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GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
BobA:
At least this one comes with 2 RF controllers
Another game box from DX
shanghaiguide:
I just bought an SD card Jamma board which offers XXX in 1 CPS etc.
After looking at the board for a while, I realized that its a JZ4755 based SoC, similar to the Gamebox above.
Some photos:
The board
3806a Jamma board with SD by sheedl, on Flickr
Its a pretty simple board layout, mine isn't even fully populated - i'm missing the VGA decoder side of things.
Can run off USB power, or Jamma, or PC PSU.
Has an SD card slot for adding roms, and also USB for controller apparently, although I'm not quite sure how to interface that yet. I may take a trip down to the market and see what kind of skanky usb game controller I can pickup for 20rmb to see if it will talk.
Current draw is a bit over 500ma as my sacrificial laptop didn't quite like playing with it over usb and moaned quite a bit about that.
I told it to play nicely though, and its behaving now.
I stuck a serial port on the board to see what I could get out, and its running an embedded os - MINIOS. This does seem to be available, and there are some tools out there for flashing via USB, so I will be taking a closer look at this now I have a similar board.
Serial port connected up (I had to macgyver bits as I don't quite have a proper set of electronics parts at the office as I keep taking them to South Africa hehe)
3806a Board by sheedl, on Flickr
Pin 1 is gnd, pin 2 is TX, pin 3 is RX. Speeds are 57600, 8,n,1 no flow control.
Heres the obligatory boot sequence to show that it does indeed work:
Serial output from the 3806a board by sheedl, on Flickr
Next up will be dumping the flash though so I can see whats inside, and probably doing a better job at the connections.
Plus a bit of googling for data sheets, programming tools etc.
Engenic's website page for the JZ4755 is here - http://en.ingenic.cn/product.aspx?ID=57
Rockbox page on the chipset range - http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IngenicJz47xx
Looks like the Dingoo-Tech A380 tools will work for playing with it. Anyone else interested in this kind of stuff and wants to help?
I'm almost getting to the point where I reckon I just design my own board, and spec it as I need it, sigh... Mind you I prefer software to hardware, as I'm more of a developer than otherwise..
newmanfamilyvlogs:
A port of a more modern build of mame to ARM would go a long long way toward making these sort of embedded projects more interesting. Though I imagine the opportunity for abuse of such a port would greatly overshadow the effort.
404:
my apologies for bumping up this thread. Coincidentally, i was offered a gamebox (non jamma version) as a review sample over the weekend. I should have one shipping out to me from asia in the next few days. I'm always morbidly curious about embedded hardware like these little boards.
I will try to offer up as much information as i have on these units. There are various hardware revisions with varying looks and features. I'm trying my best to get review samples of each piece of hardware for the sake of documentation.
The original gamebox GBX unit, shaped like the rather rare Zeebo console. The unit does have a side cartridge slot for gamebox compatible games and can also play standard gameboy advance cartridges. This model however, cannot save your game status to the cartridge. The GBX has so far had 3 confirmed firmware revisions. None of the firmware is available for download from their website located at http://www.gamebox.hk and so far, nobody has found any native way to update the firmware.
Some of the later firmware revisions are said to be working quite well and even include support for older mame compatible games such as pacman. The first firmware revision of the console can only play gba games from the cartridge slot and from the microsd slot. The second revision allows you to load any Neo Geo, PGM, CPS1/2 and GBA game with the appropriate bios files located in the same directory as your games. The third revision is said to have preliminary support for older, non cps games such as pacman. The third revision also includes a slew of features such as default boot mode (from cart, sd or nand) changing the background and more.
There is a second hardware revision with a red PCB inside.
The Game controllers are proprietary. The GBX model has usb ports but standard HID joysticks do not work. The controller also does not work on a PC.
holding L1 + R1 + right during startup will allow you to see the contents of the nand flash (internal memory) and swap out games.
the PV Station ND3000 is another Gamebox shaped like a ps2 slim. This unit includes hdmi and support to load games from a standard sized sd card. Some folks have given this unit even less favorable reviews than the GBX model. Some believe this is due to the firmware revision in these units however, there isn't much evidence to go on with these at this point.
VBox II NJ-3802 is another Gamebox shaped like an xbox 360, this one has standard composite out but includes a wireless controller.
The Gamebox Advance is a portable gamebox running on the same hardware. This unit is a clone of the gameboy advance. This unit, much like the GBX model can play standard gameboy advance cartridges but cannot save games. It does come bundles with composite out so you can play games on your television.
