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Author Topic: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-  (Read 119197 times)

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neninef

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #160 on: March 25, 2011, 07:48:38 am »
So.... Noone trying to debug this anymore?
MicroSD will only be used for GBA and videos and usb ports only for the Keymax controllers?


shanghaiguide

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #161 on: March 27, 2011, 03:15:46 am »
From the pics its running off of a Ingenic JZ4755 SoC

Grab a datasheet, and start playing. (I've attached one to the post)


So would be similar to the A320 (as its same family) - its the same cpu as in the A380 Dingoo device.

Some tools here for those.
http://sentinelgames.com/documents/tools_utilities.html

You may find the rom repack tool works for playing capcom stuff - someone should check.
It has USB, but no idea if hooked up, I'd guess not if you say its SPI based.

Without looking at it physically, I'd say it would be fairly straightforward to port the A380 stuff onto it, as its mostly the same hardware.

I reckon I could probably get it running an embedded linux fairly easily, as i have a little experience in reverse engineering stuff ;)

I also speak / read Chinese semi fluently, so thats a help too  :lol

Its documented pretty well though, I'd probably start looking at the uart and see if it pokes out some data on boot or not.

Someone should probably pull the nand flash out and dump it, then I could tell you how it ticks...
Actually it wouldn't be too hard to design a MAME machine based on something like this - making boards isn't $$$ anymore, and with SoC based stuff like this, its more or less 20 minutes design change from a reference design.


Getting a BSP from somewhere is the main issue though..

I do like it when work and play intersect though, so i may take a closer look at this..


A quick google shows that there are people working on OS stuff - the RTOS people for a start -

Its mentioned here -
http://code.google.com/p/rt-thread/source/browse/trunk/libcpu/mips/jz47xx/jz4755.h?r=902

And a closer look at the Ingenic site  shows they are nice - http://en.ingenic.cn/product.aspx?ID=62

The BSP is freely downloadable, so this would be fairly straightforward to code for I'd say.  Much easier than the usual stuff I have to do!

Lawrence.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2011, 03:20:40 am by shanghaiguide »

emphatic

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #162 on: March 27, 2011, 08:18:15 am »
snip

 :o

Cool, man. Is it possible to get RGBS video from it though? I would happily get one if it can be fitted with a JAMMA edge connector and set to boot right into a specific game of my choice...  :cheers:

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #163 on: March 27, 2011, 01:03:27 pm »
I don't have one, and I couldn't find it in the local mall, so I guess this is theory for now.

Spec sheet shows YUV though, so we could make RGB from that, however we don't have a sync line, so no rgbs unless we can use gpio or pull from the lcd hsync / vsync.

Board design guide attached.




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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #164 on: March 27, 2011, 11:13:45 pm »
Here is another game console from DX.   Right off the bat it looks like composite video not component.  It says it can have a USB memory device attached. Supposed to play games with the gamepad. Again a non standard pad. 

Yet another DX game box

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #165 on: June 19, 2011, 12:56:12 pm »
At least this one comes with 2 RF controllers
Another game box from DX

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #166 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..

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #167 on: February 24, 2012, 06:15:01 am »
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.

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #168 on: March 11, 2012, 09:09:18 pm »
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.


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..


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

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #169 on: May 10, 2012, 12:08:25 am »
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.


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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #170 on: May 10, 2012, 09:43:12 am »
This is starting to sound quite interesting. What's the estimated price per unit?

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #171 on: June 03, 2012, 10:40:12 am »
Sorry for the delay in replying, I've been busy building 20 Arcade machines for a client :)

I've been doing a little more digging into the OS side of things, looks like its not quite Linux - its booting off of MiniOS -> app

From my notes -
OS seems to be MINIOS
RAM - k4s561632d-tl75 = 16M X 8BITS x 2 banks (128m ram?)
ROM - H27UBG8T2ATR = 4G Nand Flash (MLC)

Seems like the software currently on there is a bastardized version of FBANext.
Screen output is via SDL

I've tested this with some FBANext specific roms that aren't CPC1 or NEOGEO, and they work, so that seems to be a good guess :)
I've also found an X-Scale (MIPS) version of FBANext which compiles.  Next up, I'm going to dump the current firmware, and then try flash my own.

Pricing will be reasonable, but will need to charge for all the work I'm doing on top of the board price.

The boards are really really really stable though - I've been running them solid for a while now (eg weeks on at a time in my own machines), and no issues with crashing.  The audio output could probably do with a heatsink on there, but other than that, its ok.

Will update my website with another post soon.  I've been doing quite a bit today on the software side.

