Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory

[Dav]

I had to post some pics. I've been banging my head against this thing all week and it finally came together today. This is Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory, the rare sequel to Burgertime. I've made my own dongle, and written my own bios. The bios doesn't bother with the cassette deck, it loads the cassette data from an eprom on the dongle. The actual data loads in a few seconds instead of the minutes the cassettes took. It still takes about 15 seconds to copy the sound data to the sound cpu though, otherwise it would boot faster than my monitor warms up. I had several hardware and software bugs that were messing me up, the last thing I figured out just now to get the sound going was that I had the sound connector backward. At this time the bios only loads one game, but there's no reason why it can't load a menu and then select a game. There's room for 8 games to an eprom and I've got 3 eproms on the dongle. That's with no compression, with compression I think I can double the number available.

 

There were two small dongle checks that had to be patched out, otherwise it's running the same program code as before. They were just reading the dongle expecting a specific byte, I replaced the dongle read with a load of the number. Hopefully the other games don't bother do anything much with the dongle after the game is loaded either.

 

[Tempest]

Finally, the first steps towards a DECO multi-cart. I'd kill for a multi-cart for my DECO system, as the games are far too rare and are usually in a non-working state when found. If you can compress the games, you could probably fit the entire library on a single board (I think there were only about 47 games made, and not all of them have been found). Any plans to continue working on this?

 

Tempest

[Dav]

Probably, the really hard part is done now. The opcodes are encrypted so I had to write a program to go though my code after it's compiled and encrypt only the opcodes. I've even emualted most of the features of my dongle in mame so I can test easily. No idea what a time frame would be though as I have a lot of stuff going on. I need to find a job, depending on what happens with that I may not have much time to work on it.

 

 

Have you ever seen a working PPICF? I'm wondering why my background is blue-grey and mame's is black. I should be running the same code as mame, and the countdown screen looked right, so I'm inclined to think it's an emulation bug. I guess it could be some kind of color adjustment though, maybe they expected you to adjust the monitor.

[Tempest]

Probably, the really hard part is done now. The opcodes are encrypted so I had to write a program to go though my code after it's compiled and encrypt only the opcodes. I've even emualted most of the features of my dongle in mame so I can test easily. No idea what a time frame would be though as I have a lot of stuff going on. I need to find a job, depending on what happens with that I may not have much time to work on it.

 

 

Have you ever seen a working PPICF? I'm wondering why my background is blue-grey and mame's is black. I should be running the same code as mame, and the countdown screen looked right, so I'm inclined to think it's an emulation bug. I guess it could be some kind of color adjustment though, maybe they expected you to adjust the monitor.

 

Nope not in real life. Mame could have it wrong, but black makes more sense.

 

You can't believe how excited I am about this, keep up the good work!

 

Tempest

[Dav]

Probably, the really hard part is done now. The opcodes are encrypted so I had to write a program to go though my code after it's compiled and encrypt only the opcodes. I've even emualted most of the features of my dongle in mame so I can test easily. No idea what a time frame would be though as I have a lot of stuff going on. I need to find a job, depending on what happens with that I may not have much time to work on it.

 

 

Have you ever seen a working PPICF? I'm wondering why my background is blue-grey and mame's is black. I should be running the same code as mame, and the countdown screen looked right, so I'm inclined to think it's an emulation bug. I guess it could be some kind of color adjustment though, maybe they expected you to adjust the monitor.

 

Nope not in real life. Mame could have it wrong, but black makes more sense.

 

You can't believe how excited I am about this, keep up the good work!

 

Tempest

 

 

I got it working late last night. I thought it was a problem with my compression code, but I finally figured out I need to reset the sound cpu after a boot. These are the games so far. I only played a couple of games with each so I'm not sure if I got all the protection patched out. In fact it's likely I didn't if they added some protection in the upper levels only. There were a couple of problems though. Mission X has some garbage on the screen, looks like part of the title airplanes except they are between the Mission and high score. They aren't in mame so I'm not sure what's up. And as mentioned PPICF has a slightly bluegrey background and Rootn Tootn has a seventies avocado color for a background. It could be right, but it seems odd, and I did have to patch the heck out of it.

 

Some games like Treasure Island just aren't going to work. They swap out all the graphics after every level. I can make the first level work, but the tiles on the second level don't match up so it's unplayable. That's a shame as it's kind of a unique game.

 

Some of the games, like lock and chase only had 1 or 2 protection reads, and did a compare right after, but others like rootin tootin loaded 4k of data from the dongle and were a real pain. Tornado was bad too, it has code watching for patches and code watching that code for patches, and code watching that code. Like I said I'll probably have to play them a while and look for bugs. I'm not very good at some of these games though.

