Hello Everyone,
This project involves converting a Money Puzzle (Idol) Exchanger MVS
cartridge to NGH format. The sacrifice cartridge used for this conversion
is a World Heroes 2 Jet home cartridge. There seems to be an abundant
and cheap supply of this cartridge, especially the Japanese version! I
was able to find a well used Japanese Money Idol Exchange loose MVS cartridge
for the project that had long ago been orphaned. The poor fellow did not
have a serial number, all identity had been lost. Fortunately, the chips
were real!
When I first started the conversion, I neglected to do the proper research.
After building the conversion I quickly realized that the V ROM used on
the Money Puzzle Exchanger was 32 meg. World Heroes 2 Jet expects 16 MEG
V ROMS. Very easy to tell after the fact. screwed up sound effects. Doh!
I did a quick swap of the PROG board to one that supports 32 MEG ROMS
and the sound effects from the V ROM worked perfectly. But I wanted to
use the PROG board from the World Heroes 2 Jet since I heard rumors in
the world of Neo Geo where such things are dared mentioned or talked about
that it was indeed possible. what to do? Read on!
**** WARNING **** This is not a simple chip swap/jumper conversion. No
traces were harmed in the process of this conversion. A wire was used!
What?!?! Yep, a piece of genuine wire.
The Details:
Remove the V, P, S, M, and C chips from the Sacrifice NGH boards.
Remove the V, P, S, M and C chips from the Money Puzzle Exchanger MVS
cartridge. Place them in their corresponding locations on the sacrifice
NGH boards with the exception of the V1 CHIP. Do not solder that one on
yet!!!!!
Voodoo Conversion 101:
I contacted a fellow that goes by handle
HPMAN on the neo-geo.com
forums. He is a person that knows a great deal about the internals relating
to the technical architecture used in Neo Geo game cartridges. What follows
is a bit of HPMAN conversion magic
that will allow the game to address the entire 32 MEG V ROM. This particular
magic works because there is only one V ROM used in the game. Are you
still here? Ok, here it is.
World Heroes 2 Jet Sacrificial PROG Printed Circuit Board Modification:
- Remove the LS139 chip from the PROG PCB. What is an LS139? Basically,
this is a decoder/demultiplexor chip. Need more? Use Google.com
- Remove jumper blocks 16 and 17.
- Before soldering the V1 chip to the sacrificial PCB bend PIN 32 so
that it sticks out horizontally. The V1 chip has 42 PINS. Look at the
PCB closely. You will note that pin 1's location is labeled on the board
as is PIN 21, 22 and 42. Finding PIN 32 should not be too hard to find.
;-)
- We'll need to connect the V ROM PIN 32 to the PCM PIN 77 somehow.
The easiest way to do this is to solder a wire to PIN 32 and then solder
the other end of the wire to the lower PAD of jumper 16. Jumper 16's
lower PAD maps directly to PCM PIN 77!
- Solder the V1 PINs 12 and 13 together. This is best done from the
backside of the PCB where the PINS push through. You could also use
piece of wire wrap but that seems to be a bit of overkill.
That's it! There are no jumpers to change on the CHA PCB.
The Insert and Label
I created a custom insert and label for Money Puzzle Exchanger. I used
snippets from the Japanese MVS flyer, several screen grabs and a few graphics
created from scratch. I decided to create English Version graphics, right
down to converting the Japanese logo to English! I supplied plenty of
Engrish on the back side of the insert to complete the art. I decided
to go with a really bright dark pinkish color, in honor of the King of
Fighters 2002 NGH insert. Overall, I'm really pleased with it. The insert
is designed to fit the old style case.
Click Here To Download
Hi-Res Insert
Click
Here To Download Hi-Res Label
-- Tiptonium Out...
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