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Mystery carts...


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I have a few "mystery" carts. I have no real idea what these systems are for, though I am pretty sure the one with the transparency is for some projector-based game machine. I'm more interested in the "homebrew" ones, though. One seems to have "PONG" written on it, so I think they are game-related.

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The ones I'm more interested in....

 

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Any ideas?

 

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Do you have any measurements? The second one that says Pong/Space obviously has 2x22 pins which cuts down our list of candidates:

 

Arcadia 2001 clones: MPT-03, Palladium Video-Computer-Game, Ormatu 2001 (all different pinouts but same amount of pins)

VIC-20

C64

Sega SG-1000

(Probably not Fairchild Channel F)

 

One idea is to look up the pinouts for respective systems and find where they have GND and see if most components are wired towards it somehow.

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Just now, carlsson said:

Do you have any measurements? The second one that says Pong/Space obviously has 2x22 pins which cuts down our list of candidates:

 

Arcadia 2001 clones: MPT-03, Palladium Video-Computer-Game, Ormatu 2001 (all different pinouts but same amount of pins)

VIC-20

C64

Sega SG-1000

(Probably not Fairchild Channel F)

 

One idea is to look up the pinouts for respective systems and find where they have GND and see if most components are wired towards it somehow.


There is a mm scale ruler alongside one of the pictures.

 

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13 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Do you have any measurements?

115 mm tall

100 mm wide

edge connector 90 mm wide

 

If I had to guess ground, it would be 2nd pin from the right edge with the ROMS facing you.
Reasoning: that trace goes to a corner pin on both ROMs.



Edit: it's late here, but tomorrow I will look up what type ROMS they are and properly trace the GnD to the connector.

Edited by Andrew Davie
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3 minutes ago, carlsson said:

The 2716 EPROM has GND on pin 12, i.e. the bottom right when you have the chips sideways as in the pictures.

Got off my lazy ass to have a look.

Yes, they're 2716's, and the pin you have tagged goes to the far right edge pin on the board (chip side).

 

Edit: And the opposite pin (VCC on the 2716) goes to the adjacent pin (#2 from right) on the edge connector.


So, those far right pins (chipside up) are VCC and GND.

 

Edited by Andrew Davie
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2 minutes ago, carlsson said:

VCC on pin 21 and GND on pin 22 indeed resembles the VIC after all, but I thought some of the other pins not expected to be connected are leading somewhere anyway.

I will trace the data and address pins on the 2716's to the edge pins tomorrow and that will give much more information.

Thanks for your help so far!  A bit of sleuthing!

 

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The other cart is definitely a game for the playtime light game system.

Grandstand also made a version of it.

I have all 13 titles except for the game 'knock off'.

 

The other i am not sure...it looks kind of like a palladium board but they usually say polybrain on the board. 

Likely for 1 of the many pong on a chip systems some of these same companies made?

Not sure what 'Elect. Eng. Dept.' would be?

 

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54 minutes ago, stupus said:

The other i am not sure...it looks kind of like a palladium board but they usually say polybrain on the board. 

Likely for 1 of the many pong on a chip systems some of these same companies made?

Not sure what 'Elect. Eng. Dept.' would be?

 

My guess was that some university/college had a course on electronics/games and these were the result. Not much to support that, except of course that it means "Electrical Engineering Department".

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I am wondering if these might be Mattel Aquarius carts.  I did pick up a mega lot some 20 years ago from an engineer, and perhaps these were in that lot without my really realising it. The Aquarius stuff is long gone, but... these could be from that, as I said. Fro the one diagram I have found, it seems the Aquarius expander also has 44 pins.

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I've done a quick but unverified mapping of the 2716 pins to the edge connector pins.

If I label the edge connector pins 1-22 on the chip-side (left to right) and then flip over the board and label the pins 23-44 (left to right), then the red numbers show the connection of edge connector pin # to 2716 pinout.  I did this in poor light, so there may be one or two errors, but I tried to get it right. 

 

pins.jpg.6f8b197f646f3ae89193c11a278f1a57.jpg

 

 

Edit: Completely wrong: See below.

Edited by Andrew Davie
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I'm going to give you a hint on this that should help out.  Grandstand.  They were a thing (Grandstand) within the UK/AUS market, and I see you listed as Queensland.

 

I did some of my weird google tactics and tried to look up what you all were looking at above, going into pins and chips is over my head.  Grandstand made some very early cartridge based systems that used some pretty basic games in the 1980s and they did get in bed with Playtime.  Playtime made many LCD based handhelds and later even those mini tabletop home pinball machines with licensed stuff like Super Mario, TMNT, Street Fighter, etc.

 

Actually hey, nevermind let's make this easy -- picture proof.

https://www.retrogames.co.uk/022536/Handheld/Stealth-Fighter-by-Playtime

Game looks familiar to me, came with an overlay too.

 

Oh and here's the system you pop it into and put the overlay on.

http://retro-treasures.blogspot.com/2011/08/grandstand-light-games-projection.html

Edited by Tanooki
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10 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

My guess was that some university/college had a course on electronics/games and these were the result. Not much to support that, except of course that it means "Electrical Engineering Department".

