Forums

Sega Master System / Mark III / Game Gear
SG-1000 / SC-3000 / SF-7000 / OMV
Home - Forums - Games - Scans - Maps - Cheats - Credits
Music - Videos - Development - Hacks - Translations - Homebrew

View topic - CPLD Paging IC (mapper)

Reply to topic
Author Message
  • Joined: 24 Sep 2006
  • Posts: 191
  • Location: Sydney, Australia
Reply with quote
CPLD Paging IC (mapper)
Post Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:33 pm
I was working on a fancy kind of Megadrive/Master System flash cartridge a couple of months ago but have since lost interest in the project (like so many others...). One part I did actually finish is the Master System paging IC, implemented in an Altera CPLD. It's meant to be compatible will all commercial games (I didn't bother including all the strange little features of the sega chips that nobody actually made use of). So here it is...in case somebody is interested.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/eviltim/smsmap/

The design was entered through a schematic capture but unfortunately, the software doesn't allow exporting the schematic as an image. I've had to resort to the old "print and scan" method to get these images.

There is also a photo of the prototype I built to test it. The paging circuit consists of two ICs and a jumper. The first IC is the CPLD, an EPM7064. The design is just slightly too big to fit into a smaller EPM7032 as is, but will fit if the FF_0 is removed (this breakes at least one game). The second IC is a 74LS30 - 8 input NAND gate, which helps with the address decoding (A2-A9). The jumper is connected to the SEGA pin. Pull pin high = Sega mode, pull pin low = Codemasters mode.

As I stated above, the idea was to support EVERY SINGLE GAME. So that means support for up to 8Mbit of rom, 32k (both pages) of SRAM, and compatible with both Sega and Codemasters paging techniques. I have so far only tested about 10 different games...no a large sample but I think there is variation beetween the games I selected to test everything. Due to the limitations of my prototype (it has a socket for only a 4Mbit flash chip) and my Master system (it has a BIOS), I couldn't check 8Mbit and/or Korean/Japanese games.
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14688
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 1:37 pm
You can fix up the headers on most Japanese games easily enough (well, there is no automatic tool to do it to avoid having altered roms floating around but it's a few seconds' work in a hex editor).

As for "print and scan", you could try getting one of those (free) virtual printer PDF programs. I think there are some that can output bitmaps too; or the even more old-fashioned way is to get a big screen and stitch together some screen captures.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 20 Feb 2007
  • Posts: 56
  • Location: Wellington, New Zealand.
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 9:10 pm
Is there something wrong with the link? all i can see is a YouTube picture coming soon pic.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 10 May 2005
  • Posts: 91
  • Location: Merry Olde England
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 9:50 pm
paul_ wrote
Is there something wrong with the link? all i can see is a YouTube picture coming soon pic.


Nope, it works fine for me - as do all the images.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 20 Feb 2007
  • Posts: 56
  • Location: Wellington, New Zealand.
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 2:05 am
Ah cool, works now for me too.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 24 Oct 2005
  • Posts: 29
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 5:43 pm
viletim,
after many years I bring that topic back to the top.

Nice work, I can´t find the logic files for download.
have you ever published them?

Did you use the "S" Type of the EPM7064?
If not, how have you programmed it?

Which software did you use to desingn?

I
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 20 Feb 2007
  • Posts: 56
  • Location: Wellington, New Zealand.
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 8:44 pm
He's used the EPM7064SLC44-10 I believe.
Here's a link to a RoHS compliant EPM7064SLC44-10N http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=544-2012-ND
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 24 Sep 2006
  • Posts: 191
  • Location: Sydney, Australia
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 10:11 am
django,

Here is the software, Altera Max Plus II, with an unrestricted licence file. The pdf file contains the circuit for the programming cable I was using, the zip contains the project files.

http://etim.net.au/temp/maxplus10.2/
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 24 Oct 2005
  • Posts: 29
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 6:29 pm
thanks, I´ll try it if I get a chip.
you can get the non-S(erial(JTAG)) Types really cheap, but noone in the whole
Internet know how to program them - have googeled for hours.