 

I haven't worked out a way back to the menu yet. The bios only runs when a coin is inserted, so what I'm thinking is holding both start buttons while you coin up to return to the menu. Other alternatives would be patching every single game, YUCK, and a hardware reset button.

[Tempest]

Now that's intersting. So you're saying that each game has a different type of protection scheme? I assumed that they were mostly the same. Rootin' Tootin' should have a black background like PPIF, so I assume you missed something in the emulation.

 

So you have Terranean working? I have a copy of that game, but either my dongle or tape are bad as it will load then immediately crash after the high score screen. Same deal with Explorer, it loads then crashes.

 

This is still looking mighty impressive. It's hard to believe that Data East went through all that trouble to protect some truly bad and obscure games.

 

Tempest

[Dav]

Now that's intersting. So you're saying that each game has a different type of protection scheme? I assumed that they were mostly the same. Rootin' Tootin' should have a black background like PPIF, so I assume you missed something in the emulation.

 

So you have Terranean working? I have a copy of that game, but either my dongle or tape are bad as it will load then immediately crash after the high score screen. Same deal with Explorer, it loads then crashes.

 

This is still looking mighty impressive. It's hard to believe that Data East went through all that trouble to protect some truly bad and obscure games.

 

Tempest

 

It's more like a different way of using the dongle. Some of them are storing graphics etc in it, others just check every once in a while and make sure it gives them back $7c. The former is a problem for me obviously, the latter is not. Yeah, you'd think with unrecordable tapes they wouldn't worry about it too much. But I guess if they didn't have the dongles someone might have gone to the effort to track down the tape manufacturer.

 

 

Mame likely has a problem with the emulation or my hacks would have wierd backgrounds when I run the hackes in mame. That doesn't mean black isn't right, just that it's still possible I'm right until someone finds a screenshot.

 

 

Terranean seems fine. I haven't looked at explorer yet.

 

BTW I picked up a Deco cab this weekend, burgertime originally i think. Looks like the monitor is dead though, and I'll have to add a button since some of the games need 2. I'm not sure where to add the extra button. There's a space above the first but that's just wierd. There's a space off to the right for a spinner looks like but that's kind of far away. It looks like there's holes drilled in the control panel for a whole row above the current button, so I guess I could move up diagonally.

[Tempest]

BTW I picked up a Deco cab this weekend, burgertime originally i think. Looks like the monitor is dead though, and I'll have to add a button since some of the games need 2. I'm not sure where to add the extra button. There's a space above the first but that's just wierd. There's a space off to the right for a spinner looks like but that's kind of far away. It looks like there's holes drilled in the control panel for a whole row above the current button, so I guess I could move up diagonally.

 

So there are games that use two buttons? I always thought there might be. On my cab there's a spot for a second button on the control pad, but to add it I'd have to cut out the metal. It's a really thin piece of metal though, there's already a hole cut in the thick 'under metal' so they obviously anticipated this being done. I simply never bothered because none of my games use two buttons (that and I'd hate to damage the control pannel).

 

Tempest

[Dav]

BTW I picked up a Deco cab this weekend, burgertime originally i think. Looks like the monitor is dead though, and I'll have to add a button since some of the games need 2. I'm not sure where to add the extra button. There's a space above the first but that's just wierd. There's a space off to the right for a spinner looks like but that's kind of far away. It looks like there's holes drilled in the control panel for a whole row above the current button, so I guess I could move up diagonally.

 

So there are games that use two buttons? I always thought there might be. On my cab there's a spot for a second button on the control pad, but to add it I'd have to cut out the metal. It's a really thin piece of metal though, there's already a hole cut in the thick 'under metal' so they obviously anticipated this being done. I simply never bothered because none of my games use two buttons (that and I'd hate to damage the control pannel).

 

Tempest

 

 

Ice Cream Factory has 2 for sure. Yes, I noticed on the back the predrilled holes, I just need to decide which one to open up. The one on the lower right looks like it's marked as a spinner on my panel. I've got a big dent in the overlay on that one so I'm kind of leaning towards drilling that one even if it is kind of far away from the first button.

 

I took a look at explorer. I'm wondering if your tape is the one that's dumped in mame. It does the same thing. If so it's definately a bad tape, it never even tries to read the dongle before it crashes. On the other hand if it's not the tape in mame, then there's probably a missing piece of hardware, like the rom board on treasure island that makes it crash.

