I'd be happy to (I've taken mind apart before, I couldn't see anything obvious as far as the sound chip was concerned), but I'm lacking a digital camera. I'll see if I can blag a go on one of my friends' cameras.
If the console is 68000 and 6502 based, without a doubt the 6502 is the sound controller. Hopefully the A'Can has minimal ASICs, the odds say that the VDP is an ASIC, hopefully nothing else is. Things that can be determined with HQ pics/scans: How much work RAM the 68K has How much work RAM the 6502 has The 68K clock speed The 6502 clock speed (if it's not integrated in a ASIC) Where the sound is located (it has to be on the 6502 bus) Alchy, do you have any games you could disassemble too? If games use EPROM or Japanese Mask ROM, I think without too much trouble I could start dumping the games. One final question: does the system use the SNES/SFC connector? It appears so.
Since they're hard to come by I'm a bit cautious about sending them off. If there's somewhere else where you're better known or someone else can vouch for you, I'd be more comfortable. Nothing personal, obviously. Have you done this sort of thing before? I'd be really happy to see them dumped, but I certainly don't have the tools or knowledge to do so myself, so I guess sending them off is the only possibility. No. The carts have 26 connections on each side, and are a little longer than SNES carts. Some feel considerably heavier than others, so I imagine they've got some kind of save RAM in there.
I didn't mean for you to send them, I just want to see what's inside to know my chances of dumping games on a system I don't own. If I can simply follow the ROM pins to the edge fingers, I'd purchase a game or two somewhere, make a card edge->DIP adapter, read out the games, see if the data/addresses are swizzled by trying to view some graphics data and once all clear, dump the game library.
Everything is already dumped. Four games have SRAM: F-003 - Son of Evil F-007 - Super Light Saga: Dragonforce F-008 - Monopoly: Adventure in Africa F-012 - Rebel Star Although, I can't remember any of my carts having *working* batteries in them, as the data always erases. Certainly, this is further proof of the A'Can being low-quality production work.
Well... nowhere, of course. That would be breaking international copyright. Just because everyone in Taiwan does it, doesn't mean we need to follow their example. Actually, there is one dump for which proper permissions already exist: F-005: Super Taiwanese Baseball League My energies are rather focused on accomplishing things the good, old-fashioned legal way. I'm certainly working to obtain permissions from more companies than simply C&E, Inc. (producers of Super Taiwanese Baseball League), but these things take time - especially when communicating in a language completely foreign to me.
I'm maybe off topic but i saw box-scan of the *ACAN power accelerator* which looked exactly like a sega32x (well, a mushroom), It was a box scan so i could read the features of the accelerator... The features were too great to be real, expecialy around hardware scalling&rotation on backgrounds. Any more precisions about this hardware?
Yeah, it doesn't exist. I've talked with several companies that produced A'Can games, who had direct contact (and visits) from Funtech employees, as well as someone from Funtech itself - nothing was apparently created for this unit, called the "A'CAN Super Color". A CD-ROM unit was also planned, but never produced. Not that it would have made much difference, anyway - all of the Super Color and CD-ROM games would've still looked like poorly-made Megadrive titles, anyhow... no one came close to reaching the system's potential.
This would be very interesting to see. An emulator could probably be started from this dump.. Any interest in posting it online? It would also be very helpful to be able to get small pieces of the other roms for comparison.
This guy has quite a few Super A'Can games and a systemhttp://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180033866584&ssPageName=MERC_VIC_ReBay_Pr4_PcY_BIN_Stores_IT&refitem=180029309992&itemcount=4&refwidgetloc=closed_view_item&usedrule1=CategoryProximity&refwidgettype=cross_promot_widget) Sorry for the ebay link, but it is relevant to the topic, and it isn't my ebay account that I am linking to. He's had 5 games listed over the last month. I purchased a Super A'Can system with a game and an additional game (Son of Evil and Africa Explorer). I haven't received it yet, but will post when it arrives.
Got my A'can The chips on the board are: (UL Vertical) UM6650 (Not sure what this is) (LL Top) HD74LS05P (Hex Inverter http://www.xs4all.nl/~ganswijk/chipdir/giicm/7405.txt) (LL Bottom) 74F521PC (8-Bit Identity Comparator http://www.fairchildsemi.com/pf/74/74F521.html) (UR) UM62256D (SRAM http://www.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets_pdf/U/M/6/2/UM62256.shtml) (LR) 42 Pin ICR0S16002 Appears to be a 27c160 (http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/STMICROELECTRONICS/27C160.html) compatible rom. A 27c320 can be used in some carts, others have two rom sockets.
I opened Ace Gamble, and it only has the UM6650 and the 42 pin chip (ICROS16006). No SRAM or 74 series chips. The chip is 16M. There are jumpers that can select 16M or 32M. It is set for 16M. Anyone that is willing to open their A'Can games, can you check if any of your games do not have the UM6650 chip? I am looking for a cartridge that only has a rom or has a rom and a chip that is not the UM6650 (and no SRAM). If so, please post the part number of the chip.