What is that artwork on those cartridges? It looks like a few 20-sided dice? Then it had to be from some college thing. No idea what they would go into, but I think that kind of 44-pin connector was pretty common as cheap surplus parts, so it could have been for some kind of custom system. I notice that it has two EPROMs but no decoder chip, so whatever the board plugged into decoded the chip selects for it. Those holes for diodes are interesting, probably some sort of configuration thing for different game sizes.

Edited by Bruce Tomlin
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5 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

I am wondering if these might be Mattel Aquarius carts.  I did pick up a mega lot some 20 years ago from an engineer, and perhaps these were in that lot without my really realising it. The Aquarius stuff is long gone, but... these could be from that, as I said. Fro the one diagram I have found, it seems the Aquarius expander also has 44 pins.

I've only briefly looked over the carts, but at first glance they don't appear to be for the Aquarius.  The Aquarius cartridge port has VCC on Pin 25 (tenth from the right on the component side), and this pin is disconnected on these cartridge boards.  The EPROM address and data signals also don't seem to line up with the correct pins for the Aquarius.

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6 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

I did this in poor light, so there may be one or two errors

It seems that you routed pin 38 on the cartridge connector to both inputs A7 and Q2.

 

Transposed into pins on the cartridge bus, it would look like this:

 


Pin  Signal       VIC-20   MPT-03  Palladium Ormatu     SG-1000
1    ?            GND      +5V     +5V       N/C        A0
2    ?            D0       N/C     GND       D1         A1
3    ?            D1       GND     N/C       D3         A2
4    ?            D2       N/C     N/C       D7         A3
5    ?            D3       N/C     N/C       D5         A4
6    ?            D4       N/C     N/C       A8         A5
7    A10          D5       N/C     N/C       A11        A6
8    A9           D6       N/C     N/C       N/C        A7
9    A8           D7       N/C     N/C       A9         A8
10   A0          /BLK1     N/C     N/C       A6         A9
11   A2          /BLK2     N/C     N/C       A4         A10
12   A4          /BLK3     N/C     N/C       A2         A11
13   ?           /BLK5     N/C     N/C       A0         A12
14   ?           /RAM1     N/C     N/C       N/C        A13
15   Q4          /RAM2     N/C     N/C       N/C        D0
16   Q4          /RAM3     N/C     N/C       N/C        D1
17   Q5           V R/W    N/C     N/C       N/C        D2
18   Q6           C R/W    N/C    /CE        N/C        D3
19   ?           /IRQ     /CE B*   D1        N/C        D4
20   ?            N/C      N/C     D3        N/C        D5
21   VCC + VPP    +5VDC   /CE A*   D7        +5V        D6
22   G/OE + VSS   GND      N/C     D5        GND        D7

23   ?            GND      D7      +5V       N/C        +5V
24   ?            GND      D6      GND       D0        /CSCN4
25   ?            A0       D5      N/C       D2        /CSRAM
26   Q7           A1       D4      N/C       D6         M8-B
27   ?            A2       D3      N/C       D4        /RD
28   A6           A3       D2      A12      /CE + A12  /WR
29   ?            A4       D1      A11       N/C       /IO RD
30   ?            A5       D0      A10       N/C       /IO WR
31   ?            A6       A0      A9        A10       /REFRESH
32   ?            A7       A1      A8        A7        /MREQ
33   ?            A8       A2      A7        A5        /CONT
34   A3           A9       A3      A6        A3        /RAS0
35   A1           A10      A4      A5        A1        /CAS0
36   Q0           A11      A5      A4        N/C        CA7
37   Q1           A12      A6      A3        N/C       /RAS1
38   A7 + Q2     /IO2      A7      A2       /OE        /CAS1
39   ?           /IO3      A8      A1        N/C       /RCSEL
40   ?            S PHI    A9      A0        N/C        A14
41   ?           /NMI      A12     D0        N/C        A15
42   EP/CE       /RESET    A10     D2        N/C       /M1
43   A5           N/C      A11     D4        +5V        GND
44   ?            GND     /EN      D6        GND        GND

 

I feel that I may have flipped the three Arcadia 2001 clones up-side down or reversed the pin order: MPT-03, Palladium and Ormatu 2001 but even if you flip those around there is not a perfect match. As noted, those 2x22 pin connectors with standard 3.96 mm (1.56 inch) spacing probably were reasonably common so those cartridges could have been made for a custom system, rather than something commercially available on the market.

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34 minutes ago, carlsson said:

It seems that you routed pin 38 on the cartridge connector to both inputs A7 and Q2.

