MAMEWorld Forums - News - DU Fundraiser: PGM2 emulation and a Toaplan prototype

>
> For this new fundraiser we want to try to raise $400 to cover the costs of a PGM2
> game Haze requested we buy because it's needed for PGM2 emulation. So if that is
> something you want to help us with, click below to help with the costs and mention
> "PGM2" in the note section.
>
> https://www.paypal.me/ShouTime
>
> Here's a pic of the PCB. It's an all-in-1 PCB version of Oriental Legend 2 as opposed
> to the normal cart system. It has a different progression system since it does not
> use cards to save progress, and apparently can now be 1CC'd.
>
>

Specifically we need to establish for sure if the internal rom differs in any way other than the region bytes for these. while you can hack the existing ROM to run as a Japan version it needs to be properly verified. The current code takes some odd paths that suggest there might be further differences.

Likewise, despite the external ROM having the same version number on it (104) as the dumped set, and the same date on startup / time stamp on startup, we do need to make 100% sure that there are no differences as IGS specifically labeled the roms as 'ch' on the chinese carts and 'jp' on the Japan boards.

This is an important part of the discovery process for PGM2 emulation, in order to establish where the differences between sets and regions lie.

Eventually we might need the IO MCUs decapping too if it turns out that those MCUs are tied to it all in some kind of region specific way, but at this point that is unknown. We know on the cart games the motherboard IO MCU is mostly used for the Card Reader.

Consider that Peter has already fronted a large amount of his own personal money to buy the Chinese Oriental Legend 2, Knights of Valour 2 New Legend, Dodonpachi Daioujou Tamashii, Knights of Valour 3 (x2, one of which is an undumped revision) and King of Fighters 98 Ultimate Match Hero, as well as all the hardware to dump them and hack them (including a replacement adapter for the roms that cost 250euros after the one we were using broke) then Smit / Shou really aren't asking much at all with this compared to what has already been spent. All those other mentioned games will be fully dumped in the near future at no cost to anybody here. Don't be an Animalbear.

If those Chinese guys had actually done things the right way, and not hoarded the internal roms or source code then these initial expenses wouldn't have even been necessary, I hope everybody who was cheering on that ugly hacked up leak keeps that in mind. I've already had to deal with a bunch of people questioning why it needs doing because it's "already been done" and it's very frustrating to see that.