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johnparker007

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Well, I'm finally here, thought I'd give an update on my MAME stuff. I've been looking at MPU1 emulation for a few weeks now. There wasn't much documentation to go on compared to SRU, but I managed to figure it out and all the 6 games I found are now running. It'll take some time before they show up in mainline MAME; it's not 100% finished yet and the code needs some cleanup, and I'm currently waiting on all the rest of my SRU code to go through. There's also the issue with layouts, I'd imagine making them for a tech not emulated by MFME isn't exactly pleasant and right now there aren't any ways to run such layouts in MAME anyway, so something needs to be figured out if anyone wants to make them.

On 23/06/2022 at 01:39, woodsy said:

In time will mame be able to do techs that mfme doesn’t? Curiosity

Well it's no Scorpion 6 but now it soon will :D

20 hours ago, johnparker007 said:

As part of my Classic extraction I've been porting/rewriting the old mfme2mame code that didn't get lost as a component in AS internal automation toolset, this is a WIP of conversion from v20.1 FML -> .lay (just some lamps with bugs and labels)

Great stuff as always! I saw you mentioned that you couldn't find any SRU classics, that's not much of a problem for testing, these early games are so simple that you can play them with just a lamp grid anyway. Nothing urgent, but there is a Club Casino layout here that would be cool to see running eventually :D

On 23/06/2022 at 20:15, serene02 said:

There may never be a public toolset to build layouts easily in mame. 

Is it still viable to create them via the .lay format?

Yep, MAME's artwork system is very flexible, but as it stands right now there's no user-friendly way of making anything for it, your only option is a text editor or as JP is doing, a tool that makes XMLs from some other source. Making smaller scale layouts by hand for simply showing stuff in action is not too bad, but a DX is out of the question (though people have made cool stuff with it, there's a clickable Speak & Spell for example).

On 22/06/2022 at 15:01, Altharic said:

There are service manuals for system80 and mps wonder if they ever had eyes on them?

System 80 is basically a souped up SRU and there's quite a bit of docs available, so it shouldn't be too difficult once I get around to it sometime. MPS is a touch more complicated situation though, rambling ahead:

Hardware wise MPS has a bit more stuff going on, but is completely doable. There's one particular part though which presents an issue with how MAME usually does things - the reel controller. Basically MAME's philosophy is to emulate EVERYTHING, every chip on the board running code should ideally be represented in the emulation as well. So in terms of ROMs in a fruit machine layout, you have the game ROM(s) and sound ROM(s) if the tech has them, these would be for the main processor, which runs the game and generally does everything. Dumping these ROMs is easy, just take them out of the socket and drop em in an EPROM programmer. But on MPS there's another, separate processor on the board dedicated to moving the reels around. That chip is a microcontroller (MCU) with internal ROM, meaning there's no ROM chip anywhere to dump, it's all inside the controller chip itself, and nobody has dumped it yet. Most of the time there's no easy way of reading those ROMs, usually deliberately so, and people have been known to go to great lengths to get the data out (nitric acid is one of the tools involved :)). Now in the MPS case the reel controller isn't very critical compared to something like a protection chip on an arcade game that fucks up the gameplay if it isn't emulated exactly right. It's just a chip driving 4 stepper reels where the main CPU tells it to. Probably not very hard to simulate, MFME does it fine without a ROM dump after all, but we still prefer to do things the "right" way if possible.

Some Ace System 1 reel controller dumps did actually show up a few years back though, which is nice. This is something that usually becomes more involved as the techs get more complex as well, I think MPU5 for example has like 5 different processors on it, MFME directly emulates only one.