[Tempest]

Nope, mines not the one they dumped. The asked if they could dump it, but I told them it didn't work because it crashes.

 

Rom board? What are you talking about?

 

Tempest

[Dav]

Nope, mines not the one they dumped. The asked if they could dump it, but I told them it didn't work because it crashes.

 

Rom board? What are you talking about?

 

Tempest

 

Treasure Island has some kind of rom board apparently in addition to the dongle, haven't been able to find out much about it. That's the reason the graphics have been broken until recently. It loads a new gfx set for every level with new monsters and playfield tiles. The monsters line up so that's not a problem, but if I try to keep using level one tiles on level 2 the monsters don't follow the playfield.

 

If explorer had some kind of extra board that would explain why yours crashes at the same place as the other one.

 

BTW I took some pics of the screenshots.

http://widel.com/stuff/deco.htm

[Tempest]

Nope, mines not the one they dumped. The asked if they could dump it, but I told them it didn't work because it crashes.

 

Rom board? What are you talking about?

 

Tempest

 

Treasure Island has some kind of rom board apparently in addition to the dongle, haven't been able to find out much about it. That's the reason the graphics have been broken until recently. It loads a new gfx set for every level with new monsters and playfield tiles. The monsters line up so that's not a problem, but if I try to keep using level one tiles on level 2 the monsters don't follow the playfield.

 

If explorer had some kind of extra board that would explain why yours crashes at the same place as the other one.

 

BTW I took some pics of the screenshots.

http://widel.com/stuff/deco.htm

 

That's an interesting theory, although I find it hard to believe DECO would bother with an additional piece of hardware. However my Explorer came complete with box and there is no mention of an extra RAM board anywhere in the instructions. I'm going to take another look at them tonight though, maybe I missed something?

 

Neat pics. This may be the only way I ever get to play most of these games on my cab...

 

BTW did everyone know that Treasure Isalnd was ported to the TI-99/4a? Talk about an obscure port!

 

Tempest

[Dav]

Nope, mines not the one they dumped. The asked if they could dump it, but I told them it didn't work because it crashes.

 

Rom board? What are you talking about?

 

Tempest

 

Treasure Island has some kind of rom board apparently in addition to the dongle, haven't been able to find out much about it. That's the reason the graphics have been broken until recently. It loads a new gfx set for every level with new monsters and playfield tiles. The monsters line up so that's not a problem, but if I try to keep using level one tiles on level 2 the monsters don't follow the playfield.

 

If explorer had some kind of extra board that would explain why yours crashes at the same place as the other one.

 

BTW I took some pics of the screenshots.

http://widel.com/stuff/deco.htm

 

That's an interesting theory, although I find it hard to believe DECO would bother with an additional piece of hardware. However my Explorer came complete with box and there is no mention of an extra RAM board anywhere in the instructions. I'm going to take another look at them tonight though, maybe I missed something?

 

Neat pics. This may be the only way I ever get to play most of these games on my cab...

 

BTW did everyone know that Treasure Isalnd was ported to the TI-99/4a? Talk about an obscure port!

 

Tempest

 

Btw MAME is definately wrong on the background colors. Try playing pro soccer in mame. The fields black with green speckles for highlights. The goalie has a black jersey so his chest looks invisible. When I tried it on my board, it has a nice green field, there's even a black shadow under the ball that wasn't there before.

[Dav]

Nope, mines not the one they dumped. The asked if they could dump it, but I told them it didn't work because it crashes.

 

Rom board? What are you talking about?

 

Tempest

 

Treasure Island has some kind of rom board apparently in addition to the dongle, haven't been able to find out much about it. That's the reason the graphics have been broken until recently. It loads a new gfx set for every level with new monsters and playfield tiles. The monsters line up so that's not a problem, but if I try to keep using level one tiles on level 2 the monsters don't follow the playfield.

 

If explorer had some kind of extra board that would explain why yours crashes at the same place as the other one.

 

BTW I took some pics of the screenshots.

http://widel.com/stuff/deco.htm

 

That's an interesting theory, although I find it hard to believe DECO would bother with an additional piece of hardware. However my Explorer came complete with box and there is no mention of an extra RAM board anywhere in the instructions. I'm going to take another look at them tonight though, maybe I missed something?

 

Neat pics. This may be the only way I ever get to play most of these games on my cab...

 

BTW did everyone know that Treasure Isalnd was ported to the TI-99/4a? Talk about an obscure port!

 

Tempest

 

 

I found some comfirmation in the mame source about explorer. It lists it as missing a rom dump for the add on board. I have no idea what it looks like. Judging by the function I would think it would have to plug into the cpu socket. The one for Treasure Island is called DE-0091xx I would guess that's probably what you need to get explorer working.