Pricing will probably be in the $100-150 range




emphatic

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #172 on: June 03, 2012, 12:43:02 pm »
Pricing will probably be in the $100-150 range


Sorry in advance for all my questions:

1. What's included exactly?
2. Will this be completely JAMMA compatible (no external dedicated PSU)?
3. Can the gamelist be edited somehow, preferably by drag and drop in Windows onto memory card or will it be a fixed one?
4. If 6 button Fighting games are included, will this have a kick harness or non-standard JAMMA with buttons 5-6 on the JAMMA edge connector?
5. Are games known to be "problematic" running perfectly on this, (CPS2 shmups like Progear)
6. Will the menu support a vertical as well as horizontal menu?

Thanks!  :cheers:

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #173 on: June 03, 2012, 02:50:59 pm »
what kind of emulator does this "gamebox" use again..MAME?? :dizzy:

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #174 on: June 03, 2012, 03:56:49 pm »
what kind of emulator does this "gamebox" use again..MAME?? :dizzy:

Seems like the software currently on there is a bastardized version of FBANext.
Screen output is via SDL

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #175 on: June 04, 2012, 08:53:33 am »
The board I've been buying (lots of!), has 4G Flash onboard, but no SD.

You can mount the Flash as a FAT32 partition by plugging in a USB cable.
You can then copy games over, and hope they work.

Currently I need to dump a full copy of the current firmware so I can take it apart a bit.
I succeeded in getting the boot loader and other things clearly identified dumpwise, but need to double check a few things before I make one the sacrificial goat and flash stuff to it.

Its designed from ground up to be a jamma replacement.
It takes power from JAMMA  - no external PSU.
It can output via VGA or the standard JAMMA out, which is convenient.

I also got another (slightly different) one today, which I'll be dissecting.

Software wise - its slightly deficient, but thats remediable.
The current software compile is aimed at "it works, its good enough" vs our nitpicky - OMG!!!! forced to 30fps!!!  I must commit hari-kiri now lest I profane the SF gods!

That is solvable though.

For the most part I find emulation speeds to be quite acceptable, although some of the audio is a bit wonky on some roms.  Thats not the hardware though, thats the software.

Currently no 6 button support. 

If I could get enough people interested (probably 100+ pre-orders sort of level), then I can have the factory make some board revisions.  There are spare GPIO's available onchip, so doable with a revised design.

Currently its FBANext bastardized Chinese edition missing bits edition, so its got some wierd ass bugs and rom support.

CPS1 works
CPS2 works
CPS1-SYSTEM-DASH works
NEO-GEO works
Psyko - works
Cave (PGM) - FBANext supported stuff works eg ProGear (although could be slightly better if we changed the Z80 emulator in use)

The menu system doesn't recognise some of the rom's that work; its obviously doing some kind of lookup for game photo's internally on the FS so it "recognizes" files.  Once I get a proper dump of the NAND I'll be able to get a better look.

The FS is YAFFS2, so I need to make a full dump.
Then write some code to iterate through the dump page by page, remove the pages that are marked bad in the dump (as the 4750 doesn't do ECC in its NAND support the way the bootloader expects it to), then write out the revised  NAND Dump. 
I then need to check where the MTD structures are, then identify partition start and end, and then dump that.

Then once I have those written out on disk as separate files for each potential FS, I need to try mount in yaffs2 and see if it can be mounted, and what I've screwed up.


I have some current rom dumps I've made, but I'm not 100% sure on success yet, as the usb_boot doesn't quite support the NAND format that the board actually uses (it uses an 8096 byte + 488 byte block size), but the uboot doesn't support 8k sizes properly, so munges things.

I can dump correctly (I think), based on looking at the current partial NAND dump's I've made

So far I've identified code segments in the following area's:


0x00000 - 0x0840 ? bootloader
0x02000 - 0x2840 ??
0x04000 - 0x4840 MINIOS kernel (bootloader?)

Sample dump of base memory of NAND below:

USBBoot :> nreadraw  0 1024 0 0

Code: [Select]
00000000  ff 55 55 55 55 55 55 55  ff ff ff ff 01 00 11 04  |.UUUUUUU........|
00000010  00 00 00 00 21 e0 e0 03  00 00 e9 8f 21 e0 20 01  |....!.......!. .|
00000020  00 80 1d 3c 00 40 bd 37  00 80 19 3c 90 06 39 27  |...<.@.7...<..9'|
00000030  08 00 20 03 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.. .............|
00000040  1b 43 02 3c 83 de 42 34  19 00 82 00 0f 00 02 3c  |.C.<..--BINGO! Either that, or I was attempting to say "before" but it was too many letters to type--.......<|
00000050  10 20 00 00 40 42 42 34  82 24 04 00 1b 00 44 00  |. ..@BB4.$....D.|
00000060  f4 01 80 00 50 c3 03 34  21 60 a0 00 12 48 00 00  |....P..4!`...H..|
00000070  1b 00 69 00 f4 01 20 01  12 28 00 00 02 10 25 71  |..i... ..(....%q|