Edited by SomeRandomGuy
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10 minutes ago, SomeRandomGuy said:

That chip is a microcontroller (MCU) with internal ROM, meaning there's no ROM chip anywhere to dump, it's all inside the controller chip itself, and nobody has dumped it yet. Most of the time there's no easy way of reading those ROMs, usually deliberately so, and people have been known to go to great lengths to get the data out (nitric acid is one of the tools involved :)). Now in the MPS case the reel controller isn't very critical compared to something like a protection chip on an arcade game that fucks up the gameplay if it isn't emulated exactly right. It's just a chip driving 4 stepper reels where the main CPU tells it to. Probably not very hard to simulate, MFME does it fine without a ROM dump after all, but we still prefer to do things the "right" way if possible.

yes it is a masked rom inside the cpu, as you say no direct way of reading it out and far to expensive to get it dumped using the nitric acid and microscope technique. I did look into this using a version that had a cpu and a erasable rom section, but I could never find a hint of the internal code! the masked chips were available new a couple of years back at £15 each in the original antistatic tubes, but the seller would not budge on price so I only bought a few at that price. That really was the way they protected MPS technology from being easily copied!

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26 minutes ago, andrew96 said:

yes it is a masked rom inside the cpu, as you say no direct way of reading it out and far to expensive to get it dumped using the nitric acid and microscope technique. I did look into this using a version that had a cpu and a erasable rom section, but I could never find a hint of the internal code! the masked chips were available new a couple of years back at £15 each in the original antistatic tubes, but the seller would not budge on price so I only bought a few at that price. That really was the way they protected MPS technology from being easily copied!

Are these chips still available I don't mind contributing if it means we can get this dump?

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57 minutes ago, Altharic said:

Are these chips still available I don't mind contributing if it means we can get this dump?

It was a few years ago now when I was into repairing them. It was one of those surplus suppliers, when its gone it's gone! they was new original stock too. I will see if I can find out where it was from through going through emails

as I say it was a masked rom at manufacture, I remember I also looked into what the processor was and all that but cannot now remember what it was, I have looked in my pc folders to see if I downloaded any sort of datasheet on it, but I didn't. 

 

If I remember any more i will post

 

 

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2 hours ago, andrew96 said:

yes it is a masked rom inside the cpu, as you say no direct way of reading it out and far to expensive to get it dumped using the nitric acid and microscope technique.

1 hour ago, Altharic said:

Are these chips still available I don't mind contributing if it means we can get this dump?

Well there's people working with MAMEdevs specialized in doing decapping, I could ask around if anyone's interested?

2 hours ago, andrew96 said:

That really was the way they protected MPS technology from being easily copied!

Could have been for security purposes, or maybe simply offloading it from the main TMS9900. JPM didn't seem to have any problems but one of the Ace reel controllers (spACE actually, Sys1 doesn't have one) dumped is a PCP clone, so it didn't work out for them at least :)

1 hour ago, serene02 said:

@SomeRandomGuy

From a purely selfish here but I would love to see Pluto 6 emulated.  I believe you could buy the development boards from Heber?  Not sure how feasible the tech is to emulate though.  I imagine the game roms are encrypted.

J

Definitely feasible but it would be quite the ordeal, figure out 2000s era hardware, get past encryption (they've got "two-stage customer-specific security"), it's quite the contrast from the late 70s relics I've been doing so far :D. I'm on my 2nd MAME driver right now, first being SRU, and this is really the first serious piece of real world software I've done period, so I've got a lot to learn :D I'm looking towards the 1st-2nd gen techs at the moment, which is already quite a bit of ground to cover, and someone has to emulate them after all. I'd imagine it'll definitely be in MAME some day, I just have no idea when. Maybe Haze might look at it one day, he's far from done on MPU4 right now though, and of course there's all the Plutos before this one to do.

31 minutes ago, andrew96 said:

It was a few years ago now when I was into repairing them. It was one of those surplus suppliers, when its gone it's gone! they was new original stock too. I will see if I can find out where it was from through going through emails

as I say it was a masked rom at manufacture, I remember I also looked into what the processor was and all that but cannot now remember what it was, I have looked in my pc folders to see if I downloaded any sort of datasheet on it, but I didn't.

Yep, that's the chip. NOS blanks are useful for doing test runs but ultimately someone has to sacrifice a chip for the greater good. Didn't see anything on a quick look through the datasheet but if we're lucky it might have some sort of ROM readout feature, though even if there is one it can usually be disabled with a fuse, which would most likely be blown.