Did you know wich chips from Atmel match the requirements?
that´s why I asked for the pof2jed tool which converts the pov file
for use with atmel chips.
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 24 Sep 2006
  • Posts: 191
  • Location: Sydney, Australia
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 12:10 pm
django wrote
thanks, I´ll try it if I get a chip.
you can get the non-S(erial(JTAG)) Types really cheap, but noone in the whole
Internet know how to program them - have googeled for hours.


PLDs from the pre-internet days with secret proprietary programming algorithms... I can see why they're cheap! Better buy the JTAG ones instead.

django wrote

Did you know wich chips from Atmel match the requirements?
that´s why I asked for the pof2jed tool which converts the pov file
for use with atmel chips.


I don't think that's going to work. CPLDs from different manufacturers are not compatible with one another. You can't pick and choose development tools or even hardware description methods sometimes. I only have experience with Altera and Xilinx. They both offer a simple HDL (AHDL, CUPL, etc), a frighteningly complex HDL (VHDL, Verilog, etc), and schematic capture.

I like to use Altera parts because their MAX II software has schematic capture input that works fairly well. I prefer to express logic in diagram form, as the HDLs are a bit cryptic and therefore slower to create. Instead of picking the part first, I find its best to design the logic first and then synthesize and see which devices it will fit.

If you're dead set on an Atmel part, it looks like you will have to make friends with CUPL.
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 28 Mar 2011
  • Posts: 88
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2018 5:26 am
I built a copy of this, and so far it seems to be working, although I have only tried one game so far and not yet tested the backup RAM.


I wanted to ask a question about Max+plus though, for using your design, I simply wrote the smsmap_full POF file to a EPM7064SLC without issue, but if I try to compile the project from scratch, it says it won't even fit in the device - yet you obviously managed it somehow. What am I missing?

I ask because I'm trying to emulate the other mapper circuit, that was based on the 7400 series ICs, but it won't fit either - despite having a much simpler design.


EDIT: never mind, I had EPM7032SLC selected by accident, so of course it didn't fit.

EDIT again: Added some photos of the board! I don't recommend anyone building this design by hand - I had to do many VIAs by hand and wire links. It would be much better as a 4-layer PCB done professionally.
SMS Mapper Rear.jpg (1.13 MB)
SMS Mapper Rear.jpg
Sega Cart Running.jpg (592.63 KB)
Sega Cart Running.jpg

  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 05 Jul 2020
  • Posts: 2
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 4:33 am
I have a gerber project of an sms pcb that uses EPM7064SLC44 as a mappers but i need to know what file i have to use to write on ir? and what type o writer can i to use i have an gq4x i write the EPM7064SLC44 but i have to buy a adapter and it is very expensive U$ 100, is there othe way cheaper to write it?
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 28 Mar 2011
  • Posts: 88
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:23 am
I built myself a parallel-port Byteblaster to do this. It is very simple. Mostly a 74LS244 and some resistors. You can find schematics online.

The actual CPLD data files are located in a link in an earlier post in this thread. Or should be. Program with Max+...
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 04 Jul 2010
  • Posts: 539
  • Location: Angers, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:33 am
You need an USB/Altera Blaster (or a Byteblaster made by yourself) to programm these cpld (via JTAG pins). Some semi professional programmer can directly program them (Xeltek for example).
PS. Chinese USB Blaster clones works perfectly

little problems epm7000 family (5v) and epm3000 (3,3v) are not anymore produce nowadays (Intel bought Altera few years ago). But you can find some on Taobao or Aliexpress (but quality will be uncertain)


Personnaly i'm using ATF1500 series (Atmel) but you must buy their JTAG programmer (~70€). Even my Xeltek can't program them.

So I use Quartus 2 from Altera (with logic written in VHDL) and then convert the POF generated file to JED as Altera and Atmel have made a official software (called simply POF2JED)
Then use AtmelISP software to programme your fresh jed file in your CPLD. Works flawlessly.

You can find all Atmel things on Microchip as Microchip acquired Atmel few years ago.
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 23 Jan 2021
  • Posts: 1
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:40 am
Hello,
Does this mapper also work for the SC3000?
  View user's profile Send private message
Reply to topic



Back to the top of this page

Back to SMS Power!