I've been running the nreadraw dumps through a simple parser (without the code offset segments)
like so:

sfk filter raw.txt +hextobin raw.bin

with http://stahlworks.com/dev/index.php?tool=hextobin

Then running

hexdump -C  raw.bin  to get a prettified dump like above

---

From the Spanish forum (translated by google):

12 bytes are recorded on the NAND indicate the configuration of the same: if the bus is 8 or 16 bits, is shared or not, the page size and number of read cycles required. According to data stored on the NAND (FF 55 55 55 55 55 55 55 FF FF FF FF) configuration that leaves here is: FF: The bus is 8 bits. 55 55 55 55 55 55 55: bytes of checking to see if the bus is shared or not (55 is 01010101). In our case, is shared with the SDRAM. FF: 3 cycles of row. FF FF: Page Size: 4KB FF: not used. All this, as expected, coincides with the data we have from the NAND.


I'm using the following for usb_boot config:

Quote
[NAND]
BUSWIDTH            8    ;The width of the NAND flash chip in bits (8|16|32)
ROWCYCLES    3    ;The row address cycles (2|3)
PAGESIZE            8192    ;The page size of the NAND chip in bytes(512|2048|4096)
PAGEPERBLOCK    256    ;The page number per block
FORCEERASE    0    ;The force to erase flag (0|1)
OOBSIZE        448    ;oob size in byte
ECCPOS        6    ;Specify the ECC offset inside the oob data (0-[oobsize-1])
BADBLACKPOS    0    ;Specify the badblock flag offset inside the oob (0-[oobsize-1])
BADBLACKPAGE     0 ;Specify the page number of badblock flag inside a block(0-[PAGEPERBLOCK-1])
PLANENUM            2    ;The planes number of target nand flash
BCHBIT        8    ;Specify the hardware BCH algorithm for 4750 (4|8)
WPPIN        0    ;Specify the write protect pin number
BLOCKPERCHIP    0    ;Specify the block number per chip,0 means ignore

[END]


NAND is a 4G HYNIX -

HYNIX_H27UBG8T2A 3.3V 32Gbit NAND
4096M x 8bit

USB_Boot NANDquery gives:

 ID of No.0 device No.0 flash: //
 Vendor ID    :0xad  (Hynix) //Manufacturer Code
 Product ID   :0xd7  (Device ID) // Device Identifier
 Chip ID      :0x94  //Internal Chip Number
 Page ID      :0x9a  //Page Size/BlockSize/Redundant Area
 Plane ID     :0x74  //Plane Number , ECC
 Tech ID      :0x42 //Tech / EDO /Interface


-----
Manual says:
3.3V Bus Width x8
2 Planes of 1024 blocks.  Each block has 256 programmable pages.  Each Page 8640 bytes (8192+448spare)

If I check the byte sequence against the HYNIX chipset documentation I get the following from the numbers:

3rd Byte Dev ID

0x94=0b10010100

00 -  Internal Chip Number 1
01 -  4 Level Cell (cell type)
01 -  2 pages programmed at once
10 -  Interleave supported, Write Cache Supported

0x9a=0b10011010

10 - 8kb page size
0 10 - 448 Bytes (redundant area size)
1 01 - 2M Block Size (without spare area)

0x74=0b 0 111 01 00

01 - 2 Planes
ECC level - reserved.

0x42=0b01 000 010
010 32nm Nand
0 EDO Supported
0 SDR NAND Interface

---

The prelim dumps look correct though, but bootloader won't let me go to a specific page without screwing up the dump location+numbering, so, so far I've been doing dumps via copy / paste of portions of code iteratively from the start.

eg from

nread 0 81920 0 0  (copy, paste to new file)
then

nread 0 163840 0 0  (copy from 81920 -> end, paste to new file)

repeat...

bit tedious doing that for all 4G!

Would be nicer to have proper piping access on Linux, instead of having to use crappy Windows only tools.

I'm getting there though.
I also have a working compile environment going, so when I do finally get a FS dumped correctly thats mountable, I can go ahead, wipe it, then compile up Linux or similar.

Then I can use this as a base board to emulate anything vs only what the board designers half assedly added.

I do enjoy this kind of thing though, and I already got quite far last night on this.

eg

Quote
strings *.bin
UUUUUUU
@BB4
4 "--BINGO! Either that, or I was attempting to say "before" but it was too many letters to type--
C$!(
$!0@
$! @
c4%8C
M4!0
4 "--BINGO! Either that, or I was attempting to say "before" but it was too many letters to type--
xK   T
k)=l
7;%_
'! 
B$+
 Prepare to Download MINIOS.
 Ingenic Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Loader Version V1.0
1: Bad Block
2: Bad Block
Uncorrect ECC Error
 Jump to 0x
 Launch...
Uncorrectable error occurred
stat = 0x
oob_size =
read 61th page error!,read next page
read 62th page error!
Stop here,please check nand status!
@` @
@z@@@r
@@gX@
wH@@
; @@
@@?0P@


So, NAND format must be close to correct or correct, as I have actual readable text from the bootloader in my dump.

