Hello again. I was faced with some rainy weather this weekend so I figured what better way to spend a few hours in the garage before I scuttled off to see Star Wars Episode II than to tackle another NEO conversion project. I decided that, since I had a spare beat up Samurai Shodown home cart that it was fair game to be sacrificed. I wanted to do a conversion for a game that was never officially released the home Neo Geo system.
The game? Panic Bomber. Widely available in the arcade MVS format but only available in prototype form for the Neo Geo home system, this sounded like the perfect little project. And indeed it was.
Upon examining the Panic Bomber MVS cartridge I found that the following circuit boards were used in that build:
The home "sacrificial" cart, Samurai Shodown, used these circuit boards:
Upon first inspection it really looked as if the chip swap would not work. But since SNOTURTLE, a member of the rocking neo-geo.com had success with the same project (the inspiration for my project as well) I figured that it was worth a shot.
Firstly, I removed the following chips from the PROGTOP board, taking great care since these chips will be transferred to the PROGGS board:
Next, I removed these chips from the CHA256 board, taking great care since these chips will be transferred to the CHA42G-4 board:
Then, I removed these chips from the sacrifice circuit boards:
- V1
- V2
- P1
- PG2
- C1
- C2
- C3
- C4
- C51
- C61
- M1
- S1
As you can see, the sacrifice board had more chips, it matter not.
Next, I transferred the MVS chips to the corresponding locations on the home cartridge circuit boards. No worries, the boards are clearly labeled. Just take care not to bend any of the pins.
Jumpers. You'll only need to move one jumper for this easy conversion. On the PROGGS board remove jumper 5. Next, connect jumper 1 using the jumper bridge you just removed from jumper 5! Easy, no? All you need to do is to
make sure that the HOME PROGGS board matches the jumper settings found on the original MVS PROGTOP (Panic Bomber) board.
Now it's on to the testing phase:
Yahoo!!! it works!
Ok, next up is the art. I whipped something up using a bunch of graphics that I had for the Virtual Boy version of Panic Bomber. Hehehe..
Here's my finished home cartridge and box:
Click Here To See The Insert Close Up!
That was a fun little project. Thanks SNOTURTLE!
|