For those that may be interested in further gamebox developments, I do know someone who has helped me compile all of this information and has started a blog which will begin rolling out more info on the gamebox units very soon. I will post the blog url here when the site is ready.
--- Quote from: shanghaiguide on February 24, 2012, 05:20:14 am ---I just bought an SD card Jamma board which offers XXX in 1 CPS etc.
After looking at the board for a while, I realized that its a JZ4755 based SoC, similar to the Gamebox above.
Some photos:
The board
3806a Jamma board with SD by sheedl, on Flickr
Its a pretty simple board layout, mine isn't even fully populated - i'm missing the VGA decoder side of things.
Can run off USB power, or Jamma, or PC PSU.
Has an SD card slot for adding roms, and also USB for controller apparently, although I'm not quite sure how to interface that yet. I may take a trip down to the market and see what kind of skanky usb game controller I can pickup for 20rmb to see if it will talk.
Current draw is a bit over 500ma as my sacrificial laptop didn't quite like playing with it over usb and moaned quite a bit about that.
I told it to play nicely though, and its behaving now.
I stuck a serial port on the board to see what I could get out, and its running an embedded os - MINIOS. This does seem to be available, and there are some tools out there for flashing via USB, so I will be taking a closer look at this now I have a similar board.
Serial port connected up (I had to macgyver bits as I don't quite have a proper set of electronics parts at the office as I keep taking them to South Africa hehe)
3806a Board by sheedl, on Flickr
Pin 1 is gnd, pin 2 is TX, pin 3 is RX. Speeds are 57600, 8,n,1 no flow control.
Heres the obligatory boot sequence to show that it does indeed work:
Serial output from the 3806a board by sheedl, on Flickr
Next up will be dumping the flash though so I can see whats inside, and probably doing a better job at the connections.
Plus a bit of googling for data sheets, programming tools etc.
Engenic's website page for the JZ4755 is here - http://en.ingenic.cn/product.aspx?ID=57
Rockbox page on the chipset range - http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IngenicJz47xx
Looks like the Dingoo-Tech A380 tools will work for playing with it. Anyone else interested in this kind of stuff and wants to help?
I'm almost getting to the point where I reckon I just design my own board, and spec it as I need it, sigh... Mind you I prefer software to hardware, as I'm more of a developer than otherwise..
--- End quote ---
Never seen this model! It's a far cry from their first revision. You can check out the first release at their homepage.
http://www.gamebox.hk/pdetails.asp?id=69
May i ask where you purchased this one and how much it cost you? I've really been out of the loop in terms of reversing harware. There is however quite a few guys on a few forums, mostly spanish that are still tinkering with the console units. They have gotten a little farther than you.
There's a 60 page thread a Elotrolado
http://www.elotrolado.net/hilo_hilo-oficioso-gamebox-1001-nuevo-cacharro-de-dealextreme_1554119
another in Zonadepruebas which details one guy successfully forcing the console into usb download mode by shorting some pins. two other forum members have already dumped most of the firmware.
http://www.zonadepruebas.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?start=0&topic_id=11418&forum=8&viewmode=flat&order=ASC
shanghaiguide:
Bit late on the reply here, but that isn't a game box.
I live in China, and have been buying samples of whats available locally to see if I can knock up something decent.
The board above is a first revision one - wasn't too stable.
Subsequently I found one with VGA and USB support (for writing additional rom files into).
I've been looking at redoing the firmware on it, as the hardware seems decent.
Looks like they use DMENU, and a bastardized version of FBNext recompiled for MIPS.
I have a post on the hardware here with some pics - http://www.computersolutions.cn/blog/2012/03/king-of-game-jamma-board-reverse-engineering/
Its a JAMMA board, so plug n play replacement into an Arcade Machine.
Emulation is reasonably decent, and if I can get into rewriting the firmware I can add more rom compatibility.
Currently it does NeoGeo / CPS / GBA
No documentation once again hehe, and they were trying to be sneaky by etching off the chip number on the board. Not much use when usb boot pops up the model number though.
As like the above one this seems to be mostly based off the MP4 designs, except using more GPIO ports for the various buttons.
Works really well though, and extremely stable. I've had some working in my office for a few months solid now.
Really have to play more in the reverse engineering side though...
Can sell some if people are interested - I bought a bunch off the factory as the min order qty was > 1...
Lawrence.