:)


I believe that this board and the gamebox board will turn out to be fairly similar software wise - same cpu, diff hardware i/o, but otherwise I'm expecting minor differences, so a lot of the work on that, or on the Dingux a330 / a380 should be portable to this without too much change.

Its a bit technical, I know, but basically - I like the hardware.  Software isn't quite there, but thats fixable, and I know how to do it, and am working on it.


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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #176 on: June 04, 2012, 08:58:35 am »
Er "--BINGO! Either that, or I was attempting to say "before" but it was too many letters to type--" isn't in my dumps, so I think the board software is doing some cackhanded autoreplacement on something in my post!

Ignore those parts, as they aren't part of the notes.


Have been reading up on my MTDNAND structures also, as thats going to be necessary to verify stuff / split apart cleanly.
This is dry, but good reading:

http://www.kernel.org/doc/htmldocs/mtdnand.html

Some of this might be useful also - http://imxcommunity.org/group/imx28andimx28evk/forum/topics/nand-boot-attempt-no-bcb-error-0x80508001?xg_source=activity

Mostly as its also same chip in use, and I'm not quite sure on the ECC side of things / BCH values, so its often good to read other peoples attempts to solve issues as often its the same stuff people go through again and again...
« Last Edit: June 04, 2012, 10:18:19 am by shanghaiguide »

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #177 on: June 04, 2012, 01:47:17 pm »
 :applaud: Very nice work! It's good to have someone working with a standard set above the usual "knockoff copy BS" that China mostly offers with bad frame skipping etc.

I have been eyeing a 19in1 PCB for a while but this sounds better even better. I prefer having the original PCB for most of my games, but some are too rare to hunt down today.

6. Would it be possible to have a menu that can be changed from horizontal to vertical? Just porting Advancemenu (or have it as an option) to this hardware would be a great frontend as it picks up any new game rom on each reboot.

7. Will all games run in native res/refresh rate?


Note: Progear is CPS2 and not PGM. For good games to try in the PGM driver, check out DDP DOJ or Ketsui which both lack any slowdown on original hardware.

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #178 on: June 04, 2012, 03:01:58 pm »
Great work. Nice to see a newer board being taken apart and put back together with the purpose of improving the software side.  Software on the xxx in 1 boards have not advanced much over the years.   :applaud: :applaud: :applaud:

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #179 on: June 04, 2012, 04:42:50 pm »
I also have a newer board my staff ordered for me (but didn't tell me about), which I need to *not look at* until this one gets further, lest I get distracted.

The 2nd one is more expensive, lacks VGA, and USB though, so I think I like my cheaper more usable one :)

More notes on my reverse engineering on the current one here -

http://www.computersolutions.cn/blog/?p=850

I have pretty much every arcade XXX in 1 available locally, as I've been selling them (post testing to see whats actually good). 
The 19 in 1 has a horrible UI that doesn't like sitting in a game, and exits out as soon as you so much as blink. 
Me no likey, but it is a third the price of the newer boards...

It does have defender though, and I did just order some 4 way sticks, and...  ---fudgesicle---.. Just made another machine...

I also have a 60 in 1 in a cocktail at the office.  The 60 in 1 is crap slow booting up (minutes!)


So..., I think its best I get this one up and running, so I can crosscompile an ancient version of SDL MAME or similar then its the same thing, but... better :) or something else, or fix the current stuff better or.. or...   go to sleep as its almost 5am here in China.

Quote
It's good to have someone working with a standard set above the usual "knockoff copy BS" that China mostly offers with bad frame skipping etc.

I know why that happens, and its because they don't speak to the clients, so don't know people complain about it.
Its also because the dev houses are secretive ---daisies--- when it comes to giving out any info, even when it is all based on existing open source stuff..  Sigh, so even if you did offer to assist them, they're like - WHY?  You wants our source doesn't you.  Noo its my ring, er source code.



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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #180 on: June 04, 2012, 05:29:10 pm »
Am curious if this is the illegal clone of Clay's latest board, in which case I would frown about it being talked about here.

But, if it is the revoked 128-in-1, then I wouldn't have a problem as I am genuinely curious as to the progress they were supposed to make in fixing the bastard.
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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #181 on: June 04, 2012, 06:40:27 pm »
Am curious if this is the illegal clone of Clay's latest board, in which case I would frown about it being talked about here.

