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Has any one got a my card ep, or pictures of one? Also possibly pictures of the programmers that were used in the stores? Is much known about them in general? Or the pinout for programming such card?

Ive split open a card catcher and noticed an odd arrangement with the pinout and wondered if it was related or not.

I'm sure it's the same as the standard pinout, just with some extra voltage on the programming pin when writing.

The card (and later cartridge) pinouts were chosen to simplify the routing to the memory chip, which has a quite standard pinout. The SG-1000 cartridge instead had the pins chosen some other way so the card catcher has to be a bit of a mess to swap between them.

I was curious as to which pin they chose to be the programming pin. If the card catcher is anything to go by it might be one of the ground pins as theres an odd arrangement there. Ill upload a picture of it when i get home if anyone is interested

That's true - there are multiple ground pins do they could be used for that.

The only known pictures are here:
http://www.smspower.org/forums/6225-EPMyCard

Been searching for them for almost twenty years now..

So i never got around to adding some pictures of the card catcher board.. but here we go.

Two of the ground pins are connected together.. the 3rd pin which is labeled ground on the pinouts disappears through a via to the front side of the board then snakes around and connects to A0. You can see they have then purposely drilled a hole in the track to break it. Its been tracked that way on purpose so that it can be drilled out but im not sure what purpose it would have served.

20190411_204805.jpg (149.02 KB)

20190411_204732.jpg (145.37 KB)

20190411_204718.jpg (147.02 KB)

I got curious and decided to have a closer look at a card to see what was going on in there. Ive looked at it under the xray at work and have found some interesting things. The field of view on the xray is quite small so i wasn't able to get a shot of the whole thing.

1) There are connections for all of the card connector pins that run to the outside edge of the board on the bottom side. These are used during manufacturing to allow electroplated gold to be put on. Unused pins on the card connector are left unconnected internally and go no where else.

2) The ground pins follow the same pattern as the board inside the card catcher. 2 pins are tied together and the pin that snaked around and could have connected to A0 is unconnected on the card.

3) There is a solid copper square under the rom die which is connected to ground. The die itself doesn't look to have a bond wire that connects it to ground but it may just be where the ground track is and difficult to see.

4) The +5v pads are not internally connected together. The connections on the rom die seem to follow the pinout of a standard eprom which would suggest one of them is a programming pin. You can see this in the picture showing the bottom edge of the rom die, the two middle pins are the +5v connections. From this you could probably conclude that pin 35 would have been used as the programming pin on a EP my card.

So i guess ive sort of answered my own question there, haha.

20190411_093838.jpg (49.27 KB)

20190411_094035.jpg (48.37 KB)

20190411_094101.jpg (47.62 KB)

20190411_094311.jpg (45.34 KB)

20190411_154616.jpg (47.85 KB)

Author	Message
wasup Joined: 05 Nov 2014 Posts: 435 Location: Auckland - NZ	My card EP Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 12:03 am
	Has any one got a my card ep, or pictures of one? Also possibly pictures of the programmers that were used in the stores? Is much known about them in general? Or the pinout for programming such card? Ive split open a card catcher and noticed an odd arrangement with the pinout and wondered if it was related or not.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14726 Location: London	Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:37 am
	I'm sure it's the same as the standard pinout, just with some extra voltage on the programming pin when writing. The card (and later cartridge) pinouts were chosen to simplify the routing to the memory chip, which has a quite standard pinout. The SG-1000 cartridge instead had the pins chosen some other way so the card catcher has to be a bit of a mess to swap between them.

wasup Joined: 05 Nov 2014 Posts: 435 Location: Auckland - NZ	Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:52 am
	I was curious as to which pin they chose to be the programming pin. If the card catcher is anything to go by it might be one of the ground pins as theres an odd arrangement there. Ill upload a picture of it when i get home if anyone is interested

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14726 Location: London	Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 6:32 am
	That's true - there are multiple ground pins do they could be used for that.

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8648 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 8:45 am
	The only known pictures are here: http://www.smspower.org/forums/6225-EPMyCard Been searching for them for almost twenty years now..

wasup Joined: 05 Nov 2014 Posts: 435 Location: Auckland - NZ	Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:02 am
	So i never got around to adding some pictures of the card catcher board.. but here we go. Two of the ground pins are connected together.. the 3rd pin which is labeled ground on the pinouts disappears through a via to the front side of the board then snakes around and connects to A0. You can see they have then purposely drilled a hole in the track to break it. Its been tracked that way on purpose so that it can be drilled out but im not sure what purpose it would have served. 20190411_204805.jpg (149.02 KB) 20190411_204732.jpg (145.37 KB) 20190411_204718.jpg (147.02 KB)

wasup Joined: 05 Nov 2014 Posts: 435 Location: Auckland - NZ	Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:19 am
	I got curious and decided to have a closer look at a card to see what was going on in there. Ive looked at it under the xray at work and have found some interesting things. The field of view on the xray is quite small so i wasn't able to get a shot of the whole thing. 1) There are connections for all of the card connector pins that run to the outside edge of the board on the bottom side. These are used during manufacturing to allow electroplated gold to be put on. Unused pins on the card connector are left unconnected internally and go no where else. 2) The ground pins follow the same pattern as the board inside the card catcher. 2 pins are tied together and the pin that snaked around and could have connected to A0 is unconnected on the card. 3) There is a solid copper square under the rom die which is connected to ground. The die itself doesn't look to have a bond wire that connects it to ground but it may just be where the ground track is and difficult to see. 4) The +5v pads are not internally connected together. The connections on the rom die seem to follow the pinout of a standard eprom which would suggest one of them is a programming pin. You can see this in the picture showing the bottom edge of the rom die, the two middle pins are the +5v connections. From this you could probably conclude that pin 35 would have been used as the programming pin on a EP my card. So i guess ive sort of answered my own question there, haha. 20190411_093838.jpg (49.27 KB) 20190411_094035.jpg (48.37 KB) 20190411_094101.jpg (47.62 KB) 20190411_094311.jpg (45.34 KB) 20190411_154616.jpg (47.85 KB)

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