Timbob
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Hello people of the internet.

So I've got this pink cartridge with Power Rangers The Movie The Game (yes...) which i basically got because it was pink. (I like colours). It was a bit dirty, so I decided to open it up, and give it a clean. But inside i found quite a different pcb than in normal games.

As you can see, it has an Eprom inside (M27C2001), the kind you can erase with UV light. So now the question is... Is this game pirated? is it official, or a promo, or a dev cart. And, can I rewrite the Eprom myself to use it with mgb or some other funky program?

I checked with a few other carts of which I know are pirated,...


The white one is a normal official game.
The grey one is a pirated sneaky snakes (the screw on the back was just glued on and the print is of a weird quality, It is now a USB stick tongue. This one also has a Eprom inside, TMS27pc010, Could I rewrite one like this as well? ).
The green one was one of those 100 in 1 games (and now my EMS cart. the case is a different colour than any official game, and also, it just says 'game')
The dark blue is a pirated action man game (It has a really weird pcb, the colour is different then any other game, not blue like pokemon, although it's about the same as the japanese pokemon silver and gold blue. Also, the screw was just a normal phillips head).
And the pink one is the one this topic is about.

I've got no experience so far with Eproms, but it's a field I wish to explore in the near future smile
So any info about these here carts would be interesting.

Last edited by Timbob (Oct 21, 2012 1:42 pm)

thebitman
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Here's another cart to compare to, seems like your cart's EPROM chip resembles the one in Bibbin's prototype cartridge.

Timbob
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thebitman wrote:

Here's another cart to compare to, seems like your cart's EPROM chip resembles the one in Bibbin's prototype cartridge.

Yeah, I found that one as well. Difference is, with mine the eprom is soldered on the board, those other eprom carts have a socket so you can easily swap them and rewrite them...

thebitman
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Bibbin's copy is a development cart, I think what you have is a promotional cart (for magazine reviewing, etc) because it wasn't uncommon for some games to simply be EPROMS soldered into cartridges (such as the unreleased SimCity for the NES) .

I can't recall any other games off the top of my head, but I know that similar things have been discovered in the Sega Genesis family of cartridges. Hopefully someone can either shoot down my idea or back it up, or something, but I hope we find out more about this cartridge soon! smile

kitsch
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matt's mind
thebitman wrote:

i have that dev cart now wink

are there any other markings on that PCB to identify it?  anything? 

on the front i could only see the little bit of text.

cool find!

the nintendo dev carts are a lot different than this and were made to fit into a certain case for dev carts they used.  not to mention the lack of the PCB identifier text which nintendo always includes on their boards.

almost assuredly under the black epoxy blob there is a clone MBC chip.

kitsch
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matt's mind

(no, the cart isn't official)

Apeshit
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I'm almost 100% sure this is made by the same people that made this. The console and the game. The poor milling of the PCB is identical.

Edit: actually, if I look at all my pirate carts, they all have very similar PCBs with similar markings. I wonder if they're all made by the same people.

Also, you should cover up that eprom so that it doesn't get wiped

Last edited by Apeshit (Oct 21, 2012 5:53 pm)

Timbob
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Ah, bummer.
There aren't any markings on the cart except stuff like 6s-3 and 16v8, back of the pcb is just lines, and the eprom only has PR written on it, nothing else.

I thought, since it looked a higher quality then the other pirated games, it might be official.
And I've seen those blobs before, like in the later versions of the gameboys, so i knew nintendo used them too.

The pink cartridges are also used by Bandai for the special edition of the tamagotchi game, and since the power rangers game is also by Bandai, I thought it might be a link there. I've never seen the colour anywhere else. So that's why I thought of a promo.

I did put a sticker on the eprom later on.

But anyway, official or not, could I use this cart as a rewritable Eprom cart? that would be sweet big_smile

Apeshit
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I suspect any attempts to program it "on board" will fry the MBC clone.

Timbob
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Apeshit wrote:

I suspect any attempts to program it "on board" will fry the MBC clone.

Yeah, but I was planning on desoldering it and putting it on a socket if it would work anyway.

Apeshit
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Timbob wrote:
Apeshit wrote:

I suspect any attempts to program it "on board" will fry the MBC clone.

Yeah, but I was planning on desoldering it and putting it on a socket if it would work anyway.

That would work, but I doubt it would fit into a gameboy even if you routed out the shell...

kitsch
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matt's mind

if you fuck it up, i'd be interested in taking it off your hands.  for science.

i'd love to uncover that MBC-deal they've got on board...

Timbob
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For Science!

I'll give it a go. But it could take a long time, since i have to get into the whole eprom stuff first (and find a job etc..)
At least I'm keeping the pink shell, because it's awesome.

And I'll just put it in a bare gameboy then, just the pcb, that'll solve the space issue smile

Timbob
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Also, that sneaky snakes game I posted way up has just two chips on it. One eprom, and one other chip.. would that be interesting somehow?

Looked the chip up.. It's a TIBPAL16L8-25C, which is a programmable pic, so I guess they use that to emulate the MBC?

Last edited by Timbob (Oct 21, 2012 10:34 pm)

Timbob
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-doublepost-

Last edited by Timbob (Oct 21, 2012 10:34 pm)

kitsch
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matt's mind

the other chip would be interesting to know about,

is it marked?  (edit, see your edit above now!)

ROMs over 256kb need a memory bank controller to work, so alternative ICs (or clones) for that particular IC are very interesting to me.  just for curiosity's sake, or to learn something new about it for the broader community