And what board is that?

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #183 on: June 05, 2012, 12:08:26 am »
I *very* much doubt it, as this board 95% based off the Ingenic reference sample MP4 / Tablet design.
That url doesn't work, (site doesn't load) so can't see pictures to check.

The board I'm working with doesn't have SD.  The previous board which did have SD wasn't stable (2 samples died, and were crash prone when working), so not an option. 

The previous board was also ingenic MIPS SoC based design too, so also most likely nothing to do with Clay's work, unless he is also using the reference designs from Chinese SoC manufacturers and claiming as his own work. 
In which case tsk tsk .

No idea though and I'd need to see his board to tell you my 2 cents...

Photos and some initial dev work of the current one I refer to are here:
http://www.computersolutions.cn/blog/2012/03/king-of-game-jamma-board-reverse-engineering/


King of Arcade by sheedl, on Flickr


and here

http://www.computersolutions.cn/blog/?p=850

Photos in situ (wiring is finished now, this is during initial testing!)


Electrical work in Arcade Build (light off) by sheedl, on Flickr



Rear of board

Untitled by sheedl, on Flickr

Board Buttons with USB Boot ease of use :)


Untitled by sheedl, on Flickr


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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #184 on: June 08, 2012, 08:45:30 am »
Wow you rock Shanghaiguide.

My experience is with*nix not embedded but it'd be awesome to see what you can do with one of these.  I was looking at getting either the King of Kung Fu or the other board to diddle around with.

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #185 on: June 08, 2012, 10:43:07 am »
Shanghaiguide, how much did the board cost you and where can i get one? I have some limited embedded hardware experience. contemplating on getting one although i don't even have a arcade cab at the moment.

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #186 on: June 08, 2012, 03:08:46 pm »
That url doesn't work, (site doesn't load) so can't see pictures to check.


Site works fine for me. It might be your firewall, the big one.  :lol


Shanghaiguide, how much did the board cost you and where can i get one? I have some limited embedded hardware experience. contemplating on getting one although i don't even have a arcade cab at the moment.

Here is the website of the manufacturer. I can't find the actual product...It must be too new and not listed yet on there. It looks like you can make a product inquiry on the website though.

http://www.chowhe.com/index.php

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #187 on: June 09, 2012, 11:57:19 am »
Can PM me if you want to order.

I'll have my website up soon ( retrosticks.com ), still getting the staff to add stuff in there, then I need to turn it all into English.

I've been buying samples of different boards from different manufacturers here, so far the "King Of Game" seems to be the best for modding software wise, and again, its quite stable.

I've been buying samples of pretty much everything that I can get my hands on here, and checking what I deem acceptable.  There is a lot of dross :(

I also bought and took apart a "Blue Elf 2012" board as I got one of those this week.

Its quite similar to the King of Game, but older CPU.

This one is ARM based, but looks like a much more expensive board to produce.  No USB, No VGA though (in the one I bought, although there is a version with both that I found, but probably won't buy).  Not sure why they didn't go with a SoC version, unless they basically have been using the same design since day 1.  (Most probably..)

Its a slower CPU - PXA270.  Roms come on a SD Card, which is FAT formatted.
I didn't see a serial option on the board yet, but didn't check too carefully.  Probably its similar to the Ingenic chipset, and will turn out to use a usb bootloader.

I have to say I prefer the ingenic MIPS one though, even though I'm *way* more familiar doing ARM dev stuff.

Some photo's here -


Untitled by sheedl, on Flickr


Untitled by sheedl, on Flickr


Untitled by sheedl, on Flickr


Untitled by sheedl, on Flickr


Untitled by sheedl, on Flickr


Untitled by sheedl, on Flickr

I've had a quick look at the SD card files, one file is called something .dat (its all at work, so can't remember exactly what), the rest are rom's or similar.
Again, looks like FBA is being used, vs MAME or similar.

I'm guessing this is going to be common to all the arm / mips based embedded solutions vs the typical x86 based (the larger GameBox et al - (not the gamebox referred to in this thread)).

If anyone is interested in assisting me with the firmware side please feel free to ask.  The more people, the faster it might go!
My plan is to port a better emulator version, and then sell the board with that :)


« Last Edit: June 09, 2012, 12:05:38 pm by shanghaiguide »

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #188 on: June 12, 2012, 09:45:09 pm »
I can help a little if I know what to look for.  What's the OS it's running?  Is it still minios?

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #189 on: June 13, 2012, 12:20:29 pm »
Yeah that's the second version of the Blue elf.  The first one had the SD on the board and it was in some weird locked format.  Could you dump the image of the SD and post it somewhere for me to look at?