 

Transposed into pins on the cartridge bus, it would look like this:

 

 


Pin  Signal       VIC-20   MPT-03  Palladium Ormatu     SG-1000
1    ?            GND      +5V     +5V       N/C        A0
2    ?            D0       N/C     GND       D1         A1
3    ?            D1       GND     N/C       D3         A2
4    ?            D2       N/C     N/C       D7         A3
5    ?            D3       N/C     N/C       D5         A4
6    ?            D4       N/C     N/C       A8         A5
7    A10          D5       N/C     N/C       A11        A6
8    A9           D6       N/C     N/C       N/C        A7
9    A8           D7       N/C     N/C       A9         A8
10   A0          /BLK1     N/C     N/C       A6         A9
11   A2          /BLK2     N/C     N/C       A4         A10
12   A4          /BLK3     N/C     N/C       A2         A11
13   ?           /BLK5     N/C     N/C       A0         A12
14   ?           /RAM1     N/C     N/C       N/C        A13
15   Q4          /RAM2     N/C     N/C       N/C        D0
16   Q4          /RAM3     N/C     N/C       N/C        D1
17   Q5           V R/W    N/C     N/C       N/C        D2
18   Q6           C R/W    N/C    /CE        N/C        D3
19   ?           /IRQ     /CE B*   D1        N/C        D4
20   ?            N/C      N/C     D3        N/C        D5
21   VCC + VPP    +5VDC   /CE A*   D7        +5V        D6
22   G/OE + VSS   GND      N/C     D5        GND        D7

23   ?            GND      D7      +5V       N/C        +5V
24   ?            GND      D6      GND       D0        /CSCN4
25   ?            A0       D5      N/C       D2        /CSRAM
26   Q7           A1       D4      N/C       D6         M8-B
27   ?            A2       D3      N/C       D4        /RD
28   A6           A3       D2      A12      /CE + A12  /WR
29   ?            A4       D1      A11       N/C       /IO RD
30   ?            A5       D0      A10       N/C       /IO WR
31   ?            A6       A0      A9        A10       /REFRESH
32   ?            A7       A1      A8        A7        /MREQ
33   ?            A8       A2      A7        A5        /CONT
34   A3           A9       A3      A6        A3        /RAS0
35   A1           A10      A4      A5        A1        /CAS0
36   Q0           A11      A5      A4        N/C        CA7
37   Q1           A12      A6      A3        N/C       /RAS1
38   A7 + Q2     /IO2      A7      A2       /OE        /CAS1
39   ?           /IO3      A8      A1        N/C       /RCSEL
40   ?            S PHI    A9      A0        N/C        A14
41   ?           /NMI      A12     D0        N/C        A15
42   EP/CE       /RESET    A10     D2        N/C       /M1
43   A5           N/C      A11     D4        +5V        GND
44   ?            GND     /EN      D6        GND        GND

 

 

I feel that I may have flipped the three Arcadia 2001 clones up-side down or reversed the pin order: MPT-03, Palladium and Ormatu 2001 but even if you flip those around there is not a perfect match. As noted, those 2x22 pin connectors with standard 3.96 mm (1.56 inch) spacing probably were reasonably common so those cartridges could have been made for a custom system, rather than something commercially available on the market.

 

Thank you for the thorough review.  I'm *extremely* embarrassed but I have clearly made many mistakes in the pin mapping. I don't know how. I hadn't had enough to drink.... I think I must have rotated the board incorrectly halfway through, getting the pin numbers wrong on the EPROM. I've had another stab at it. I have tried to be more careful but I guess given past performance this mapping needs to be taken with a HUGE grain of salt.  I tried even harder to get it right. No doubt I have made more errors.  Anyway, here goes...

2716b.png.4369ab76903ca92e141ab6a378014e95.png

 

Awesome how so very different this is from my first effort. As I said, embarrassing. Sorry.

There still seems to be no correspondence to the machines examined.

 

 

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I suppose the next step is to lift the EPROMs and dump them, as you indicated above.

 

I wonder if you have not swapped the order of the bottom row of pins, so 23 = 44 and 44 = 23. That way, the eight data pins (Q0 to Q7) would almost line up on both sides of the connector, and same goes for the address lines. In any case, I agree that the pinout doesn't match either of the obvious candidates:

 

VIC-20: VCC and GND match, but it has all address lines on one side and the data lines on the other.

MPT-03: Pretty much nothing matches, and it has all address + data lines on the same side.

Palladium: Even if VCC and GND are swapped around to match, it has all its data lines on the far side of the connector.

Ormatu 2001: VCC and GND match, and it has address and data lines on both sides but not perfect matches.

 

Besides Old-Computers.com writes:

 

The Ormatu Video Spelcomputer 2001 was marketed in the Netherlands (and Belgium?). The other systems using the same case & cartridge slot, and thus directly compatible with it, are the Sheen Home Video Centre 2001 (Australia) and the Intervision 2001/3001 (Finland, Spain, Switzerland?).

 

Emerson Arcadia 2001 collectors perhaps know about more models that are compatible, or even more unique 2x22 pin designs. We had a lengthy discussion before when ianoid had those 2x25 pin cartridges w/ shells and labels that nobody was able to identify. Back then the least worst guess was some pirate version of the SMS but even that seemed far fetched, and trust me every nook and cranny was investigated - every common, uncommon, rare, obscure and barely heard of system was contemplated.

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Since I don't have an EPROM programmer/reader, and I'm a sharing kind of person, I'll be happy to send these cartridges to someone who does have a programmer and who will be willing to dump the chip contents. And then release the code, whatever may be on-board. Hit me up if you're keen and have a sterling reputation.

 

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