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Help with equipment identification

 
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billybob884



Joined: 06 Apr 2020
Posts: 12

PostPosted: Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:58 am    Post subject: Help with equipment identification Reply with quote

Hello all!

I'm relatively new to copiers and the like, and recently came into possession of a Double Pro Fighter X (Genesis/SNES). When I picked it up, the seller included this cartridge as an extra. I'm primarily a Genesis collector (the only Nintendo console I ever owned was the N64), and the seller didn't really know what any of this stuff was, so I'm looking to see if anyone here can help me figure out what it is:

https://imgur.com/a/BF3x3sb

My best guess is it's a programmable super famicom flash cart? I used the google translate app to try to read the labels, but it's not super clear (see the last picture in the above gallery). I would have opened it to take pics of the board, but I wasn't sure how to get it apart; it doesn't seem to have any screws, not even under the stickers.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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mrforever



Joined: 19 Nov 2007
Posts: 75

PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2020 1:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You have opened this cartridge? Have you tested on the snes?
Thank you
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billybob884



Joined: 06 Apr 2020
Posts: 12

PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2020 2:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So I managed to get it open without breaking it, and I added pictures of the CB to the gallery above. The datasheet I found for its one chip (link) says it's a 4Mbit CMOS EPROM, but the description beneath says it's "One Time Programmable Read Only Memory"; I thought EPROM meant re-programmable? So I'm not sure if it's a reusable flash cart, or just a pre-programmed pirate cart.

I don't actually own a SNES/famicom (I'm a Sega-only collector), so I can't actually try it at the moment. I'll see if I can pick one up at some point. On a side note, are famicom carts compatible with the US SNES? or are they region locked or something? I don't actually know much about the system.
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mrforever



Joined: 19 Nov 2007
Posts: 75

PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2020 7:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

thank you for share pics...if you take snes and add dpf with snes adapter you can try to see infos on this cartridge...if you in a future want to sell it i can be interested because i'm snes fan Smile


billybob884 wrote:
So I managed to get it open without breaking it, and I added pictures of the CB to the gallery above. The datasheet I found for its one chip (link) says it's a 4Mbit CMOS EPROM, but the description beneath says it's "One Time Programmable Read Only Memory"; I thought EPROM meant re-programmable? So I'm not sure if it's a reusable flash cart, or just a pre-programmed pirate cart.

I don't actually own a SNES/famicom (I'm a Sega-only collector), so I can't actually try it at the moment. I'll see if I can pick one up at some point. On a side note, are famicom carts compatible with the US SNES? or are they region locked or something? I don't actually know much about the system.
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Mystic_Merlin



Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 496
Location: Bangkok

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2020 4:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice one, I've been looking for this cartridge for a while.
Did you buy it in Asia?

To answer your question, it's a similar "fake memory upgrade" to the 4M SF2 Turbo. I wasn't sure till you opened the case, so thanks for that.

The 4M SF2 Turbo cartridge was made back when the game was released and most copiers on the market were 16Mb, while SF2 Turbo was 20Mb.
Memory was very expensive at the time following the fire of one major producer of those ICs in Japan (I posted that doc somewhere on ths forum)

To get ahead of the competition, CCL released that cart as a memory upgrade while it was in fact just an eprom with the last 4Mb of the original SF2 Turbo game. Clever but totally misleading and illegal since it was using Capcom copyrighted material.

Your cartridge seems to do exactly the same thing with the addition of an unpopulated 4Mb eprom.
More than likely it was released at a time when most copiers sold were 24Mb and one popular game came out using an extra 2Mb or 4Mb. There are not many games like that so I'll have a look and check.
You can easily dump it on your copier and attach the link so we can have a look at it to match it with an existing game. It should show up on your pro fighter as a 4Mb cartridge.
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billybob884



Joined: 06 Apr 2020
Posts: 12

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2020 3:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you for the detailed description! Very interesting history if correct.

Mystic_Merlin wrote:
Nice one, I've been looking for this cartridge for a while.
Did you buy it in Asia?

No I didn't personally buy it there, but given the labels I'm sure that's where it originally came from. I bought a Double Pro Fighter X (pics) a little while ago, and the seller included this cartridge as an extra. He wouldn't say where any of it came from, nor did he seem to know much about either the DPFX or the cart. I'm guessing he found it at a thrift store or garage sale somewhere, but we'll never know for sure.

Mystic_Merlin wrote:
You can easily dump it on your copier and attach the link so we can have a look at it to match it with an existing game. It should show up on your pro fighter as a 4Mb cartridge.