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #190 on: June 15, 2012, 12:49:55 am »
If anyone is interested in assisting me with the firmware side please feel free to ask.  The more people, the faster it might go!
My plan is to port a better emulator version, and then sell the board with that :)

What is the current emulator and what is "better emulator" you want port?

Have you ever compiled MAME for any of those boards? Where did you get the source code and toolchain?

I'd be interested to see how my MAME build (Android) works on that board, but you'll need to compile it yourself.


Don't say you are going to sell it. This is MAME friendly site and selling MAME is not fair towards people who gave it to you for free.


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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #191 on: June 15, 2012, 08:55:23 am »
Quote
What is the current emulator and what is "better emulator" you want port?

To quote myself, as you didn't see/read what I wrote above -
Currently its FBANext bastardized Chinese edition missing bits edition.

Its a MIPS based SoC - Ingenic JZ4755.  I have a cross-compiler toolchain already.   If you read my posts above and took a look at some of the links, you'd see I've been doing a bit of work on that already.  I also have source for FBANext on ARM (which is similar enough to MIPS to be usable without too much hassle to port).  If you want to help great, if you're just going to be one of those people that shoots things down, then not interested.  Go play 1942 instead then ;)

Quote
Have you ever compiled MAME for any of those boards? Where did you get the source code and toolchain?
I haven't compiled MAME for a while, but I'm going to assume its not going to be too much different from when I did it on Linux years ago.
MAME isn't allowed to be sold commercially - as MAME licence explicitly doesn't allow commercial activity, so I could either compile the binary, and have a download available + source, so people can add themselves, or just ignore MAME support.  

Crosscompiler toolchain is available on the ingenic site, but if you want a copy, pm me, as it may be faster downloading it from me.

Quote
Don't say you are going to sell it. This is MAME friendly site and selling MAME is not fair towards people who gave it to you for free.

If I invest the time in reverse engineering the board, porting stuff to it, making custom firmware, and improving it, yes I will be selling *that* firmware or board+firmware (most probably as an improved board version).  Other emulators are GPL, and GPL has no objection to people making profit off of derivative work.  

This is no different from any manufacturer these days selling Android phones or other hardware stuff based off of open source.  Yes, the source is all free, however, putting it all together, and making it all work takes time and effort, and skills, and I will be looking to recoup my time at least.  
Source will be available once I get a bit further along, via GIT or similar, as I've done with my openipcam.com site in the past.

Any more questions Mr Oraap?
« Last Edit: June 15, 2012, 09:03:20 am by shanghaiguide »

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #192 on: June 15, 2012, 10:16:43 am »

To quote myself, as you didn't see/read what I wrote above -
Currently its FBANext bastardized Chinese edition missing bits edition.

Its a MIPS based SoC - Ingenic JZ4755.  I have a cross-compiler toolchain already.   If you read my posts above and took a look at some of the links, you'd see I've been doing a bit of work on that already.  I also have source for FBANext on ARM (which is similar enough to MIPS to be usable without too much hassle to port).  If you want to help great, if you're just going to be one of those people that shoots things down, then not interested.  Go play 1942 instead then ;)

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware "FBANext" is emulator. I see you've encountered internet goblins before, I'm not one of them.


Quote
I haven't compiled MAME for a while, but I'm going to assume its not going to be too much different from when I did it on Linux years ago.
MAME isn't allowed to be sold commercially - as MAME licence explicitly doesn't allow commercial activity, so I could either compile the binary, and have a download available + source, so people can add themselves, or just ignore MAME support.

Do you expect you can compile PC MAME source code for ARM or MIPS platform without making any changes? What libraries are you going to use for video and audio?

I thought you gonna say you will be using MAME4all (0.37) source code originally ported to GP2X (ARM) and later to PSP (MIPS). That's what I'm using and in that case I believe it would be easy to port my MAME build to your board, which is much better than the original port.


Quote
Any more questions Mr Oraap?

Later, it's your turn now.

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #193 on: June 15, 2012, 11:33:24 am »
The hardware is fairly close (but not quite identical) to the A380 hardware, which has an Linux compile called Dingux available.
There are *plenty* of ports for most major emulators for that.

First I need to dump the current firmware on the device though, as i need to be able to go back to the *original* when I screw up.  As this is highly likely when creating new kernel etc (assuming I go Linux), then its nice to be able to reuse the board if I give up or need to use it for an arcade machine or something!

The board doesn't have a LCD controller onboard, unlike the A380's - it talks to a Chrontel 7026B which then does our VGA I expect.
http://www.chrontel.com/products/7026.htm

My best initial bet (after dumping nand), or just saying  :censored: it, and making one a sacrificial board :( is to find a linux driver for the Chrontel and compile that in, then play the flash stuff to the board game and see if I can make it happy.

Once I have that going, then I need to map out all the GPIO ports in use currently for the various buttons and sticks, then start compiling up software and making it tick.

