26 replies to this topic

[Tempest]

I know this is a long shot, but I figure someone may know someone who might know something about this.

I have two games for my DECO Cassette system that aren't working (Terreran and Explorer). Unlike most non-working DECO games they don't stop when loading, but they crash shortly after they finish loading. I don't know if this is because the tape is bad or if its the security dongle that is bad. I also occasionally get a Tape Error #2 with one of the games, but other times it loads (and crashes as stated above).

Does anyone know what the problem is?

Tempest

[ussexplorer]

Yea, I noticed they where Micro casssettes. Um you look at the tape itself and scroll through it? Perhaps you can see a crease to tell if the tape it realyl bad. As for a security cable. If it is anything like a security block for say a printer port. It is just simple resistance on certain pins. So I honestly doubt it is the cable. To bad you can't find somebody to run a copy of the tapes. DOes sound like bad load though. Best guess since the last time I used a bad tape was on a trs-80 coco.

later,


ussexplorer

[Tempest]

I figured if it was a bad tape it wouldn't load at all. I'm amazed it loads, looks like it's working, then crashes.

Tempest

[Dav]

The dongle contains a prom that loads important data. I'm not sure how important, ie if it's color tables like nintendo vs uses you can still play just not in with the right colors.

If it is bad you're hosed because there currently is not a good dump of it.

Dave

[Tempest]

Quote

The dongle contains a prom that loads important data. I'm not sure how important, ie if it's color tables like nintendo vs uses you can still play just not in with the right colors.

This is what I'm trying to figure out. Do I have a bad dongle or a bad tape. The game loads then crashes. I wonder if there is a way to tell?

Tempest

[Stingray]

Okay, I've not ever seen the inside of one of these machines so I'm just hazarding a guess, but if it were the dongle wouldn't it cause a similar problem with every tape. Or is the dongle specific to the tape?

-S

[Dav]

Every tape has it's own dongle for copy protection. Not that they needed it since no one has every been able to find blank tapes that fit those players.

If I had to guess it sounds more like dongle since the tape loaded. On the other hand the tape is much more delicate than the dongle so it's kind of a toss up.

The one in MAME with the bad dongle boots then flashes a screen a couple of times and crashes. I suppose you could try replaceing the prom with that one and see if it does the same thing as mame.

Unfortunately my experience with deco is all theoreticaly, One of the mame devs is supposed to be sending me a working deco cassette but they haven't yet.

Dave

[Stingray]

Thanks for that bit of information. I'd be interested in seeing a picture of what these tapes look like and what the inside of the machine looks like if anyone has them. Just out of curiosity.

-S

[Tempest]

Quote

The one in MAME with the bad dongle boots then flashes a screen a couple of times and crashes. I suppose you could try replaceing the prom with that one and see if it does the same thing as mame.  

This is what mine does. I assume you are talking about Explorer right? Mine gets to the high score screen (with a neat Galaga style twinkling star background) then crashes to a solid colored screen when it should advance to the next screen or when you try and start a game. Terreran(sp) does the same thing. I get a start up screen but it immediately crashes.

Looks like I have bad dongles. Did they use EPROMs in them or something? What would be the odds that the dongle would go bad?

Quote

Thanks for that bit of information. I'd be interested in seeing a picture of what these tapes look like and what the inside of the machine looks like if anyone has them. Just out of curiosity.  

I can scan the boxes and the tapes, but I can't tape a picture of insides of the machine since I don't have a digital camera. I do have some pictures of the outside though. I can post it tonight.

The DECO Cassette system is a neat little beast. I think if the games were better it would have had a better chance.

Tempest

[Stingray]

It's a system that has always held a certain facination for me, but I've never known someone who owned one so I've never had the chance to peek inside one. Still a picture of the tapes would be nice too. I always just assumed that they use standard cassette tapes.

-S

[Tempest]

Quote

Unfortunately my experience with deco is all theoreticaly, One of the mame devs is supposed to be sending me a working deco cassette but they haven't yet.

What do you need? I have a few extra dongles (3 Burgertime, 1 Mission X), and two dead Burgertime tapes if you want to play around with them.

I also have some stuff I could loan if needed:

BurgerTime with dongle (Working)
Bump n Jump with dongle (Working)
Mission X with dongle (Working)
Astro Fantasia complete in box with cocktail instruction cards and flyers(Working)
Lock n Chase complete in box with cocktail instruction cards and flyers(Working)
Explorer complete in box with cocktail instruction cards and flyers (Not Working)
Terreran complete in box with cocktail instruction cards and flyers(Not Working)
Super Astro Fighter (Box and cocktail instruction cards only)
Lucky Poker (Dongle Only)

Tempest

[Dav]

http://emustatus.rai.../d_cassette.htm

I had hoped to make a multigame for it. It seems simple enough, replace the ram with banked eproms, modify the bios to skip the tape boot, replace the dongle with banked proms. I don't think it's going to happen now though, too many other projects. With everyone building mame cabs it doens't really make sense to build multigames anymore.

[Tempest]

Quote

I had hoped to make a multigame for it. It seems simple enough, replace the ram with banked eproms, modify the bios to skip the tape boot, replace the dongle with banked proms. I don't think it's going to happen now though, too many other projects. With everyone building mame cabs it doens't really make sense to build multigames anymore.

