Wonderswan shoutbox quest for the pure flame (repro madness?)

Hello assemblers!

On behalf of the shoutbox crew and rom chip overlords, I am pleased to curate the latest voyage of the repro madness wagon: wonderswan carts? Yes indeed, this is the mission to find hopefully cheap games that nobody would want to play anymore and turn them into the incredibly hard to find games we want to play: shmups and translated rpgs. Stay tuned below for relevant links and other information. Love your wonderswan? Help keep the dream alive.

Chat crew 2016

Pirate's booty (information of relevance)
Pcb scans: http://www.986-studio.com/2012/08/27/some-wonderswan-pron/
High res pcb scans: http://www.yaronet.com/topics/161842-recherche-type-de-cartouches-wonderswan
Work roms: http://edgeemu.net/details-50597.htm
Bug fixed versions: http://members2.jcom.home.ne.jp/jss2/recycle.htm
Jss info: https://tcrf.net/Judgement_Silversword:_Rebirth_Edition
Wonderwitch loading: http://blog.livedoor.jp/ei26/tag/ワンダースワン
Flash info: http://blog.goo.ne.jp/ototo2006/e/95395c635fbda356d0b558f542a4764b

 

I'm really happy to be able to help with making some of the first documented WonderSwan repros. Along with @lolifoxgirl, @GoodTofuFriday, and @Bad_Ad84 have provided some help in the shoutbox and we hope to make this a real project for ultra WS repro madness.

 

WHAT MADNESS HAVE I STARTED?!?!?! lol JK i know loli already had one can't wait, already buying an orange one soon, the FF one is for Diggy lol

 

So the PCB in question is the pts-0101. Seems to be unique to wonder witch, judgement silversword, and dicing knight. All very high priced.

The closest PCB that may be comparable is the pts-0123. However this seems to also be uncommon. But is found in cheap games.

Thanks to @TriMesh we have some insight.
Pts-0101 has a 4mb 32 pin RAM.
Pts-0123 (and all other boards) have a 28 pin 256kb RAM.
Both use a 48pin ROM. Any other was color game uses a 44 pin ROM and some use a SOC type setup with black resin blobs. These seem to be 48pin though.

Wonder witch PCB for.obvious reasons has a flash ROM.
Retail PCBs use a eprom.

Games that I know have the pts-0123 pcbs are the following:
Robot Works [WonderBorg Version 2]

EDIT: Turns out the following have pcb PTS-0111 which was previosuly undocumented as far as I can tell. It is even closer to the pts-0101. The only difference seems to be the sram pinout.
Docodemo hamster 3
Inuyasha Kagome no Sengoku

 

Fantastic work to sleuth all this out @GoodTofuFriday and @TriMesh. Sac all hamsters!

 

If needed we can get @DeChief to help us sniff out needed donors

 

Ye.

Sometimes there's some cheap loose carts in Akihabara, but I don't go very often. Let me know if you want me to look and I can make the trek out there at some point.

 

Note the following images. The vias at the bottom of the board next to the cart pins are unique to each board rev.

Pts-0101 is the actual board. If you this grab it and run.

We need rev pts-0123. Board pte-0016 May work, but it has a different mapper (2001 instead of 2003). This is most likely because pte-0016 is a black/white game board.

pts-0133(a) is somewhat similar on its bottom row, so its something to be careful for when looking around.

 

http://ayasuke2.exblog.jp/24644202/
http://ayasuke2.exblog.jp/24848265/

Looking at these, the wonder dog v3 is a pcb clone of the pts-0101 pcb.

 

I've heard of these other flashcarts before, has anyone ever seen a wonderdog in the wild?

 

pts-0101 sram data sheet http://elcodis.com/parts/6109821/cs18lv40963_p3.html#datasheet

pts-0123 sram data sheet http://html.alldatasheet.com/html-pdf/201756/BSI/BS62LV256TC70/60/1/BS62LV256TC70.html

 

Seems as though the only difference concerning pinout is the addition of a15-a18.
With a17 going to ground, and the other 3 going nowhere.
So more than likely we can just match pinouts, but it wouldnt be a simple drop in.

Could work of jss doesn't need an rtc. From reading around around it seems all 2003 mappers function the same. But there might be a check for an eprom or eeprom.

 

what do you mean?

 

it was in japanese so I'm not clear on what it was trying to say. But I gathered that the system does check on the rom to see if its rewritable or not. And if it is the WS wont load the game.

Unless its the wonderwitch, somehow.

 

All chips you will get to replace that one will be writable. If it needs to not be writable, you can disable the /WE pin.

 

never mind. I reread it a few times and I think its just a difference in OK checks from the wonderwitch rom and judgement silversword rom. it doesnt check the flash from in JSS since it is not flash.

 

Let's hope that once we get some donors we can start moving forward. Data collection is going amazing and is very helpful. If anyone on this site has one of the games mentioned above with the similar donor board, please let one of us know. It'll be a big help

 

No one will miss this game...

 

PTS-0123 could be difficult to find - from the LED, I think that's the cartridge that was used to control the WonderBorg, which never sold very well anyway.

I'm also not at all sure it matters if the board has a TSOP on it - since the game image is 512kB, (4Mb) there are plenty of flashes in a TSOP44 that are large enough for that. The only question is if the mask ROMS have a standard pinout or not.

 

So, I think we've gathered a good amount of data so far. @GoodTofuFriday don't you have at least one donor? Also, @Bad_Ad84, you think you can help us out to source the needed chips?

I'm looking on YAJ, Surugaya, and eBay for donors. Surugaya seems like a good place for them.