I think I'm going to trace out serial first though so I can see whats happening.

At some point in the future will be able to look at software, but I'm not there yet.  For video, most likely its going to be SDL based, as both the mini-os and linux stuff use that for video output.  Audio is fairly straightforward - its already supported in the BSP, so should work without too much hassle.
I think if we go linux, its alsa, but haven't checked too carefully just yet.

The work for this will be quite similar to the work being done on the GameBox in this thread - the black machine with controllers referred to originally, as its also the same SoC, and fairly similar hardware layout.


If you're interested in helping, can add me on Skype: computersolutions.cn




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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #194 on: June 15, 2012, 12:06:09 pm »
I see. I've done some of the stuff you're talking about, actually have my own Linux build, and funny enough it's called "gameBox":
http://www.oocities.org/ze_aks/myos.html

However, I'm afraid I can't help you much in your current phase as I don't have the hardware. If there is something you think I might be able to help you with just ask.

Not sure how it fits in your plans, but have you considered using Android? I just found out in my Android thread there is Android based PC for only $50 bucks. http://apc.io/

I'm not using Skype. We can talk here, or alternatively you can post on my forum:
http://smf.webng.com/crazytilt/
« Last Edit: June 15, 2012, 12:10:13 pm by Oraap »

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #195 on: June 16, 2012, 01:11:22 am »
Got quite far last night before sleep got the better of me - basically passed out in front of the computer, woke up, went to bed! (ok, not uncommon for me, but still...)

I emailed the guy doing some of the work at zonaeuropas, and he emailed back with a dump from the Gamebox.  That was a huge help, as I now had 2 dumps to compare.

I need to wait for a response from him as to whether his is NREAD_RAW or NREAD dumped, but I think they got some stuff wrong (they put wrong file sizes to things).
If I use mine, his dump makes more sense, so i think I'm correct.  Need to get a reply from them before I can see though, as it might just be bad translation for both of us (we're google translating to talk!).

Looks like my dump stuff is turning out to be correct.
I compared raw dump and non raw dump, and the data looks correct for both (although the raw_dump is obviously larger due to OOB block stuff thats not used by us).

Page 61, and Page 62 in MINIOS are important - those contain the flash size.
If your settings are wrong, thats wrong.

I got this, which is correct for my hardware.

USBBoot :> nreadraw 61 24 0 0
Reading RAW from No.0 device No.0 flash....
0x00000000 :00 20 00 00 c0 01 00 00 00 01 00 00

00 20 00 00 = 8192 PAGE SIZE
c0 01 00 00 = 448  OOBSIZE
00 01 00 00 = 256 PAGE PER BLOCK

My hardware NAND chip details:

USBBoot :> nquery 0 0

ID of No.0 device No.0 flash:
Vendor ID    :0xad
Product ID   :0xd7
Chip ID      :0x94
Page ID      :0x9a
Plane ID     :0x74
Operation status: Success!


I know that the first 8k of the NAND is the chipset bootloader, as thats in the data sheet for the chipset in stone.

This is what I found so far for my dumps

Quote
0x00000 -> 0x02000 = NAND Boot code (NAND.BIN)    8K
0x00A00 -> 0x01200 = Next bit of code (CODE_1.BIN)  2K  BYTE / Pattern 21 20 00 02 00 16 93 92
0x01200 -> 0x01600 = Next bit of code (CODE_2.BIN)  1K
0x01600 -> 0x02000 = MINIOS_BOOT.BIN /  FE FF 87 14...
0x02000 -> 0x1EA00 = ?? 34 bytes, then empty. / FF FF FF D0 1E 6F B7 F5 52 DD 5E CD 10 76 AB 5D A0 3C 77 08 8C A3 DD 0F 7B 74 34 A3 CF FB B5 D0 3D 41 0C 43 91 8A E4 8C 1F 2E 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0x1EA00 -> 0x1EA0B  = 12 bytes Page 61 NAND size
0x1F000 -> 0x1F1FF = ?? unsure, but data bytes. FF FF FF E2 4E 7B A3 3C 2D 49 89 8B 9A BB 30 F0 04 4B FC 3D 82 D2 DE 48 13 CC C7 83 37 04 4B FC 3D 82 D2 DE 48 13 CC C7 83 37 04 4B FC 3D 82 D2 DE 48 13 CC C7 83 37 D7 5A FE A9 26 then FF..FF
0x1F200 -> 0x1F204 = 12 bytes Page 62 NAND size
0x1F800 -> 0x1F9FF = ?? same as previous unsure sequence, repeated twice, so must be significant..
0x1FA00 -> 0x1FA0F = 10 bytes of 0
0x1FE00 ->  0x1FE3F = 40 bytes  Start/ End is similar to our unsure, looks like probably code?  Need to run through mips decompiler to check i think - FF FF FF D0 1E 6F B7 F5 1D 2A 39 E5 6E 72 DE C4 7E A9 EF 73 D0 83 AE 10 94 06 D4 E0 1C D7 5A FE A9 26 83 AE 10 94 06 D4 E0 1C D7 5A FE A9 26 83 AE 10 94 06 D4 E0 1C D7 5A FE A9 26 FFFFFFFF