Here's some documents on my investigation of the layout of the cartridge board: (The easiest way to view this is to select all, copy, and paste it into a text editor or notepad) Code: Numbers are looking at the front of the cartridge with edge at bottom, numbered from left to right. 1F Ground? 2F Unconnected 3F Unconnected 4F Unconnected 5F Data 8. Pin 15 on rom. 6F Data 9. Pin 17 on rom. 7F Data 10. Pin 19 on rom. 8F Data 11. Pin 21 on rom. 9F Data 12. Pin 24 on rom. 10F Data 13. Pin 26 on rom. 11F Data 14. Pin 28 on rom. 12F Data 15. Pin 30 on rom. 13F Unconnected on Ace of Gamble. Unknown on Son of Evil 14F Unconnected on Ace of Gamble 15F Connected to jumper 2. 16M: jumper 1-2 open 32M: jumper 1-2 closed 16F Address 19. Pin 42 on rom. 17F Unknown, runs under rom. Probably Address 18. Pin 1 on rom. 18F Unknown, runs under rom. Probably Address 17. Pin 2 on rom. 19F Address 16. Pin 33 on rom. 20F Address 15. Pin 34 on rom. 21F Address 14. Pin 35 on rom. 22F Address 13. Pin 36 on rom. 23F Address 12. Pin 37 on rom. 24F Address 11. Pin 38 on rom. 25F Address 10. Pin 39 on rom. 26F Connects to pin 32 on both roms (#2 is empty) on Son of Evil. (VSS) Numbers are looking at the back of the cartridge with edge at bottom, numbered from left to right. 26F is below 1B. 1B Ground? 2B Address 9. Pin 40 on rom. 3B Address 8. Pin 41 on rom. 4B Address 7. Pin 3 on rom. 5B Address 6. Pin 4 on rom. 6B Address 5. Pin 5 on rom. 7B Address 4. Pin 6 on rom. 8B Address 3. Pin 7 on rom. 9B Address 2. Pin 8 on rom. 10B Address 1. Pin 9 on rom. 11B Address 0. Pin 10 on rom. 12B Data 0. Pin 14 on rom. 13B Data 1. Pin 16 on rom. 14B Data 2. Pin 18 on rom. 15B Data 3. Pin 20 on rom. 16B Data 4. Pin 23 on rom. 17B Data 5. Pin 25 on rom. 18B Data 6. Pin 27 on rom. 19B Data 7. Pin 29 on rom. 20B ?? Pin 3 on UM6650 21B SRAM Select? Unconnected on Ace of Gable. Unknown pin on UM6550 on Son of Evil 22B Output enable. Pin 13 on rom. 23B ?? Pin 5 on UM6650 24B Ground? 25B Unconnected 26B Rom enable? Pin 16 on UM6650 on Ace of Gamble or Pins 12 and 14 on 74F521 (B4 and B5). Pin 22 on rom. ROM (27c160) connections: 17F |01(?) 42| 16F 18F |02(?) 41| 3B 4B |03 40| 2B 5B |04 39| 25F 6B |05 38| 24F 7B |06 37| 23F 8B |07 36| 22F 9B |08 35| 21F 10B |09 34| 20F 11B |10 33| 19F 13 |11 32| 15F through jumpers 1 and 3 or 26F GR |12 31| GR 22B |13 30| 12F 12B |14 29| 19B 5F |15 28| 11F 13B |16 27| 18B 6F |17 26| 10F 14B |18 25| 17B 7F |19 24| 9F 15B |20 23| 16B 8F |21 22| 26B NC-No connection GR-Ground Jumper (JP1) setup (on Ace of Gamble): 2--1 16M Open 1-2 Short 3-4 4--3 32M Short 1-2 Open 3-4
So UM6650 is at least a memory management ASIC.. that part couldn't be too hard to figure out. Since it rests on the edge though, it could also have a micro core for security. I would hope not If it is just a MMU/MMC, with 8M wide banks, capable of addressing 32M or 64M, that would be an extremely frivolous ASIC.
It would seem to be a banking rom, since the address lines for 8Mbit (of 16 bit data) for a total of 16MBit is availlable on the cartridge edge. That would make sense, as both cartridges I've looked at have a place for either 2 16MBit roms, or a single 32 MBbit roms. And, pin 11 (Chip enable) is connected to pin 13 (Ground). Also, the cartridge would not support a 27c320, since it only has connections for a 42 pin rom. I wonder if it could be similar to a CIC chip?
Since UMC is Taiwanese (cheap) and apparently the A'Can has a few other UMC ASIC like the VDP, it probably wouldn't have been too costly for Funtech to develop a security mechanism. If it is a CIC, I have my doubts that it's as intricate as a N. CIC.
I also opened Formosa(?) F-001, and it has the same board as Ace of Gamble, but has a chip marked ICR0S08001 (8 Mb chip?). I assume, by the part number, that this is the first game released for the system. Could the UM6650 provide a bitwise exclusive or, similar to IGS PGM games?
Have you dumped any ROMs yet? Do you think they're encrypted? If so, think they can be dumped through the UM6650?