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11 minutes ago, SomeRandomGuy said:

 

Yep, that's the chip. NOS blanks are useful for doing test runs but ultimately someone has to sacrifice a chip for the greater good. Didn't see anything on a quick look through the datasheet but if we're lucky it might have some sort of ROM readout feature, though even if there is one it can usually be disabled with a fuse, which would most likely be blown.

yes a rom one would likely have that, but a masked rom doesn't! it is silicon etched permantly when the silicon wafer is made, no way of reading masked roms inside a cpu, it protects the manufacturers code 100%

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@SomeRandomGuyI hope you don't mind me asking, but while reading above i noticed a mention of a reel microprocessor to drive reels... I own a (broken) PCP What a Carry On machine running on Sp.ACE tech. It has'nt been emulated in MFME as it needed the PCP Reel Micro to be emulated which sadly never got put into MFME.

There is a dump of the PCP Reel Micro out there, I have a copy of it, so is it likely I will finally get to play my beloved "What a Carry On" machine once again, in MAME one day? - Is it possible?

TTX posted the MCU controller in this thread, if you don't already have it...

Hoping my dream of playing this in emulation is a possibility in the future..

Cheers,

Gary.

🍒🍒🍒

 

 

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1 hour ago, MPU_FIVE said:

@SomeRandomGuyI hope you don't mind me asking, but while reading above i noticed a mention of a reel microprocessor to drive reels... I own a (broken) PCP What a Carry On machine running on Sp.ACE tech. It has'nt been emulated in MFME as it needed the PCP Reel Micro to be emulated which sadly never got put into MFME.

There is a dump of the PCP Reel Micro out there, I have a copy of it, so is it likely I will finally get to play my beloved "What a Carry On" machine once again, in MAME one day? - Is it possible?

TTX posted the MCU controller in this thread, if you don't already have it...

Hoping my dream of playing this in emulation is a possibility in the future..

Cheers,

Gary.

🍒🍒🍒

 

 

@SomeRandomGuy I passed this dump over to James and David back in September 2021, I'm not sure if they've skeleton coded/encapsulated it yet anywhere.

Also, thanks so much for taking on these new early tech  drivers!  This is very impressive that it's your first foray into building real world software, you are smashing it :) 

I have somewhat of a vested interest, as long term that's how I can do lots more stuff with FME within Arcade Sim, MFME works stably on Windows PCs to drive Arcade Sim machines, but through a ton of hacks and bodges; I need to get a new solid cross-platform MAME solution developed for proper future-proofing. It's definitely good to get these early techs working first and slowly move forward, everyone always asks for the new 'modern' ones lol ;) 

Those internal layouts, I've been tinkering with getting reel symbols instead of the grotty text (using colored unicode characters, and potentially SVG), and better alpha lamps, so the internal MAME layouts can hopefully look better than the old ones I did back in 2016 :)  WIP screengrab showing buggy but improved reel experiments (this is purely from a text file file (.lay XML), no actual graphical resource files used):
175698935-2ea9c666-bd6f-4fbe-8b29-5a7288f69bb9.png
Old ones for comparison:
image.png.f041fd4fe93657d21c6fdb5407049db4.png

"the issue with layouts, I'd imagine making them for a tech not emulated by MFME isn't exactly pleasant and right now there aren't any ways to run such layouts in MAME anyway"

It is possible, but as you say painful.  Especially as the old mfme2mame was a tool others could run, but this new process needs to run on my machine really, through the massive AS Unity project.  That said, someone could make MAME layouts in MFME 9.6 and use the old mfme2mame tool to generate internal classics or something like that to get lamps etc figured out (so they use MFME to design, but MAME to run).  Then I could convert that 9.6 -> 20.1 FML, then reconvert using Arcade Sim (to get the new higher quality configs/debug/internal layouts).

