an a3 scanner?

Well, I have an A3 scanner, but unfortunately, I'm only able to use it for scanning sheets ...and nothing else    Because if what I'm trying to scan is not EXACTLY against the scanner glass, it's all blur, like out of focus  I don't have the problem with my AGFA A4 scanner, but it would be a little bit complicate to assemble A4 parts... but I'll give a try once again 

[DarthNuno]

Ok, let's try with my AGFA A4 scanner :



Settings are : no compression, 600 DPI resolution!

As you can see, the board is bigger than the scanner, so it'll need multiple pass. Thanks to Photoshop CS, there is an automatic function to join multiple pictures into one  
But note that some items may be missing, on the border. Feel free to ask if you need better view of specific area  

More details regarding the disposition of the boards are available in the Galaxian³ [Zolgear] Emulation part #1 : the boards post.

Let's start with :

1. PERSONAL PCB (3x)

COMPONENT SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 48MB)]

SOLDERING SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 48MB)]

2. SLAVE CPU PCB

COMPONENT SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 32MB)]

An other view :




SOLDERING SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 30MB)]




3. MASTER CPU PCB

*this is exactly the same board than the Slave CPU PCB, only the jumpers/switch are set differently*



COMPONENT SIDE :



An other view :



[click on the pictures for full size]



SOLDERING SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 30MB)]

Now here's the jumper/switch settings for both board (Master CPU and Slave CPU)  

Localisation SW1 :            Master           Slave
                   #1                ON                ON
                   #2                OFF               ON
                   #3                OFF               ON
                   #4                OFF               OFF

                 SW2 : Reset button to press ... same for both

                 SW3 :             Master           Slave
                   #1                OFF               OFF
                   #2                OFF               OFF
                   #3                OFF               OFF
                   #4                OFF               OFF
                   #5                OFF               OFF
                   #6                OFF               OFF
                   #7                OFF               OFF
                   #8                OFF               OFF

                 SW4 :             Master           Slave
                   #1                OFF               ON
                   #2                OFF               ON
                   #3                OFF               OFF
                   #4                OFF               OFF
                   #5                OFF               OFF
                   #6                OFF               OFF
                   #7                OFF               OFF
                   #8                OFF               OFF

                 JP1 set to         4M                1M
                 JP2                  CEN              CEN
                 JP3                  INT               INT
                 JP4             not VCC              not VCC
                 JP5                  IN                 OUT
                 JP6                  FON               FON
                 JP7                  HON              HON
                 JP8                  MST              SLV

3. OBJ PCB (2x)

COMPONENT SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 20MB)]

SOLDERING SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 20MB)]

Additional views :






4. DSP PCB (2x)

COMPONENT SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 20MB)]

SOLDERING SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 20MB)]

Additional views :






5. RSO PCB

COMPONENT SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 20MB)]

SOLDERING SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 20MB)]

Additional views :







6. THE 'BACKPLANE' PCB  (2X)

COMPONENT SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 20MB)]

SOLDERING SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 15MB)]

Additional views :







7. V-MIX PCB

COMPONENT SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 20MB)]

SOLDERING SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 18MB)]

Additional views :







8. C-RAM PCB

COMPONENT SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 18MB)]

SOLDERING SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 16MB)]

Additional views :








9. PGN PCB (2X)

COMPONENT SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 20MB)]

SOLDERING SIDE :



[click on the pictures for the full 600 DPI size picture (approx 18MB)]

Additional views :

[aganim]

Amusing the pcb scan, great wallpaper

[DarthNuno]

Nice idea 

Edit post : 'MASTER CPU board' picture available 

[DarthNuno]

Well the component side pictures are very difficult to reassemble...

Maybe this kind of picture may be more useful ?  



Still not have a good camera (I'm using a poor Kodak M883), too much noise on the full size picture  

[DarthNuno]

In order to have more help, I've also post a message on Mame World board to highlight the huge work to do here , and of course having as much help as possible for all the tasks to do (the list is big  ) ...

Ok, regarding the question about taking pictures of the boards, get some advice from TheGuru : ... take the pics outside in sunlight but ensure there are no shadows on the pics. don't use a flash, you must do it outside in sunlight with no flash, perferably with a tripod so pics are in focus and bright...

The bad thing is ... my Kodak EasyShare M883 really suck, even if it's a 8 millions pixels  But, let's see what I can do.

Here's the setup :



You can see the result, the pictures  for the Master CPU boards on this topic... not too bad, but not accurate enough (This cheap Kodak sucks, and not enough sunlight in Belgium  ) BUT I'm sure with a better camera, like a Nikon D90, it will be perfect  Of course, the only judge will be the Mame Dev who'll analyze these pictures 

[DarthNuno]

Just add the 'OBJect' board details 

I've read one sentence this morning ... it makes my day   

"I've also made some progress of CPU emulation from earlier this year. I've figured out the master/slave 68020 configuration, and made them communicate each other.
In my galaxian3 driver, the master 68020 has been able to upload many data to the slave. My code was based on MAME 0129u6. I'll do some cleaning up and submit it later." - Naibo