Special Partner - SFC

I'm not sure if this is the right place but since it's about gaming and not really your everyday stuff I guess it's in the right place.

Anyway, recently I've bought this Famicom / Super Famicom Back up unit called Special Partner. it's a 32MB NTSC system however I only have the Super Famicom attachment. No big deal there really since I don't own a normal Famicom anyway.

What I need to know is what type of power does this thing use? After searching Google all I could find was one page that mentioned that it uses a Game Gear PSU. Now is a Game Gear PSU the same as the Master System or Mega Drive? I really don't know. If someone could help me out that would be great.

Here's what it looks like.


Inside there are far more chips than what I remember my good old Wild Card having. I read that this beast can store up to 7 games in to it's internal memory! Very handy if you don't want to load disks.



Don't worry, I never used a flash for these shots, just a longer shutter time. So that EPROM should be fine.



Yakumo

 

Quite nice. May or may not be silly question - is there a label on the bottom of it?

 

On the bottom of the Bung Game Doctor SF series they tell you what power supply to use. I can't imagine why everyone wouldn't do this.

 

On the top left of the unit is a voltage regulator, just read the number from this, probably be a 7805 and check on line for voltage range.

The black and red wires are a clue to what the voltage polarity is...

 

The Game Gear PSU the same as the Mega Drives PSU.

 

I'm not going to make a joke about the name "Special Partner". Well... no, I must restrain myself.

 

You might want to put some tape over that ROM window!

 

Our survey says "Eeeerrrx Errr" the GG PSU is normally rated at a lower amperage then the MD ones.

 

Depends on the Megadrive. The Game Gear and the Megadrive 2 both want 9 volts at .85 amps, and use the same polarity power connector (positive tip.) The Megadrive 1 wants a slightly beefier 9 volts at 1.0 amps, with a negative tip and is incidentally identical to the Jaguar wall wart. This is further complicated by the power supply for the Genesis 3, which is 9 volts at about .35 amps.

 

Cheapo power supplies (for Famiclones, etc) put out 9v at 500ma or so, but it often isn't enough to power a system with disk drive (eg, DrPCJr, copier, etc), so I recommend a supply at 800 or 1200ma, if you can find one. The Sega power supply I usually have hooked up can deliver 1200ma.

That's a cool unit you have! I'm more interested in the Famicom side of things, since FC backup units that use 3.5" disk drives are rarer than democracy in China. Good score!

 

ccovell, are you using a JPN Mega Drive PSU? I remember in the UK I could use a British Mega Drive 1 PSU on my Super Famicom to run it and the Wild Card no problem. Can anyone out there tell me the power output rating on a UK Mega Drive PSU please. If it's the same as a Japanese one maybe I could use that?

Really? nice :dance: It only cost me 1000 yen too. I need to buy a new floppy for it though because the one in it is full of thick disc, YUCK! Just a normal PC floppy drive would do, wouldn't it?

Yakumo

 

The Japanese and US and UK and European Megadrive PSUs are all the same, 9V, 1amp, Negative polarity. Which is what the Famicom and Super Famicom can use too, they changed the PSU for the NES and Super Nintendo for some weird reason.

 

Yup, NES is AC rather than DC, and SNES has a weird power jack. But otherwise both could be powered by the MegaDrive 1 power supply I believe. Though officially SNES is 10v.

So this thing copys famicom carts to disks? Or is it supposed to play them too?

 

Cool. Then I'll take a look on the board to see what it says like you mentioned and if it's close to the Mega Drive 1 PSU rating I'll use that. Hopefully it will be running tonight so I'll post a few pictures.

Yep, you can copy Famicom or Super Famicom carts to floppy discs then play them back on the correct system. I don't think you can play Famicom games on a Super Famicom with this like you can with the Tri-Star unit though. Sadly I don't own a Famicom or the connecting cartridge piece to try out the Famicom back up feature. I can't see it being any different that the SFC though. But hang on a minute! That means this machine would have two BIOS menus, right? One for the SFC (nice and colourful) and one for the FC. Hmm, Maybe you can back up FC carts using this machine on the SFC after all? I'll post later on when I get it up and running.

Yakumo

 

Whoa whoa whoa, it is not a FC copier and has nothing to do with FC!!! What you have is a Supercom Partner Turbo aka Special Partner. The FC slot is for expansion memory (originally) to add in real time saving/parallel port etc, that's it. It's basically a smaller SNES slot, I won't get into it but even your picture proves this. I don't think any expansion cart was ever released, if one was, it was a RTS cart for the original Supercom Partner. You're jumping to conclusions too fast! Just because two things fit together doesn't mean they work together.

If it does in fact have 32M, it's worth between US$30-40, it's not a huge rarity or anything. Boxed complete would be more special but just about any loose copier is not.

It's an enhanced Super Magicom clone just like Super Pro Fighters. The only distinguishing feature is that it can keep games in memory after the system is powered off like a Game Doctor.

As far as functionality, it doesn't work very well since it doesn't have SRAM limiting in order to thwart copy protection. It does at least have built in real time saving, 32M DRAM support and HiROM support.

The AC adapter needed is the same 9-12V DC 850mA center-negative adapter that SFC/many other consoles use.

Normal PC floppy drives can be used.

BTW, I think Wild Card has more chips without counting. The only chip that separates this copier from many others is the Lattice EPLD.
Your Special Partner does have one thing more than SWC though-- a built in DSP-1 chip for Mario Kart etc.

 

That makes alot more sense to me. I wasn't aware of and didn't think any copiers existed that played Famicom and Super Famicom games. The memory mappers on Famicom complicate any sort of backup device. I believe all the backup devices that did exist required you to get the pirate's hacked roms.

 

Thanks for all the info, Calpis. I was going on what the seller said about it being FC & SFC. I guess he never knew either :lol: The bad thing is that it's dead I powered it up last night using a JPN Mega Drive PSU in it. First I got a screen of messed up graphic blocks. So I switched it off then back on only to get nothing at all. Just a black screen.

So the next step was to clean all connectors. After doing that I tried again but still no luck with or without a cart in the top of the copier. I even tried powering the SFC with the MD PSU (Works well surprisingly) and the SFC PSU in the copier. Still nothing.

Power must be going in to the system though because you can hear a faint click from the floppy drive when power is connected. Do you think that the system won't boot up at all if the floppy drive is dead or is the BIOS on it wrecked? It just seems odd that the first time it was switched on I get a screen of mess then after that nothing at all.

Yakumo

 

You did make sure that the power supply had the correct polarity before plugging it in, right?

-hl718

 

Scweeet! Reminds me alot of my GDSF7!