(They can be run in MAME without recompiling, when you place default.lay files into the named dir/zip under Artwork, MAME will pick them up as a video option)

Keep up the awesome work man :) 

Edited by johnparker007
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[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

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5 hours ago, SomeRandomGuy said:

...there is a Club Casino layout here that would be cool to see running eventually :D

Also @SomeRandomGuy, I've just started myself a doc for this new side project, and made a note regarding this layout :) 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fjSixFAf2nw4tynP-LVwXatbGtwNac_lzfwufHhUuFc/edit?usp=sharing
 

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

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5 minutes ago, Altharic said:

There are a few SRU layouts in MFME not many but a few 

 

https://www.desertislandfruits.com/forum/index.php?/search/&tags=sru

Cheers :)  I had already seen those, and they are great quality redraws, thanks @Amusements - and I'll be using them, though they all went 'straight to DX'.  So they'll provide any config info plus 'touched' lamps... but the 'classic' layouts are useful for building internal test layouts in MAME so the emulation can be tested with clickable buttons etc.

I'm not planning to redo the old MAME DX creation project at this time, I am purely working on things to help with emulation development (before heading back onto Arcade Sim direct work again).

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

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3 hours ago, johnparker007 said:

. but the 'classic' layouts are useful for building internal test layouts in MAME so the emulation can be tested with clickable buttons etc.
 

I usually make a classic before I start on a redraw, but do not release them. I will have a look at my backups, and see what I have saved.

Edited by Amusements
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Treat every day like your last, because one day it will be!

Fruit Machine <<<My new project! 

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38 minutes ago, Amusements said:

I usually make a classic before I start on a redraw, but do not release them. I will have a look at my backups, and see what I have saved.

Ah that would be awesome if you have them, as they are good for generating these internal layouts as part of the work I'm doing now to help out the MAME efforts.  Really handy to be able to actually play the machines, check correct lamps, reels, buttons etc just using standalone MAME.exe, to find bugs :)  Ta very much!

[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

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On 25/06/2022 at 00:06, MPU_FIVE said:

@SomeRandomGuyI hope you don't mind me asking, but while reading above i noticed a mention of a reel microprocessor to drive reels... I own a (broken) PCP What a Carry On machine running on Sp.ACE tech. It has'nt been emulated in MFME as it needed the PCP Reel Micro to be emulated which sadly never got put into MFME.

There is a dump of the PCP Reel Micro out there, I have a copy of it, so is it likely I will finally get to play my beloved "What a Carry On" machine once again, in MAME one day? - Is it possible?

TTX posted the MCU controller in this thread, if you don't already have it...

spACE is definitely doable, everything needed to emulate it is there. The dumps were taken care of, they're already catalogued in MAME.

On 25/06/2022 at 01:45, johnparker007 said:

Also, thanks so much for taking on these new early tech  drivers!  This is very impressive that it's your first foray into building real world software, you are smashing it :) 

I have somewhat of a vested interest, as long term that's how I can do lots more stuff with FME within Arcade Sim, MFME works stably on Windows PCs to drive Arcade Sim machines, but through a ton of hacks and bodges; I need to get a new solid cross-platform MAME solution developed for proper future-proofing. It's definitely good to get these early techs working first and slowly move forward, everyone always asks for the new 'modern' ones lol ;) 

Those internal layouts, I've been tinkering with getting reel symbols instead of the grotty text (using colored unicode characters, and potentially SVG), and better alpha lamps, so the internal MAME layouts can hopefully look better than the old ones I did back in 2016 :)  WIP screengrab showing buggy but improved reel experiments (this is purely from a text file file (.lay XML), no actual graphical resource files used):

Thanks :) These reels look cool, saw the discussion at GitHub already. Though adding extra 'overlays' for the symbols would be nice to have if that isn't too complex, like any numbers/etc in the corners, boxed symbols, stuff like that. The Big Bucks layout for example has boxes and numbers via text, but doesn't have the red hidden feature lines.