0x80200 - 0x8c7ff?  (probably to 0x80200+64kb) = 0xc600 bytes MINIOS?  see  i2c and chipset stuff in that.  (called it i2c_nand - I think dump should probably be 64kb, but rest of data is FF's so can pad out if you want)

0x100200 - Filesystem :)


Files found in there so far:

mobile_tv.bin
desktop.bin
udc_battery.bin
sysconfig.bin
toolsbox.bin
calendar.bin
ebook.bin
worldclock.bin
russblock.bin
fmradio.bin
recorder.bin
mp3_compress.bin
viewer.bin
jpgdec.bin
pngdec.bin
bmpdec.bin
gifdec.bin
AudioTag.bin <-- significant, means case sensitive
vplayer.bin
fplayer.bin
aplayer.bin
video.bin
alarm.bin
gameplay.bin
gba_lib.bin
nes_lib.bin
snes_lib.bin
md_lib.bin
ticru_lib.bin
dcDecoder.bin
dvEncoder.bin
dcdv.bin
mpcodecs_ad_liba52.bin
mpcodecs_ad_hwac3.bin
ffmpeg64.bin
ffmpeg_vd_mpegmisc.bin
ffmpeg_vd_mpegmisc2.bin
ffpmeg_vd_mpegvideo.bin
mpcodecs_vs_libmpeg2.bin
ffmpeg_vd_svq3.bin
mpcodecs_vd_realvid.bin
aux_task.bin

I need to see what the FS is, but it looks like I'm at the point where I can definitely extract stuff from the firmware and write back to it. (Or fairly soon at that point).  I've already dumped out parts to separate files now, and am giving those a look.

Quite happy, as this is good progress.

I also did some reading up on the Chrontel side of things (eg our video out, as no LCD vs other Dingoo's or similar), should be fairly easy to use - you send it messages over i2c bus to initialise basically, and then the BSP stuff just assumes its an LCD.

I have sample code for that already, untested.

I should be able to get linux on it if I want soonish also :)
First I need to test out some theories - eg extract a file, change, rewrite to nand, and see if the firmware still works, or I need to do some crc stuff.  Looking good though.







emphatic

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #196 on: June 16, 2012, 06:55:15 am »
Cool progress, shanghaiguide.  :cheers:

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #197 on: June 16, 2012, 07:39:39 am »
Thanks Emphatic -

Are people interested in seeing more posts on this here?

The previous 2 posts are rather negative.

I have got my own blog where i can put this, but it did seem pertinent to the flow of the thread to me.
Guess I'll gather up what I've written here, and stick it somewhere else if people are unhappy.

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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #198 on: June 16, 2012, 08:20:17 am »
I'm thrilled to see your progress so far shanghaiguide. Please keep the posts coming!! I'm not quite sure what the hell the other guys problem is.

 Maybe most of this stuff is a little over my head but I know that I'm learning and there are other people from other forums following this well as I've seen it mentioned on them.

It is nice to have this documented here.
"I know what a HAL 9000 is... I was wondering if HAL 7600 was his retarded cousin or something..."
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Re: GAMEBOX Multi-Game Platform TV Video Game Console -MAME-
« Reply #199 on: June 16, 2012, 08:23:34 am »
Quote
I don't know how nicer to say your posts lack justification and are in the wrong thread.

This thread is about the Gamebox (originally).  Thats an embedded MIPS JZ4755 board.  Which is pretty much the same as this board here.
The gamebox people were interested in reverse engineering to add features...

Quote
And in return you ignored my question and wasted my time with unnecessary information.
I answered your questions, you went off on a tangent about MAME for some reason.

--


Quote
So how does you board compare, and why do you think anyone should choose it over, say:

- $10 bucks 1GHz PC?

- $24 bucks Raspberry Pi?
http://www.raspberrypi.org/

- $49 bucks Android PC?
http://apc.io/


Do any of those have JAMMA?

This board is designed from the outset to be used in an arcade machine.
It has a Standard Jamma interface.  It runs off of the 5v/12v PSU inside an arcade machine.
It also has USB to access NAND storage.
It also has VGA out.

Its not "my" board, its a readily available board that a few people have.  Usually called the 188 in 1 or the King of Game or Kung fu King or similar.

You're really rather antagonistic to be honest.