 

 

I got Mision X running now. Turns out the problem was the program uses variable w/o initializing them. This works because they are in a known state after the bios loads the tape. Since I wrote my own bios I didn't have the same values. I also got Treasure Island running. About the only thing left is scrum try and I'm not sure I can get it.

 

Someone reminded me that someone in mamedev I think is sitting on Angler Dangler, telejang and hamburger. I need to see if I can shake those loose. Especially angler dangler.

 

Nicola took a look at the color issue, He fixed some of the color problems in MAME but not all of them. It will probably be in the next release.

[Tempest]

How did you get Treasure Island working without the rom then?

 

I find it really odd that there was an extra add on rom for some games, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a quick-swap arcade system. Then again, I wouldn't put it past them to do it. I'll look through my instructiosn tonight and see what it says.

 

Someone reminded me that someone in mamedev I think is sitting on Angler Dangler, telejang and hamburger. I need to see if I can shake those loose. Especially angler dangler.

So they do exist then? Cool!

 

Nicola took a look at the color issue, He fixed some of the color problems in MAME but not all of them. It will probably be in the next release.

 

So then you were right? Blech! I like the black background better...

 

 

About the only thing left is scrum try and I'm not sure I can get it.

 

So you have the rest of the games all working then or just the handful you have access to?

 

Tempest

[Dav]

My guess is the larger capacity dongles weren't available yet and they had games ready that used them so they went with an interim solution.

 

It doesn't use that extra rom area directly. It turns it on to overlay the memory map, reads a byte, turns it off and writes it to regular memory. So what I did was modify that subroutine to read from the dongle instead of memory. Fortunately it copied large blocks at once which is the same way my dongle works. I don't know if explorer will be able to use that trick or not.

 

I just have the games that are working in mame working. I may try to figure out highway chase though. I'm usually pretty good with decryption, but having the encrypted version on tape is a lot different than what i'm used to.

[Tempest]

I found some comfirmation in the mame source about explorer. It lists it as missing a rom dump for the add on board. I have no idea what it looks like. Judging by the function I would think it would have to plug into the cpu socket. The one for Treasure Island is called DE-0091xx I would guess that's probably what you need to get explorer working.

 

Sorry to bump an old topic, but I was looking through my DECO tapes and I came across this in my Explorer box:

 

Expansion Board

 

It looks like a diagram for an expansion board. Maybe the MAME team can use this to figure out how it works? It might also explain what that mysterious fourth slot in the DECO cabinet is for. Too bad my system didn't come with one...

 

Tempest

[Dav]

I found some comfirmation in the mame source about explorer. It lists it as missing a rom dump for the add on board. I have no idea what it looks like. Judging by the function I would think it would have to plug into the cpu socket. The one for Treasure Island is called DE-0091xx I would guess that's probably what you need to get explorer working.

 

Sorry to bump an old topic, but I was looking through my DECO tapes and I came across this in my Explorer box:

 

Expansion Board

 

It looks like a diagram for an expansion board. Maybe the MAME team can use this to figure out how it works? It might also explain what that mysterious fourth slot in the DECO cabinet is for. Too bad my system didn't come with one...

 

Tempest

 

 

Cool, that may not help the experts but it's helped me figure things out. The rom board plugs into the cage so that the cpu has full access to it from the bus. It's obvious in retrospect. It won't help emulate it w/o the rom images, but at least I know what to look for now. I don't ever remember seeing one on any of the boards I've seen, but then I wasn't looking for one specifically.

 

BTW I did finally run off some PCB's to do some more kits. No idea when I will get to it though.

[Tempest]

I don't ever remember seeing one on any of the boards I've seen, but then I wasn't looking for one specifically.

 

I don't think anyone was. How many people think to look inside a DECO cab for an extra board? I wonder how many dead DECO cabs that were trashed had these boards inside them? I don't think I've ever seen one of these on Ebay.

 

BTW I did finally run off some PCB's to do some more kits. No idea when I will get to it though.

 

Sweet! I'm looking forward to it. My poor Burgertime tape just died on me...

 

Tempest

[retrorussell]

I hate to say it but Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory might very well be the worst game I have ever played. The control mechanics of kicking the ice cream balls up are unbelievably awful. When you need to kick it into a cone from below it, it almost NEVER works. If you have already kicked 2 scoops in the bottom 2 cones and you still have 2 balls on the bottom of the screen, you are F*CKED!!! What genius at DECO let this slide?!