Yeah I suppose not. I had thought about asking someone to do something similar, but part of the whole thing about having a DECO cab is having the original games. If I was going to make a DECO Multi-System I might as well go for a full MAME machine. Of course with the games being so hard to find and so unreliable, I might end up going that route down the road anyway.

Tempest

[Dav]

[quote="Tempest"][quote]
Yeah I suppose not. I had thought about asking someone to do something similar, but part of the whole thing about having a DECO cab is having the original games. If I was going to make a DECO Multi-System I might as well go for a full MAME machine. Of course with the games being so hard to find and so unreliable, I might end up going that route down the road anyway.

Tempest[/quote]

It's just a matter of time, if someone doesn't find replacement blank tapes you won't have a choice.

There's enough people that won't play a mame cab that probably someone will do it eventually. I have a couple of mame cabs myself but I never play them. Something about it just isn't the same.

[Cassidy Nolen]

The tape itself seems to be a standard width. The cases themselves are a wierd size. I guess worst case scenario would be you would have to open the cases, mount in a standard cassette, copy onto a standard cassette and then install the tape back in a DECO case. Of course this is WAY too much work, but I know none of us are above/below that sort of attention to detail

MAME work, eh?
Tempest has a spare everything (albeit not working; boardset, dongles, cables, power supply, etc, etc-the cassette interface board got powered up and down three times in a row, and only shows a blue screen) that could be used to develop stuff off of.

Perhaps someone could work with his spare stuff and make the needed dongle interface stuff? BTW, I know this only becasue its my fault that other board set is not working...stupid extension cord socket...yes I changed it since then

Cassidy

[Dav]

Cassidy Nolen said:

The tape itself seems to be a standard width.  The cases themselves are a wierd size.  I guess worst case scenario would be you would have to open the cases, mount in a standard cassette, copy onto a standard cassette and then install the tape back in a DECO case.  Of course this is WAY too much work, but I know none of us are above/below that sort of attention to detail

Cassidy

I don't know if anyone's tried that idea yet. Iirc there's some tricky stuff like clear tape of a certain length at the beginnning/end but seems like it would be doable. Especially if you had a broken tape to splice into. I like the rom board idea because the tape player's so slow. This is something people have talked about for a long time but no one's ever done anything about it.

I need to send him another reminder email. I don't have time to work on it now though anyway, I'm working on a console based project full time right now.

There's a pretty good description how it works in the mame source in machinedecocass.c but it's very difficult to read.

[ussexplorer]

Um, what happens when you just leave the dongle off? If it does the same thing then you know it is probably the dongle. Providing the machine does not do something like dongle - game - dongle. Since you did say the game seemed to load then crash . So it would be something like just game - dongle. However, you might want to look if you can to see if the tape on a working game starts and stops when it is finished loading or starts - stops - starts again. Like waiting to check the dongle.

later,

ussexplorer

[ussexplorer]

Lock N Chase Deco with PCB

http://cgi.ebay.com/...3293300950&rd=1

later,

ussexplorer

[Tempest]

Quote

Lock N Chase Deco with PCB  

Without the tape it's pretty worthless.

Am I the only one who finds Lock n Chase hard? I was expecting a neat Pac-Man variation but I can't get past the second board. Maybe I need to read the instructions and see how the gates work...

Tempest

[Tempest]

Quote

Um, what happens when you just leave the dongle off? If it does the same thing then you know it is probably the dongle

IIRC it doesn't load the tape and you get a nasty sound with a Tape Error 52.

Tempest

[Nukey Shay]

Dav said:

Cassidy Nolen said:

The tape itself seems to be a standard width.  The cases themselves are a wierd size.  I guess worst case scenario would be you would have to open the cases, mount in a standard cassette, copy onto a standard cassette and then install the tape back in a DECO case.  Of course this is WAY too much work, but I know none of us are above/below that sort of attention to detail

Cassidy

I don't know if anyone's tried that idea yet. Iirc there's some tricky stuff like clear tape of a certain length at the beginnning/end but seems like it would be doable. Especially if you had a broken tape to splice into. I like the rom board idea because the tape player's so slow. This is something people have talked about for a long time but no one's ever done anything about it.

Maybe...but is the read head of the Deco hardware aligned the same as an audio cassette? If not, it probably won't work.

[Dav]

Nukey Shay said:

Maybe...but is the read head of the Deco hardware aligned the same as an audio cassette?  If not, it probably won't work.

That might be a problem then, there's no record on the deco cassette so you can't use it. Maybe that's why no one's done it.

[Cassidy Nolen]

Tempest:

That auction has the pcb that is bad in your spare stack, and that little black box 'might' be the cassette. Otherwise, how would he know that pcb was for the cassette system? Worth emailing him.

From what I saw, that cassette system had a standard playback head. Appeared to be the same type as an answering machine from back when; would be suprised if they bothered engineering that part custom rather than off the shelf parts. Had not thought about it being custom until you mentioned it. Good call.

Cassidy

[Nukey Shay]

Still worth a shot to check out...if it means possibly saving a tape from the trash.

Or how about some kind of cas2wav-type program that can convert Mame Deco roms back into microcassettes? Wonder if that's possible?

[Tempest]

Quote

That auction has the pcb that is bad in your spare stack, and that little black box 'might' be the cassette.

No that's the cassette board, I have a spare that looks just like it. I don't know what the black box is, but its on the board itself.

Tempest