On 25/06/2022 at 01:45, johnparker007 said:

It is possible, but as you say painful.  Especially as the old mfme2mame was a tool others could run, but this new process needs to run on my machine really, through the massive AS Unity project.  That said, someone could make MAME layouts in MFME 9.6 and use the old mfme2mame tool to generate internal classics or something like that to get lamps etc figured out (so they use MFME to design, but MAME to run).  Then I could convert that 9.6 -> 20.1 FML, then reconvert using Arcade Sim (to get the new higher quality configs/debug/internal layouts).

Yeah I can see that working, more cumbersome compared to the usual process but that's just how it is right now I guess. I've got some lamps figured out myself already from disassembling some of the games, not that it's very hard as there's only around 13 of them on MPU1 :D More SRU layouts sounds great!

Edited by SomeRandomGuy
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6 hours ago, SomeRandomGuy said:

Thanks :) These reels look cool, saw the discussion at GitHub already. Though adding extra 'overlays' for the symbols would be nice to have if that isn't too complex, like any numbers/etc in the corners, boxed symbols, stuff like that. The Big Bucks layout for example has boxes and numbers via text, but doesn't have the red hidden feature lines.

Yeah, it's a shame we can't do the unicode symbols or SVG symbols ideas, but the reasons seemed sensible enough.  So I think I'll end up doing like you've said, a kind of hybrid approach, so the reels will still have text on, but also some other colors for those hidden feature lines, number overlays, box overlays, that sort of thing.

6 hours ago, SomeRandomGuy said:

More SRU layouts sounds great!

Thanks to @Amusements who has dug some out for us that he had from building his DX's, and has kindly offered to remake some more from his other existing layouts - so there'll be more SRUs/Sys80/MPU2s in addition to whatever's in the legacy section on here.

I've been working on more SVG stuff - I've got the first signs of life out of a new lamp system I'm building, very early and buggy, but these are all (placeholder, they shouldn't all be round) SVG lamps - using a single SVG defined at the top of the layout :)
image.thumb.png.59a9baafcaebab601917458f32c094a4.png
 

Edited by johnparker007
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[ Arcade Simulator ] Pre-alpha installer: http://arcadesimulator.net  |  Known Issues: https://tinyurl.com/yz4uom2e  |  Donation info: https://tinyurl.com/yzvgl4xo
[ Community Drive ] The drive: http://tinyurl.com/yckze665
[ Fruit Machine Database ] Initial google sheets (WIP): https://tinyurl.com/2c5znxzz
[ MFME Launch ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/MFMELaunch
[ Oasis ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/Oasis
[ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

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18 hours ago, Altharic said:

Out of interest what MPU1 machines have you found so far, what are the 6?

There is a Fruit machine rom dat and under the unknowns and such there might be more 

I think this might be a mixture of machines rom 1 and 2 are mpu1 and the other is a different machine minus its mask rom?

Match It (JPM) [Rom].zip 18.74 kB · 2 downloads

Golden Nudge It
Match It
Match Up (£2 version of Match It)

And some Leisure Games ones:
Big Apple
Lucky Nudger (seems to play exactly like Big Apple)
Big Apple £2 version, has more sounds and stuff

Yep I have that one, looks like there was also an MPS game called Match It. I looked at some of the unknown ROMs that I had, didn't find anything there. MPU1 seems a bit short on dumps compared to the others, quite a few games on that Barcrest list that I couldn't find. Hopefully they'll show up one day though.

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12 minutes ago, SomeRandomGuy said:

Golden Nudge It
Match It
Match Up (£2 version of Match It)

And some Leisure Games ones:
Big Apple
Lucky Nudger (seems to play exactly like Big Apple)
Big Apple £2 version, has more sounds and stuff

Yep I have that one, looks like there was also an MPS game called Match It. I looked at some of the unknown ROMs that I had, didn't find anything there. MPU1 seems a bit short on dumps compared to the others, quite a few games on that Barcrest list that I couldn't find. Hopefully they'll show up one day though.

oh my god, i would figuratively blow my mind if i got to play ooh what a carry on!! @MPU_FIVE owns the machine so can defo help with internal stuff and there is a layout in classic form already out there but the reels aren't functionable perhaps that will speed up the dream i share with gary.

ps thanks for your efforts

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living the dream

 

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