I don't actually have a SNES at the moment to be able to dump it, so that will have to be some time in the future.
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Mystic_Merlin



Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 496
Location: Bangkok

PostPosted: Tue May 12, 2020 7:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice DPFX, it's in pristine condition. The 64M sticker indicates it's upgradeable to 64M but I believe the ram board is just a standard 32M max one.

check page 3 and 4 of this thread for the story of the SF2 Turbo cart:
http://www.tototek.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3209&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

If you have a chance to dump your cart, you can update this thread, I'll receive a notification Wink
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billybob884



Joined: 06 Apr 2020
Posts: 12

PostPosted: Wed May 13, 2020 4:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mystic_Merlin wrote:
Nice DPFX, it's in pristine condition. The 64M sticker indicates it's upgradeable to 64M but I believe the ram board is just a standard 32M max one.

Thanks, I spent a lot of time restoring it. You're right that the RAM board is a 32mb, but looking at it only half of the board is populated (pic), which makes me wonder if it could be upgraded to 64mb... not that I'd try though, really I got it more for a collector's piece/display than practical use.

Mystic_Merlin wrote:
check page 3 and 4 of this thread for the story of the SF2 Turbo cart:
http://www.tototek.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3209&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

Very interesting read, though I don't really see anywhere it mentioning fakes of the memory upgrades. Either way, I'll take your word for it, and I'll try to grab a SNES to test/dump this cart.
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Mystic_Merlin



Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 496
Location: Bangkok

PostPosted: Wed May 13, 2020 5:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

billybob884 wrote:

Thanks, I spent a lot of time restoring it. You're right that the RAM board is a 32mb, but looking at it only half of the board is populated (pic), which makes me wonder if it could be upgraded to 64mb... not that I'd try though, really I got it more for a collector's piece/display than practical use.

This is the standard DPF memory board, it's maxed out at 32M, those unpopulated slots are for different memory packages

billybob884 wrote:

Very interesting read, though I don't really see anywhere it mentioning fakes of the memory upgrades. Either way, I'll take your word for it, and I'll try to grab a SNES to test/dump this cart.

Of course it's not mentioned, CCL was tricking its customers into selling RAM extension that was supposed to be reusable with different games. This kind of cart doesn't show up often so as kyuusaku assumed in that thread back then, it was believed to be RAM with some address decoding.
Only when I opened mine and dumped it I realized it was just a cheap ROM
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billybob884



Joined: 06 Apr 2020
Posts: 12

PostPosted: Wed May 13, 2020 5:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ah I see I misunderstood, I didn't realize that memo was from CCL themselves (of course it wouldn't say so, then Rolling Eyes)
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billybob884



Joined: 06 Apr 2020
Posts: 12

PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 12:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So I finally got around to ripping the ROM from this mystery cartridge (or attempting to, at least). I ended up purchasing a Retrode (I wasn't able to get the DPFX to play nice with my PC), and it indeed appears to be a Street Fighter memory upgrade cart:



Unfortunately, I've not had luck actually extracting the ROM. All it's producing is 0kB files, but it is identifying the contents as "CapcomStreetFighte7270.sfc" (I didn't name it that, Retrode did that all on its own).

Attempting to get in touch with Retrode's makers for tips/support, but in the mean time, anyone have any experience with Retrodes?
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Mystic_Merlin



Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 496
Location: Bangkok

PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, it looks indeed like a SF2T 4M cart. I'm not sure how Retrode works but maybe this name is pulled from an internal database and the number is the checksum?
Your DPF should be able to dump the card regardless if you can get your hands on a SNES.
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Mystic_Merlin



Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 496
Location: Bangkok

PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 10:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

BTW, the Chinese label on the back of the cartridge translates to:

Bring this cartridge to your authorized dealer to add 24M or 32M for 100HKD

It's probably an unrelated piece of advertisement for memory upgrades you could get in Hong Kong.
Unrelated to the present cartridge I mean, but related to copier users who obviously needed a memory upgrade back then.
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billybob884



Joined: 06 Apr 2020
Posts: 12

PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2021 2:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mystic_Merlin wrote:
It's probably an unrelated piece of advertisement for memory upgrades you could get in Hong Kong.
Unrelated to the present cartridge I mean, but related to copier users who obviously needed a memory upgrade back then.


Neat! Thanks for clarifying, google translate didn't do the best job on that.

Anyway, got the Retrode working, dumped file here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jOYeZTcB-lV8ezngZ9M5-dfmCu3hl39e/view?usp=sharing

I don't know much about ROMs in general, but I quick dropped it in a hex editor and found little chunks of this text repeated all throughout the file:



Good sign, I guess?
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Mystic_Merlin



Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 496
Location: Bangkok

PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2021 5:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the dump, although I think your Retrode had some issues doing a proper copy of the eprom. First, because the size is 2.5 x 4mbit; second because you can find a lot of mirrored data.

Anyway it still confirms it's indeed the last 4mbit of the SF2Turbo as you can match it with the original cartridge.

The way to use this cartridge is to get your hands on a Pro Fighter Q with 16M of ram and load SF2 Turbo onto it.
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